For churches not growing

I've been fortunate to serve churches which were willing and able to grow, and feel blessed to have been able to lead and assist that growth. But I've also lived out a period of non-growth; a decade in which we did mostly the same things we'd been doing and have done since, plus a building project, and the church see-sawed around on a plateau. There's no doubt in my mind that all the good intention and skill of minister and congregation together can't "produce" growth. I have a favorite reading on this subject, which is also a great reading for Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and to email to folks whose kids have taken an unexpected turn towards difficulty.

Do everything right,

all the time, and the child will prosper. It’s as simple as that, except for fate, luck, heredity, chance, the astrological sign under which the child was born, the order of her birth, his first encounter with evil, the boy who gilts her in spite of her excellent qualities, the war that is being fought when he is a young man, the drugs she may try once or too many times, the friends she makes, how he scores on tests, how well she endures kidding about her shortcomings, how ambitions he becomes, how far she falls behind, circumstantial evidence, ironic perspective, danger when it is least expected, difficulty in triumphing over circumstances, people with hidden agendas, and animals with rabies.” -Ann Beattie, from Picturing Will

Of course, it's all so important, our children, and our churches, that we do our best in spite of all the possible ways things might derail.

Saying Yes, Saying No

Side conversations at the growth conference convinced me that growing churches have what I've heard called a "permission giving" culture. That is, if you have an idea that fits in the church's vision, and want to give leadership to that idea, it is very easy to get permission to do that, to learn what you need to know about room use, publicity, and church policy, and get going with it. In our case most of this is encoded in policy; any staff person can help someone start a new program. We do a lot of saying yes. It may be that a growing church just has to manage this way; there's no way the staff and cadre of old leaders can manage demand by themselves; we just have to loosen up and (within reason) trust the the impassioned to go with their energy.

I have to comment here that I have learned that I'm a very poor predictor of which of these programs will "fly," so it's a good thing I don't feel the need to be controlling. Who would have thought that the group going to work in New Orleans would raise $7,000 by making one appeal on a Sunday morning? Who would have thought that the group splitting off of the young adult group and calling themselves the (old)parents of young children would grow to the point of having 24 adults and 23 children at their meetings? Or that the little group of techies who wanted to video-tape the sermon to put up on Utube and public access TV would morph into our current video ministry which serves two branches, a third service on our site, videos on our website and a sermon subscription service to lay-lead congregations?

But to some programs one must say, "no." Sometimes the program doesn't fit in the church's vision, or would compete with our core programming for space or use too much staff time or...this is the hardest...needs skilled or professional leadership to keep participants safe. There are any number of other times a minister has to just say no. It's one of the hard parts of the job. We started talking about this as the "fierce shepherd" role...the leader who loves the church...it's people and its vision...enough to keep them on track.

Someone advanced the theory...and I think it's a good one, that the minister of a growing church must be such a fierce shepherd, and shepherds who won't do this spend all their energy chasing troubled and troubling sheep around. Some ministers have to learn to step up to this role, others have to learn to codify it with policy and share it with other leaders. But it's gotta be done.

We also commented that female leaders pay a much greater price than male leaders for stepping into this role; even UU's want their female ministers to be tender mommies not fierce shepherds. We wondered if one reason fewer women seem to apply for senior ministry positions in larger churches is that by the time they are experienced enough to think of serving a large church, they've been beaten down by the unequal price of saying "no."

Readability

Well, this is fun! My blog tests out to a high school reading level. I think this is a good thing. We read blogs in our spare time, and too hard to too much like work. You can check out the reading level of any file on the web, so I checked out a few sermons from the church's website.
Mine run to Jr. High level. I think I should be pleased about this, too, after all, its an oral medium, but it's a bit harder...

Growth: Goal or Outcome?

The most heated discussion our little group of 12 had, in the end, was over the question of whether church growth should be a goal, or is better thought of as an outcome of church health.

