Little Kid Religion

I remember word-for-word the conversation where I first heard of Unitarian Universalism.

"I don't go to church," my lab partner in my high school Oceanography class (a goth chick who has several freshmen believing that she was an actual vampire) said. "But my parents are Unitarians." She spoke the last word like it was the most tremendously uncool thing to ever be.

"What do Unitarians believe?" I asked.

"They believe that you can believe whatever you want."

"That's a stupid religion." I said.

"No kidding"

And our conversation moved on to other matters, none of them relating to Oceanography.

As many times as I've corrected UUs of various ages (mercifully skewing towards kids) on the specifics of refining belief through reason, I can totally see why "you can believe whatever you want" is a little kid version of UUism.

Similarly, the little kid version of Christianity I grew up with was along the lines of "Be good and do good stuff and you will go to heaven. Pray and God will give you stuff. Take care of the poor because Jesus said to."*

I took some theology classes and developed a more sophisticated understanding of Christianity before I rejected it as a spiritual path, but I found those little kid tenets to be quite tenacious as far as my own thinking about these matters went and part of me still sees Christianity as a religion very focused on who gets what from God.

This line of thought has me really glad that I'm a YRUU advisor. We didn't have sunday school classes for teenagers when I was a Presbyterian teenager because we didn't have any teenagers who wanted to attend except me. (And this was at a decently-sized church in the middle of DC). As I've mentioned, the multi-church youth group I was in was all about keeping us from having sex with each other and not so much about anything else. I remember two lock-ins, a charades game, a retreat, a trip to the movies ("Groundhog Day") and a stream cleanup. There had to have been more in four years of high school but that's literally all I remember doing.

Also, there was one discussion where we were supposed to talk about our hero and lots of kids said "my mom" and lots of kids said "God" and Teenage CC said "Katharine Hepburn."

So yeah, there wasn't much moving on to becoming a mature Christian adult in there. It's not a big shock that I didn't stay.

Conversely, Jana-who-Creates grew up in Atlanta and tells lots of stories of driving across a state or two to go to a youth con and how YRUU cons were really where she fit in. She grew up getting Unitarian Universalism on a deep level because there were people who wanted to teach it to her. And she met Richard Simmons.

Here's hoping that the youth I know and the youth you know have a better grasp of the faith they are growing up in than I did and that like YRUU did for JwC it truly becomes a place where youth can fit and where they truly get what their religion tries to teach.

CC

*It bears mentioning that not all kids get the little kid version. LittleCSO had so many pointed questions about doctrine that his Sunday School teacher eventually had him meet with the minister, who told him straight out that if he didn't believe X, Y and Z then he wasn't a Lutheran. So theCSO stopped going to church as he was not a Lutheran. The actual truth of this story might be slightly less awesomely precocious, but that's how he tells it.

Racist Halloween Costumes and YRUU

"My mom didn't like my Halloween costume," Beloved Brillient YRUUer said. "And then she followed my friends in the car when we went trick or treating."

"What was your costume?" someone asked.

"I wore a poncho and a sombrero and a little mustache. My girlfriend went as border patrol."

There was silence. Crickets chirped.

"I can see why your mother had a problem with that," I said, also thinking that Mom probably followed BBY in case someone decided that the proper punishment for a punk kid in a racist Halloween costume was an asskicking. Not an unreasonable worry, I'm thinking.

No one else said anything, but the stares that Beloved Brilliant YRUUer got were not friendly ones.

In retrospect, I realize that this was the classic 'teachable moment.'

But I let it pass, at least partially because I was loath to start an entire discussion that would consist of condemning the kid's Halloween costume various ways, even though the costume and the wearer arguably deserved it.

But the more I've thought about it over the last day, the more I have wished that I had started a group discussion on racism. Next weekend, I have a law school thing Sunday morning, so the soonest I will be back in front of the YRUUers is the week after, a day short of a full two weeks after Halloween.

The idea time to start the discussion has passed I know, but how should I handle it from here?

Offer to lead a talk on immigration and focus the discussion on the complexity of the issues? (Possibly too subtle, but still the best alternative I've thought of.)

