Connective Tubes

Hey y'all,

I'm working on a lay service on technology. The specific topic I'm going to be speaking on is the ways technology brings us together and connects us. Yes, I know some people isolate themselves with technology*. I plan to sort of address that, yet I have been repeatedly struck by how the computer and the cell phone have been two of the most revolutionary technologies in recent memory and they are both fundamentally about bringing people together.

When I was a kid, the Chalicemom casually mentioned that once you got out of high school, you pretty much never saw your high school friends again. The inconvenience of mail and the cost of long distance made that simply the way things were when she was a young adult. By the time I was in high school, everybody had e-mail and I did keep in touch with a fair number of people. Now Facebook has brought me back in touch with even more of them. And calling plans abound where you pay a flat amount per month and can use all the long distance you want. How has it changed us that losing people when we move is now a choice we make rather than a reality we are forced to face?

A good friend of mine is in contact with his Mom every single day on Yahoo messenger. He keeps it on pretty much all day and she can message him, one assumes, anytime she needs something or even if she's just lonely. (Though I'm sure he says "can't chat now Mom, gotta work" if she messages at a bad time.) He genuinely thinks it's great to be in such constant contact with his mother. That said, not all of us would be unreservedly delighted to be in that situation.

How about being able to find people who believe or enjoy the same things you do with a few keystrokes on google? How about being able to blog and kick ideas around just as I'm doing here? What's the personal and spiritual upshot of all of this connection?

Mostly, I think it's all about having more choices and I think it's great.

But I'm still thinking through this stuff and fleshing it out.

Any ideas? Any questions for me on these topics? Any thoughts on the spiritual dimension of these connections?

Thanks,

CC

*I tend to think those folks would isolate themselves anyway, just another way, though. The world didn't lack for isolated people before technology, after all. If anything, it's better for isolated folks to be having suboptimal contact on the internet than to be reading books or working on model trains or something all day and have none at all.

On camping in a hurricaine

As you might have guessed from a much-mocked, and justly so, previous post, I was on an all-church retreat this weekend on the Eastern shore. The youth were, as always, reasonable and well-behaved. As always, people were amazed that I stay in the youth cabins. (This sort of offends me on the youth's behalf but I try to let it go.)

And it rained. Boy hidey, did it rain. It looked like someone had just put a hose on the downspout. The kids seemed evenly divided between the ones who wanted to go play in the mud and the ones who preferred the indoor messes that come with arts an crafts.

There were, as I mentioned, conversations about God and workshops about spirituality as well as lots of arts and crafts, and a few attempted marshmellow roasts that were rained out. I lead a journaling workshop that is secular in title, though the journaling often ends up with a reverent and religious tone as the prompts tend to focus on values and that tends to bring people's thoughts to that which is greater than themselves.

Now this will sound immensely cheesy to those of you who are unchurched, and maybe some of you that aren't, but we have a dance we do every year on a large field after Saturday night vespers. We all hold hands and sing a simple song over and over again while someone who knows how to lead the dance leads the line of people in this spiral pattern that turns in on itself in such a way that everybody gets to be in the center at some point and then loops along back out of the spiral. When there are 300+ people dancing, this is a pretty big event.

It feels really spiritual and cool, even as people sometimes drop hands and one part of the spiral has to go chasing after the part that is leaving it behind.

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon as I led my journaling workshop while Hannah raged, I found myself thinking about this hokey, awesome dance and how weird it was going to feel to simply go back to summer-camp-esque activities after an indoor Vespers. I was bummed.

But shortly before Vespers, the storm broke. We opened the doors of the dining hall where we'd been having our service, and we started to sing our song. Soon I was looping in toward the middle of the spiral, watching the happy faces and muddly clothes of my fellow congregants go by, old ladies and little boys alike. I wish I'd been able to stop dancing long enough to get a picture of the clouds breaking apart above the trees as we spiraled around, some people kicking their shoes off and feeling the mud between their toes.

Now, I can't say that all 299 other people will be with me on this one, but it made me want to dance every year, in the rain if necessary.

CC

May nothing Evil cross our doors

There's a church in Fairfax County that doesn't lock its doors.

It never has, as far as I know.

I was introduced to it about fifteen years ago. I was a teenager, questioning my faith and very depressed, and a boy took me there in the middle of the night to sing hymns. (This probably sounds a little precious to you, but I can assure you that to a teenage girl, it was great stuff and it helped me out a lot. I hope I made out with him in a serious way after we left the church. I'm sure I did.)

I've never forgotten that this church is unlocked. It's not a UU church, but it's a church just the same and I've been there a couple more times in the middle of the night in what felt like desperate circumstances and I've always found peace there, not so much for praying as for thinking in an environment conducive to looking beyond one's own problems and taking the long view.