On the goal side are those who believe that our way of doing religion has a saving message for the world and we should make a goal of reaching more of those people. On the outcome side are those who believe that the goal should be a healthy church and a program which feeds the spiritual hungers of the community (not the church as it stands, but the larger community, however that is defined.) The "Growth as a Goal" folks are gung ho for setting growth goals, since you gotta have a dream, and we who have such an important message outta dream big. The "Growth as an Outcome" folks believe that you should only set goals about things you can control, and you can't in the end, control whether people visit and like you when they do. They were further somewhat suspicious of numerical goals; it sounds like a too-simple, "bigger is better" trip.

Ours was a multi-generational group of ministers, ranging from three to going on 30 years in ministry and twentys to fifties in age. This particular conversation divided starkly along these generational lines. Newer, younger ministers had growth goals for themselves and their churches. Older, more experienced ministers spoke for growth as an outcome of a healthy, serving church. There was some passion in both groups for their chosen style.

This could be more of a difference in language than substance (the "Growth as a goal" folks know that to get growth, you have to have a vital program, and the "Growth as an outcome" ministers had experienced plenty of growth in spite of not aiming for it.) It could be a result of sadder-but-wiser ministers who have endured plateaus and declines in spite of all the good programming and church health they could muster. It could be that the younger folks are braver and bolder and more willing to take the risk of setting goals.

An observer commented that it seemed that this group of ministers believed that Unitarian Unitarianism has a saving message for the world and that growth is a good thing. The stunned silence that greeted that statement was eloquent testimony to this group's unquestioning passion for our movement and what it has to offer our world.

What about you? Is growth a goal in your church? Why or why not?

Afflicting the Comfortable

It's one of the things ministers are supposed to do, along with comforting the afflicted. At its most simple, this 19th century aphorism reminds ministers to do their pastoral care and their prophetic preaching, 'cause their sick folks are afflicted and need comforting and their pew-sitters are too comfy and need afflicting with the world's injustices.

Young ministers quickly discover that that's way too simple. There are some people who are way comfortable with their afflictions and will soak up all the comfort a new minister can give and still need more. There are some pew-sitters who are in so much pain only an ogre would afflict more.

There are some UU ministers who feel uneasy ministering to UU's, who tend to be among the knowledge and professional classes. Way too comfortable by the world's standards, they all have enough to eat, shelter, and heat, the majority have health insurance, especially if they are over 30, and an awful lot can entertain themselves in all the ways their hearts desire.

The world's standards are very low, and frankly, I think of my folks (and myself) as afflicted in spite of their relative wealth. They are afflicted with all ills the flesh is heir to and are often rather isolated. Their lives are way too busy and terribly stressful, the younger ones often carry huge debt, and most are puzzled and uneasy, if not downright frightened, by the current state of the world. I call that afflicted. Most of my preaching is aimed, not at afflicting the comfortable but offering a word of understanding and healing to the afflicted.

We talked some, at the growth consultation, about how we deal with the prophetic side of ministry, and this was an area in which the 12 ministers of growing church clearly had different philosophies. Some do a lot of teaching about social problems and organizing of social change opportunities. Most of what you read about church growth suggests that this is crucial, but Social Justice has never been this church's strong suit, and it has grown anyway. I preach on social issues on the occasions when I think I have an insight to share. Sometime I just share my puzzlement and talk about how to live with fear. What I never do is just wring my hands, or wave my fists, sermonically. If I can't wring some hope and a to-do list out of a situation (the Iraq war comes immediately to mind), it's not fodder for a sermon, it's fodder for the prayer.

The Other Side of the Story

I had imagined, as had the organizers of this growth consultation, that each of the ministers would have pet programs to share, tips about how to grow, and firm opinions about what had done the trick. This worried me because I wasn't sure what I'd say. I've got an interesting program going on now; our development of branches in small towns, but that has not yet been a very large factor in our growth. My church gets great marks for openness to newcomers and willingness to restructure, but we have not done anything to create growth, and which of the things we've done in the name of good ministry that have caused growth..well, who can say?

