Learning into a Multi-Cultural UU World

Another question posed by the UUA staff in their strategic plan for ministry was this:  What can we learn from our community ministers about living into the promise of our multicultural world?


Interesting question which I hope some folks with more experience in community ministry will chime in to answer.  But I have  (what a surprise!)  a different bias on this question, which comes from my experience of modest effectiveness in diversifying congregations.

I believe that multi-cultural congregations are like happiness.  You don't become happy by setting that as your goal and going towards it full-tilt.  You get happy by making relationships, developing interests, lending a helping hand, dealing with your inner demons and so on.   Happiness, in other words, is a by-product of life effectiveness.

I think that multi-cultural congregations are similarly a product of congregational effectiveness, rather than goal-setting or learning,  especially effectiveness in reaching the Gen X and Millennial generations, where "multi-cultural" is the name of their game.   Sometimes it seems to me that our fantasy is that if we learn enough about being a multi-cultural congregation, we will enjoy great waves of 50 and 60 year old persons of color who have been patiently waiting for us to get our act together.  I doubt this.  If we achieve our goal of multi-culturalism, it will be because we have attracted young people to our church and welcomed them...their music, their visual learning style, their multi-culturalism, and most of all, their desire to explicitly address their spiritual lives.

It seems to me that Community ministers might have something to teach us, but that our RE community has more to teach us and that they should be consulted, too.  

Ministry and Internet

Another question from the UUA Staff's Strategic Plan for Ministry

What are the implications of social networking for the future of our bricks and mortar ministries? As Philip Clayton put it in his article Theology and the Church after Google, “Do we really inhabit two different worlds: those who text, Twitter and blog, and get 80% of our information from the Internet, and those who are “not comfortable” with the new social media and technologies?


In the article mentioned, Clayton follows this question with another question:  Could we today be facing a change in how human society is organized that is as revolutionary in its implications as was the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg over 500 years ago?


I answer the second question,  "Yes!"  although, we are not "facing" that change, we are "living" that change.  How it will all play out in changed lives and societies is a big question.  Clearly it has changed leisure among the wealthy and revolutions among the poor.   No doubt there is more to come.  Those of us who care about liberal values will have to be light on our feet and deeply thoughtful to work on the right causes in such a climate.


But because I answer the second question,  "yes!",   I am impatient with the tone of the first question.  Those who are "not comfortable" with new technologies will get more and more out of the mainstream and it will be harder and harder to work with them.  Frankly I think that one of the great favors that a church can do for it's elderly or otherwise challenged members is to entice them into the digital world.  


I am not ready to think that the digital world will be the end of the bricks and mortar world, however.  I could be wrong, but I believe that there will still be church buildings in 2061.  I believe that people will still enjoy worshiping. learning,  and eating together, that staffs will still work together in offices, and that much will be as it is now.  What will have changed is how we attract people to church; that will be almost 100% digital (It is nearly that already.), and the fact that we will have the option to have  on-line groups, trainings, and meetings, and that the resources we provide for spiritual development of our members (which will be the only reason people join churches in the future), will be available on our website as well as in sermons and classes.  A church doing its web ministry well will reach many more people, dispersed all over the globe, than any one church ever could before.  Helping those folks contribute to the upkeep of those resources will be a challenge, as we have all come to expect that the best things on the internet will be free.  


As always I welcome your comments!   And just as an example of how quickly things have changed,   most of the comments from the blog post, will be left on my Facebook page, where this post shows up automatically.  So if you want to see the discussion,  friend me on Facebook! 

Ministerial Credentialing: from the UUA Staff Strategic Plan

The UUA Staff's strategic plan for Ministry (posted here) makes one recommendation about ministerial credentialing, which is a creature of the Fellowship Committee which, by bylaw, reports to the Board, not the staff.  They recommend that the RSCC get out of the gatekeeping business and act in a support and advisory capacity.  I have to agree with this recommendation; it's clear that, for all the good intentions this program started with, it has just become a second MFC.  I hope that the MFC takes this up.

