Filed under: Ordeals and Observations of Pastor Cranky not elsewhere classified, Politics, Politics, Elections, and Government | Tags: candidates, city council, endorsements, LGBT, local politics, Sacramento city council
It’s easy to trash politicians, and easy for me to think it’s merited. Just turn on the national news or open the paper. (Today I’d like to trash a few Supreme Court justices too.) But when you look down at the local level, you see that they are just people, and most of them care a lot about their calling and their work. And they all work hard.
Tuesday night I went to the first-ever endorsement forum of a brand new PAC (Political Action Committee) for the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce (which includes many LGBT-owned, -run, or -friendly area businesses). I have not joined the Chamber so all I could do was watch and listen. The PAC endorsed many office-seekers for seats on a local school board, the county board of supervisors, and state assembly. Several of these folks came by; some of them are Chamber members (not necessarily LGB or T), but even they had to leave the room for the discussions (and hand their ballots in through a volunteer.
The dramatic highlights were three-minute speeches by those seeking office in three city council districts; the June election for these seats (and mayor) is non-partisan. If nobody gets a majority in a given race, there will be a runoff.
All of the candidates were passionate, thoughtful, and articulate in describing their backgrounds, visions, and qualifications. Some showed more expertise in the issues than others, some had more connections to leaders in the group (who made strong testimonies while the candidates absented themselves). None is an incumbent, though some have held office before. My response to the speeches did not always match the outcome of the vote, but this was the first time I met most of them. The PAC’s rules state that a person must get 60% in order for an endorsement to be made, and in every case the vote was overwhelming and not close.
I am grateful to all these folks who dare to step forward and stand for election. They all bring many talents, and already they have served their communities in significant ways. Their willingness to walk neighborhoods, knock on doors, listen to anyone and everyone who wants to bend their ear–it’s so old fashioned! It’s nearly an obsolete phenomenon, except in local politics.
Their generosity and commitment has revived Pastor Cranky’s idealism about the political process and the dignity of elected service.
Notable among those endorsed by an overwhelming vote is the young but smart, experienced, gifted and highly esteemed young man who is competing to be my city council member: Steve Hansen. When I get his sign for my window from him, I’ll bend his ear about the trashy lots in this neighborhood.
Filed under: Adult Enrichment and Group Meetings, Comparative Religion, Comparative Religion, Graduate Theological school/PSR, International | Tags: animism, GTU, Maori, New Zealand history, religion
for HR4175, Cultural and Faith Traditions of Asia and Oceania
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
March 28, 2012
Introduction
Key aspects of Maori cosmology are the mythic origins of the universe, the relationship between human beings and supernatural powers, the cyclical nature of human life, and the importance of ancestral connections. Rapid Christianization altered the indigenous cosmology, and colonial exploitation led to Biblically-inspired prophets and resistance movements.
Background of Aotearoa New Zealand
New Zealand has nearly four million inhabitants on its North and South Islands, and several smaller ones. Since 1907 it has been a dominion of the United Kingdom, like Australia and Canada.
It was one of the last areas of the globe to be inhabited by human beings. The indigenous Maori arrived by canoe from other parts of Polynesia in the fourteenth century. Maori culture is based on land and kinship links, as is shown below.
Explorer Abel Tasman sighted it in 1642 and James Cook circumnavigated it 1769. English Christian missionary activity began early in the 1800. Now, 80 percent of Maori are Christian (but with Maori cultural influences) and the remainder hold to the traditional religion or other western sects. In 1840 England presented the Treaty of Waitangi to 35 Maori chiefs, making them British subjects and ostensibly granting them land rights. However, by deceitful translation of key words in the Maori version of the treaty, the English cheated the Maori out of their land rights. This led to expropriation, displacement, and alienation for the Maori. By 1850, the violence and imported diseases reduced the Maori population to equal that of the settler.
When the English arrived, the Maori population was 100,000. Now the Maori make up 10 percent of the population (approximately 400,000), mainly around Auckland and other North Island urban areas.[1] Land wars with colonial militias lasted from 1843 to 1872. Largely urban-based Maori protests took place in the 1970s and 80s for land and other tribal rights, resulting in a standing tribunal to investigate present violations of the treaty if not original ones. Four Parliament seats are reserved for Maori. The country’s official name is now Aotearoa New Zealand; the Maori word [pronounced Ao-te-a-roa ]means “land of the long white cloud.” Maps are at this link.
Cosmology
The German encyclopedia Religion Past and Present defines cosmology as “a specific culture’s orientation in space and time as conceived in words, images and rituals.” It continues: “Religious worldviews represent the complete order…. bringing the visible into agreement with the invisible.”[2] Myths and genealogies were handed down by oral tradition (but written down after colonization). The Maori worldview comprises myths, genealogies, and ritual practices and prohibitions.