Every time I've ever been, I've written an anonymous thank-you in the guestbook indicating that I was there in the middle of the night and that I was grateful that the church had been unlocked when I needed it.

By contrast, I've heard a lot about security measures at UU churches recently. People want to lock the doors during the service, to check packages, to let nothing evil cross our doors. A Chalicesseur actually attended a service yesterday where the church was locked from inside during the service.

I get the temptation.

But please, please don't.

I probably should have written this a couple of weeks ago as I did see this coming*.
But I was hoping that the "random whackjob wanting to hurt his ex-wife" explanation would be the commonly accepted one rather than the "holy war against liberalism" explanation.

Either way, locks and security won't keep evil from our doors if evil really wants to get in, but they will eat away at our feeling of safety with each other, our feeling that the church is a place we can come to that will be available for us.

I get that all churches can't be like my beloved church in Fairfax County. Indeed, with the world we live in, the "always unlocked" policy must be terribly controversial within the church itself. I am fairly confident that I will need that church again some awful night, and not at all confident that I won't find the doors soundly locked.

But we can't be locking people out on Sunday mornings.

If we start, those shootings will have damaged us in a much more widespread and serious way than merely killing two of our number.

And Evil will have won.

CC

*Us Washingtonians know a bit about threats and the way people react to them.

Today in church, we did something really great.

We prayed for the guy who shot up the congregation in Tennessee.

I don’t pray often, to be honest. My conception of God is that God is a force not at all unlike gravity, pulling at us all the time and changing the way things behave in ways that are so seamless with our reality that we can be forgiven for missing God’s presence. (Yes, you can argue this one out with me if you wish, but that’s not really the point of this post.)

So when I do pray, I’m pretty aware that I’m talking mostly to myself.

I’m also aware of Robertson Davies’ comment “Prayer is petition, intercession, adoration, and contemplation; great saints and mystics have agreed on this definition. To stop short at petition is to pray only in a crippled fashion. Further, such prayer encourages one of the faults which is most reprehended by spiritual instructors -- turning to God without turning from Self”

But I think I can be aware that I’m talking mostly to myself while at the same time trying to remove myself from selfish concerns. But am I motivated to try to remove my thoughts from selfish concerns by Pride or by wanting to feel good about myself for having done so? Eh… Dunno. Either way it seems like a good practice. And besides, we can’t ever completely leave ourselves out. We can look beyond ourselves to some degree, but we’re kind of stuck in the perspective we’re in. A dog who loves one still expresses his affection as dogs express affection.

Still, even among people who do pray as a regular thing, I don’t think praying for those who attack us is very common, even though the bible pretty much straight up says we should pray for everyone. (Ok, that’s the way I read I Timothy 2: 1-4*, given what jerks most of the biblical kings were.) It has given me great pride in Unitarian Universalism to hear about how forgiving we have been and how we have been reaching out in all directions spiritually, not just the easy ones.

Even though I’m a humanist who doesn’t pray much, I see it as crucial for our own dealing with this tragedy to look to the shooter with compassion in any way we can, prayer included**. When we reach out, to heaven and to one another, and call out to those whose personal concerns are well beyond our own, by the very nature of the act we are increasing our own awareness and growing spiritually. Will compassionate thoughts lead to compassionate action, leading to compassionate acts and feelings on the parts of others, setting off a chain of events that makes the world suck less?

Maybe not, but, hell, let’s give it a shot.

CC

*1I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;

2For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

3For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;

4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

**Ok, if prayer straight up doesn't work for you spiritually, you don't have to pray. Note again that I stretching the concept of prayer somewhat. But the ideas are still worth contemplating on and considering.

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.

So, what the hell is a "Chancel Dialogue" anyway?

Is it supposed to be getting in a person of another faith and asking them to speak at length on the more intolerant aspects of their faith, not once challenging or questioning anything they say?

Isn't there supposed to be, well, dialogue? I can get why responding to a lengthy bit about hellfire with "Actually, in our faith, our members typically don't believe a loving God could do that. How would someone of your faith respond to that concern?" might not be optimal, though I wished somebody had done so.

But couldn't we talk about what our faiths have in common just a bit? I don't think we need to deny that there are differences between other faiths and our own. But I don't think putting nastiness on display and leaving it unanswered is real dialogue.

A frustrated,

CC
who started to think about leaving when the gentlemen of another faith talked about refusing to shake hands with women being a sign of respect for women, and did stand up and walk out when an answer to a question about 9-11 began with an observation that to the British, Thomas Jefferson was a terrorist*.