The staff appends a set of questions to their recommendations which they feel need more and wider discussion.  One of which is:

 Do the various credentialing programs mold the leaders we need for the future,  or are they based on outdated models of ministerial excellence?

This is an interesting way of stating the problem, which, I believe is one of  the most important problems we need to solve as we face the future.   I've made no secret of my doubts about the effectiveness of our system; if you search this blog for the tags,  "credentialing" and "Excellence in Ministry", you will see lots on the subject.

but back to the question, and about it, I have a question.  Should it be the task of a credentialing program to MOLD leaders?   That starts to smack of "teaching to the test", which appears to be the current bane of public education.   Given the general lack of accountability in our current system with the MFC, which keeps no statistics about its effectiveness and does not publish its standards, and their overwhelming work load, perhaps we need two bodies, as a denomination; one to ask the question,  "What do we Want in our Leaders?" and another to be the gatekeeper, using those standards.

But my overall reaction to this question is that the problems I see with the MFC don't have to do with outdated models of ministerial excellence, but rather with outdated models of professional formation...which assume that a person should not enter a profession until they are fully qualified.   I would say that that model doesn't fit ministry...probably it doesn't fit most "wisdom" professions.  I think that the best we can do is make judgments about safety, rather than qualifications.  Is this a person who is mature enough and moral enough to avoid doing harm?   Are they minimally qualified?  If so, let them try, because frankly, we can't tell at this stage how effective they will be...and it is too expensive for everyone to wait until we are sure!

If I could wave my magic wand over the UU World,  we would have a system whereby new ministers were screened (probably by the staff) for basic competence (by which I mean, they have passed their academic work and have raised no red flags in the minds of their internship and CPE supervisors, and have a clean background check).  These new ministers would enter into a probationary period during which they were actively mentored by UUA staff as well as colleagues.  (the current once a month phone call with a self-chosen and usually far-away "mentor"  is completely inadequate to the task of ministerial formation).  The congregations who hired them would be mentored and watched as well. (because it is not unknown for congregations to choose a "green" minister in order to keep the balance of power in the lay leadership and remain complacent)   During this time their ordination would be local and temporary.  When a new minister completed three years of full time ministerial work (or its equivalent in part time work), they would be eligible for Final Fellowship and a "tenured" ordination.  Their task at that point would be to present the actual results of their ministry, rather than the results of their experience in seminary, which is really quite a different thing.  Much of this would be a matter of portfolio review.  Not everyone would be asked to interview with a committee; it's obvious after three years who is succeeding in ministry, and who has never gotten a job or who has failed. It's an expensive thing we do, interviewing virtually everyone who asks us.  

Just a thought, and I welcome comments!

Another Question from the Strategic Plan for Ministry

(Which you can find at the UUA.org website)

Is the Masters of Divinity still the best pathway to the ordained ministry? What alternatives might we explore?

This question could have a couple of meanings.  The first involves the degree itself, which is actually not required for our ministers if you can show you have equivalent preparation.   The M.Div is one of the few generalist masters degree programs left in the educational pantheon, and a UU minister certainly needs that broad preparation; academic, religious, spiritual, and practical.  We want our ministers to have knowledge of religious history, theology, UU'ism, world religions, psychology, social theories, the multi-cultural world, scriptures, literature.  We want them to be mature and have basic management and leadership skills, not to mention wisdom, writing and public speaking skills, and church smarts.  Most of all, we need them to be theologically and spiritually grounded and able to assist others (of different theological and spiritual bents) to be grounded.   The M.div attempts all of that.  When added to clinical work and church internship, I think it covers all the bases.

But I have a feeling that the question really means,  "is seminary education as we used to know it still the best pathway for ordained ministry?"  That is to say, is the best preparation for ministry embedding oneself in a community of persons preparing for ministry, probably within an interfaith/academic context?