Maori Cosmogony: Origins of the Universe
Moewa Callaghan, citing the authorities Marsden and Henare, explains the myth that the god Tane “ascended to the highest heaven … to obtain the three ‘baskets of knowledge.’ These baskets contained the knowledge of the creation of the cosmos, of the gods and of humanity.”[3] What Tane revealed was this: Te Po is the great void, a realm of darkness, and a source or process of growth and causation.
Callaghan summarizes origins this way: “Te Hau ora (the essence of life) begat shape, shape begat form, form begat space, space begat time, and time begat Rangi and Papa. Ranginui was the Great Sky, who impregnated Papatuanuki the Earth. These are the original parents of creation, including nature and the spiritual powers inherent in the world. Their son Tane pushed them apart to emerge from their mating embrace, and this opening led to the flourishing of creation. Humanity is the child of this god Tane and the “dawnmaid Hineahuone, who was formed … out of the red clay.”[4]
A mythic hero common to many Polynesian cultures is named Maui. New Zealand’s legendary origin is that Maui used a jawbone as a fishhook to draw the North Island out of the sea; its name, Te-Ika-a-Maui, means “fish-of-Maui.” The South Island is Maui’s ship.[5] He is too much of the earth to be worshipped as a god, but he is more than human, and is invoked in rituals for fishing and planting sweet potatoes.
Atuas, Mana and Tapu: The Supernatural Dwells in Nature
“Departmental gods” is the term scholars use to refer to divinities or powers whose influence is focused on particular aspects of nature or human life. For the Maori, atuas are the gods, spirit powers, and supernatural beings that imbue all of life and creation or, as Hanson says, are “frequent visitors to the physical world, where they [are] extremely active.” He notes the kinds of unexplained events that were attributed to atuas: weather, the growth of plants, physical or mental illnesses, menstruation, “the fear that gripped a normally brave warrior before battle, [and] the skill of an artist.”[6]
. “Maori do not acknowledge chance,” writes Callaghan.[7] Rather, they act in ways to manage, call upon, respond to, as well as avoid the atuas. James Irwin says: “[The] gods may be deceived but not overcome.”[8] The crucial factors for surviving and succeeding in such a spirit-filled world are mana and tapu. Mana is spiritual or supernatural power, available to chiefs, and invoked by or invested in the rituals of elders, often tribal chiefs or tohunga. For example, birth rituals known as tohi ora can confer mana on a person. On the other hand, Maori legend says that “an aborted fetus not given safe burial becomes a malicious spirit.”[9]
Mana is guarded (and ordinary people protected from it) by rituals and by sacred prohibitions and boundaries. Such restrictions are known as tapu. Hans Mol notes that tapu sets apart that which is sacred, powerful, significant, or dangerous, or forbidden. [10]
Tapu requirements pertain to food and limit contact with corpses, tribal chiefs, and warriors heading to battle. They guide the Maori away from offending the gods, lest “the demonic and chaotic would invade one’s world and disrupt personality or the group.”[11]
The concept and practice of tapu is widespread in Oceania, but it is from the Maori usage that scholars of religion coined the English word taboo.[12]
The blending of Christian theology and Maori cosmology began early. English missionaries translated God into Maori language as Atua, and heaven into the mythical sky-god’s name, Rangi. Irwin cites two Maori terms for sin: hara means harm brought by a “ritual failure” (the improper handling of mana), whereas he means an ethical failure, a wrong done to another person.[13]
Over generations, Maori poets and chiefs passed down various legends (not one version) of the origin of the universe and humanity, but after 1858 (when the Old Testament was published in Maori) they “redacted a more uniform version.” This version introduced a God similar to the Judeo-Christian Almighty, “a preexistent, supreme god, Io, whose essence fertilized the womb of potential being and set in motion the creation of the world.”[14]
Death and Eschatology
James Irwin writes that, absent Christianity, Maori religion has “no well defined eschatology. The dead either go to the ‘Above’ or the ‘Below’ and life in either place seems to be much as it is here….[with] no suggestion of reward or punishment.” [15]
Moeawa Callaghan explains: “Ancient Maori, who navigated such long distances did not believe in an end time. Life returns to Te Po [the realm of darkness] for re-creation and to Te Amo Amrama, the world of light and transformation.”[16] Hanson confirms that “death marked the return of the spirit to its point of origin.”[17]
More important for Christians to understand, Irwin says, is the Maori’s “solidarity with the ancestors… and the generations to come.” In the Maori Apostle’s Creed, he points out, the word for “communion of the saints” is Kotahitanga, meaning unity or oneness.[18]
Genealogies: Maori Ancestors in Canoes
The Maori do no think of themselves as part of the branches of a family tree, in the western sense, but “as descendants of the various crews of canoes which landed in New Zealand in the fourteenth century.”[19] This idea has mythic origins and a cosmic resonance: “[Where] Westerners see [the constellation] Pleiades in the sky, the Maoris saw the prow of a canoe…. The tail of the Scorpion is the canoe of Tama-rereti in which the star-children and their elders were placed in mythical times.”[20]
A canoe represents one’s family identity and tribal grouping; it symbolizes travel and recalls Maori origins, yet it also suggests instability and the possibility of relocation.[21] With such prominence in life and history, it is not surprising that the process of a woodworker fashioning a canoe (or builder making a house) is tapu. The atuas “animated [their] creative work.”[22]
Words of the ancestors provide guidance to the living as people recite proverbs and recount stories.[23] In particular, tribal recitations of a genealogy (whakapapa) connect people to their ancestors’ experiences and link them to cosmic origins. Given that identification with particular territory is key to ancestral connections and spiritual identity in general, the colonizers’ expropriation of Maori lands not only brought material hardships but provoked the spiritual disaster of alienation.