Actually say, "Hey, I know I didn't say this at the time, but the idea of going for Halloween as a Mexican really bothers me. Can we talk about what that means?" (Puts kid on the spot)

Assume that the Mom already had the talk and that if it didn't get through when she said it, I'm not going to make greater headway. (Cop out)

Thoughts?

CC

A YRUU class we did recently that went really well

This year our church's spiffy youth ministry coordinator, TogetherBeth, has us working out of the "Building your Own Theology" curriculum and it has been going really well. We had an amazing class a week and a half ago that I meant to write about before theCSO's accident started taking up all my time and attention.

We gave the youth paper and markers and had them draw "How I saw God when I was a kid" and "How I see God now." It was pretty fascinating to see what people came up with.

In the interest of maintaining their privacy, I only photographed my own drawing, but several youth drew a God figure that was highly influence by the "buddy Jesus" from Dogma. There were lots of old men in the sky, of course. Conversely, a few people drew God as being scary.

As you can see, mine was a little different. When I was a kid, I knew from picture books that God had a beard. Now the only person I knew with a beard was Rev. Thompson, the associate pastor at my parents' church. And HE talked about what God wanted us to do all the time, as he stood at the pulpit in long flowing robes.

So at about four years of age, I was convinced that the Reverend Thompson was actually God. My parents denied this, so I remember thinking that Rev. Thompson was SECRETLY God, the way Bruce Wayne was SECRETLY Batman.

Obviously, I got over this at some point.

My "how I see God now" picture was of an apple falling, a reference to how I see Gravity as the most useful metaphor for God. Most of the youth saw God in either nature or the connections between people, though the majority of the group considered themselves theist in one sense or another. We talked about the differing ways people see God and and found a certain amount of common ground. It was interesting how we really didn't have much in the way of actual atheists in the group, though I did mention atheism and how an atheist can still appreciate some of the things theists see God in.

It was really neat stuff, y'all.

CC

In defense of National YRUU

First of all, I should say that it's probably a credit to Scott Wells that he was able to write a post that I had to think about for like a week before I could respond. I read his post on youth empowerment and the sort of "I hate you, now please take me to the mall" (my characterization of his words) vibe he got from national YRUU. I read his post on Saturday and I knew I agreed a little bit, but I disagreed a lot. So I gave it some more thought.

Then yesterday, I was talking about YRUU to someone I go to school with, someone who asked the very question that every YRUU advisor is asked on a regular basis,

"So how do you keep them from fucking?"

I recited the answer I always give "We don't have to, we watch them pretty carefully, but the biggest discipline problems I've had in the years I've been doing this have been a couple of Chinese fire drills and a strip poker game where any kid who got down to underwear started putting clothes back on. That's it. They're good, better than I was at their age."

But this time, I actually thought about that answer and what I meant that I could give it. I thought about the Presby youth group I was a member of when I was a kid. We pretty much had two rules: "Try to show up at the monthly meetings" and "No twosomes wandering off alone together, because we know the sort of bestial acts your inherently sinful natures will..."

We were Calvinists, you see.

I kid, but you see my point. Our advisors spent a hell of a lot of energy trying to keep us showing up and preventing us from having sex.

As a YRUU youth advisor, I've never really had to do either. I do my best to help the kids who don't fit in as well fit into the group. In that sense, I encourage people to show up. But mostly, they come enthusiastically. The wash cars for Beacon House, they plan their worship service, they put on plays for education in El Salvador, they sell totebags for charity, they entertain the families of seriously ill children who are at NIH, they collect canned goods for the hungry. They do retreats. They support each other through first car accidents and dying grandparents.

And yeah, they show up to protest marches and sometimes argue politics. Sometimes they don't argue those politics the way I would. Indeed, one of my youth was nationally fussed over by the UUA for an email she wrote in support of the UUA/UCC petition that I have referred to here as the "fuck the Iraqis who will die when the nation descends into anarchy, just bring the white people home" petition.

So what if her method of doing things and even her goal are not things I agree with?

When I was her age, all people asked of me was to show up and refrain from sex until the lock-in was over.