The session devoted to nuts and bolts was on the agenda but it turned out that most of the participants felt about like I did, and the conversation at that session turned to love. Our love for our churches, for this denomination, for our work. We all agreed on how key that was. Some of us told stories of our call to our churches that bordered on mystical. When called back to nuts and bolts, we mostly talked about worship, spiritual programming such as covenant groups (and Ken, do tell them about your month of gratitude!). There was some talk about the importance of staff work and how unprepared we all felt for the growing task of supervision, and how this always fraught subject is nearly impossible in our UU World. But then we returned to the relationship between minister and congregation.

I wondered what kind of a consultation this would have been if lay leaders have been invited, and if I were following up on this, I'd invite groups of lay people from churches which have grown to a special lunch at, GA, or the Large or Medium Sized church conferences. I'd feed them well, tell them how special and wonderful they are , and ask some of the same questions. I have a feeling they'd have an entirely different perspective.

They'd talk about good preaching much more than we ministers did, I'm sure, (it was a remarkably un-braggy group) but beyond that, I'm not so sure, and I think it's important to know.

What about it, lay readers of this blog? If your church has grown over the past five years, what has caused that growth? What do you think people come for and what keeps them? What has your hard work been devoted to and why have you done it?

Growth Consultation III-redevelopment

As we told our stories we noticed a stark pattern. With the exception of the brand new church, all of our stories were stories of redevelopment. Several churches, like mine, had been on a plateau for a generation. A couple had declined from previous highs. In one church the leaders had said to each other, "If this doesn't work, we need to think about closing."

A second set of stories, which I particularly resonated with, was told about trust, in particular, trusting the minister's leadership. This is not something that comes naturally to UU's, even less so when there has been difficulty between congregation and ministers.

I digress to tell a personal story. Before I accepted the call to Albuquerque, the retiring District Exec sat me down and told me about the difficulties my predecessors had had and had caused and said (to the 35 year old across the table from him), “You do know what this means, don’t you?” “Yes,” I said, in my most serious and grown up voice, “It means that it will be a long time before they trust me or follow me.” He looked surprised, and then relieved. “Well, he said, “As long as you know that, if you love them, you should go.” “I know it.” I said, and I went.

Now I look back fondly on my long dead colleague (he died within a month of that conversation). I wonder what he meant by “a long time”. I know what I meant. I’m embarrassed to report that I meant two years.

It was fifteen years.

Not that I didn’t do a good deal of leading in my first 15 years, but the lack of trust did make everything twice as hard and the toll on me twice as heavy. But about year 15, some of the invisible plasma that had impeded our life together fell away, and it has been so much easier since.

There is nothing like desperation to get an old guarde to grudgingly trust a new minister, and while desperation to grow can't show to the congregation at large, a little quiet desperation in the leadership is probably a necessary thing. It may be that a minister coming to a church that know itself to be in trouble is more likely to be allowed to help that church grow than a minister coming to a church that thinks it's doing a pretty good job already.

Growth Consultation II

The first question that was asked of us was to articulate the purpose or saving message of our church. I think we were all struck by the openly spiritual statements which were made. This group of 12 ministers of growing churches all believe that the purpose of their churches is spiritual growth of individuals and transformation of the world, in that order. Words like "community" and "like minded" didn't, as far as I remember, figure in the mix at all. The statement I made is my own purpose, I want to offer people an opportunity to deepen their lives within a theologically diverse community. I had considered this boldly spiritual but nearly all of my colleagues had even more specifically spiritual statements to make about the saving message of their church.

I've always had a hunch that one reason my church is a vital religious community is because our worship service, no matter who is leading it, is noticeably worshipful, our program is definitely heavy on spiritual growth opportunities, and our language spiritual, religious, and not dogmatic. I was hoping that that hunch would be confirmed in this gathering, which it was. It's an interesting experience to think you're "way out there" and discover that others of your successful colleagues are even more "way out." Very satisfying.

Growth Consultation

I’ve spent a couple of days now at this event, in Louisville. 10 ministers of churches which have had significant, sustained growth over several years, two ministers of churches we all hope will grow significantly, and a dozen lay and ordained members of the UUA’s growth team. The ministers were chosen to have a good mix of geographies, genders, generations and situations. I feel the honor and the responsibility of the thing, and I am very aware that a different dozen ministers could have been easily and productively chosen. Our conversation has mostly been trying to get at what causes churches to grow, how we encourage or cope with growth, and what qualities of ministry and denominational leadership make for growth. Although all of us, I’m sure, have thought about these questions on our own, read about them, and experimented, when there is only you and your church, there are no controlled experiments. My church has grown…from 400 to 500 members in the 90’s, and now from 500 to 700. My first church grew from 90 to 210 members. What did I do?

