Doing What with God in the New Year?

Filed Under inspiration, small happinesses | Leave a Comment

Every day on the bus ride to work I pass a Baptist church with one of those letter marquees. I have to admit one of the highlights of the morning journey is checking to see what they’re saying now (them and the 7th Day Adventist church a few miles further down the road). This morning it said, “Bring in the New Year: Come Worship with God.”

Worship with God? Is this a grammatical error, an acquiescence to a more pleasant-sounding sentence, or a theological concept that I’m simply unaware of?

Puzzling ….

Speaking of the New Year, here is my list of resolutions for 2006:

Grow herbs for my kitchen.
Add more plants to my house and help them thrive.
Cook six days out of seven.
Do more math every day.
Develop my relationship with nature and to the seasons.
Call Nanny at least twice every week.
Send at least one handwritten letter every week.
Take lots of photographs of the things I don’t usually pay attention to.
Continue with Spanish.
Get more sleep.
Learn to sew.

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Dec

27

Scattered Love Thoughts

Filed Under from the heart, love, people, quotes | 5 Comments

Sometimes I worry that I’m not tough enough to do battle with the negative energies of the world. When I’m afraid, I try to steel myself against future uncertainties, all the while fretting, “Can I take it, will I stand it?” It’s hard to shake the feeling that my optimism must be temporary, that I just haven’t faced anything truly hard yet.

Is toughness what it takes to survive? Can I put my spirit in an uncrushable cage?

These days, whenever I start thinking about how to keep things from going bad or going sour or getting away, another voice asks: why are you trying to “keep” anything?

In his sermon On Being a Good Neighbor, Martin Luther King, Jr. recounts the parable of the good Samaritan. After rescuing an injured man from a dangerous road, cleaning his wounds and taking him to an inn for further care, the good Samaritan gives money to the innskeeper and says, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.” King says that the good Samaritan exceeded all rules regarding coming to the aid of a stranger. “His love was complete.” This made me think of all the boundaries I have placed - and let others place - around my love. I know my love is not complete.

I keep thinking about capital punishment. I can’t help but feel it isn’t right, even if some people seem to deserve to die. King writes that capital punishment is society’s “final assertion that it will not forgive.”

Next month is the late William Stafford’s birthday, and there will be a series of events in Portland to commemorate this. I read Every War Has Two Losers about a year ago and ever since then I’ve been slowly contemplating pacifism somewhere in the back of my mind. So many years, I’d been learning from a variety of sources that one must master others. Through economic power, brute force or wit - somehow, one must be able to gain control over your enemies. Then I read this line by Stafford, on dominating others in conversation:

Those times you caught them out and showed them up - they learned how stupid they are. But now you’ll never hear the little song of their purring throats, and you’ll never know what they think, when you say hello.

I want to live like this: open hearted; but I’m not ready to claim pacifism just yet. Part of me still resists it, but it seems to be a natural extension of what King calls “excessive altruism,” and of loving without boundaries.

I took a break from some people and some activities in order to stop taking myself so seriously and to have more breathing room. I’m learning how to temper my emotional reactions to people - remembering that they have no power over me, and that the reverse is true. So far, I am the happiest I’ve been since I was a child. And nothing has really changed but my own mind.

(photo by HSA: El Mirador aka “The Viewpoint”, Guatemala 2005)

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Dec

9

In Others’ Words: Death Row and Redemption

Filed Under current affairs | 4 Comments

My mother wrote this and sent it to me (and some others). It touched me so much I wanted to share it with you. With mom’s permission, of course. I hope it will move you to action, too. Time is of the essence.

This morning I listened as KATU news interviewed the mother of one of Stanley “Tookie” William’s alleged victims, Albert Owens. She claimed Jamie Foxx’s support of Tookie Williams is only an effort to make more $$$. In addition, she accused community & civil rights leaders of using the case to stir up anti-racism support, etc. It was very sad indeed because, in reality, she has lost her son forever … something I cannot fathom … and is clearly still VERY angry … which is probably normal.

Also, I find it very curious that articles I read about Williams’ case, mention all 4 victims by name but the (surviving) Taiwanese family members are NEVER mentioned, quoted, or seemingly followed up with. Only the Owens family. Hmm.

I’ve noticed that regardless of whether or not they believe Williams committed those four heinous murders 24 years ago, many people do not seem to believe that redemption is possible. I am compelled to ask: who of us is the same person we were 24 … 10 … 5 years ago? We all know that our justice system is sorely lacking in many areas, rehabilitation being one of those. Yet when someone manages to rehabilitate themselves, on their own, within the limited confines of prison, we choose to question if it is possible, instead of recognizing the extraordinary resolve it takes to do so (for more than 10 years, in this case).

Is Tookie Williams faking it? Too many questions gnaw at me:

-Just as much earlier, violent actions and interactions shaped his former self … how can someone spend six years in prison isolation (segregation), become engaged in the activity of writing children’s books condemning the very violent lifestyle which put him away, donating the proceeds of book sales to anti-gang organizations, working with statewide school officials, bringing about REAL beneficial change for others - and not be affected by those actions and interactions??