In a way, Scott Wells' post (and the five days I took to come up with this response) are major, major compliments to the YRUU youth because it shows the crazy standards we hold our youth to. Honestly, I think it was pretty clever to craft a near-immediate response that frames the YRUU issue as one of denominational concern for our youth and asks GA delegates to affirm that concern. I think it's brilliant politics. The delegates will be primed to take the next step, to vote to pay for more things for youth.

But OK, let's accept Scott's logic that the resolution was a bad idea. What are his alternate suggestions for the youth?

Fund raising?

Meetings?

An alternative being organized?

Yes, we expect people whose median age is too young to drive to put together national meetings, fundraisers and an entire alternative organization that they should fund themselves because some UUA (and non-UUA) adults think they've taken an obnoxious approach to their attempts to end racism*. They're "entitled," you see, because they expect adults who are not their parents to fund an organization for young UUs. It's like they think young UUs are the organization's future or something.

Hell, even MENSA doesn't expect its Teen Group to do and pay for everything themselves. And our kids aren't geniuses, they are just regular kids who have been raised UU, but we have so much faith in them, we expect them to have learned the political lessons of the 1960's and adjust their behavior accordingly.

Oh, and pay for their own large organization without help.

And keep their clothes on.

CC

*I also think it's obnoxious. But I think a lot of denominations would kill for youth that committed to fixing the problems of the world.

Why I *do* go to church.

A response to this extremely popular post

1. Because farmer’s markets that close at 11:30 are open for lots of hours before that. Out of bed, Hippie!

2. Because I am, at heart, an extremely self-centered person. (IMHO, you pretty much have to be to have a blog and write about yourself, your thoughts, what you’re up to, your political views, etc) Going to church on Sunday, even if I don’t attend the service and teach youth group instead, reconnects me back outside myself. I need a time each week to remind myself that it isn’t all about me, and when I get it, there is a corresponding drop in my stress level over little stuff.

3. Because my local BFF goes to the same church and after church we often get burritos together and hang out with her family. No church, no queso and no laugher ringing off the walls as ZombieKid beats up on me.

4. Because when I lived in South Carolina and was depressed and lonely, I drove 60 miles every Sunday to go to church with a minister whose preaching reallysucked. Now that I have my pick of churches within ten miles, I’m so going.

5. Because lots of the people who mean most to me in this world met me through UUism. (Katy-the-Wise, Linguist Friend and Jana-who-Creates, for starters, and lots of other people.)

6. Because I’ve made a commitment to work with the youth, a commitment that has brought me lots of joy and given me a chance to do the most fun thing in the church.

And oddly enough, people think that it is a big sacrifice and fuss over me for it.

(When people say, “You slept in the youth cabin this retreat? You’re so brave!”
My stock response is “Yeah, last night we stayed up until 2:00am listening to Queen and talking about boys. And sometimes I let them do what THEY want to do...”)

7. Because the UUs I’ve known, even the annoying ones, have done so much for other people and the world, I like to keep an eye out for things I can do to help them and help UUism.
Also, church is the one place in my life where people accost me and ask me to make sack lunches for homeless shelters, pay for English classes in Transylvania and donate to canned food drives. Am I happy to do these things? You bet! Would I end up doing them if I wasn't asked? It's unlikely!

8. Because I can sing and pray and talk to people who are making the same spiritual trip I am, though usually by a different route. UUs are often really thoughtful and cool and well-educated and while I’m sure that makes us elitist in some ways, it also means that a high percentage of us are fun to talk to.

9. Because every once in awhile, UUs will peer-pressure me into trying some sort of hippie spiritual practice and I find some real spiritual value in it. I’m thinking specifically of walking a labyrinth and meditating*, which is the sort of thing I would not ever have imagined myself finding helpful. It just is.

10. Because I feel closest to God when I am refining spiritual ideas through reason, weighing them against each other and figuring out new ways to examine spiritual issues. So my big ol' church full of different ideas and groups is perfect.

I think part of the problem is that lots of UU churches are too small. Ironically, my church has lots of stuff geared toward childless adults, I'm just too busy with YRUU to do any of it. I'm sure the petty shit that bothers Ms. Theologian happens in my church, it happens in every church, but I'm not close enough to the base of power to care.