*Jefferson did say some very nasty things about the British and I'm sure the British didn't like Jefferson, but to phrase it the way I heard it this morning is 31 flavors of crazy. It's setting up a ridiculous comparison to even try to equate writing the Declaration of Independence with murdering thousands of people.

Why do people play the "that thing you're doing is just like what that dictator did" and "this thing I'm doing is just like what that admired person did" game? At least in my case, when people violate Godwin's law and/or compare the people they agree with to the Founding Fathers, Jesus etc, it does NOT make me see their point. If anything, the comparision a. makes them look like they aren't smart enough to have a sense of proportion and b. highlights the difference between the two.

Any fool can compare themselves to a civil rights hero and their opponents to Pol Pot. What impresses me is when people can argue rationally without having to pull crap like that.

An unbeliever on Christmas Eve

In a recent post PB writes I remember the years before I was at all interested in, or knowledgeable of, the Bible. I would go to church services now and then and it was all absolutely meaningless to me. No one ever suggested to me that if I wanted to get anything out of this, I would actually have to put some intellectual effort into it. Church was like a magical social club -- if you were a member, you'd just "get it," and your heart would be opened by some great priestly abracadabra, and you could sit there with dewy eyes and feel moved by all this archaic language about begating and prophecying and parable-ing and healing lepers or whatever other crazy biz was going down in that day's reading.

This fascinates me because it is 180 degrees from my own experience as an unbeliever. I was raised by liberal Christians who explained the bible as metaphor Healing lepers and the like were symbols that I either understood on some level or accepted that I didn't. Now even to this day, there are some things about the bible's metaphors that really turn me off. God's utter indifference to human life excepting the people he REALLY likes is too pervasive a theme to be written off as symbolism alone. I realize a lot of old epics are like this, but still...

For me it was Christianity that was the club, but I wasn't faithful enough to get in. In retrospect, my rather screwed-up home life made my own unworthyness very easy to accept. I tried to believe though, though. I built a little alter at the edge of my playroom, I conducted church services for the cats and put on elaborate biblical skits. But I still felt left out. My grandmother talked about faith in God as a gift that I was lucky to have as it meant I wasn't going to hell. That alone was good for a few sleepless nights*.

My lack of belief and my not knowing how to tell my parents about this continued through my teenage years. My skits had given way to an elaborate yearly pageant for which I wrote the script and did much of the directing. (Every other high school kid in my church had quit going seemingly guilt free, I stayed and kept working and remained anxious. That's CC for ya.) The church got a new minister, a woman, who now shows up on this blog occasionally still as "Mary-who-Dances." She was really good and she made me think, and I started to hope there might be a future for me an Christianity after all. By the time I went to college, I was taking classes on religion, though not actually attending church. I actually continued my at that point life-long habit of lying and professing a belief in God so God club members would think I was in.

My freshman year in college, I came back to visit for Christmas. Still not believing, still anxious, I sat in the back of the church at the Christmas Eve service and listened to the hyman and the readings I'd heard so many times before. I didn't believe in God, but the familiarity was still comforting. It was a candle service, but our candles weren't lit yet. I dug deep grooves into mine with my thumbnail.

Near the end of the service, Mary stood at the front of the church and asked every child under thirteen to come forward. (Neatly excluding my brothers, who were thirteen.) The kids came up and Mary lit their candles and talked to them seriously about their duty to spread light to the world. I gripped the candle, my eyes never leaving Mary.

The kids turned, and with majestic and serious expressions slowly walked back toward the pews. I understood then why churches use so many candles. People carrying candles instinctively adopt an expression that tells the world they are doing reverent and serious business. I understood this intellectually, but was still deeply moved. The kids got that bringing light to the world was a dangerous activity. One was likely to get burned or look stupid if wax got on the carpet. And they brought the light anyway. Because it was their job.

Mary watched the kids start to touch candles with the people on the ends of the pews, who then leaned over and touched candles with the person next to them, spreading the light. Seemingly spontaneously, Mary began to sing softly and almost to herself.

"Go, tell it on the mountain,
over the hills and every where..."

And the congregation picked up the words and began to sing along, mimicking Mary's soft and thoughtful tone...

"Go, tell it on the mountain,
that Jesus Christ is born..."

The kids walked and lit, and we all kept singing...

While shepherds kept their watching
Over silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light...

On what I'm sure is a simplistic level, I get the theatrical mechanics that went in to creating this incredibly spiritual, deeply moving moment for me, where I felt instinctively that the light, not the belief behind it, was the point. But it still worked.

The service ended and I left, determined to spread light.

