Thoughts in Preparation for Easter

Easter is a rich and multi-layered holy time, with roots reaching far back into human history. The story of the resurrection of Jesus is but one, fairly recent branch emerging from these roots—one, potent expression of the hope that arises in the human heart each year at this time as winter ends and “Lo, the Earth Awakes Again.”

Yes, Easter is the story of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem on a donkey, palm leaves in the road keeping down dust, shouts of “Hosanna,” turning over tables in the temple, washing feet, sharing bread and wine, prayerful struggle in the garden, betrayal, arrest, torture, the cross, weeping, taunting, “forgive them for they know not what they do,” “it is done,” death, tomb, stone rolled away, new life proclaimed.

And Easter is more. Easter is the land shifting from grey, frozen and barren, to brown, wet and muddy, to green, moist and growing. Easter is faint red buds dotting New England trees; crocus tips breaking through muddy earth; robins yanking earthworms from the muck; earthworms tilling and softening the dirt; field mice waking from winter slumbers and bouncing about meadows and lawns; brooks and streams, ponds and lakes swollen with melting snow. Easter is the thawing of the earth inspiring a thawing in our hearts.

Easter is the first planting; the farmer turning over soil; removing rocks brought forth from winter frost heaves; sowing seeds; tending crops; living not by the clock but by the rising and setting of sun and moon.

Easter is the ancient symbols of fertility—the egg, the rabbit—reminding us of birth and rebirth; reminding us of nature’s generative and creative capacity; reminding us of our own generative and creative capacity; reminding us of the persistence and  resilience of life; reminding us of our own persistence and resilience through even our most troubling and despairing moments in the depths of our darkest tombs; reminding us that stones can be rolled away and we can come back to lives of meaning and purpose.

Easter is the same spirit at the heart of the myth of Persephone, the grain maiden, renewer of the dead—the story of her return from her underworld journey through a ring of purple crocuses, into the embrace of her mother, Demeter.

Easter is the same spirit at the heart of Norwuz, the ancient Persian New Year celebration linked to the vernal equinox, a celebration of rebirth and renewal.

Easter is the same spirit at the heart of Ostara, the Neo-Pagan and Wiccan celebration of spring, looking back to the ancient and only dimly remembered Germanic goddess Eostre, Goddess of spring and fertility, Easter’s namesake.

Easter is the same spirit at the heart of the Passover Seder, the telling of the archetypal story of the movement from bondage to freedom, the movement from slavery to self-determination, the movement from death to life; the movement from a barren wilderness to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Easter is the same spirit of the child who senses the contradiction and asks, innocently, yet with that wisdom all children possess, “If they killed him, how can it be good?”

Easter is the spirit of those who engage in civil disobedience out of a conviction that wars founded on lies, motivated by revenge, and seeking petty, personal profit are atrocities and ought to be challenged in every way we can challenge them.

Easter is the spirit which transcends theology and doctrine and prays for peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing.

Easter is the hope—that idealistic, naïve hope—that human beings can come together in the midst of all that divides us and actually create peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing. Easter is the belief—that idealistic, naïve belief—that, as president Obama has said, “We are not irrevocably bound to a tragic past,” that we can indeed come together in the midst of all that divides us, in the midst of war and violence, and actually create peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing. Easter is the firm conviction, reborn and rekindled in our hearts with the coming of spring—that idealistic and naïve conviction—that we can come together and turn this world around for the better, turn this world around for the sake of peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing; turn this world around by bringing love to bear as the earth awakes again.

Happy Easter my friends. Amen and Blessed Be.

How the Spirit Moves

Today we had a meeting of the CT Clergy for Marriage Equality (CCME) Steering Committee at Tisane’s in Hartford. This was the first time we’d met since the CT Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Kerrigan case last October, making civil marriage legal for gay and lesbian couples in Connecticut. We’ve been organizing clergy on this issue since about 2000. At least that’s when I started. I’m sure others were trying to bring clergy into the struggle prior to that time.