The answer to that question is that even if it is the best, it is probably unaffordable, and even then, only by mooching on the Methodists (and a few other old-line denominations) who endowed their seminaries with scholarship funds which they are generous in sharing with UU's.  I myself took advantage of this generosity and got a fine education.  After a semester of sabbatical, watching our Seminary at Meadville re-make itself for a more affordable and sustainable future,  I believe that we will feel this loss, and will have to find ways to compensate for it.  The graduates who will not come into ministry in debt to their eyeballs will, it is hoped, be able to continue their ministerial formation more easily in their early years of ministry.

Meadville has gone to a distance-learning model which embeds those preparing for ministry in local congregations and gathers students for intensive learning experiences during the year.  I think that it is possible that these students will get something out of their seminary experience that traditional students don't get; a long-term view of ministry and congregations.    Students are also involved in learning groups which meet by telephone and with their professors via email and teleconferences, and it is clear that they form deep bonds in these groups.   They have some brief experiences of traditional seminary during the intensive course month of January, but the coursework they are involved in is, well, intense.

I hear that Starr King is also reaching out in distance-learning, although it still offers a more traditional resident community.  And I believe that about 2/3 of students studying for the ministry are studying in seminaries of other denominations, either because they are near where they live or because they  want that traditional seminary experience and have been offered scholarship help to afford it.

If the question means,  "Would it be possible to do as the Evangelicals do, to self-educate ministers within congregations?"  I think that the answer is "no."    The Evangelical model of ministry is different from ours.  It is deeper in some ways, and considerably narrower.  The areas in which it is deeper, such as spirituality and biblical study, can be taught within a large church (quite a bit larger than any of our churches...) The breadth that we expect in our minister's training can only be gotten within academia, and probably within a program specifically designed to prepare for our kind of ministry.  The distance-learning models that, in different ways, ours and other seminaries are exploring, will probably be the "new way" that people prepare for ministry.   What we should be exploring is how churches and the support of ministry need to change to produce fine ministers, given the reality of this distance-learning preparation.

Should Unitarian Universalists Have Deacons?

The UUA staff has released a strategic plan for professional ministry, which has some important, needed changes and plans in it (not all of which can be staff driven, and must get buy-in from others) in this document.

More interesting to me, the end of this document poses some very interesting questions that they feel the UU World (that is, all of us, not the magazine) needs to discuss and think about.  So...I thought I'd do that and start conversations on this blog and other places.   Here's the first question:


• Given that many congregations now and in the future will struggle to afford full time ministry, should we open up our ministerial credentialing system to some variation of a deaconate – a lay leadership program to serve in entrepreneurial and part-time ministry settings.

I believe that if we are serious about being a religious body; that is, a faith that helps people deepen their spiritual lives, we have no choice but to have a program which trains and authorizes lay people to be agents of deepening spirituality in their lay-led congregations.  Otherwise, not only will the religious needs of people in lay-led congregations be largely un-met, but there will remain a substantial minority of UU's who will be resistant to this focus because they themselves can not benefit from it.   (And it is my opinion that if we don't embrace this focus, we will not survive the next century.  Hardly anybody, anywhere,  is going to join our congregations in order to experience freedom from religion any more.)

However, it is also true that authorizing lay ministers make professional ministers very nervous, and should make us all a bit nervous.

• There is the issue of possible competition.  A Lay Ministry program would probably seem to some ministers as hampering their ability to get a job.  It would no doubt happen that some congregations would opt for talented and energetic lay leadership over an ordained minister who might not, in their opinion serve them as well.   (in my opinion, we ministers have to let this one go, for the good of the whole.)
• There is the issue of congregations choosing Lay Ministry because they don't want to be challenged to be the best UU congregation they can be.  (I think this objection can be met by a good training program)
• There is the issue of creating a group of people who do not have the training or boundaries of professional ministers "acting like" ministers and doing harm.  (I think that this objection can be met by only authorizing "local" ministers, ie, you're a lay minister when you are doing the work of ministry your congregation has asked you to do, nowhere else, and no longer than that work  lasts.) 
• There is the issue of determined lay people forcing themselves on their overwhelmed, lay-led congregations,  creating a situation where a close-knit group  doesn't feel free to say,  "no" to an aspiring lay leader.  (I think that this objection can be met by carefully created criteria of authorizing lay ministers).  