CC

* People, especially Christians, who get snotty about this really irritate me. If you’re upset that the UUs “stole” this practice from the Christians (who presumably “stole” it from the Greeks) you need to get a hobby or something. IMHO, if a practice works for you, you should use it. Don’t pretend you’re using it the same way other groups did if you haven’t done the work to make sure that you are, but yeah, you should do whatever helps you connect with that which is holy. Duh.

Pout. CC feels yucky.

I'm having a weird allergy thing. It's been bugging me for a couple of days. I cough a lot, sneeze some and feel exhausted and cranky. Whatever productivity I have today is solely the result of spicy pad thai* and sugar-free Red Bull.

Oh, and the murder mystery dinner theater rocked mightily and raised big money for those kids in El Salvador. I will have a more complete account later.

I'm going to take another slurp of Red Bull and go back to drafting the complaint I was working on. But before I do, shall we practice the traditional Chalicechick self-care exercise and watch the "Alan Rickman 'I'm too Sexy" YouTube video?



Ah. Feeling better already.

CC

*Spicy pad thai cleans out my sinuses. LinguistFriend told me last night that his father, a veteran of many 1950s-era civil rights marches, reported much the same effect from tear gas. The Chalicerelative, a veteran of many protest marches of the same sort, gave me strict orders as a kid to walk calmly and directly away from any police officers and/or violence I ever saw at a protest march. So far so good, I've never been gassed.

Winter blahs

We have a week-long winter term here at GULC, and I'm in the middle of a superspeedy class on international law that is focused on deportation/rendition/extradition and related issues. For the last few days, we've been doing a simulation exercise and I played a judge in the European Court of Human Rights. It was fun, but exhausting. My questioning was hard enough on my peers that my TAs didn't think I was a wuss, but nobody hates me either as far as I know. I also emailed my Con law professor from last semester and asked him if he wanted to submit an amicus brief. (He didn't.)

It's weird to hear the professor referring to people from other countries as "aliens." As a Chick who was raised on ET and Star Trek, I've never had the negative connotations some people have for the word. But I'm not used to hearing it at this point as UUs tend to regard it as non-PC.

It's raining a lot here, which is a good thing as it follows the drought from this fall. I hate to drive in the snow, and I'm not very good at it, so I'm pleased that at least we haven't had snow.

I'm looking forward to seeing the YRUUs put on the play I've been writing. Admission is $20 a head and the profits go for University Education in El Salvador. I'm humbled by the idea that I'm writing something that will help even a few folks in El Salvador go to school and live better lives. Kim wrote in the comments that I should let other churches perform it. I had been kicking around something like that for awhile. I'm going to look into the proper language to license it so that YRUU groups may perform it as long as at least 50 percent of the profits go to a non-political charity.

But yeah, if you have a charitably-oriented youth group, shoot me an email and we can talk about it.

I'm also working on an RE curriculum on Christianity in the Culture, though I haven't field tested that one as much as I wanted to this year. I don't suppose anybody reading this knows the proper person in the UUA to send those when I finish them?

Anyway, life is actually pretty good. Probably the reason I'm so bummed is that the ChaliceRelative is moving to the Presbyterian Home in a month. (No, smartass, not Scotland, it's an old folks home in DC that is run by the Presbyterian church.)

When I was a child, the Chalicerelative lived in our basement. She was the RE person at a large Presby church in DC. Once, her car was broken into while it was parked in front of our house, but all that was stolen was a volume of The Interpreter's Bible.

Upon hearing of the crime, my five-year-old self, a Nancy Drew devotee, ran to her room, grabbed her notepad and started looking for clues. After a bit, I came into the house and proudly announced

"Well, we know one thing. The thief loves God, but he hates Justice!"

This is probably the most told-and-retold family story about CC, especially since I got into law school.

Some years ago, the Chalicerelative asked me what I wanted in her will. The first (and really only) thing I asked for was the remaining volumes of that Interpreter's bible.