The situation in CT is not like that in California. We don’t have a public referendum process. There won’t be a popular vote to decide if the Supreme Court somehow overstepped its authority. Even if there were such a vote, polling data shows that marriage equality would likely win. This decision is rock solid, far more secure than even the MA decision when it was initially handed down. So, naturally there’s a question that arises among those of us who’ve been organizing for marriage equality: what happens to all the structures we’ve put into place? What happens to all the energy? What happens to the huge grass roots collective? What happens to all the coalitions? And for me, the pastor who’s been chairing CCME these past three years, the question about what becomes of our 300 plus member clergy organization weighs heavily. Do we just go away now that this victory has been won in the courts? Can we find other ways to use our energy and our structure on behalf of related causes?

The Steering Committee agreed to have CCME join the Anti-Discrimination Coalition. This is a coalition of organizations fighting to change the state’s anti-discrimination statutes to include transgender people as a protected class. We’re going to provide some advocacy training opportunities to our members. We’ll get some of them to testify when the Judiciary Committee holds its hearing on the bill. Transgender people and transgender organizations worked hard for marriage equality. Those of us on the CCME Steering Committee wouldn’t think of abandoning them now. We’ll be there for the trans community as long as it takes to get this bill passed into law. And we will win.

Still, there’s a strange sadness that has set in among us. At least I felt it today. We dedicated years of our lives to creating a culture in CT that was ready to embrace marriage equality. We met each other while working on this issue. We became allies while working on this issue. We became friends while working on this issue. We ministered to each other while working on this issue. We worshipped together while working on this issue. We joked and laughed together while working on this issue. We prayed together while working on this issue. We sang together while working on this issue. We came together across lines of race, class and faith while working on this issue. We followed God’s call in our lives together while working on this issue. So it is sad to contemplate not having this issue to bring us together anymore. I’m happy we won–profoundly happy. And I will miss being together.

One of our colleagues, a young seminary student who was working as a paid organizer in faith communities, announced today that he will be leaving Connecticut. He has graduated from seminary and will be moving with his partner to Minnesota. He says the two of them are hoping to work with clergy there to create Minnesota’s version of CCME–maybe MCME.  He says he’s learned a lot from our work in Connecticut and he’s ready to do it all over again in a new state.

When he said this I had one of those “aha” moments about finitude. We built something in CT that we can all be proud of. We put everything we had into it. Now it’s done. And although it is much more sweet than bitter to have won, the moment is nevertheless bittersweet precisely because we are now beginning to let go of what we built, to lay it aside, to let it rest. Celebration and mourning go hand in hand. But it’s not exactly a death. There’s a palpable spirit in the midst of this experience. It didn’t come from us. It was here before us. It certainly came through us for a time. And now it’s moving on. But it isn’t dying. That spirit can’t be curtailed or limited or stifled or killed. Some of the energy and insight and wisdom we cultivated in Connecticut–some of that spirit- is going to Minnesota. It will live there. It will flourish there. It will win there. And the energy and insight and wisdom cultivated in that state will surely move onto others. In the midst of grappling with a sense of loss and sadness–in the midst of grappling with finitude–I could sense how my life and my work are part of something larger than me and CCME and Connecticut. The only word I have for it is spirit. And this was a source of immense joy for me.

Evolution Sunday

This morning our congregation celebrated Evolution Sunday. Most of the 1,000 or so congregations around the US and Canada who celebrated did so last week to coincide with Darwin’s 200th birthday, but whatever. I preached on Darwin and evolution today. I spoke about the difference between mythos and logos, an idea I got from reading Karen Armstrong’s The Battle for God. Here’s an excerpt:

The heart of the debate over evolution—and to some extent the heart of the United States culture war—has its origins in the failure to distinguish two very different, but complimentary forms of truth, mythos and logos. Mythos is the truth at the heart of myths: the enduring values, the timeless themes, the stories that help us make meaning of our lives and give us a sense of purpose. Logos is the truth resulting from scientific inquiry and the exercise of reason. It gives us cold, hard facts about our world and the universe. We apprehend Mythos through intuition; we verify it through the heart. We apprehend logos through logic. We verify it through the mind. Mythos is metaphorical. It responds to and expresses human passion, desire, longing, fear. Logos is empirical, based on evidence. It seeks to explain the physical world. Mythos is timeless, eternal. Logos is bound in time, historical. Mythos seeks to inspire. Logos seeks to inform. The stories that give rise to mythos—myths—are not to be taken literally. These ancient stories don’t need to be factual or historically accurate for their truths—their mythos—to play a useful role in peoples’ lives. On the other hand, the only way logos can play a useful role in peoples’ lives is if it is taken literally.

