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Jordinn Nelson Long, at Raising Faith, has posed some questions of interest to her and other seminarians, such as who ministers to ministers, if it’s true that on becoming a minister, one loses one’s church. My answers are in this guest post. Thanks for the invitation, Jordinn!
Reading some more about Emily Dickinson before giving today’s sermon on some of her poetry and its power, I came upon the description of her “earliest friend,” Benjamin Franklin Newton. He died young, but before he did, he had a great influence on her that she referred to throughout her life. Among other things, he introduced her to Emerson, whose poetry, she wrote in wonder, “has touched the secret Spring.” Hm, I thought. Wonder if he was a Unitarian. Sure enough, his minister was Edward Everett Hale.
As in previous years, I decided on a spiritual practice for Lent. One recent year, I tried drawing every day, and missed almost as many days as I drew. So this year I decided to draw, too, but not to aim for every day. Just most days, and something fast. Whatever catches my eye is my subject and I jump in for five or ten minutes; for example, on the first day I drew part of the BART station while I was waiting for a train.
Joy said, “Aren’t you supposed to give something up?” and then answered her own question: “I guess you’re giving up not-drawing.” Yes.
The past two Mondays having been school holidays, I have missed my figure drawing sessions to be with the munchkin, so these little drawings have been nice tidbits to tide me over.
photo by 4028mdk09, source: Wikimedia Commons
Apparently, each year when December 1 rolls around and some Unitarian Universalists (UUs) begin celebrating Chalica, other UUs get all het up about it. I got into a discussion about it on Facebook and needed to go look up a couple of things. When I clicked on this site, to my surprise, it carried a link to a sermon of mine. Gosh, what did I say about Chalica? Turns out I had a lot of nice things to say about it. The fact that it completely slipped my mind that I’d even written this sermon, I attribute to the arrival of my daughter a few months later. My memory, not great to begin with, has never recovered.
There are a lot of things I like about this holiday. I like the fact that it was started by laypeople and took off as a grassroots phenomenon, with little nurture by the UUA or ministers. I like that it was originated by a young adult, a demographic we claim to want to attract but often chase away through our actions or inaction. I’ve heard that it spread largely through social media and I think that’s great: UUs using the technology of our day, as our 19th century ancestors used pamphleteering, to reach each other and newcomers.
I like that it is a home-based ritual. We have too few of those. I grew up Jewish, and religion saturated our home and family life, making a natural bridge between what we studied and prayed about in the synagogue and what we were trying to practice in our daily lives. In Unitarian Universalism, most of our practices take place in church, and it makes it harder to bridge the gap between Sunday and Monday. Chalica is a way to bring our principles home.
I admit to liking that it seems to tick off the establishment. I haven’t followed too many of the debates, but reliable reporters suggest that UUA staff and ministers are more likely to line up at the con microphone, so to speak, and that laypeople are more likely to line up at the pro mike. When a religion is alive and thriving, the people generate their own forms, spontaneously and often without the leadership, or even blessing, of their ordained or professional guides. This holiday makes me know that ours really is a living tradition.
I like that it is new. Like the chalice itself, it echoes ancient practices and symbols, but its specific form and use are very recent. The lighting of a chalice at the beginning of services was a rarity, if it happened at all, 70 years ago; it has since become all but universal. The Water Communion was first celebrated in 1980 and is widely celebrated, having gained layers of meaning and the kinds of nuances that come about only through lived experience. If Chalica meets a need, it may take the same course.
I like that it meets a need I feel myself: for my religion to have its own holiday at this holiday-rich time of year. I find Christmas meaningful (for that matter, I can find meaning and beauty in just about anything, hence the name of this blog) and I enjoy celebrating it with my congregation, but if it were up to me alone, I would not choose the birth of Jesus as a focal point for a family celebration. (It is not up to me alone; my wife, Joy, lobbied heavily for presents at Christmas and she won. I reluctantly–ha!–accept mine.) We celebrate Hanukah because we want the munchkin to know her heritage (Joy grew up Jewish too), but I can’t say the significance of the holiday speaks to me very much. We don’t celebrate Kwanzaa because we’re not African-American. Of all the winter holidays, solstice may be most meaningful to me personally, and I created a home ritual to celebrate the return of the light with my daughter, but it doesn’t feel any different than taking her outside to see a lunar eclipse, or showing her the constellations, or any of the other things we may do to mark the seasons and the rhythms of the earth. In other words, I’m not a Christian, a Jew (at least not theologically), an African-American, or a Pagan. I’m a Unitarian Universalist, and although I don’t know if we will ever add Chalica to our busy December, I appreciate that it is a festival that celebrates what I hold dear.