Colonialism: Theft of Land as Loss of Sacred Space
Missionary Samuel Marsden held the first Christian service in New Zealand on Christmas 1814. Mainly over the North Island, missions from the following traditions spread fast in the early nineteenth century: Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Wesleyan. (The largest denominations now are Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, and Latter Day Saints.[24]) The indigenous Ratana church and smaller Ringatu church are important sects.
When Samuel Marsden raised the English flag in 1814, he did not know that “Maori tribes claimed unoccupied land by setting up a pole and kindling fires.”[25] In resistance to accelerated missionary conversions in the 1830s, Maori leaders cut down British flagstaffs.
Mana o te whenua means “power over the land.” According to Jean Rosenfeld, to deceive the 35 chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, the British substituted another word for mana in order “to subvert the chiefs’ authority over their territories.” Her article is not clear if the substitution was in the English or Maori version of the treaty, but other sources confirm that the English misrepresented the agreement the Maori.[26]
The Maori waged war over the loss of their lands from 1843 to 1872. “In 1856, chiefs [of] tribes of the North Island and the South Island gathered around a flagstaff” to form common defense by granting “their mana over their combined territories to the first Maori king.”[27]
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: “Sacred space is a fundamental feature of Maori religion. A tribe’s land is marked by wahu tap, ‘sacred places’ named for what happened there and commemorated” in the telling of genealogies.
Land gave the Maori “a collective rather than individual knowledge of place, belonging. It was the place where the bones of one’s ancestors were buried.” Hence, the loss of land “meant the destruction of … hapu (subtribal cohesion)….[28]
A sacred space common to all tribes is the marae, an open place near the chief’s house on which the genealogy was recited, and where public gatherings still take place.[29] In the post-colonial context, the marae appears in tribal areas and urban gathering place. It has developed into an entire meeting and ritual complex, still under the charge of ritual leaders.
Prophetic Resistance, Maori Syncretism, and Accommodation
Much of the rapid conversion of the Maori took place before the majority of depredations and displacements brought by the colonizers. In reaction, some of the Maori rejected the missionaries.[30] Some Christian Maori left the faith for the Maori religion. Some chiefs and charismatic persons remade their new religion into a source of resistance.
For example, during the land wars against English militias, Maori fighters included “disciples of unconventional tohunga [chiefs] imbued with mana from the Holy Ghost, Gabriel and Michael, as well as the gods of their respective tribes.” Known as prophets (poropiti), many saw themselves in accounts of the Hebrews’ captivity, liberation and exodus toward the Promised Land.[31] Though they were Christian, they emphasized Old Testament stories and models for this reason; their leaders took on the role of Hebrew prophet.
In the 1860s, Maori warrior and preacher Te Kooti founded the Ringatu movement; the name means “upraised hand.” (During an exile he studied the Bible, especially Psalms, Judges and Joshua).[32] In the 1920s, the reformed alcoholic and visionary Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana founded his Ratana sect. (Smaller or less prominent groups arose also.) Among other leaders, the charismatic Ratana encouraged and practiced faith healing, recalling Biblical models but also responding to the real health crises of infection and mental anguish.
Conclusion
The striking natural places of New Zealand’s islands can make it understandable to even a casual tourist why the Maori saw the world imbued with powerful spirits of life and why the land and sea are the factors of humanity’s place in the cosmos. This makes the unjust colonial expropriations and dislocations even more tragic.
In contrast to the long colonization history of the Americas, New Zealand has become overwhelmingly western and Christian in a short time. Yet Maori culture and identity persist in–and shape–the dominant culture. This is the Maori religious heritage: honoring nature, human ancestry, a sense of place, and the sacredness of the ordinary. There is value for all of us in not only respecting this heritage but in heeding it.