Now the Chalicerelative's Interpreter's bible is boxed and in the backseat of my car. When I was helping her pack on Sunday, the Chalicerelative reported that the Presbyterian home has an excellent library and she gave it to me. She won't need it and she knows I want it.

Well, I thought I did.

CC

Ummm...Actually, this is for us

When I talk about how I feel like UUs don't do as much charitable work as they should, I am NEVER talking about my youth group.

My YRUU kids collect canned food and sort it at the All Souls Food Drive, they recycle printer cartridges, they assemble medical kits for migrant workers. They pretty regularly serve at soup kitchens and leftovers from our events invariably go to a food bank. A dozen of them go to El Salvador every year to do community development projects.

And they hold fundraisers.

Ye gods do they hold fundraisers. They do a coffeehouse for "Save the Music," they sponsor kids in developing countries, last year's Monopoly Tournament was for La Clínica del Pueblo and they did a Murder Mystery Dinner for Beacon house. They went on a help-the-homeless walkathon. They do Unicef Boxes.

On the 26th, they are having this year's "Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre," which will be for secondary education in El Salvador. Or something like that.

Naturally, we're broke. Our youth director announced this on Sunday.

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." One of the youth said, then went back to talking about doing some sort of environmental project.

"No, seriously. We're at the bridge. We don't get much from the congregation and the re-usable shopping bags we were selling didn't sell well. We need money."

Yep, the fundraising-est youth group I've ever seen needs to do some fundraising for itself.

And it is really odd for us/them/me.

We have a plan to fix it, of course.

We're going to have a "Parents' night out" when we will offer babysitting services at the church for several hours on a Friday or Saturday night. Parents can park their kids with us, then go have dinner and a movie. The nice thing is, our youth will probably be willing to repeat the trick as many times as is necessary to ease our budget crunch.

But as the youth are selling tickets for it, I wonder how it will be for them to be asked "what's it for?"

I'm hoping that instead of worrying that they aren't answering "homeless kids," they will confidently look the questioner in the eye and say "We're going on a retreat."

While I'm talking about it, if anybody in the DC area would like to come to a murder mystery dinner, it is coming up. I'm writing the script. It should be awesome.

And it's for a good cause...

CC

Updates to the previous couple of posts

1. Jeff's comment on the Reverend Al Sharpton is well taken, and did a bit to revise my opinion of Sharpton. That said, I think I'm far from alone in my kneejerk mistrust of Sharpton and I still don't think he does causes many favors from showing up. I would consider him more honest that Michael Moore, but in the same basic ballpark.

2. I really didn't give sufficient background on the bible stories topic, so here are a few clarifications:

-My youth seem to know many of the basic bible stories, especially those that Unitarians like and/or those that are particularly palatable to children. They aren't totally ignorant and I'm certainly not planning to teach them all of the Bible in an hour or attempt to.

-A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a case for Property class where the Judge makes a reference to the Tower of Babel wherein he not only assumed the reader knew what it was, but assumed the reader knew it well enough to apply its implications to the situation at hand. I of the Presby upbringing was ok. It made me wonder how well my youth would do with it, though.

Thus, I am looking primarily for bible stories that aren't so well known that they would know them already, but do come up in society.

That said, the responses here have convinced me that a series of classes on this are in order.

Thanks, guys!

CC

Help me prepare a Christianity Cheat sheet for young UUs.

This week in YRUU, I’m teaching. In reading some of my cases for school, I’ve noticed over and over that certain Christian stories are referenced in a way that suggests everybody should know what they mean.

As our youth mostly weren’t raised to get all the implications possible in a short references to say, the Tower of Babel, I thought I would put together a Bible story cheat sheet of biblical stories you need to understand to function in our culture. Right now, I’m thinking of summarizing each story in a few sentences, then giving a few sentences about the story’s typical cultural interpretation as I understand it.

I will stick it up here afterwards so Chalicessuers can use it for themselves, too.

So, please, give me some bible stories that I should make sure the youth know about...

CC

TheCSO answers the interview meme

1) what do you want to learn more about, but haven't had the time?
Art, and how to create it. Also horseback riding, which I haven't had a chance to do since college.