There are  probably other issues and I look forward to hearing what some of them might be.  Just to throw out a proposal, here's mine

Authorization for Lay Ministry would begin by a person's successfully completing several very substantial weekend moduals...as RE directors, for instance, have had in their Renaissance program.

It would continue with an inquiry from a local congregation about bringing this person on as a PAID (even if only at "honorarium" or "expense-only"  lay leader in some capacity.  (nothing like budget implications to give a group good boundaries!)  That congregation would be helped to put good personnel practices into place and form a "Lay Minister" committee which would help this person continue their formation. (like an intern committee)   Training opportunities would continue, the aspiring lay minister would be assigned to a peer group, and to a professional minister-mentor.  If all went well after a trial time, the lay minister would acquire an official title; perhaps with an installation service.  However, that title would only be valid in that place.

I would not start this program by allowing lay ministers to serve in entrepreneurial (self-gathered) situations.  There is a substantial extra burden of risk of dysfunctionality  which we should avoid, at least at first.  However, I do not think we should preclude full-time work by lay ministers, especially in large congregations.

Ok, readers, go to it!  I look forward to seeing your comments and programs you lay out on your blogs!

The last questions

from the staff are...

Who are we? Who are we becoming? To whom do we belong?

You all have been such good readers, I'm going to let you answer these questions.  Comment away!

Supporting Visitors with Google Maps

Traveling on Sabbatical, I've been visiting UU Churches, and the way I find them is with Google Maps, which gives me addresses, map placement, street-side pictures, websites, and directions using car or transit.  (the transit directions are particularly valuable; Google knows when the trains run and tells me how long it will take to walk from the train station to the church.)   

Did you know that you can personalize and add information to your church's Google Map listing?  The person in charge of every congregation's web presence (you do have someone in charge of your web presence, don't you?) should check on the accuracy of Google's guesses about you, upload a logo, and make it look like you've paid attention.

And then some folks who cares about that church, members and visitors alike, should write a review of the church on Google Maps.   Nothing like 10 reviews to make a hesitant visitor think that this is a going concern!  

It's the best sort of publicity, and it's all free!

Abq's who follow this blog:  we've only got one review at the moment....

What Hospitality Really Means

Is simple: welcoming the stranger by attending to their needs first.
I have been visiting churches during this sabbatical.  (This is always the most fruitful activity of sabbatical).
And not been too impressed with the welcome, frankly.   Tools seem to be in place, but the spirit is all wrong.

For instance, a friend and I showed up in a UU church where one came out of the cold into a foyer.  Ushers stood in a line perpendicular to the doors, and handed us programs with a perfunctory smile....but didn't catch on to our  "what now?" looks.  It wasn't at all clear from them, from architecture or signage where the sanctuary actually was.  We looked around, bewildered, and nobody rescued us.  Finally I turned back to the usher and asked him which way to the sanctuary.  "Oh, are you visiting?" he asked.  "Here, here's the welcome table".  He handed us over to a woman standing behind the table.  Nothing was clearer than that her only sense of what she was supposed to do was get  our information....and entire page of information.  She handed us a notebook and a pen and then remembered to say good morning.  She pointed out name tags.

I'm from out of town.  I didn't need to be followed up on or to get a newsletter.  I came to worship that day.  That's all I did, and that's all I wanted to do.  It happens that I'm a UU...I knew I'd be in tune with the message at this church.  .  If I'd been a seeker, I'd have been even less interested in giving my information to these people...until I was sure I'd want to come again.  But short of being rude, it was impossible.