Bibliography
Auffarth, Christolph. Cosmology. Vol. 3, in Religion Past and Present, 505-509. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Callaghan, Moeawa. Theology in the Context of Aotearoa New Zealand. MA thesis. Berkeley, CA: Graduate Theological Union, 1999.
de Bres, Pieter H. “The Maori Contribution.” In Religion in New Zealand Society, by Brian and Peter Donovan, editors Colless. Edinburgh: T. &T. Clark, 1980.
Irwin, James. “The Maui Myth Cycle.” Colloquium: The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review 14, no. 1 (October 1981): 40-45.
Hanson, F. Allan. Maori Religion [First Edition]. Vol. 8, in Encyclopedia of Religion, 5697-5682. 2005.
Mol, Hans. The Fixed and the Fickle: Religion and Identity in New Zealand. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfid Laurier University Press, 1982.
Orbell, Margaret. “Maori.” In Religion Past and Present, 37. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Rosenfeld, Jean E. Maori Religion [Further Considerations]. Vol. 8, in Encyclopedia of Religion, 5682-5685. 2005.
Notes
[1] (Rosenfeld), 5683.
[2] (Auffarth 2007).
[3] (Callaghan 1999), 81.
[4] (Callaghan 1999), 82.
[5] (Irwin 1981),41.
[6] (Hanson 2005), 5679.
[7] (Callaghan 1999),89.
[8] (Irwin 1981), 42.
[9] (Irwin 1981), 41.
[10] (Mol 1982), 8.
[11] (Mol 1982), 13.
[12] (Orbell 2007).
[13] (Irwin 1981), 43.
[14] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[15] (Irwin 1981), 45.
[16] (Callaghan 1999), 90.
[17] (Hanson 2005), 5679.
[18] (Irwin 1981), 45.
[19] (Mol 1982), 7.
[20] (Mol 1982), 7.
[21] (Mol 1982), 7.
[22] (Hanson 2005), 5682.
[23] (Callaghan 1999), 89.
[24] (Hanson 2005), 5682.
[25] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5682.
[26] Ibid.
[27] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[28] (Mol 1982), 8.
[29] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5682.
[30] (de Bres 1980), 32.
[31] (Rosenfeld 2005), 5683.
[32] (de Bres 1980), 35.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Ordeals and Observations of Pastor Cranky not elsewhere classified, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views
Given that Members of the congregation will vote on the motion to call me as the Associate Minister very soon, I thought I would post part of my resume. The Board of Trustees and a Board-appointed Task Force have held four meetings for conversation with and about me as the prospective Associate, and in reflection on my four years here on a year-to-year contract.
Filed under: Becoming and Being Part of a UU Congregation, Church Finances and Stewardship, Family Ministry, Special Events, UU Denomination and Pacific Central District News and Views | Tags: associate minister, called minister, church vote, congregational democracy, Congregational Meeting, ministry team, pledges, settled ministry
Unigram newsletter April 2012
The big vote approaches!
A few days after you read this, UUSS members will cast their votes on the Board’s motion for the congregation to call me as a settled associate minister. As I write this article two weeks earlier, half of our UUSS households have not filled out a pledge form for the coming budget year. This makes me a bit nervous.
The two most precious things about churches with congregational governance is the right to choose their own clergy and the right to sustain and fund their own programs, with no outside interference or dependence on a hierarchy. Of course, with rights come responsibilities.
Without financial support from all of our pledging friends as well as our members, UUSS would not be such a strong community, giving safe harbor, sharing our beacon of love and justice. It matters!
If you are a member, I hope you show up and vote. If somehow you missed the Membership Orientation courses and forgot to sign the book as an official member, consider joining UUSS after the vote. Meanwhile, you can still give your feedback and ideas to the Board, ministers, and members regarding this vote and the other business of significance.
I look forward to the vote. I find pleasure in the date of the occasion: April Fool’s Day!
We’re not looking for a simple majority vote by a bare quorum. We’re hoping for a 90% or more “Yes” vote by a large turnout of members. However this may turn out—a strong affirmation of our ministry together or a surprise message that maybe we’re not so well matched for a longer commitment—I have faith in this congregation and your future.
As a reflection of your vitality, size, needs and vision, you have had a full-time second minister on staff continuously for nine years.
I have been honored to serve for four of those years. I’ve grown personally and learned much from our lay leaders, adults, youth and children–not to mention our gifted, caring and compassionate lead minister.
Yes, I’m nervous about the pledge results and excited about Sunday’s vote. But I have faith in this congregation’s ability to rally, step up, and move forward into the future.
With a firm foundation of our heritage, openness, creative lay leadership, mission, values and covenant, I know that the congregation will shape the future as it lives into it with joy and love.