I like that it provides an opportunity to delve into the principles, which are sometimes criticized as shallow but for my money, are ideals I strive to live up to (and never can quite attain). We’ll need to be flexible, as the principles are not written in stone and if they are not to take on the authority of a creed, we need to be able to revise them and let them go in time. Maybe that process could even be built into the holiday. How about an eighth night for a conversation about what other principles we might want to affirm and promote . . . ?
I like the suggestions about using the days of Chalica to act upon our principles, not just speak them. Kathy Klink-Zeitz suggests that for the fourth principle, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, we might want to learn something new from someone else, give a book, or read a book. Jeff Liebmann, in the first of his 2012 Chalica videos, suggests that to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the first principle, we might make amends to someone to whom we’ve shown disrespect, or give thanks to someone who has helped us.
I apparently wasn’t bothered enough by my one serious objection to this holiday to mention it when I wrote that 2006 sermon, even parenthetically. Maybe along with my Parenthood-Induced Memory Loss Syndrome, I’ve gotten more persnickety. But it does bother me, and as long as I am in the good graces of the Chalica fans I will send forth this plea:
Please find a different name for it.
It can’t be coincidence that it sounds like Hanukah. So how can I put this? It is tacky to the point of offensiveness–no, past the point of offensiveness–to spin off the name of another religion’s sacred celebration. I know that Hanukah is a minor holiday, but it is still a sacred festival and it and Judaism deserve our respect. I have tried to think of the name as playful. Playfulness is a wonderful quality for a holiday to have, and I smile to imagine folks sitting around a table talking about a new UU holiday that bears some resemblance to Hanukah, and joking, “We could call it Chalica!” But when it goes public and takes hold, I stop hearing it as playful and start hearing it as trivializing instead. It trivializes both Unitarian Universalism and Judaism. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the celebrations, but the name grins behind the back of a hand and whispers, “This is really just a joke.” Even worse, it says that Hanukah is a joke. I know we wouldn’t adapt the day of atonement to Unitarian Universalism and call the result Yom KippUUr, so please. Let’s call it something else.
We’re a creative bunch and I’m sure if we put it out to fans of Chalica as a challenge–name that holiday!–they could come up with a name that honors the values that gave rise to the holiday to begin with. In fact, let’s do it right here. I’d love to read your ideas in the comments.
I haven’t posted about them since the first few days, but I have continued my practice of reading one Emily Dickinson poem per day, in order as determined by Thomas E. Johnson (The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1960). Today is day 54. Several of the poems over the past week have been about death. How did she ever get the reputation of being all tweeting birds and sweet little flowers? The woman was obsessed with death and had so many profound things to say about it.
53
Taken from men — this morning —
Carried by men today —
Met by the Gods with banners —
Who marshalled her away —
One little maid — from playmates —
One little mind from school —
There must be guests in Eden —
All the rooms are full —
Far — as the East from Even —
Dim — as the border star —
Courtiers quaint, in Kingdoms
Our departed are.
51
I often passed the village
When going home from school —
And wondered what they did there —
And why it was so still —
I did not know the year then —
In which my call would come —
Earlier, by the Dial,
Than the rest have gone.
It’s stiller than the sundown.
It’s cooler than the dawn —
The Daisies dare to come here —
And birds can flutter down —
So when you are tired —
Or perplexed — or cold–
Trust the loving promise
Underneath the mould,
Cry “it’s I,” “take Dollie,”
And I will enfold!
Number 51 combines a theme about death with a tendency that many of these early poems have, which is to read like an old-fashioned riddle: here’s the poem, guess what it describes, like this classic:
In marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with skin as soft as silk,
In a fountain crystal clear,
A golden treasure does appear.
There are no doors to this stronghold,
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold. (Answer below, for those who haven’t read The Hobbit nor sought out lots of this kind of riddle as a child.)
For example, number 25 is:
She slept beneath a tree —
Remembered but by me.
I touched her Cradle mute —
She recognized the foot —
Put on her carmine suit
. And see!
Doesn’t that sound like a riddle? I don’t know what the answer would be–some kind of flower? In any case, the same tone seems to pervade poems like number 51, where she is clearly speaking of a graveyard but refers to it only as a village.
I am loving this practice. I miss a day here and there but make it up the next day, but it’s nicest when I have a daily poem for several days running.
(The answer to the riddle is: an egg.)
Day 2, Poem 2
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields –
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!
The way I read the poem, it is about two states of being: the one her brother is in, and the one she is inviting him into. They are words I would like to say when a friend is depressed, but I usually don’t, because what good would it do? They already know that not everyone is shadowed by gloom. Maybe she didn’t utter hers aloud either.