Well, gosh, and gee…I just did ministry and then struggled as open-heartedly as I could with the aftermath.

That’s no small issue. However growth happens, it is very clear that all it takes to stop or reverse it is inattention, exhaustion, a good church fight, unwillingness or inability to re-structure, unwillingness to relentlessly change old patterns, guide people in the paths of hospitality, mourn change and move on. In other words, growth is hard work. The observers have repeatedly commented on how much centered energy we 12 ministers seem to have. It’s a contrast to other groups of ministers that I don’t see as clearly as the observers seem to, but I trust them. Is the energy and centeredness the cause of the growth? It seems likely. But it also seems likely to me that the centered energy is a result of the growth. We’re shaped by what we do, and those of us who have managed, by hook or crook, to grow churches have, perhaps of necessity, developed an intensity by sheer dint of hard work and the focus it takes to lead a changing institution.

There's more. I've got lots of reflections and notes, which I'll be posting over the next week. A video is also planned.

The Bus

November starts Air Pollution time in my beautiful city; the temperature inversions near our mountains keep all the car exhaust right down here with us and the smallness of our trees and the wideness of our vistas mean that (a) it doesn't get cleaned up and (b)it is all too visible. So starting in November we have to use more expensive gas and are invited to not drive to work one day a week. I'm lucky enough to live two blocks from a bus line that takes me right to church and have been taking the bus more and more often this last year. I bought a three month pass in July and today I sprung for a 13 month pass. Now I take the bus every day that I don't need a car.

It's a big lifestyle change. It adds a half hour to my work day, which has taken some getting used to, but I feel like I know my city and its people better, and I do get home more relaxed and somewhat better exercised. But mostly, it's my little bit, not only for the winter air quality in my city, but for the world; the island dwellers and polar bears and the African peasants who suffer the most from drought. It's a symbolic gesture which will do no measurable good, except to show that it is possible, even in a sprawling western city, to do a lot on public transportation.

Women in Ministry

A set of statistics has floated around lately; the results of the past two search years in the UUA. They go something like this: 3/5 of the persons in search for a new church are women. 35% of those women were successful in search, vs. 46% of the men. The larger the church, the more likely it was a man who was called to serve it. In congregations of 250 members and above, it seems, a man was twice as likely to be successful as a woman.

Ouch. This is disappointing. We UU's think that we're beyond this.

What does this mean? One possibility that there's a lot more sexism amongst us than we'd like to think. Another possibility is that male ministers pursue their career path more vigorously and are able and willing to move, to put in full time work while raising children, and to move into ministries where they must supervise staff and exert considerable, overt leadership. (ie, fewer of the women in search are applying for the larger churches)

It may be that women still have to be better than their male competition to get a job, and this phenomena gets worse the "more prestigious" the pulpit. It may be that churches and search committees have unconscious prejudices or that their expectations of their minister-to-be are so high that only a man with a wife to hold down the home front could possibly do them, especially if there are young children in the family.

It may mean that, these days, the average male minister (now a minority entity,) is more skilled and dedicated and "together" than the average female minister. (This is very politically incorrect to think, I know. But I'm sure I noticed the reverse when I was in theological school; the average women, though a minority, was more skilled and dedicated and together than the average man. This was much more obvious amongst my Methodist friends, where women were less welcome than in my UU circles. Why beat your head against the brick wall of minority-ness unless you're really good at this?)