Yours in service,
PS—If you haven’t turned in a 2012-13 pledge form yet, please contact the office. Your commitment right now can be pivotal to the future of this thriving congregation. Thank you!
Filed under: Politics, Politics, Elections, and Government, Theater (Plays | Tags: acting, community theater, Gore Vidal, The Best Man, Theater One, UU
At last Friday’s opening of The Best Man, the UUSS playhouse had the highest opening-night energy level in my recollection. Gore Vidal’s political drama was presented by my church’s 51-year-old community theater group, Theater One. Roberta Stewart, here since the early years, is the director. We have a number of experienced community-theater actors, some fairly new to the stage (or returning after a long interim since high school or college theater), and some members with professional experience on stage and screen. They are a dedicated team!
For me the play is a blast from the past of political history. I was born in 1961, when it won some Tony Awards but lost the Best Play prize to The Miracle Worker. A Sacramento News and Review writer says it’s Gore Vidal’s best play. It’s about a battle for the presidential nomination of an unnamed political party in 1960, but that was in the era of party-convention drama, smoked-filled room dealings, and last minute changes. Nowadays, nominees usually have their delegates sewn up well before the convention, which is more of a coronation and PR occasion than a business meeting. Few platform or campaign positions are determined now at conventions. I can’t think we are better off, with SuperPACS (thanks to the Citizens United court ruling), bundling of campaign donations, and big-money and TV commercials determining decisions about the last man standing (still it’s a man, alas).
(If you want to read more–and weep–about the undermining of our democracy, check out Thomas Frank’s essay in the April 2012 Harper’s Magazine. It’s not online yet, but you can get the gist of it from this blurb about his new book, Pity the Billionaire.)
Now back to the show:
The lighting and sound design were well-planned and effective, and the set was evocative of the hotel suites where so much wheeling and dealing used to take place, while delegates haggled on the convention floor or perhaps hung out in the nearby taverns of an unfamiliar city. (But no TGIF chain, Chili’s or Hooter’s in 1960.) The leads in the cast really looked (and dressed) their parts, evoking both the public persona and the vulnerability, venality and some strong convictions that lurked behind the roles: candidates, political wives, king-makers, press corps members, and an ailing, plain-spoken, lame-duck president. As a nighttime worker here in my minister’s office, I know they worked long and hard, and with creative thoughtfulness, to make it happen.
The drama is engaging, and Vidal’s humor a delight to hear. On opening night, pauses in some of the dialogue kept the show from having as much dramatic energy as the script contains, but actors stayed in character and covered for one another when necessary, and after that first show I am confident they have picked up the pace. Perhaps it would serve us well to have a discounted “preview” night for future plays, as happens in professional theater. That way the audience would expect that there are a few bugs to work out, but we’d have an audience for the energy it gives back to the performers, which helps them in fine tuning for a later show. Then opening night could be the next night.
This play is an excellent choice for this political year; Broadway agrees, for the revival of the play will open April 1 in NYC. I might like to see it if I visit friends there in July, but I was happy to have a front-row seat at my church for 1/10th of the cost of a Broadway show. (No tickets here are more than $14.) We had a new feature, organized by our PR chairperson: an opening-night gala reception before curtain, including dry wines poured by our own “Sweet” winemaker. The snacks lasted through the intermission and I snagged a final slice of cheese after the show. (The reception was free, because selling wine and beer costs more than it brings in, given the county alcohol-sales permit you have to buy for every event.)
It’s an enjoyable experience for a pastor to watch a great play presented by a cast and crew whom he knows and loves, and Friday night there were plenty of church friends and relatives in the crowd, among others, who also enjoyed the show.
I am grateful to Bobby, cast and crew for introducing me to this play, and providing a live and lively experience of it.
I recommend it!
Filed under: Books (includes sermons based on books), Family Ministry, Inspiration, Sermon Archives and Excerpts, Trends in Religion | Tags: amyg, Arinna Weisman, conflict, covenant, family therapy, healthy congregations, meditaiton, mindfulness, non-violence, organizational consulting, peace, Peter Steinke, spiritual practice, systems theory
Sunday, March 18m 2012
Unitarian Universalist Society, Sacramento
Hymns: Wake Now, My Senses; Spirit of Life/Fuente de Amor; Blessed Spirit of My Life.
Prayer: by Harry Meserve
Singing the Living Tradition #496
From arrogance, pompousness, and from thinking ourselves more important than we are, may some saving sense of humor liberate us. For allowing ourselves to ridicule the faith of others, may we be forgiven. From making war and calling it peace, special privilege and calling it justice, indifference and calling it tolerance, pollution and calling it progress, may we be cured. From telling ourselves and others that evil is inevitable while good is impossible, may we stand corrected. God of our mixed up, tragic, aspiring, doubting, and insurgent lives, help us to be as good as in our hearts we have always wanted to be. Amen.