In some places, this poem is titled “The Cloud Withdrew From The Sky.” ED almost never titled her poems, and most editors who are compelled to title them just use the first line. Whoever chose this title imposes their own interpretation. It’s an interpretation that suggests that she was also under a cloud and now it’s gone, and I don’t see any support for that in the poem. Actually, its only references to the passage of time say outright that this state of sunniness never changes: “Ever serene and fair,” “ever green,” “Where not a frost has been.” All of which makes me think that she is referring not to happiness (hard to imagine ED asserting that melancholy never strikes her), but to love and acceptance he may find with her, or perhaps to the presence of God.
I don’t know if I can really do this, or will want to after a while, but I had the idea of reading an Emily Dickinson poem each day, reading them in order (as set in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson). If I never missed a day, it would take close to five years. No doubt I will miss many days, and also come to poems that I want to spend a few days contemplating before I fill my mind with the next one. I also won’t try to write about every one. But I must write about this first one, because it’s the first, it’s unintentionally (?) funny and, well, let’s just say that if it were a typical example of her poetry, I would not be setting out to read all 1,775.
It is headed “Valentine week, 1850” and appears to be an exhortation to her brother Austin to get married already (he finally obeyed seven years later). Her argument is that “All things do go a courting,” and she lists examples, and I do mean lists. It gets a little tedious, and the hexameter takes on a singsong quality in too many lines. It also doth seem that every noun doth verb, instead of just plain verbing; it reminds me of what I think of as flight attendant-speak, in which the speaker says things like
We will be showing an in-flight movie.
We do ask you to keep your seat belt on while the aircraft is in motion.
We do offer complimentary soft drinks and juice.
and on and on with unnecessary emphasis, as if contradicting an earlier assertion, until I want to take off my seat belt, leap from my seat, hurl my flotation device, and scream, “No one’s arguing with you! Stop being so damn defensive!” I guess in ED’s case, it’s a scansion issue, but still.
ED even lists a half a dozen candidates for lucky bride (one of whom he did marry, if the Susan of the poem is Susan Gilbert). Still, it’s far from doggerel, and it has its moments, like “The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon.” I also notice that she is already spinning gorgeous images of death:
“The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride.”
Here’s the whole thing. I am also glad ED doesn’t do quite so much underlining in future poems; Johnson preserved it, and the italics don’t survive a copying and pasting from other websites, and are very tedious to put back in.
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower—
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum—
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
Courage. It won’t be long before we get to the seriously good stuff.
Last year I tried three Lenten practices: I refrained from one thing (Facebook), I engaged in one thing (daily drawing), and I gave money to justice work (abolishing human trafficking). I didn’t keep to the drawing practice very well. The other practices, I kept, and they were deepening. I’m going to follow the same structure this year: a negative practice, a positive practice, and the practice of generosity.
This year I have a somewhat different internet-related practice: not to use the internet as entertainment. In his poem “Ash Wednesday,” T. S. Eliot prayed, “Teach us to sit still.” It’s something I strive to learn, and the net is amphetamines for my monkey mind. So although I will appear on Facebook, I will endeavor not to fritter. Right now I want to go over there just to see what’s going on. That’s the kind of thing I’m planning to resist from now until Easter.
photo by JamesJen, used by permission (Wikimedia Creative Commons)
The line is fuzzy. Reading the week’s secrets every Saturday night at Postsecret seems like a spiritual practice, even though it sometimes affords all the satisfactions of gossip; reading others’ blog entries is serious but can easily drift into just fooling around; using Facebook to see how a friend is doing or take some political action honors the spirit of the practice, but can easily turn into mere entertainment. I will have to be attentive to what’s calling me to a webpage in order to know when to continue and when to stop.
My positive practice is to walk the labyrinth each day I’m at church. The first couple of days’ practice will be to restore it. It’s made of river stones, which are easily dislodged, and the path has actually been altered in at least one place, as I realized when I walked it the other day and discovered that once you get to the center of the labyrinth you can walk right out. There may be labyrinths with that design, but ours is the Cretan labyrinth and follows the same long path out as one took in. I for one need that contemplation time both going into the center and emerging.
I’m going to continue the support of justice work I began last year by putting much more time into the abolition work I’ve been neglecting. I have no desire, or evening time, to be on organizational boards. What I do best is write, speak, coach volunteers, and teach, so I think this is the time to dig out my notes for a UU abolition curriculum and get a draft done. I’ll also be helping the good folks at Aptos, which has the only anti-slavery action group of any UU congregation that I know of (if there are others, please chime in in the comments!), to have a strong presence at General Assembly (GA), where the Congregational Study Action Issue they proposed is being considered as the next official UU-wide issue and where they have a program on the GA schedule, bringing Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves to tell UUs what the problem is and what we can do about it. I already give to anti-trafficking organizations, but I’ll give a special donation for the season.
Do you have, or have you had, any practices for Lent? What are they?