Thinking about all of those women, many of whom are now retired, and their careers leads me to my own theory about sexism, women, and ministry. I'm inclined to think that search committees are fairly open minded on the subject of having a woman minister. I've been in conversation with a dozen or so over the years and I've only once thought I detected a real strain of sexism. But I think that the women ministers themselves have been beaten down by the difficulties of being a woman in ministry. It's not easy being a man in ministy, either, but to all those shared difficulties, women add the difficulty of the unconscious, unspoken sexism in our society, which means that women have to be twice as forceful as a man to be heard but are liked less and less the more forceful they are, and women ministers bear a burden of projection of people's "mother stuff". Male ministers get "father stuff", but in this society, "father stuff" is a lot less potent and troublesome than "mother stuff".

So a woman's first ministry is hard, the resistance is subtle, (and often from women, which is confusing and painful), and the line very thin between being a leader and being strident. It's extra hard for the woman minister to figure out, when she gets negative feedback, what's sexism and what she really needs to look at. Conflicts with others are always her fault...after all, women are supposed to get along, and women ministers are supposed to get along with everyone. So ministry for women is harder, more perplexing, not as much fun, always requires a kind of heightened survival instinct. Because of all that, it is easier to quit, harder to take career risks, harder to imagine oneself a minister of a large church.

So if it turns out to be mostly true that women are self-selecting less challenging ministries, that does not absolve us of sexism. And if we are making things harder for our talented women ministers, we're the losers in the end, after all. There are apparently not enough ministers willing and able to serve our larger churches; several very attractive larger churches didn't settle a minister last year. We can't afford to handicap 3/5 of our pool with the results of a sexism we don't believe in.

change

My grocery store closed. There's no grocery store within walking distance of our house any more. (well...there are two that are a half hour walk away. Abe Lincoln would have considered that walking distance. And there's Target, which sells safe groceries. No meat, no produce, mostly prepared things frozen, boxed, or canned... but no real grocery store close enough that you can get milk home before it turns sour.

My newspaper is going out of business. It's the liberal, evening paper. Albuquerque must be the smallest two-paper city in the nation, but...no more. I'd go out of the daily newspaper business entirely, but my son loves the comics and we need old papers for the iguana cage.

My gym class got less and less satisfactory and I finally quit. Of the two classes that fit my life, one is so crowded that it's unpleasant and the the teacher of the second class moves so fast and includes dance steps...I feel incompetent. It's bad enough that I have to lift weights for an hour...oh, do I hate lifting weights...but to also feel incompetent...it is too much.

Yesterday a hurricane-induced front rolled through Albuquerque during church. The wind blew, the clouds rolled around and it was suddenly very humid. Some people clearly found this exhilerating. "Change is in the Air!" they quipped as the came on to the church patio. "Fall is here!" Others were clearly uncomfortable and uneasy. I was one of those. Too much is too much.

First life Second life fame

The reporter from the Albuquerque paper said she'd been assigned to write a business article about the computer "game", Second Life. She'd gotten my name from google's UU World mention a few months ago, but was still quite hazy about Second Life and how it worked. So I tried to explain it to her. I gave her some names of other Albuquerque folks who were actually doing things on Second Life; it's been a long time since I was even there. I thought that would be the end of it, but a photographer called last week for an appointment; an article was to appear in the weekend paper, and they wanted my picture. So...my Avatar and I appeared, top of the fold on the front page this morning.

News is slow in August.

My congregation was thrilled, and for whatever reason, church was packed this morning.


Here's the text. Considering the fact that I very foolishly let my "reporter-gard" down completely, I thought it came out pretty well.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

People Do Business, Shop With Virtual Dollars, Even Worship in Internet-Based World