The moral of the story:  Smile and guide visitors on their way in.  Give them whatever information they ask for.  Get contact information on their way out....when and if they want to give it to you.  Better Yet, put a "Thanks for Visiting Us" link to your website in the order of service explaining that at this site, visitors can give feedback, leave contact information, and ask questions.  (if you have lots of elderly visitors, you can also invite them to do this after the service at the visitor's table.)

For a humorous look at things from the visitor's perspective, check out this little video which comes to us from the Evangelical world...but parts of it are oh, so, pointedly true of us, too!
What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church?


P.S.  Architecture and signs are really important in giving newcomers a clue as to what they are supposed to do. If you are not blessed in this way, your greeters and ushers can be on the look out for the bewildered or even standing in such a way that they make clear where a person is supposed to go.   For most people, nothing gets them started off quite so badly as feeling like an idion...

UU's and God

When someone tells me that they don't believe in God, I usually say,  "That's interesting.  Tell me about the kind of God you don't believe in."   When they get over their surprise, they quickly warm to their task and tell me about the God to whom they were introduced as children...the guy in the sky; possibly angry, sometimes spying, always meddling.   Sometimes they worked out for themselves at a very young age that sitting in the clouds was an impossible feet.  Sometimes they came early to the conclusion that no God who could be called, "good" would cause them such pain and anguish.  Sometimes they believed it all for a good long time, and then met science teachers or loving non-believers and then felt that they had been duped.

There are many good reasons for not believing in God.  But there is no good reason for a grown up to insist that the guy in the sky is the only kind of God and that all believers in God believe in that kind.  That's a patent falsehood about theology and about people, and UU's, dedicated as we are to truth, have no business espousing it.  

For a quick and lively run-down of  other kinds of God you might or might not believe in, check out this article,  Got God?   from the Winter UU World.

Screening Precious Human Bodies

I have three thoughts about what looks to be the most interesting...and in some ways very important...news of the moment...That a fellow refused to go through the new scanners at the airport, told a screener,  "If you touch my junk I'll have you arrested"  (while filming the whole thing on his phone...hummmm....).

My first thought is that I'm sorry that men have taken to calling their sexual organs "junk".   How self-demeaning that is?  If it's just junk, why be so pissy about it being touched?   Think, guys! Your bodies are sacred.  That's the point of all this upset.

My second thought is this.  Has anyone who objects to someone in a room far away scan the unclothed outline of their body for 20 seconds before discarding the picture come up with a better idea for how to manage safety in a world in which people put bombs in their underpants?  If they have, I'm all ears.  I think that the TSA has done a great job thinking out the necesseties of this kind of scanning and making it as unhurtful as possible.  Albuquerque has had these scanners for a couple of years now...we were a test site.  Believe me, folks, they are quite benign.   And I'm willing to trust that they are safe, (as much radiation as 3 minutes at 30,000 feet they say...not even pilots can object to another three minutes.) until I hear something a little less hysterical than I've been hearing about safety.

So...actually, I don't have much sympathy for people who refuse to go through these scanners and then get upset about the indignities of the pat down.

But I believe that there are some people who, because they have knee replacements and such, have to go through the pat down every time.  And that pat-down does sound pretty invasive to me.  Not quite as invasive as what a doctor does, of course, but still...it would take the pleasure out of flying for me if I had to do it every time.

So here's my idea for a compromise.

Let's we Americans grow up, buck up, adjust to the new realities, and thank TSA for making this new kind of  scanning safe, painless, and dignified.  In return, let's demand that those who for reasons they can't help, like medical hardware,  have an alternative to an invasive, uncomfortable procedure every time they fly.

Of course, we could decide that it's ok with us if underwear bombs go off in airplanes every once in a while, because safety procedures are just too onerous.   It probably wouldn't happen very often, and the carnage would be less than the number of highway deaths in the nation for that month in any case.  Whatcha say?