Sermon
Sometimes when I read an article about politics on a website, I scroll down and look at the reader comments. Big mistake! The lack of respectful conversation–or any true conversation–stuns me. Many who disagree with the writer or dislike the subject will say unfair things about the people involved or the writer. When their opinion is the opposite of mine, their hateful comments can make my blood boil. If their position is one I agree with, then a cheap shot will embarrass and dishearten me: “Wait, I’m on the same side of the issue, but I can’t bear to be associated with such mean-spirited people.” The back-and-forth attacks really upset me. And bad spelling makes it worse.
Yet I must confess, when I’m reading my email, if I feel impatient, hurt, misunderstood, or angry, I have an urge to fire off a righteous retort or a defensive blast. It’s so easy to vent by hitting the send button, and then regret it later. Of course, the internet didn’t give birth to potshots and hurtful or
hateful words, it only gives them a powerful platform, always at the ready.
We live in an age of anxiety and quick anger. It’s easy to take offense, and then hang on to it. Reactivity and righteousness spill over into all our relationships: family, friends, groups and organizations.
Even though it can be destructive, such behavior is based in our survival instincts. It comes from the ancient part of our brain—the reptilian part. The stimulus for survival takes place in a part of our head where brain activity is automatic. Consider: when a reptile sees another being, it does not ask, “Can I eat it?” or, “Will it eat me?” Its brain just reacts automatically. It does not reflect. From this reptile brain comes our so-called “fight or flight” response. There is no rationalizing, just an impulse. We have impulses of which we are not conscious.
Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York University, writes: “Contrary to popular belief, conscious feelings are not required to produce emotional responses. [Our feelings] . . . involve unconscious processing mechanisms.”[i] These are primitive circuits, he says. Through evolution, they have been passed along to all mammals, including us.
Even so, what makes humans different from other animals is our ability to think about the future, assess alternatives, make plans. We can reflect on the consequences of our actions. Unless, of course, the reptile brain leads us to react, without reflecting first.
Yet it’s not always easy to reflect. The part of our brain known as the amygdala “can activate [our] arousal system,” if it senses danger, according to LeDoux. This can affect how our nervous system will process experiences in the future. The body’s responses to pain can affect the thinking parts of the brain. In other words, our mental and physical memory of painful events can lead us to react in fearful ways, even when there is no current threat. Panic disorders come to mind, as does post-traumatic stress. Things that objectively should not seem threatening can stimulate a given fear and generate a “fight or flight” reaction.
Few things annoy me more than to be told I am overreacting! However, I can see that a reaction out of proportion to a perceived harm or threat could be a habit of mine, or at least a habit of my nervous system. We can manage our habits for the better, or we can make habits worse.
Because I work and study in the field of religion, I’ve learned a lot about the damage done to congregations by people and groups who let their reptile brains lead their actions. Peter Steinke is a family therapist, Lutheran pastor, and organizational consultant. He studies and works with churches in painful conflicts, and this keeps him busy. At a workshop I attended some years ago, Steinke said, “Not only is church conflict a growth industry, it is getting meaner and nastier.”[ii] In just a few years, his work with congregations in distress had grown by 200%. In many conflicts, some people can be very mean. They do things to one another or say things about one another in contradiction to their stated religious principles.
But churches are not unique. All kinds of organizations have conflicts, some of them in violation of their stated principles and ethics. In corporations, clubs, charities and schools; in committed couples and in families, humans have disagreements and stress. It is part of being in relationship. What matters is how we manage ourselves in the midst of conflict, and how we settle our differences.
In Steinke’s view, most conflicts have to do with anxiety in the system.
Anxiety, of course, is normal. It is our longtime companion. Steinke said: If you don’t have some anxiety, you’ll never make any changes. Just as the pain felt when you touch a hot stove burner can make you pull your hand away, anxiety can serve you in good ways. For example, the anxiety of loneliness can provoke a person to search for a place of community, for friends, or for a partner. Problems in society can provoke the anxiety of sadness, frustration, or outrage. These feelings may lead a person to get involved in making a difference.
The word anxiety comes from a Latin word which means to strangle or choke. That describes the physical sensation of being in a state of high anxiety. And, just as we don’t get enough air if we’re being choked, if we’re highly anxious we have less ability to give attention to the options we can choose when facing a challenge. Anxiety can cloud our awareness the way muddy water clouds a pond. It can keep us from seeing clearly.
Steinke identified several triggers of anxiety in congregations. These triggers include the issues of theology, authority, music, money, leadership styles, worship styles, and staff changes. Anxiety in church life can be provoked by any change between something old and something new. Fast changes can be disconcerting, yet the slowness of change can be frustrating. Growth can trigger anxiety in churches, but so can numerical decline. Sexuality is a charged issue as well. Imagine all the anxiety in those denominations and churches still unresolved on the status of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender church members or the credentialing of gay ministers.
