Allies

I am thinking today about the line in our church mission statement--we celebrate diversity.  We are lucky to be located in Maine’s most culturally and racially diverse city.  To me, we celebrate diversity by being good allies to our city’s multi-cultural residents, and by working to create a city in which all people and cultures are celebrated and can feel safe and at home here. 

What does it mean to be an ally?  When I think about good allies, I think of Rachel Talbot-Ross, our city’s Equal Opportunity and Multicultural Affairs Director.  I have only been in Portland less than five years, but I have seen Rachel everywhere--when African immigrants are feeling hassled by the police, she shows up to set up a dialogue.  She does what she can to support grassroots organizations created by diverse residents, like Tengo Voz, which empowers Latina women.  On a personal note, she has been there for me too, by standing up to support equal marriage for same sex couples.  Anyone I meet who cares about justice and equality will say how tirelessly Rachel works for everyone who might be marginalized or in the minority.

I am thinking about this today because the budget proposed by City Manager Joe Gray would cut the position Rachel holds from full-time to part-time.  I haven’t seen much about it in the news, but I believe this work is much more important to our city than fireworks on the fourth of July.  I know that times are really tough for cities trying to function with less revenue.  But in difficult times, it is even more critical to be paying attention to multi-cultural issues.  We’ve seen scapegoating and hate rise in other parts of our nation--people who are hurting are quick to blame those they see as further down the ladder than they are.  We want to do all we can to keep that from happening here.

I also believe that all politics is personal.  I value the friendship that I have been growing with Rachel, in our common commitment to justice.  To be an ally is to stand with someone who has been there standing with you.  For all of these reasons, I wrote a letter to the city finance committee expressing my dismay at the proposed plan, and attended their first budget meeting.  If this position is cut to part-time, we have to ask ourselves how feasible it would be that as strong and dedicated person as Rachel Talbot Ross would be able to continue in the position.  And it would be a horrible loss if she had to leave.  

If this issue stirs your soul, there is still a little time to add your voice.  (You can phone or send an email to our City Council.   http://www.portlandmaine.gov/citycou.htm)  Our city will only be as diverse and welcoming as we engage in making it that way.  Blessed be.

Rev. Myke  

The "God" Word

Unitarian Universalists struggle with the idea of God, and some of our members tell me they reject all concepts of divinity.  Other members have come from traditions that felt oppressive to them, that demanded belief without room for doubt or questioning.  Others are hungry for spirituality, but unsure what to do with the concept of God.  I hope to explore the question of God is a series of sermons, beginning March 28th, and continuing during the following two Sundays.   

I was wondering to myself, “Why do I want to preach on the topic of God.  Where does it come from in my own heart?”  I think it is partly because of the anger I feel at fundamentalism.  Fundamentalism in any variety puts “God” into a box--fundamentalists will tell us exactly what “God” is, and then use “God” like a weapon to condemn anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of the good and right, including me and you.  Some use “God” to go to war or to commit acts of terrorism against innocent people.  In my view, anytime we think we have a solid idea of “God,” then we’d better smash that idea, because if “God” can be put into a box, that is idolatry, not divinity.

But I also get angry at some of the recent public atheists, like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris, who’ve written books debunking “God.”  The problem, expressed eloquently by Karen Armstrong, is that their critique of God “has focused exclusively on the God developed by the fundamentalisms, and all three insist that fundamentalism constitutes the essence and core of all religion.”  But I don’t believe in that kind of “God” or in that kind of “religion” either.  I feel their criticism puts exactly the wrong kind of religion in the limelight, and obscures everything that might be illuminating to people who are wondering about spirituality, and other questions of meaning and mystery.

Some would suggest that spiritual searchers should abandon the word “God,” because it has been too corrupted by all that has been done under its auspices.  But that makes me angry too--that people have stolen the word, perverted it really, and in so doing, have built barriers around the possibilities of curiosity and enlightenment.  

Now that I’ve put the topic into my worship calendar, I can see that there is too much to explore for even three Sundays, but I hope to at least start a conversation that can move beyond the fundamentalists.  I remember in one of the theology classes that I taught, we did a continuum about whether people believed in God.  They stood in a line with No on one end, Yes on the other end, and lots of room in the middle.  It was telling that when I asked why people were positioned where they were, a person on the NO end, and a person on the YES end expressed almost identical beliefs.  It is when we get past the question, “Do you believe in God?” that the conversation gets most interesting.

I hope you’ll join me in the conversation.

March 28 Gods I Don’t Believe In

What’s in a word?  Unitarian Universalists struggle with the idea of God, and some of our members reject the concept of divinity.  I hope to explore these questions in a series of sermons, beginning today with an account of the “Gods” that I don’t believe in.  During the next two week, I will take a look at some alternative understandings of divinity that UUs have found more worthy of their faith.