2) would you rather jump off a building yourself or push someone else off?
Jump. I've tried, actually, but I don't have the guts.

3) when your computer auto-updates and asks you to restart, do you do it right away or do you click 'later' a couple times first?
I click Later, often until it MAKES me reboot.

4) if you could plant one idea in everybody's head, what would it be?
Be decent to each other.

5) if there were a zombie apocalypse tomorrow and you slept through it, where would you go?
If I was the ONLY survivor? I don't know. Probably go wander around a museum for a while, then completely fall apart mentally. If there were others, I'm sure we'd figure something out. I've thought this through pretty thoroughly, actually, and I'm certainly the right kind of tinkering fix-it person that a postapocalyptic society would have desperate need of. This does produce the occasional Walter Mitty-esque flight of fantasy. Well, maybe more than occasional.

The latest Facebook group my YRUU kids are joining

"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" : Mrs. Weasley Appreciation Group

Mrs. Weasley is just really hardcore. She's an awesome cook, a good mom, really good at yelling, and she called Bellatrix Lestrange a bitch. She deserves a high five.

Can't argue with that.



CC
who came to much the same conclusion and had considered going to a Halloween party with the CSO as the Weasely parents, assuming she could get him dye his hair reddish with dye that washes out. Going around observing the Muggles in their strange holiday rituals would be worth the price of admission and CC would enjoy making wands and muggle studies books.

The Holy and the Angel Wash

One thing that bugs me about YRUU is the way we define "Worship." Y'all know I love my YRUU kids and am pretty slow to criticise them, but they do tend to define "Worship" as "hearing how great we are."

It's not.

An angel wash, for example, where one walks with one's eyes closed down a row of people, accepting hugs and kind words about oneself.

Is it pleasant? I don't know. A couple of years ago, somebody I liked a lot took me on a blindfolded walk right next to a busy road. I didn't get hit by a car, but I developed a thing about walking with my eyes closed. I won't do it, so I sat out of the angel wash.

But is it worship? In my opinion, which may not count for much, I recognize, it isn't.

The service of the living tradition is never something I've totally understood. Were it simply a memorial service for the ministers who had died in the last year, that would be a little sad for something in the middle of GA, but at least it could easily be about that which is holy as well.

I just don't see what's worshipful about a graduation ceremony, however staid. And when we make this ceremony about individual achievements rather than being about that which is greater than ourselves, isn't that essentially what we're doing?

Is it possible for worship to focus on an individual? Sure. A service for Martin Luther King day focused on Dr. King and the ways the holy worked through him seems like a good example. But that's a little different from reading the names of a list of people who graduated from seminary.

I don't object to there being a ceremony, I just wonder if a church service is the place for it.

CC

What is wink?

PB wants to know what Wink is. As wikipedia notes, there are many variations on the basic theme. This is merely how my group does it. Ok, you start in the position in Fig. 1 below.



As you can see, people are in pairs and there is an "outside" (represented by diamonds) line and an "inside" (represented by octagons) line. On a predicided command, presumably a wink, though I have never actually been close enough to the fray to witness the actual wink, the "winker" signals the "inside row" to leap forward. The people on the inside hurl themselves forward and try to be the first to kiss the "winker" on top of the head. They can only crawl, crawling all over everybody is an accepted part of the game. Indeed, it's really the point.

Meanwhile, the folks on the "outside" row (who were not allowed to touch the inside row folks until they moved) must try to keep their inside row partner from delivering the winning kiss. The usual method is a sort of low-speed tackle and then a lot of wrestling around.

Soon everybody is throwing each other every which way an a huge pile of raging hormones. I can imagine a wink game gedtting violent if the wrong people played, but among my group maximum bodily contact is more important than the actual winning. Everybody's fully clothed, of course.

Eventually, somebody actually delivers the winning kiss to the winker's head and the winker yells "Smooch!" (Fig. 2)


That indicates the round is over. The outside person who had been gaurding the winner becomes the new winker unless, you know, somebody else wants to.

It must be seen to be believed and having seen it half a dozen times, I'm like "Wow, y'all I want to play that."