The truths of the creation story in the book of Genesis rightly belong to the realm of mythos. As mythos this story is about values, character, human and divine nature, human and divine struggles. It is the story of a people and their relationship to their God. For me it is a story that identifies creativity as a primary characteristic of divinity. All of this is mythos. But look what happens when mythos becomes confused with logos. To read Genesis as logos is to accept as fact that the earth is approximately 5,000 years old. To read Genesis as logos is to accept as fact that there is a God who created the earth in seven days, placed the sun and the moon, made a dome separating the waters below from the waters above, created human beings in God’s image, created Adam and Eve as the first human beings 5,000 years ago. But “I have secretly read the chapter on evolution… and there are pictures of fossils and skeletons, human bones too old to be Adam and Eve.” [This is a quote from a reading I had done earlier from Laura Moriarty's The Center of Everything.] The theory of evolution obliterates Genesis as logos. If we are descended from apes then Genesis is factually incorrect. If all known species evolved from earlier species, then the order of creation as presented in Genesis is factually incorrect. If there is 200 million-year-old ocean water leaking out of Texas oil wells, then Genesis is factually incorrect. If one reads Genesis as logos instead of mythos, and really believes it, then Darwin’s The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man are the most terrifying, dangerous books ever written, and it makes sense that 150 years later people are still fighting over what is true, still wondering, “Who is lying, the preachers or the biology teachers?”

Yet if we as a society can learn to not confuse these two very different yet complimentary forms of truth, then neither the preacher nor the biology teacher is lying. When I say I believe it is possible to reconcile science and religion—when I say a life of faith is compatible with evolutionary theory—I mean we can have both mythos and logos in our lives. In fact, we need both. The fullness of our spiritual lives depends on it. We need logos to inform us about our world; we need mythos to teach us how to live in it. We need logos to show us how things work, mythos to teach us how to use them wisely. We need logos to ground us, to remind us of our limits, to show us how we are connected to the earth. We need mythos to set us free, to inspire us to reach beyond our limits, to help us honor our connections. We need logos to understand the origins of life. We need mythos to teach us how to treat life with dignity and respect. We need logos to apprehend that which is finite; we need mythos to apprehend that which is eternal. You might say we need the head and the heart, the body and the spirit, roots and wings.

“I have secretly read the chapter on evolution…and there are pictures of fossils and skeletons, human bones too old to be Adam and Eve.” As the good news of evolution continues to spread in these early days of the twenty-first century, it is my prayer that this confusion of mythos and logos that plagues our larger culture will begin to wane, that each form of truth will have its proper place, that both religion and science shall flourish in positive ways, and that together they shall continue to make our lives whole.

Amen and Blessed Be.

Doing Battle With Cynicism

This was a great week for cynicism. Top level Obama appointees dropped out of contention for their jobs because of failure to pay taxes. Congressional debate over the federal stimulus package looked disappointingly partisan in a moment that cries out for bi-partisanship. Here in Connecticut our governor has offered the legislature a budget she attempts to balance on the backs of poor people, college students, the elderly, state employee unions, and the working uninsured. She makes no appeal to the wealthy and the big corporations to share in our collective pain through increased taxes. And in Hartford–our “rising star”–Mayor Perez and a city contractor were arrested on bribery charges.

Meanwhile January boasted the highest level of job losses since 1974, and the US unemployment rate reached its highest level since 1992.

Every time I encounter one of these stories I feel like giving up. What’s the point? People are hurting–people are really hurting! But the folks with the real power to do anything about it are so deeply mired in privilege and entitlement that they break the law with impunity or, when they offer solutions to social and economic problems, the solutions ultimatley benefit themselves and their constituencies first and the common good last.

But I don’t want to give up.

As far as I know, I am an upper middle class person. I am putting an addition on my home this spring. I will be taking out a loan and I will have no problem getting it. My church is an upper middle class church. We are putting an addition on our building this spring. We will be taking out a loan and, while we have some anxiety about paying it back, we will get the loan and we will pay it back. God, President Obama and Governor Rell hear this: I DO NOT NEED A TAX BREAK. I WILL GLADLY PAY MORE IN TAXES TO HELP OUT IN THIS ECONOMIC CRISIS.