April 4 Go Lifted Up

During this celebration of Passover and Easter, I will explore liberating stories from the Jewish and Christian tradition, stories about God that inspired people in trouble to believe in their own dignity and hope for justice.  

April 11 Threads of Connection

What if a god were not a god?  What if a god were a force, an energy, like gravity or electro-magnetism?  What if god was the energy linking all that exists? What if we were all part of this force? The mystics say we can feel it--the experience of the unity of everything.

Mercy

Those of us who passionately care about making the world a better place; those of us who are change agents; people like ministers and activists--have a struggle in our hearts.  I know it very well myself, in any case.  You will have to decide if this struggle affects you or not.

I want to talk about one of my inner demons--you know, those persistent patterns of behavior that lurk under the surface of our character.  During my sabbatical I got acquainted with many of my inner demons, and found it helpful to give them names, when I was able to recognize them in action.  

So the one I am thinking about today is the Critical One.  What I love about the Critical One is her ability to hone in on what is broken and even come up with some good ideas about how to address the problem.  What I hate about the Critical One is how she always hones in on what is broken, and gets overwhelmed by how much work there is to solve our problems.  What was that beautiful quote?  “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.”  The Critical One has a hard time with that.  When she takes over, I forget about the mystery.  I can do it to myself, I can do it to my family, I can do it to our church, I can do it to our country, I can do it to Life in general.  It probably is part of why I can name so many of my inner demons, and sometimes forget to name my inner beauties.

The first step in dealing with an inner demon is to see it and accept it.  Which of course is just the opposite of what the Critical One would do.  She would fix herself.  I also have to remember that she’s hiding feelings--all demons hide something.  Under my Critical One I find anger.  (How many of us learned to deal well with our anger?)  I also find the vast gap between what we can imagine and dream about, and the pain in us and around us in reality.  

Think about our world.  Has there ever been a time when there was no war, no violence, no struggle, no oppression?  We sometimes like to imagine that there was an Eden of perfect peace and joy.  In fact, it is an amazing capacity that human beings can dream of perfection, can imagine justice and harmony.  (Maybe the Dreamer and the Critical One are siblings.)  But in reality, I don’t think the world has ever been perfect. And that is what shook loose my vision.  The Creator--or if you don’t relate to the idea of a creator--think of it as nature, or the sun shining on the earth, or the Life force--the Creator has embraced us the whole way through.  Life unfolds age after age.  The sun shines on the good and the bad, the environmentalists and the polluters.  Suddenly I realized that this is the experience of mercy--to be embraced as we are.  

I am trying to get to that place which embraces the beauty in what exists right now, not as I dream it could be.  Can I embrace my self, as I am, all my demons included, right now?  Can I notice the beauty in my family, each day?  Can I embrace my church community, all our struggles included, right now?  Can I embrace my country, with its deceit and greed, can I see its hope and courage?  Can I embrace this life, always filled with both beauty and pain?  I do have that power in me, as well as the Critical One.  Maybe I can call her the “Embracer of All That Is.”  Invite her to go to tea with the Critical One, and work out the balance between the two of them. 

       Mercy leads to joy.

Sound of Sweet Silence

Almost immediately after I set up the new blog, I found myself at a loss for words... Or maybe that is not quite accurate... I found myself bewildered by the form, and struggling to sort out which voice this might be, and how it might fit into the many forms of communication I practice in my life.  I have journaled for years and years, and have 4 or 5 boxes of journals in my closet--but that private writing of my soul doesn't quite fit in with this public forum, especially as a person with an already public life as a minister.  And as a minister, I have other forums for expression, most notably preaching, that marvelous challenge and gift to which I devote two days of my life each week, plus Sunday mornings.  Preaching is a distillation of my thoughts and feelings and spirit stirrings in the cauldron of communal life, the relationship with my church community.  And preaching also becomes a public voice, for the sermons appear on our church website in written and podcasting form.   

Then there are the many other forms of communication in the work of ministry.  I have said that most of ministry is about talking and listening, in one form or another.  Meetings with groups, chats over dinner, phone calls, hospital visits, listening to the intimate revelations of the heart.  Not to mention the public voice, the letters to the editor, the presence in the work of particular struggles for justice.  And each of these spinning threads of connection between myself and other people.   So it was easy at first to imagine the blog as another forum, another avenue of expression and connection. 

But then, peering at the blank square of the blog "new post", amidst these many words of ministry, I found myself experiencing a craving for silence.  During my sabbatical I had been visiting a deep silence, a silence that opened up the interior life, a silence that made room for an inner dialogue.  I had the incredible gift of time to wander into the depths of my soul and discover how vast is that terrain--and of course to realize that this inner world is expansive in each of us.  Now, every day I notice my yearning for that silence, and each morning I try to make time to enter it as deeply as I can--but often I am just opening the front door, and pausing in the vestibule.  And yet it is ever present, and illuminates the work of ministry with wings of mystery.  

