bring on the lovingoverthrow

This is one part of a refrain that kept repeating in the background as I waited in the airport this week. It was a woman's voice.  In the polite professional manner of a voice-mail robot, she was explaining how the threat level has been increased to orange.  She made it sound like she was announcing something that had just happened but according to Wiki, the airport threat level has been orange since August 10, 2006.  For suspiciousness, press 2, she might've said.

I couldn't help imagining myself a character in the opening scene of a sci-fi novel where, by the repeated broadcast of the message of "fear thy neighbor" during the high season of "love thy neighbor", the author is showing us that we are entering a different world.

I was in a conversation the other day about how liberalism/progressivism lost credibility over the last century for failing to offer a convincing understanding of evil.  That is, the onward and upward forever enthusiasm of our 19th century forebears seemed naive to the point of dangerous in the face of the madnesses we humans enacted during the 20th century.   I've been in this conversation many times but this time made the connection to our equally undeveloped understanding of authority.  The glorious outcome of the Enlightenment was to grant Reason the dignity it deserves - a great gift from God's mind -  the mind of the universe - to the mind of humanity.  When the Enlightenment broke through, everyone understood that Reason as it appears in the mind of human beings is not all there is.  There was a divine order behind it that gave Reason its glory.  Then a long story I have neither time nor inclination to tell with the upshot being that God was declared dead, divine order was deconstructed and Reason as it belongs to the mind of humanity was left to compete with raw grabs for power over the mess.  Soon enough and clearly surprise to some, Reason was revealed exhausted and empty - inadequate to the task.  This was more than 100 years ago now and stil  there are liberal/progressive people exalting Reason as a monarch seemingly oblivious to the fact that their emperor has no clothes. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  I am a great lover of Reason.  I regard it as a great gift from the mind of the universe into humanity.  Yet, it is clear to me it is a Gift and not the Giver.  The Giver not the Gift is sovereign.  So long as this is denied, there can be no adequate understanding of evil or authority. 

Another chance to do stand-up theology.  It was a great gift of learning to me.  Thanks to all who made it happen.  And the gift from mystery of visitors.  I invited folks into the communion without words but didn't stand with them really deeply.  I claimed compassion as cause but didn't let it claim me completely.  I learned something about showing, stepping in, and standing together- inviting and allowing and making room for the miracle.  That's what I do.  Stand up and proclaim the cause and resist it all at the same time.   

Reason and language and law and science much less religion.  Crafts, trades, creativitiy and invention, every good thing that has come into the world and into the life of human beings had compassion as cause, belongs to compassion, and is available to make compassion manifest in material means - means that matter to the well-being of people and the planet.  That's the good news I've got to tell.

I love Stephen Colbert and this interview with Naomi Wolf is powerful.  It was first aired on September 19, 2007.

This came across a chat line and struck me as most worthy of sharing.  It certainly
describes an important way in which I understand my work as interim.

*Edwin Friedman, "The Challenge of Change and the Spirit of Adventure".
Unpublished essay, p. 4*

"Change makes people anxious. One of the things you will find is that change
doesn't come from the center of the congregation, it comes from the edges.
The people at the center are filled with learned behavior and tend not to be
creative. When people come across the edge in a boundary, they tend to
offend, because they don't know how to say things. We need to honor people
at the edges, not make them disappear. Change comes from the edge, health
comes from the center. Leaders need to work at health at the center - making
sure there is a healthy core of leaders at the core, working with
differences, and making sure that others can hear this, and modeling it for
the rest of the congregation. Civility has always been a group
experience. Individual exchanges are uncivil not because people are
less gracious, but because they are following the behavior.*

It is someone who can manage his or her own reactivity to the automatic
reactivity of others and take stands at the risk of displeasing. It is
someone who understands that no act of self-differentiation ever goes
unpunished. It is not as though some leaders can do this and some cannot. No
one does this easily, and I have learned, most leaders can improve their
capacity."

This is what joys and concerns becomes in my worship theory.  I'm so glad I finally get to do worship theory.  Thank you ministry!  Thank you FUUCPB!  Thank you oh you who bothers to hear hallelujahs, have mercys, and honest witness. 

I realized tonight that getting the congregation to produce a written covenant and/or mission hasn't emerged as a clear priority for me.  I got clear because people have begun asking more clearly for what they want.  I appreciate that very much.  People want to know the plan.  They want a timetable and markers.  Nothing unreasonable about it.  It's just not how I do my best work.  

I think the next thing I need to do is invite the congregation into the practice of covenant with me. If I were the minister here, I would ask the congregation to covenant to make Sunday morning a day of celebration and renewal. A day of sabbath. Let worship be the order of the day and nothing happen to which less than the whole congregation is invited. Work still gets done because people report to the community their struggles and victories of the week, especially in matters pertaining to their shared covenant and vision.

What was it like being a UU out there in the world this week?

I remember reading that the topic of dinner conversation when MLK, Jr. was a child always included the struggle to maintain dignity and compassion in the face of U.S. apartheid. Sunday morning should include that opportunity to hear and encourage one another in the work of being a human in the UU tradition today which means the work of manifesting dignity and compassion for each and all in the face of an empire willing to leave millions to die.

Leaving millions to die is pretty much the kindest outcome in empire. More likely is the millions will be targeted for extinction. A good ole nuclear bomb ought to do the trick.  Surely one of the saddest things to say about empire is that its storehouses contain other than the goods of being human.  If I was going to be real old-fashioned I might even say that empire erases the good and stores up the evil. 

What winds up in the storehouses of empire is what's left when human culture is ground under by a match of dullbladed truthtales told by folks who pretend to know the greatest power intimately yet give evidence of trusting only in raw wealth and power.  If truth doesn't stand next to goodness and beauty, I don't want to hear what it has to say.  In other words, I've been bullied too many times by someone claiming authority based on empire yet evidencing not much bona fides when it comes to compassion. 

So, Sunday is the day we gather and tell the stories of our lives and, through the giving and receiving of compassionate regard for one another, speak new life and new possibility into existence for ourselves, for one another, and for and the world.

If the congregation will practice this covenant with me for six weeks, it will have the possibility of discovering the communion without words. When people can stand consciously together in the communion without words, words appear both more precious and more passing. Paper is for poems in that place. Then the covenant can be stated so simply it doesn't really need to be written but, of course, it will because we are human beings and we love words. And we use them to tell others what we think is important. And once people have experienced the communiion without words, they generally enjoy inviting others into the experience.

Maybe, I would ask the congregation to experiment with the covenant to stand with one another on the ground of compassion and do their darndest to manifest whatever their most whole selves are urging them to manifest.

I'm going to ask the Board and the Committee on Minsitry and the Small Group Ministry to take it on and see what they say.  Some might be read this if I post it.

As for missions, if the congregation will take up the practice of covenant, they won't need my help to discover their mission. If they want me to lead them in finding their mission, I'll just tell them that mission is to call one another out and into the communion and then see what happens. Spirit will move, I guarantee it.  Something will stir.  Whereever two or more are gathered in conscious communion, a worthy path for community will appear.

I just decided not to have a separate blog for the economy of god conversation.  It comes up too often and is the mainline of my work.  Thus, I've just moved a string of posts - mostly years old from my old site - over to this blog.  Nice feature to be able to move things around so easily like that.  Thank you squarespace.