Just not with fifteen-year-olds.

CC

Can't argue with that...

So I'm cruising Facebook and I get a note that one of my YRUU padawans has joined a facebook group called "Against Gay Marriage? Then Don't Get One and Shut the Fuck Up"

Someone else I know is in a group called "Che Guevara was a murderer and your t-shirt is not cool"

Succinct. I like them.

CC

Corpse-Cold CC ponders how to reach out.

Today in Youth Group, a girl announced that two of her friends had died at Virginia Tech. And I had no clue what to say, and I'm supposed to be the leader.

I think what came out of my mouth was something like "Oh, gosh, that sucks. I'm so sorry."

The girl was very stoic about it, very much the way I would likely be. We talked about it for a few minutes, then someone said something that allowed for a gradual change of subject. The girl seemed willing to let the topic change, so I let it change, too.

After class I came up to her, gave her my card and said "I know that a lot of people will say 'Call me if you need to talk,' but I'm going to say it too. Seriously, I'm here for you."

She smiled, took the card, said "thank you," and turned away.

People have told me that I'm "hard to help" because I am so flat when I'm upset. Today I see their point. Had she collapsed sobbing into my arms, I would have known what to do.

When she turned away, I felt like the best thing to do was give her some air and know that if she never called me, I wasn't the person she needed.

Goodness YRUU stuff isn't easy sometimes.

CC

CC responds to the LT

On a post on the CRAP on Sundays blog, the Lively Tradition has an interesting comment on conservatives in UU churches.

He writes:

If you want UU's to be apolitical, that's OK. One way to reduce the amount of politics in our common life is to refrain from taking up political arguments.
If you want UU's to be pro-business conservatives, that's OK, too. Speak up and join in.
But you can't argue both positions. Conservatives in the UUA have been doing that for years -- arguing for an apolitical other-wordly church, one that exists only "to provide comfort and happiness to its members" when really, they just disagree with the majority's politics. As a strategy, it hasn't worked, mostly because it is so transparent


Ummm... Wow.

First off, Conservatives are not alone in arguing both sides. How many times have you heard the basic "Religion should be kept out of the schools, except, you know, when we want OUR version of sex ED taught" or "On this Sunday before Election Day, there are a lot of churches where there is campaigning going on. Not here, because we don't believe in preaching from the pulpit. Which isn't to say that there isn't one party that cares about the poor and another party that's full of greedy, evil bastards, because we all know there is..."

God knows I've heard both sentiments, albeit expressed more subtly, enough times.

And by the way, keeping silent doesn't work. People genuinely do not get that, say, passing out bumperstickers that say "W is for War" in YRUU is not cool until it is pointed out to them.

People don't understand that crowing about election results in Joys and Concerns isn't cool until a family stands up in the middle of Joys and Concerns and walks out.

The irony is, I'm not particularly conservative by any but UU standards. I didn't vote for Bush and find nothing to admire in him, though I don't have the urge to express my distate in button form on the jacket I wear to church.

When a Republican kid quits youth group because he or she doesn't feel accepted, people finally start to consider these issues.

But not before.

Personally, I usually don't argue the conservative side because I don't believe in it. But sometimes you have to.

Observe:

Liberal at coffee hour: And those EVIL CONSERVATIVES are going to cut Head Start!
Me: Ummm... Could we possibly not talk politics at Church?
Liberal at coffee hour: But cutting headstart is a religious issue! Just like the new highway they're going to build that might kill some bunnies! And tax cuts for the wealthy... and the filibuster... and... and... and...

Liberal at coffee hour: And those EVIL CONSERVATIVES are going to cut Head Start!
Me: You do know that studies have shown that Headstart doesn't really work. Even if you send a kid to the best nursury school in the world, after a few years in the crappy elementary school, they test just like the other kids. I breifly dated a psychologist who was working on the issue. They call it the "fade-out effect." So maybe we should be cutting headstart and putting the money toward a program that demonstrably works better, like lowering class sizes for older kids.
Liberal at Coffee hour: Oooh, snap. My bad.