Integrating High Schools, then and now

A generation of GLBT teens is in the process of integrating the nation's middle and high schools.  That's the truth of the matter..most GLBT teens in previous generations didn't come out in High School, didn't ask to bring same sex partners to proms, didn't demand equality.  This generation and their parents are, and apparently they are taking it on the chin.  Some are taking it so hard they are committing suicide, and you know many more must be succumbing in more moderate...but still very dangerous to their long-term mental health... ways to the depression which causes suicide.

In the 1950's-70's a generation of African American teens integrated often very hostile schools, sometimes in situations where adults were a part of the hostility, and, as far as I remember, there was no rash of suicides.  Depression and long term consequences of a difficult adolescence is harder to measure, of course, and non-experts like me wouldn't know about them.

But I wonder if anybody learned anything about racial integration in teen society that could be applied to GLBT integration of teen society.

Just as a for instance, I imagine that many Black teens believed that the abuse they were taking was in the service of something important for society.  Do GLBT kids feel that way?  If not....perhaps besides telling them that "it gets better", perhaps we should be telling them that they are courageous, strong, and the vanguard of a better world for us all.

A Doggy Diatribe

I have loved a few dogs in my life, but lately, I've od'd on them.  Not on the dogs themselves, actually, but on the role they seem to play in people's lives, which is attention getting/intimacy avoiding.

That really cute dog who jumps around, needs to be told to sit, given a biscuit, made to lie down, let outside,  let in again...told to stop barking....what that pretty much prevents is a real conversation.  We just chat about the dog.  

Babies have a similar effect on the social life of parents of course, but babies grow up and the attention lavished on them is needed and worthy.   But people get dogs and let them rule their relational life on purpose.  

You can, of course, have a dog to cuddle with AND have good friends...just put the dog in its crate or yard or back room when friends come, or train it to curl up and sleep and not insist on being the center of attention.  

A Thick Story

I went to a workshop in New Orleans last weekend and, among other things,  heard  about "thin" stories and "thick" stories.  Thin stories are stories about other people, and tend to be short on detail, on understanding what was really going on, on meaning.  Thick stories are about ourselves, what we wanted, meant, hoped for...much more useful.

With that in my mind, when the New Orleans cab driver started in on stories of rape and murder in the convention center during Katrina, thin stories and not even mostly true ones, I interrupted to ask him about his own  experience of the hurricane crisis...and he had an extraordinarily story to tell.

Although he lost his home and everything in it, he feels very lucky, because he had homeowners insurance and had an easy time getting both emergency money and re-building money for his destroyed home.  Most of his neighbors were not so fortunate.  Warming up to his own story, he told us that he had been a manager at WalMart at the time, and had evacuated to Baton Rouge.  When he presented himself to the management at WalMart, they saw to it that he was paid his salary and then, headquarters sent him back to New Orleans as soon as it was possible to return, deputized to find as many former WalMart employees as he could and issue them checks for $2,000.  He remembered with pleasure that he had been empowered to be helpful to others in that difficult time.  

That was a story worth hearing, thick as molasses...and it's still sticking to me! 

Blue Blogging

Today is Blog Action Day 2010, and the invitation is to blog about water...quickly becoming a limiting factor in our global life.

1. Did you know that more people die because of lack of clean water in our world than because of all forms of violence combined?  
2. Did you know that more people have access to a cell phone than a toilet? (and of course you realize that this is intimately related to #1)
3. Did you know that here in Albuquerque, a high desert climate, more than half of water use is for landscapes, playing surfaces like soccer fields and golf courses,  and pools? 
4. Did you know that one gallon of reverse osmosis bottled water takes 7 to create?  
5. Water is not very portable, so no amount of saving water in Albuquerque will help the folks in Africa. But it may be that the US is maxing out its more abundant water resources pretty fast. (see this article, for instance: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/is-the-us-already-past-the-point-of-peak-water.php)

What to do?   The most important thing we can do for our local water supplies is to take a hard look at what we are using outside.  Appropriate landscapes, covering pools we use and filling pools we don't use, and sweeping with a broom rather than a hose are all things to consider.  The most important thing we can do to help people in other nations is cut down on consumption of imported meat.  Meat is the most water-intensive thing we eat and so often, the nations that produce it are allowing the rich to get richer by using all the water to produce meat to sell while the poor go without this necessity of life.  