Continuing my researches on the prayers of contrition found in various traditions.
Buddhism
This is an amalgamation of two translations: one by Robert Aitken Roshi, of the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu, and one found on BeliefNet and attributed only to “anonymous”–which it is–it’s a very old Buddhist text.
All the evil karma, ever created by me since of old,
on account of greed, anger, and ignorance, which have no beginning,
born of my conduct, speech and thought,
I now confess openly and fully.
This Buddhist “Prayer for the Courage to Look Within” was posted by BeliefNet member kuliLinei:
May all sentient beings have the courage to look within themselves and see the good and bad that exists in all of us. May we open our hearts, shining the light of love into the dark recesses where doubt and fear reside. May we have the courage to step into that light and embrace whatever we find, letting it rise to the surface freed by the act of loving kindness.
Christianity
O my God,
I am sorry for my sins because I have offended you.
I know I should love you above all things.
Help me to do penance,
to do better,
and to avoid anything that might lead me to sin. Amen.
I find this one very moving despite the fact that I can’t in any way accept the idea that Jesus’s Passion atoned for us, so that I’d edit out “the most bitter Passion of My Redeemer.”
Forgive me my sins, O Lord,
forgive me my sins;
the sins of my youth,
the sins of my age,
the sins of my soul,
the sins of my body;
my idle sins,
my serious voluntary sins;
the sins I know,
the sins I do not know;
the sins I have concealed for so long,
and which are now hidden from my memory.
I am truly sorry for every sin, mortal and venial,
for all the sins of my childhood up to the present hour.
I know my sins have wounded Thy Tender Heart,
O My Savior, let me be freed from the bonds of evil
through
the most bitter Passion of My Redeemer. Amen.
O My Jesus, forget and forgive what I have been. Amen.
Paganism
. . . or is it Neo-Paganism? I don’t know the origin of this prayer, just that it is published in A Book of Pagan Prayer by Ceisiwr Serith (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2002). I found it on BeliefNet. I like the prayer’s being directed to various guides.
A Prayer to the High Gods at Bedtime
As I go to bed, I pray to the High Gods.
I offer you my worship, and ask you to bless my family.
I ask if I have done anything today to offend you.
If I have, I ask for forgiveness and for guidance,
that I might walk the sacred path in peace and in beauty.
As I go to bed, I pray to the gods of my household.
I offer you my worship and ask you to bless my family.
I ask if I have done anything today to offend you.
If I have, I ask for forgiveness and for guidance,
that I might walk the sacred path in peace and in beauty.
As I go to bed, I pray to the Ancestors.
I do you honor and ask you to bless my family.
I ask if you I have done anything to offend you.
If I have, I ask for forgiveness and for guidance,
that I might walk the sacred path in peace and in beauty.
As I go to bed, I pray to all numinous beings.
I do you honor and ask that you extend your blessings over me and mine.
The resources in the previous post were from Judaism. Here are three prayers of confession and contrition from the heart of the Unitarian Universalist tradition. All three use theistic language and all three lend themselves beautifully to the devotions of a religious naturalist or humanist:
Vivian Pomeroy (1883-1961), from his Hidden Fire:
Oh God, forgive us that often we forgive ourselves so easily and others hardly;
Forgive us that we expect perfection from those to whom we show none;
Forgive us for repelling people by the way we set a good example;
Forgive us the folly of trying to improve a friend;
Forbid that we should use our little idea of goodness as a spear to wound those who are different;
Forbid that we should feel superior to others when we are only more shielded;
And may we encourage the secret struggle of every person.
from Hymns of the Spirit (the “red hymnal,” published 1937), pages 33-34:
Into this house of light we come to seek that which is just and to find that which is good, and here we remember those whose lives are darkened by the greed and wrong of others. We have not purged the commerce of our times of those harsh ways that thwart the hopes and dreams of many. In this house of peace we remember wars and rumors of wars; we have made but feeble effort to understand the peoples of the world and to foster peace among the nations. In this house of joy we remember all sorrowing and troubled folk; we would not ourselves be glad except as we seek the blessings of abundant life in body and spirit for all our fellowmen. Let us here be gathered into a common power of good will which shall issue in lasting peace and larger right. Amen.
Hymns of the Spirit, page 42:
O Thou unseen source of peace and holiness, we come into thy secret place to be filled with thy pure and solemn light. As we come to thee, we remember that we have been drawn aside from the straight and narrow way; that we have not walked lovingly with each other and humbly with thee; that we have feared what is not terrible and wished for what is not holy. In our weakness be thou the quickening power of life. Arise within our hearts as healing, strength and joy. Day by day may we grow in faith, in charity, in the purity by which we may see thee, and in the larger life of love to which thou callest us. Amen.
Sermons in Stones 
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