Issues having to do with property, buildings and space are also triggers for stress in a system. Steinke said this is understandable, for building issues are territory issues. Territory is a matter of survival for all animals, including us. Territory—maybe this is why moving is a big source of stress, as well as kitchen and bathroom renovations.
So it seems, a church is a minefield of human stressors—but so is any relationship of importance. In any setting, anxiety-triggers have to do with our sense belonging and safety, with identity and inclusion. We want to be connected to others in meaningful ways. At the same time, we want to assert our identity and be recognized as individuals. In human evolution, identity and belonging have been matters of protection and survival. Even if we can understand the origins of stress and conflict, this doesn’t make it hurt any less.
In all social institutions, Steinke said, there’s been a trend of conflicts with more secrecy, deceit, lying, and self-righteousness. Some groups not only want to get their way, they want to be seen as right. They not only want to be right, they want to punish the losers. I’ve been here for four years, and I think our congregation shows healthy habits, has good skills to engage in disagreement and to respond well in times of challenge and anxiety.
Yet in the country at large, we find ourselves in another big election year. Self-righteousness is on the rise, perhaps more than ever. On television, radio and the internet, all the shouting and interruptions, the attacks and accusations, appeal to the combativeness of our reptilian brain. Yet even as they excite us, they raise our anxiety. They don’t bring us together, they separate us.
In a family system or in an organizational one, anxiety can spread. It can be contagious. According to Peter Steinke, when a group experiences anxiety, there is “an automatic shift of attention and energy” away from reflection and into action. Under stress we are less clear about all the options available to us. The more a group feels the grip of its anxiety, the less available the group’s values will be for it to draw upon. This is often why people in organizations can commit acts that violate the group’s own ethical values. They do not respond, they react. Sometimes individuals, sometimes whole communities, just react.
However, anxiety is a normal emotion. Sometimes it can help us. The question is not how to repress it, but what to do about it when it emerges. If we recognize anxiety—and respect it—we might keep anxiety from ratcheting up, feeding on itself, tightening its grip.
There are steps we can take, as individuals or by group agreement. For example, I mentioned how tempting it is to put my anxiety into an email. For this reason, I try to avoid having important conversations by email. It’s too easy for my words to be taken in a way I did not intend, and easy for me to take another’s words wrong. If, as happens now and then, I decide I will write an email about an issue of some tension or confusion, I try to write a draft and save it for a day, to sleep on it before sending it. This practice lets me vent my feelings, and it lets me reflect. I may revise an email after sleeping on it. Or I may delete it, and pick up the telephone instead.
Steinke gives the same advice to families having troubles that he does to leaders of churches in conflict. This is to maintain clear boundaries between yourself and others. First, be aware that you need not own another’s anxiety, and need not take responsibility for it. Second, learn to recognize your own feelings of anxiety. Own your anxiety, but not that of others.
One way that families and groups avoid inflaming tensions is by the use of I-statements. For example, “I believe that…” is better than “Everybody agrees…” or “It’s clear for anyone to see that….”
In a stressful conversation or disagreement, Steinke advised, don’t label others or question their motives. Instead, say how you feel, where you are coming from, what your intentions are. Rather than make accusations about another’s motives, one can say, “I feel….” or “My intention is….” Rather than demanding, one can say, “I would like this…” or “I am making a request that….”
Rather than attacking another person for making a demand we don’t like, we can say “I am not able to do that,” or, if necessary, “I am not willing to do that….” The emphasis is on I and me, not on judging or labeling the other. By using I-statements, we assert our own needs and set our limits without raising the stakes by accusing others.
It’s good to remember that we have no control over what other people do or say; we have a choice only about what we do. In case of a verbal attack, it can be tempting to fire back a counter attack. Steinke suggested more “I statements,” such as “I feel as if I’m under attack and I don’t like it. I am not able to respond right now.” Sometimes when I’ve heard hurtful words—about someone else or directed right at me—I’ll say “Ouch!” That’s my I-statement.
Leaders can be lightening rods for anxiety—leaders of a country, or a congregation, or a family. For example, a parent is in a leadership role with children. It takes practice to keep from taking a child’s outburst personally, and to keep from reacting in ways that ratchet up the anxiety. In whatever setting you might provide leadership, it can hurt to be a lightening rod. Yet in moments of anxiety, the most important influence we can have on a group is the choice of our own words and behaviors.
We shouldn’t take responsibility for another’s anxiety, but we should accept our own. We can do this by being aware of our own feelings and experiences. No need to repress feelings. Not helpful to take them out on others. We can recognize our emotions without reacting. This calls for building our skills of self-awareness.