Ghost Bicycle

Two Ghost Bicycles have appeared in my life, both on the same street, my major commuting street, about five miles apart.   Ghost bicycles commemorate bicyclists killed or severely injured, usually by cars.  They are stripped down bikes, painted white, labeled with the name of the bicyclist, and since this is New Mexico with our major Hispanic influence, decorated with flowers like the roadside crosses which commemorate motorist deaths in our state.

The project started in St. Louis, just 7 years ago, when a homeowner saw a car strike and kill a bicyclist in front of his house.  Horrified, he painted an old bike white,  added a sign,  "A cyclist was killed here", and locked it to a signpost.  He noted the effect this had on motorists and got together with a few others to post 15 more bikes where cyclists had died in the metro area.  From this humble start, Ghost Bikes have appeared around the world.   There have been some controversies, of course, about where the bikes can be, but most cities are eager to be bike friendly, and it's good for everyone to remember that the worst can happen in a moment of carelessness.  This particular bike was moved so far off the road that I hadn't seen it from my car in months; I met it when I took the bike path.

Cyclists have to be reminded to ride safely and sanely, of course, but the vast majority of the bike fatalities in this nation are the fault of the driver of the cars.

So...be careful out there!

Get mad at Girlfriend, Kill a bunch of people.

It's a common formula. It happened today, here in Albuquerque.  It happens a lot.  Here are some of the most infamous..which is to say, the ones where more than two people died.  The dots on the map of fellows who "just" kill their girlfriend would leave very little white space.  (and there'd be a tiny scatting of pink dots representing gals who killed their boyfriends.  Usually because he abused her.  Has there ever been a girlfriend murdered boyfriend just because he left her?   I can't remember it.

When guns are allowed freely in society, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself from gun violence.   Which is too bad.  In a universe without the current interpretation of the second amendment, this kind of violence would be almost fully preventable.

And you can bet that a man who walked into a crowded office conference room intent on knifing his ex-girlfriend to death would not have been able to do it and would not be now wandering the streets of Albuquerque.

Instead...six dead, four wounded, gunman at large.  What a tragedy.

The Secret of Kells

Our son the animator took us out to see this lovely film tonight, an imaginative, loving, and visually rich little story about how one of humanity's greatest books might have come into being.  Look for it with the Inde movies and catch it if you can! 

Thirty Years in Ministry

There was a kind of strange movie out a few years ago, called “Into Great Silence”  It was a movie about a monestary so austere that the monks live in silence and solitude, eating most meals in their cells, doing chores and spending hours in silent prayer.  They eat together…in silence…once a week, and speak to each other only for a few hours on Sunday afternoons.  They clearly thrive in this life.  

The movie was mostly silent, the charm of it in the beautiful work of the camera detailing the daily work of these men’s lives.  The Monestary is located in the Alps, so the scenery is beautiful, and these monks live in well-kept buildings and rooms.     It all looks so peaceful, so restful, so…orderly.

And then the camera comes to the Father Abbot’s office.  Alone of all the spaces we have seen so far, this one is cluttered and strewn with papers.   It takes only a little French to see that Father Abott has been writing a fund raising letter.  It’s a kind of a shock…this surreal place needs money!  Furthermore, on Father Abbott’s desk is a telephone.  Alone of all the monks, their leader has been talking to the world. 

The camera left this scene quickly, having made the point that this place of other-worldly beauty and silence is sustained by the world and its work, and that while the lowly junior novice may live in silence and in prayer, his religious leader has to talk, raise money, and endure enough stress that he never gets his desk cleared off.   Apparently Father Abbott thinks it's worth it.  

On Tuesday, I will pass the 30th anniversary of my ordination.  I think it's worth it, too.  

Let's Lose That Word, "Hate".