There is a cynical voice within me. But it’s not my voice. I think of it as a toxin that builds up in me the more I encounter stories of corruption and selfishness and greed in the media; or the more I encounter stories of economic suffering that arise from the recession, which has its roots in corruption and greed.

I selected hymns for this Sunday for the purpose of doing battle with cynicism. We’re singing “Standing on the Side of Love,” “The Fire of Commitment,” And “Hail the Glorious, Golden City.” (The first two are from the Unitarian Universalist hymnal suppplement called Singing the Journey; the last is from the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition).

I need to remind my parishioners–and I need to remind myself–that though our cynicsm may be justified, it is not an answer to the challenges we face in our cities, states and nation. We are in the midst of a potent economic recession, but that is no excuse for a recession of our hearts; no excuse for a recession of our imagination and creativity; no excuse for a recession of our compassion or our desire for a more just and equitable society.

Sledding

I would normally be working tonight, but it was snowing pretty heavily so I canceled everything I had planned. It took me nearly an hour to get home. Normally it takes about twenty minutes. The roads were a mess.

When I got home I took Max (my two-year-old) sledding in our backyard. I really wanted to get outside. The snow was falling–big flakes, very gentle. And it was getting dark. I can’t say why this time of day calls to me in winter, but it does. I find it very peaceful.

Max didn’t want to go sledding at first. He wanted to build a snowman. We’ve had a lot of snow this winter, but it’s all been dry and powdery, probably because it’s been so cold. Well, tonight was no exception. The snow wouldn’t pack. No snowman. This is the first year Max has been old enough to really understand the concept of a snowman, so he’s bummed out every time we go out to build one and the snow isn’t right.

Instead, as usual, I got the sleds out. We have a green plastic saucer that Max likes to use. He sits down in it at the top of the hill, and uses his body weight to nudge the sled forward. He gets mad at me if I try to give him a push. He also gets mad if I run along by his side, or stand at the bottom of the hill and try to catch him. The problem is, there are trees at the bottom of the hill, and it takes a pretty skilled sledder to navigate through them. Max is not a skilled sledder. Max is two. He’s not skilled at anything. He can’t really react physically to fast moving objects, like trees at the bottom of sledding hills. What’s a father to do? Should I argue with a screaming kid who wants me to lay off and just let him sled? Or should I do what I think is best and try to spare him a scraped face?

Tonight I let him sled the way he wanted to. He hit trees twice, pretty hard. And three or four times he crashed before actually hitting a tree. Once he ended up face down in the snow. He has a scrape on his left cheek, and another little one near his right eye. Not once did he cry. No, in fact it was the opposite. He loves crashing. It makes him laugh–big chuckling belly laughs. Which makes me laugh. God, is it good to laugh like that, in the evening dark, with the snow falling gently, making everything still and beautiful.

First Post

Dear Ones:

I’m just getting started with blogging.  I know, it’s 2009 already. What was I waiting for? I think I was waiting for my second child to be done with toilet training. He’s almost done. So it’s time for me to start blogging.

Some of my parishioners have been asking me to blog for a while. I like the idea. I’m still not sure I have the time to do it on a regular basis. Whatever. I’ll give it a shot.

A bit about me: I’m a Unitarian Universalist minister serving the Unitarian Universalist Society: East in Manchester, CT. I have a strong interest in social justice ministry. I currently serve as President of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Coalition for Equity and Justice. I serve as Chairman of CT Clergy for Marriage Equality (not sure where that’s going since we have marriage equality in CT now!).  And I serve as one of eight co-chairs on the Steering Committee of of the Interfaith Fellowship for Universal Healthcare. This latter organization was created under the auspices of the Universal Health Care Foundation of CT, which is an amazing organization. We’re going to build a universal health care system in CT. I’m convinced.

I like pastoral ministry too. I spend a good deal of my time visiting with people in the congregation or talking to them about whatever challenge they’re facing. It’s very fulfilling for me.

I also like ministry with children and youth. While this isn’t technically part of my job-description, it’s very important to me that children and youth know I’m their minister too. I try to visit the religious education program and lead children’s worship at least once a month. And recently I’ve decided to work directly with our youth group. I have a not-so-hidden agenda in my desire to work with youth. You see, I really do want to bring our ministry into this postmodern, multi-media age. And I’ve already seen that our youth have something to teach me about this. So, more to come on that.

More to come on lots of things, but I think that’s enough for now.