By Autumn Gray
Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal; Assistant Business Editor
Members of a local Unitarian Universalist church know their senior minister as Christine Robinson. In her second life, she is Cathryn Cleanslate.
Albuquerque marketer Reid Givens calls his digital persona Reid Delaid.
And local software designer Lynne Whitehorn-Umphres assumes the name CoyoteAngel Dimsum in her virtual existence.
Each has taken up residency in an Internet-based realm called Second Life— a world of three-dimensional graphic design that imitates real life and has attracted 9 million users worldwide.
SecondLife.com, created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab in 2003, offers a virtual society designed completely by its resident members. Members appear on-screen as animated representations of themselves, called avatars. They work, shop, play, dance— do practically anything they
can, or can't, do in this life. They even marry other avatars.
"It's fascinating how like real life it is," says Robinson, who has presided over a virtual wedding.
Second Life has also become a venue for business, networking and education. Even the University of New Mexico has property there, intending to expand its distance-learning capabilities.
International corporations like IBM, as well as small entrepreneurs, use the site to market their products and sell their wares— both virtual and real.
In one 24-hour period at the end of last week, Second Life residents had spent a little more than $1 million (yes, that's real money) on virtual purchases or activities.
The site has made national headlines recently due to its popularity. Last week, a Wall Street Journal story titled "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?" wrote about concerns that users were neglecting their First Life to spend time with their Second Life.
That doesn't appear to be the case with Robinson, Whitehorse-Umphres and Givens— all appear to use it to enhance their real life.
Business opportunities are ultimately why Whitehorse-Umphres became a resident. Not only has she begun helping her spouse set up a jewelry store in Second Life, she also intends to begin her own high-tech, money-making venture.
Givens uses it as a continuing education tool— attending virtual meetings with others of similar professions to talk shop.
And Robinson says having a virtual church in Second Life gives her a chance to connect with a broader audience.
"We're basically in the business of helping people discuss their spiritual life," Robinson said of the church, "and this was just another way to do that."
Virtual worship
The First Unitarian Universalist Church of Second Life is an example of how the site works. It holds regular virtual services and has built a sanctuary on virtual property it purchased.
A three-dimensional visual wonder created by a UU artist, the church offers attending avatars cushioned seating, a flaming chalice, stone pulpit, lush plants and a waterfall flowing over rock walls.
Robinson found the church through a search engine on Second Life once she became a resident in the spring. On sabbatical from the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque, she began ministering to the online congregation.
"They had worship services that were as real and as meaningful as anything I've felt in real life," she said.
Personally, Robinson says she has spent money for the virtual collection plate and has bought materials to make a virtual necklace for her avatar.
Be prepared to pay
Second Life has its own economy, based on the Linden currency, and real money gets exchanged. Roughly 275 Lindens ($L), which buy Second Life goods and services, can be bought with one real dollar ($US).
Registering for residency is free— if all you want is to exist and move about. Just create an avatar name and password, and you're in. A 3D graphics card, high-speed processor and broadband connection are helpful, too.
But, as in real life, property costs money, and if your goal is to start a business, own a home, or do anything of permanence, be prepared to pay.
Multinational corporations have gotten involved.
Pontiac and Nissan both have car dealerships in Second Life, and Nissan offers avatars a test-track to try out their driving skills on virtual cars; Coca-Cola recently launched a Hollywood-style premier there; and Microsoft has begun conducting interviews with the avatars of software engineers for real-world jobs, according to a recent segment on National Public Radio.
Avatars buy and sell everything from virtual sneakers at a store created by Nike, to textures for their hair and skin (avatars may have scales or horns, for example, as opposed to just looking human), to planes, and, yes, even sex. All are graphic renderings that can be used or worn or carried by avatars.
Software designer Whitehorn-Umphres is pursuing a job creating computer programs specifically for virtual technology.
She is also helping her spouse, Albuquerque jeweler Dana Whitehorn-Umphres, set up a gallery there.
The shop would allow avatars to try on virtual models of jewelry that exists in this world. An avatar could then purchase the graphically depicted item for wear online or a person might click an accompanying link allowing them to buy the real thing for the big bucks in this world.
Either way, Dana makes money.
"For people who are actual entrepreneurs, it's a brilliant environment to try this out," Lynne said.
Way of the future?
Futurist Lowell Catlett, a dean at New Mexico State University, has been speaking around the state about virtual worlds.
He says technologies like Second Life afford businesses one of the first living labs where social behavior can be watched and studied in real time.
Coldwell Banker earlier this year established an office in the virtual world, built more than 500 homes for sale and even purchased a helicopter to give avatars aerial tours of the subdivision.
Michael Wilsher, qualifying broker for the Rio Rancho offices of Coldwell Banker, has been encouraging his sellers— as recently as August— to create their own avatars and start networking and selling through the virtual land.
"I tell my agents, 'Guys, don't wait til everybody's doing it. Do it now. It's a no-brainer.' ''
"Yes, a lot of it is for fun," he says, "but people are actually buying things, and people actually make decisions (in Second Life)."
Educational uses
Second Life is also proving beneficial for education.
UNM's New Media and Extended Learning Department is interested in using the online environment to improve distance learning, says its director, Debby Knotts.
The department obtained property in Second Life through a national entity called the New Media Consortium, which bought an entire island in the virtual world for its members. UNM's plot sits adjacent to the Center for Digital Storytelling, Knotts said, though no UNM building exists yet.
Givens, who works in Albuquerque, uses Second Life more for continuing education than as a money-maker. He just became employed with a marketing company called MindSpace and says he attends a meeting called Coffee with Crayon developed by the marketing company Crayon.
The online forum attracts people in his profession nationwide.
"Everybody just talks shop," says Givens, who adds he also attends an occasional concert through a nightclub in Second Life.
"It is a tool," Givens says of the virtual world. "It's not going to revolutionize business and marketing, but it is going to have an impact. How much depends in part on the goal of the company."