Ok, it doesn't usually work that cleanly. But my own experience is that politely requesting that we not talk politics in church only makes people declare that their pet issue is religious and go back to talking about it wiht even more self-righteous vigor.

Showing that reasonable people can be on both sides of the issue, is, in my opinion, the properly UU approach*.

And every once in awhile, it actually shuts somebody up.

CC

*I do this more in YRUU in other places. Some of these kids genuinely have never considered that a reasonable person could be pro-life or that one might want to run a major corporation for any reason other than sadism and greed.

Lock-ins are for punks

This picture does not begin to do justice to the music room of the 18th century mansion where my YRUU group is having a retreat.

CC

Five things you probably didn’t know about CC

I’m picking up this blog meme from Miss Kitty’s

1. I really wish Diane Keaton were my mom.
You know that Mom character Diane Keaton plays, the slightly neurotic and interfering, but endlessly well-meaning one? I’ve seen it in several movies and her next movie that comes out Friday seems like yet another example of the archetype. I have friends who have this sort of mother, one friend’s mom interferes to the point that she actually told the CSO “I can’t make people make the right decisions, but I can make the right decisions a lot more convenient.”
I get that this is sort of creepy, and I wouldn’t want the motherliness taken to un-Diane-Keaton-like extremes. Even Keaton herself goes too far sometimes. For example, I really think she is unduly mean to Sarah Jessica Parker in “the Family Stone” when she flips out because Parker says that she wouldn’t want to have a gay son because his life would be so much harder. But she behaves that way because she loves her gay son so darn much.

My own Mother has dedicated her life to working to help poor people and taking care of the more pathological people in my immediate family. It’s admirable and great.

But I kind of wish she’d just once have set me up on a blind date with someone really inappropriate because she was worried I’d be an old maid.

2. Biscuit cans terrify me.
I have a weird little phobia of those Pillsbury biscuit cans that keep the dough under pressure. Rationally, I understand that they will not burst into flame in my hands, but I still hate them and am most comfortable holding them with tongs. At the same time, I think this is a stupid thing to be afraid of and have opened many biscuit cans in an attempt to rid myself of this fear.

I told a psychologist I know about this fear one time, hoping she could suggest a cure.

“Ugh!” she said, “Doesn’t everybody hate those things?”

3. I’m really good at a bunch of useless things. I can compose limericks in about five minutes and can write in verse or Iambic pentameter quickly, I speak Pig Latin as fast as I speak English and I frequently break the record on “Whack-a-mole” machines.


4. I taught myself to read when I was three and a half. My first books were Nancy Drew. My mom read me one chapter a night and Nancy Drew chapters always ended with a cliffhanger. It would drive me crazy to have to wait for the end.

So I taught myself to read. But I wouldn’t admit that I could read until I was seven because I believed my parents would stop reading to me if they knew. After Nancy Drew we started on Treasure Island and then all the classics my parents had read as kids, and then classics they’d always wanted to read. My mom read to me at night until I was 14 (it was mostly poetry by then), and after she stopped I didn’t sleep well for about a decade, though my sleeping has improved a lot in the last few years.

5. I can recite Yeats’ The Fiddler of Dooney from memory. It's my favorite poem.


CC

When a YRUU overnight and a meeting of the regional transgender group happen on the same night in the same church.

Not one kid said one thing that was disrespectful, or even implied
that there was anything unusual about the meeting. When one girl
overheard that somebody wanted the number for the local pizza place,
she pulled out her cell phone and gave it to the woman who asked.

Now on the one hand, I realize that being able to share a building
with strangers who are different without treating them in any way as
an outsider is a pretty baseline requirement for decent human
interaction.

But at the same time, I know what the jackass kids I went to high
school with might have been like in the same situation. And I know
that even good people don't always live up to the ideals of tolerance.

But my YRUU kids treated the transgender folks just like everyone
else, to their faces and behind their backs.

One can have a lot of complaints about Unitarian Universalism, and I do.

But we do a few things right.

CC

--
___________________________
http://chalicechick.com/

"Friends? Hah. These are my only friends. Grown-up nerds like Gore
Vidal. And HE's kissed more boys than I ever will."

--Lisa Simpson