Category: Uncategorized

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Doug Muder unpacking metaphors

Doug Muder has posted a sermon at Free and Responsible Search: Some Assembly Required. As ever, he has an engaging intro:

[T]here used to be a little sign on Highway 24 – I don’t think it’s there any more – directing you to the Ripley Church of God.

One of my character flaws is that I lack a proper sense of reverence. And so, every time I passed that sign, the same irreverent phrase went through my mind: Believe it or not.

Something similar happens whenever I pass an Assembly of God church. You know what phrase pops into my mind then? Some assembly required. I picture a bunch of people with a God kit and an enormous set of directions, trying to figure out how to make the omnipotence fit together with the benevolence.

That’s probably not what they do in Assemblies of God. But it’s not a bad metaphor for what Unitarian Universalists do. Our religion doesn’t come to us as a finished product; some assembly is required. As George Marshall wrote: “Don’t come to a Unitarian Universalist church to be given a religion. Come to develop your own religion.”

The meat of Doug’s sermon explores this quandary:

[S]omeone who walks in the door with the wrong metaphor, someone who tries to stuff us into the wrong box . . . well, they ask the wrong questions. And after you’ve asked the wrong questions, even the best answers might not help you.

He proceeds to reframe some of the “wrong” questions in order to make “right” answers possible.

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Today at the State House

Working beside the Massachusetts State House, it is not uncommon to see (and hear!) protests, demonstrations, award ceremonies, commemorations, and leafletters. My colleagues and I have in the past joked about starting a blog: Today at the State House.

Well, idealistic young supporters of Lyndon LaRouche have moved in lately. Today they are actually across the street in front of the local Fox affiliate. What makes them blog-worthy is their sign today:

Bush Performs Monetary Masturbation
Pelosi Supports The Jerk.

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Unique expression

I’ve recently started following Old Girl of the North Country’s blog. Today she has a wonderful quote from Martha Graham (go there to read the whole passage):

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.

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Making the big time?

Who knew the Utne site had blogs? They do, including one on spirituality, and we made it with a story I put in our Winter 2007 “Reflections” section: Suicide, Faith, and Compassion

Kate Braestrup encountered this sad reality in her work as a chaplain for game wardens, an experience she recounts in an excerpt from her memoir, Here If You Need Me, published in the UU World, a publication of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

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I Met John Scalvi!

It was so exciting, the day I met John Scalvi! It was quite by accident. Literally. I was minding my own business when a car came crashing across the sidewalk in front of me and through the window of a convenience store. I’d always heard about those elderly drivers who step on the gas instead of the brake, and here one was. And it was none other than John Scalvi.

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Politics

Last week I did something I’ve never done before. I made a contribution to a political candidate’s campaign: Senator Barack Obama.

When November comes, I will vote for the Democratic candidate. I cannot imagine that anyone running, no matter their faults, could possibly be worse than the war criminals currently in office. But of the three major primary candidates, Senator Obama’s campaign seems to me to have the right focus: the future, and how to bring Americans together around our shared future. We surely do not have the same vision for the future, all of us Americans, but we just as surely will share the same actuality. I’d like someone in office who wants to help us shape that future in a productive way.