By the numbers
9 million
Number of residents on SecondLife.com
456,000
Number of people in-world in a recent seven-day period
$1 Million
Amount spent in a 24-hour period

Happiness Is

My 18 year old apple tree, which had for several years been so overcome by coddling moths that we didn't get a single apple, has recovered to the point where almost half of the crop is worm-free and another quarter only lightly damaged. I had tried every organic thing I could try over the years; spraying is out because the tree overhangs our neighbor's narrow patio. In the end, I guess, the trick was several years of cleaning up under the tree (coddling moths bore a hole in the developing apple, eat the core leaving a disgusting mess, and when the rotting apple drops to the ground, burrows in the soil for the winter) and something called sticky traps; red apple-sized globes which are coated with the most remarkably sticky stuff ever invented. They're awful to deal with; the sticky stuff gets in everything, but they seem to be working, and I have apples again! I have such a sense of accomplishment: I've nursed a tree back to health. You don't do that every day! Joy, joy, joy!

Apple Sauce, apple butter, baked apples, fried apples, apple crisp, apples in hand, apple bread, apple cake, apple juice. Glory, Hallelujah!

Daily Prayer Books

mjae left a comment below asking about daily prayer books. The one I've used for years is to the right: Sounds of the Eternal by Phillip Newell. It's a non-Christian, Celtic Spirituality-based book, meant for interfaith worship. Phillip Newell is from Scotland, but spends a couple of months in residence at Casa del Sol at Ghost Ranch here in New Mexico, and after spending some time with him last Summer, I started working through Celtic Blessings..also to the right. It has daily Bible readings...beautifully rendered, about 6 weeks worth. I'm enjoying it as a structure to my morning time.

I'd love to hear more (see comments!) from readers about any daily prayer/meditation/reading they use!

The Postlude to Deathly Hallows

If you don’t want to know the ending of this book, don’t read on.

Several people in my church have told me how disappointed they were with the epilogue to Deathly Hallows, when Rowling relates the small doings of all the people who survived the era of Voldemort. What they named their children, what those children’s lives and anxieties were like, a few hints as to what the parents did for a living…it’s a domestic scene so utterly unlike the ferocious unreality of the body of the 7 books that, frankly, it’s a bit hard to take. All that blood, sweat, and tears, so that we’d know that 19 year old Teddy is kissing 18 year old Victoire, (oh, how I hate that Brittish expression “snogging”: I refuse to use it!) and that little Albus Severus is worring himself sick that he will be sorted into Slitherin House at school? It just doesn’t seem quite fitting. It just goes against our ironic natures; it’s a little too happy for UU’s, I think. It’s better suited to our neighbors in the Church of Religious Science from which we return, when we stray, shaking our heads saying, “They’re so….optimistic!” We want a few more scars, more PTSD, another generation family dysfunction. We think that is “realistic.” We UU’s didn’t fall very far from our Puritan tree.