I'm sorry to say that I know Hate.  I know it from news of young men tied to fence posts and left to die in a snowstorm because other young men were afraid of their sexuality.  I know it from pictures of houses torched because the owner was planning to sell it to someone of a different race or religion from the rest of the neighbors.  I know it from the personal experience of escorting patients into the Planned Parenthood clinic...shouting, angry men waving bloody overblown pictures at women who mostly were there to get birth control so that they would never have to make the choice the men abhorred.  That didn't matter to the wrought-up men.  They spewed their fury at anybody who walked in the parking lot.   I know it...just once...from the snarled words of a man who believed that God hated women ministers and needed me to know it.   It was just once, but I remember it well.  Words of hate, someone said, leave footprints in the mind.  


Hate is dislike gone rogue, and there is no doubt it exists in our world and does terrible damage.  It's a stage of conflict where you're not looking for a solution or even a separation, or even an effective end to your pain.  All you want to do is hurt the one you hate.  


It's a strong word, and when hateful behavior needs to be named and stopped, we need a strong word.  


So...let's not waste the word "hate" on the current immigration debate; at least, not the part of the debate that is taking place in the most civil and democratic way, as it is in Arizona.  Call Arizona bill 1070 misguided, unconstitutional, dumb, ineffective; point out all the ways it will hurt the innocent, like children separated from parents and legal residents who don't happen to have their "papers" on their person when they have run a red light, and all of us as our civil rights are eroded.    Work endlessly for it's repeal, march and write letters and refrain from entering such a backwards state if that's how you feel.


But let's not throw around that word,  "hate."   No doubt there is some, but the majority of legislators who passed it don't hate anybody, and they know it.  They are trying to solve a big problem that nobody else has been willing or able to solve and they may be misguided and the result unconstitutional and dangerous, but I see absolutely no evidence of hatefulness.  It is possible to do great harm, be foolish, and hurt people, all without hate. 


To call someone hateful is a very strong accusation.  Do it too much and you lose a word which you need when someone has been lynched, when a wayward policemen has spit into anybody's face, when emotions are way out of control and doing terrible, memorable damage for the sheer hell of if.  Throw that word "hate" around too much and those you accuse start writing you off as inarticulate and without a real case.  Call other people and the causes they think are legitimate "hateful"  and it gets harder and harder to convince people that you are standing on the side of love, harder and harder to join the fight, harder and harder to make the compromises which are the essence of politics.  


The Buddhists call that "unskillful"; a word which, for it's sheer, understated glory, is unmatched.  

Macaroon Season

iMinister has a friend who has been writing a Passover Haggadah for about a decade (It's a very cool interfaith sort of Haggadah which has finally been published with layout by my husband...you can find it here)
Because of this project, iMinister has been invited to many seders and long ago developed a reputation for making amazing macaroons.  Although all she did was follow a recipe from Cooks Magazine, her macaroons never failed to get rave reviews from her friend's mostly Jewish friends who claimed they had never imagined that macaroons could taste so good.   It's a pretty easy recipe, once you've found the ingredients.  Read carefully!

You will need:
1 cup cream of coconut (the stuff used to make pina coladas; you will find it with the alcoholic drink mixes.)
2T light corn syrup
4 large egg whites
2t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. salt
3 c. UNSWEETENED coconut, shredded (8 oz.)  (try the health food store)
3 c. SWEETENED coconut, shredded (8 oz)

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line two cookie sheets with parchment and spray with cooking spray.
2. Combine the two kinds of coconut  in a large bowl , break up lumps and toss with your fingers.
3. Combine the other ingredients well, and pour over the coconut and mix until evenly moistened
4. chill dough for 15 minutes
5. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on the cookie sheets, 1 inch apart.  Use your fingers to shape into little pyramids.
6. Bake until light golden brown, about 15 minutes, swapping trays if necessary for even baking.
7. Cool on cookies sheets 2 minutes before removing to cooling racks
8.  Dip the bottoms of  cooled cookies in melted chocolate chips if desired.