-Conviction based on circumstantial evidence case (hearsay testimony from “admitted” criminals trying to cut a deal) + unethical jury selection + possible redemption = death? It doesn’t take long to familiarize yourself with the case.

Life, at it’s best, is filled with unending internal struggle, growth, redemption, and positive contribution. It is what we all hope for. Perhaps for Williams, like so many others, it took landing on death row to begin that soulful journey. What is important is that it has begun. While he can never erase his sordid past, if he lives, Williams can continue the work of steering others from that same path. If not, I pray he finds something greater than all this on the other side, but know in my heart that we will have lost the witness of something inspirational.

Wiliiams’ execution is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec 13. I hope you find it in your heart to:

1. Sign the petition for clemency!
2. Call the governor! 916-445-2841
3. Email the governor!

“There should be neither harming nor reciprocating harm.” ~Prophet Muhammad (from Ibn- Majah)

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Dec

9

Reason #1040281 I Don’t Watch Fox News

Filed Under heteropatriarchy | 1 Comment

I passed the television in the office lunch room; tuned to Fox News, there was a discussion about whether tax cuts stimulate the economy. But beneath the pontificating pundits there was a headline: Gay Cowboy Movie: Has Hollywood Gone Too Far?

There are so many things inherently wrong with that one sentence I can’t even begin to speak to it.

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Dec

2

The People Inside

Filed Under anecdotes, friends, from the heart, islam, questions, spiritual practice, uu culture, uuism | 2 Comments

A charity is due for every joint in each person on everyday the sun comes up: to act justly between two people is a charity; to help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it is a charity; a good word is a charity; and removing a harmful thing from the road is a charity. ~the Prophet Muhammad

To give a smile to your brother is a charity. ~the Prophet Muhammad

Philocrites’ recent comment about the Belief-O-Matic quiz and improving online UU resources prompted me to respond with my own BOM story. But this morning I thought of an addendum: Yes, I first learned about UUism through the Internet - most specifically Google and Beliefnet.org, and later I lurked on my local young adult mailing list for about six months; but when at last I felt comfortable enough to attend a real, life event, it was a real, live Soulful Sundown (something my church does very intermittently) that was my threshold into the UU community.

I was working weekends at the time, so attending morning Sunday service was a challenge. I remember entering the Salmon Street Sanctuary and everything seeming large and new; it might have been the first time I’d stepped foot into a Protestant church. Two people approached me in that night: Joseph Santos-Lyons (aka Radical Hapa), a life-long UU and UUA staff organizer, and a young woman named Jan, an employee of the church who’d become a UU after taking the job. Separately, they asked me who I was, and what brought me here.

Joseph took my name and contact info … then began using them. About a week or two later, he sent me an email inviting me to a barbecue at his house. I remember thinking, “I don’t even know this guy!” but I went anyway. Joseph kept inviting me to this and that. It was mostly people of color and UU-related stuff. I kept thinking he was maybe a little weird (I wasn’t used to any kind of attention), but was pretty responsive. I also ventured to attend a few more young adult events and would always search for Jan, my security blanket. She seemed happy to see me, and gradually I felt comfortable enough to stand on my own two feet and become a leader in the young adult group.

Today, three or four years later, I consider Jan one of my closest friends. We weren’t best chums right off the bat. She didn’t throw herself at me like a cheerleader. Jan is probably more of an introvert than I am, but over time we’ve developed a true friendship that I am grateful for every day. It was at one of Joseph’s popular barbecues that I was persuaded (by Laurel) to attend Opus (the annual continental young adult retreat), and later, Joseph asked me to be a volunteer for DRUUMM (the people of color affiliate of the UUA). These broadened my UU perspective to a national level and brought me into contact with more good work and people. I am friends with Joseph and his partner Aimee; and I love him for his persistence in reaching out to me and drawing me into his (gigantic) inner circle.

So often we talk about what the UUA can do for us, and how we can implement institutional pieces that will help us to retain people. I was definitely looking for something when I stumbled upon UUism, and that is part of the reason I didn’t wander in and then right out of that first Soulful Sundown. But another significant reason is that when I walked into that house of worship, there were two people inside who made me feel welcome - not just that night, but from then on out.

I am stretched between wanting to do for others what was done for me, and my own shyness. I want to get to know the new people at my church, especially the young adults and people of color. So I’ve been working on just doing it, on making the contact, on saying hello, on taking down the phone numbers, on calling people back. When I want my church to be more welcoming, who do I hold responsible for that but myself and my fellow congregants? It hurts me to know that many have come and gone without receiving that warm smile, or - more importantly - that follow-up invitation. Why should the church or the UUA have to pay or organize us to be welcoming? We are more than just an institution, a building, a grouping of bylaws and subcommittees. We are a family.

(photo: HSA and one of the amazing people inside, her best friend Elandria, at General Assembly Long Beach, 2004)

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