One way to do cultivate awareness is to sit quietly to be with our feelings, or go for a walk. The poet Wallace Stevens wrote: “Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.”
A meditation teacher of mine has compared the practice of mindfulness to waiting for muddy water in a pond to settle. The particles of mud ease to the bottom of the pond, and the water becomes clear. So can it be with our minds. This teacher has practiced mindfulness meditation for decades, yet even her mind can play tricks on her. For such an esteemed person, many of her habitual thoughts and feelings are less than flattering.
She admits that her mind and body go through reactions all the time. Everyone’s mind has its habitual thoughts, she says. Mine does. How about your mind? She says that her habitual thoughts and feelings include boredom, irritation, resentment, grief, and judgment. Funny, I thought those were my habits.
Even when going for a walk, or sitting calmly, watching the breath or eating a meal, her attention wanders. The attention jumps to habitual thoughts, especially those of self-blame or self-criticism. But when she notices the mind doing this, she tries to be kind about it. Rather than judging herself for habitual thinking, she just recognizes it. She nods and smiles and takes a breath.
In fact, she regards her habits of mind as her longtime companions, never to leave her. When irritation, self-blame, arrogance or any other unpleasant thought arises in her mind, she greets it: “Hello, judgmentalism, my old friend.” She does not try to fight it off, she just sees it and feels it.
“Ah, resentment there you are again. Welcome!”
“Ah, craving, here you are. Welcome back!”
“Hello, self-loathing, my old pal. I recognize you. I bow down to you.”
She does not fight the feeling. She allows it a moment in the spotlight, but then she lets it be. She gives it a bit of space in the corner of her awareness, but not the whole room.[iii]
I’ve tried her approach in my own practice—and haven’t often been successful. Yet by this stage in life, I am unlikely to discard all of my stubborn mental habits. Rather than despair, I’ll try to see my habitual thoughts and reactions as my longtime companions. They’re along for the journey, but not in charge of it.
Whatever feelings might arise, they are merely our companions; they need not be our drivers. Perhaps we can try to put this idea into practice. When anxiety that comes up—notice it, look at it, even smile at it. Take a breath.
It’s not necessary to do the first thing that any impulse tells us to do. Our anxiety may not have all the truth about a situation we’re in. Especially if it’s hot or strong, our anxiety may need us to take it for a walk around the lake.
Perhaps the practice of awareness is a way to peace—within ourselves, in our communities, in the world. We can aware of what we’re feeling. We can own our feelings and recognize the feelings of others. We can practice patience.
Let us keep a little place for the reptile in our heads. Let us give it good care. But a reptile shouldn’t run our lives. With courage and kindness, let us accept our emotional experiences, and notice our habits of mind. With courage and kindness, let us practice the ways of peace. May it be so. Amen, and blessed be.
[i] “Emotion Circuits in the Brain.” Joseph E. LeDoux. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 23:155–184 (2000). See http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155?prevSearch=leDoux&searchHistoryKey=
[ii] Notes from attendance at a workshop and conversation with Peter Steinke, at Grace Lutheran Church, Palo Alto, CA, 2005. See his books at http://www.alban.org/bookdetails.aspx?id=2830. For consultant resources: http://www.healthycongregations.com/
[iii]Remembrances from a dharma talk by Arinna Weisman, at a retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, CA, 2005. Her book is A Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation. Find her blog, videos, etc. at http://arinnaweisman.org/
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Our figures do not quite match the range she provides for expense categories, depending on if she counts “program” as including staff salaries for those programs (e.g., music and religious education). Also, if we were to fully fund our denominational and district dues, it would be 5% of our total budget. We do have our stewardship campaign before the Board finishes the budget proposal for the congregation. Smaller churches often do a budget first, but as you can see she does not recommend this. We are off to a great start in the current stewardship campaign, in terms of increased pledges and good energy. Yet, as usual, we are still waiting on half of our households to turn in a pledge form. The Board meets to work on the budget next week, so I’m getting nervous!
Congregations must be as creative and diligent as ever in their stewardship efforts as we navigate the long and winding road to economic recovery.
Our annual funding is the fuel that fills the tank of the vehicle we call the annual operating budget. And despite our efforts at fuel efficiency, it seems like the costs keep on increasing!
Annual operating budgets are one way congregations estimate and track their income and expenditures from one year to the next. At best, budgets are road maps that guide the congregation on its financial journey, aligning its priorities, core values, and mission. Budgets provide a framework for organizing and viewing the congregation’s financial picture. Budgets tell our story and teach us about our shared mission, values, and identity as a faith community. Good budget planning and financial management procedures are essential aspects of effective stewardship and healthy congregations.
However, as many experienced stewardship…
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