Is there a bridge that can span the inner silence of one soul to the inner silence of another?  Can I bring my inner worlds into a larger web of communication, and if I could, what would be the purpose?  Is there something about the blog, in the vast hidden expanse of cyber space, that invites this silence to express itself?
And if silence can speak, might it have the capacity to open my ears, or your ears, to hear the sound of one hand clapping?

Journeys of my Soul

Greetings from Sabbatical Land!

I want to share some highlights of my journeys of the sabbatical, to give you a flavor of what I have been up to, as we prepare for my return to A2U2 in January.

There were some physical journeys-

To Unity, Maine for the Earth Activist Training, led by Starhawk and Charles William. It was an opportunity to explore what is happening to the earth, our home, and grow in my understanding of food, soil, energy, gardening, and hope. For those who like books, I might suggest The Earth Path, by Starhawk, for a taste of what we were studying. This is me learning how to grow mushrooms with inoculant and cardboard.

Later, Margy and I went back to Unity for the Common Ground Fair--our first time there!  Later, I learned even more, right in Portland at the Kindle Bioneers conference.

To Winslow Park in Freeport for time by the sea--the weather was unpredictable, and I honed my skills in setting up a tarp with poles and string. Nothing to do but watch the sea, make food, and maybe swim. Delicious relaxation!

To Acadia National Park, for getting more acquainted with this beautiful state we call home--and also learning humility in the face of my limitations, and confronting anxieties about heights.

To a Leadership in Ministry workshop, in Newton, MA, for work on family systems and its impact on the work of ministry.

To Ottawa, Canada for the Convocation of UU ministers, plus a journey into my ancestors world.

This is me sitting next to my great grandmother’s gravesite (the tiny stone) in Ottawa, the location of which we hadn’t previously known. Her name was Claudia Tremblay, and I have my middle name in her honor.

At Convo, I also participated in a preaching workshop, where we experimented with preaching without text or notes. Many new ideas to try! I was nurtured by the time in worship and fellowship with my UU ministry colleagues.

To Rochester, NY and to Parkersburg, WV to visit Margy’s family, and to visit my parents and two of my sisters. It was a time of integration for me--to really accept my family members for just who they are, and to really be myself with them more freely. This was the other half of the family systems workshop, for isn’t that the challenge with our families--to be ourselves and yet to stay connected, despite our differences? This is me and my mom.

These outer journeys were balanced by significant time devoted to the inner journey--

I think of it as the journey toward wholeness and integration of my Self--to explore the dimensions of my soul and personality, to revisit old dreams and make peace with old regrets, to nurture the divine spark within, and to come into deeper alignment with my truest calling and purpose.

I found a book that served as a helpful guide for this meditative work--called Kissing the Limitless, by T. Thorn Coyle. If you are looking for a real spiritual workout, I recommend it highly.

What else can I tell you about? Margy and I had some sweet relaxing time to be together. I took good care of my body by dropping sugar and wheat from my diet--it feels great! Lots of walks in the woods and by the shore. (And after these several months, I think I will loosen up to indulge in one sweet treat each week--I have to make a little leeway for those marvelous church potlucks.) I switched from a PC desktop to a Mac laptop, got a digital camera, and am enthusiastic about the creativity gently released with these new resources. I rearranged my office at church, and cleaned up my office at home. (Well, I am still working on that one...)

And I can’t fail to mention that I took some time out of sabbatical mode to canvass, hope, and finally grieve about the marriage referendum in November. I stood with my Religious Coalition colleagues, and the dedicated leaders of the No on One Campaign as we committed ourselves anew to the work of justice and dignity for all. We will keep standing on the side of love.

This last month of the sabbatical I am thinking about re-entry into A2U2 life. As you may recall, one of my questions going into the sabbatical was how to make a ministry that was a sustainable and balanced life, not a recipe for stress or burnout. Some of that work is within the self--how to be more relaxed about my life and less perfectionist and over-functioning, how to be aligned within. Some of that work will include a few changes in my weekly schedule, and I have been looking at patterns for my days and my weeks.

I am beginning to think again about worship, and enthusiastic about experimenting with new ideas in worship. I am looking forward to seeing all of you, and meeting the new folks who’ve joined us in the last few months.

Most of all, I am filled with a deep gratitude to all of you, the members and leaders of A2U2, for this gift of time. What a privilege it has been to go on this journey of the soul. I can’t express how much it has meant to me! I hope that the lessons learned will enrich my ministry with all of you in countless ways during the coming months.

Here’s to the New Year!

love, Myke