I was disappointed too, but this odd little add-on is growing on me. A bit of a poem by my colleague Lynn Unger put it in perspective. She’s talking about the Lillies of the field and our obsession with our appointments. She ends,

Of course

your work will always matter.

Yet Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these.

Life is supposed to be lovely and happy and free and focused on the small doings of our families and gardens. That’s what Jesus was trying to say. Lynn softens it to reassure us that the stands we take and the accomplishments of our appointments do also matter. But they are derivative. The lily itself is the important thing.

Wiki Wise

Yesterday, I had a little rite of passage; I edited my first Wikipedia article. (Wikipedia is a user-written, on-line encyclopedia) After avoiding Wikipedia for years because of its unreliable start up, and at the urging of my always correct (in matters of internet) 17 year old son, I started using it in my research and finding it useful and valuable. But then came a need to look up the details of the Half-way Covenant, an obscure piece of Puritan churchmanship which laid the foundations for Unitarianism. The Wikipedia article didn't explain the situation very well, and there was a banner at the top of the page begging for source material. So I got out of my chair, got my seminary American Religious History text down, looked up what I wanted, re-wrote the Wiki, and added chapter and verse. I wasn't absolutely sure I was doing it all right, but today when I checked, my edits and source were all there. It was a bit of a thrill!

Today's UUWorld.org article comments that a web-based world might be good for liberalism in religion in the same way that the printing press was good for liberalism in it's day. When people started reading the Bible for themselves instead of just hearing sermons about it, it got them to actively thinking about what they believed and which church structures were biblical. Similarly, the information glut on the web and the user-activity of it all might get more people thinking actively about their faith. I hope he's right!

iMinistering

The book manuscript is IN!
All congratulations accepted!
Now the editors at Skinner House will do their magic on it. No doubt there's a bunch of work left, but this feels like a milestone. My co-author is celebrating with a vacation in England. I'm celebrating by getting back to blogging.

The book will provide resources for spiritual sharing groups, covenant groups, small group ministry, by whatever name. Most of the book consists of materials to help group members think about the topic, so that when they come to the group, they will not be speaking "off the top of their heads." Our title at the moment is Upon Consideration.

Now...back to the garden, the knitting, the reading, and the normal activities of Summer!

Hiroshima Day

The picture is the peace memorial in Hiroshima, depicting the child victim of cancer who died before she completed folding her 1,000th paper crane....which Japaneese folklore says gives the folder a long life.

It is so hard to hold two contrasting truths at the same time.

The suffering of Hiroshima was horrible, and the Bomb and its possible use has been a scourge on humanity ever since, hovering in the background of nightmares.

But it ended a war; a war which was justly fought against an aggressor. As my father (who, if I remember the story correctly, was boarding a ship for Japan when it happened) reminded me several times in my pacifist youth, if we hadn't dropped the bomb, I might not be here. The projected loss of life in the assault on Japan was very, very high.

It is hard, but it is possible, to mourn the terrible consequences of a thing that was rightly done. Indeed, I believe that if we are not to loose our humanity in the hurly burly of life, it is necessary to mourn the terrible consequences even of things rightly done.

Today is Hiroshima Day. With the now rebuilt city of Hiroshima, we must pray for peace.

Fruit Season

We're coming to the end of fruit season for the year. The blackberries are dwindling down to one serving a day. We've made our last blackberry sherbet for the year. The plums petered out last week, although the birds are still feasting on the remains. Peaches, cherries, and raspberries are long gone. The apple tree is heavy with fruit, but this tree is infested with coddling moths, so we'll get some apple juice out of it and perhaps one apple dessert.

We have several kinds of fruit pureed in the freezer, awaiting the smoothies which are a regular part of our diet. And we'll buy apples, oranges, and grapes through the year. I can't quite wrap my head around the experiment that Barbara Kingsolver made with her family and eat only in-season, local food, though I very much admire her values. (see side bar...it's a great book about food, cooking, gardening, and politics).

Still, the fruit season is a wonderful time of the year, and it's about over now.

Vegetable season is starting up. We have squash, peppers, and tomatoes, with cucumbers and beans on the way. But one does eat those last blackberries with great relish!