It's been ten years. The church fired Mary three months later because she's a lesbian. I had another deeply spiritual moment when I was sitting in my first UU church and Katy-the-Wise calmly mentioned how illogical it is to assume people can believe whatever they want. My doubt wasn't just OK, in this new faith it was damn near a sacrament.

But of course, ten years later, I am sitting here thinking about that moment and writing about it and I find myself wanting to renew my commitment to spreading light.

Not bad, for an unbeliever.


CC


*Christians, on the whole, really do seem to feel that one can believe whatever one wants to. Tim LaHaye's books assume this for example. Pascal's Wager does too and I recall having it explained to me from an early age by a well-meaning older man who assumed I was on the believer's side and who wanted to give me ammunition against doubt. Pascal's Wager also served as an example to little CC of how Christianity was all about what you could get God to give you and one didn't necessarily follow God for Gods own sake. I get now that this was the simplified version (Be good! Get stuff in Heaven!) that they explained to kids.

The promised exploding star story

A few days ago, I was instant messaging with a beloved minister amigo. We got to talking about wacky Christmas pageants and I mentioned a college friend’s brother, who was ten years old and playing Joseph when, at one of the rehearsals, he picked baby Jesus up, spun his head around and went “Worship me! Worship me! Watch my head spin!*”

Well, I thought of another story and told him I’d put it up on the Chaliceblog.

Presbyterian minister Mary-who-Dances once preached at a church in New York City where many of the theater folks come to worship. During their Christmas pageant, one of the shepherds pointed up at the prop star hanging by a rope from the ceiling, saying:

“And, Lo! A star is rising in the east!”

Kaa-BOOM! The congregation collectively gasped as the star exploded into an orgy of sparklers, color and fire. The star burned and crackled for a moment, then died out as quickly as it had begun.

After the show, Mary pulled aside the shepherd’s daddy, who was one of the technical guys for Phantom of the Opera down on Broadway.

She asked for an explanation.

Well, he said, if it was his kid playing the shepherd, he wanted the start to look REALLY impressive. So he went down to Chinatown and got some illegal fireworks and put them on the star and rigged it up so…

And why didn’t he warn anybody that this was going to happen?

Well, he didn’t know for certain it would work…

Anyway, that’s the exploding star story. And it may be a big exaggeration of what really happened, Mary-who-Dances can be like that.

CC

*Umm… My college friend’s brother had some behavior problems.

UUs vs. Trekkies: Who's a religion?

Joel has a post up at CUUMBAYA asking for a definition of "religion" that includes us and doesn't include a socially active star trek fen club.

At the same time, Philo has pointed out in the comments that it sounds like what Kos really wants to start isn't so much a megachurch as a megacivicorganization if you will.

Interesting convergence of ideas here, kids.

Ok about that definition, how about "a system of beliefs and practices that a person or community regards as giving meaning to life?"

For me, fundamentally religion is about human relation to the holy, whether you believe that: "In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted 'Amens!', 'Holy, Holies!' and 'Hosannahs!" Or not.
But I don't think that language can be understood as I understand it without more explanation than I can give this morning.

And I will note that some Star Trek fans are probably so heavily into Star Trek that is does give meaning to their lives. They use Trek as a source of authority and really do find a sort of spiritual guidance there. I recall that a former foster kid once changed his named to "James T. Kirk, jr," explaining that as he was shuffled from foster home to foster home, the Captain of the Enterprise was his most consistent and useful male role model. That guy probably counts.

I think one can get to the point where Star Trek is one's religion, but I don't know that Star Trek fan clubs are composed mostly of people who are there or see that getting people there is a goal. I think the point of UU churches is that UUism is already our religon.


CC

I understand the deal with labyrinths now, by the way

Yesterday, the CSO and I and some of our friends went to a hippie/rennaisance festival sort of thing. After buying cheesy crafts and drinking three dollar lemonade, we hed some time while our friends were still wandering around. I went off by myself for a bit, passing people recruiting for the green party (heh) and watching little kids paint paper fairy wings.

After awhile, I came to the labyrinth.

I'd walked in the hedge maze in Williamsburg, but I'd never walked a classical labyrinth before. I gave it a shot.

I know very little about labyrinth-based spirituality other than it tends to be practicised by some of the flakier UUs I run across. That said, I found the labyrinth to be a really useful experience. To walk one feels like pacing the way one does when one is deep in thought. You pace around, but without sharp corners and about-faces that make you think. The path is simple and repetitive enough that your feet seem to know what to do and you can focus on the problems you are thinking over.

I've mentioned here that I am terrible at meditation. I either start thinking about sex or fall asleep. I actually found myself thinking over some things as I walked in the labyrinth. Eventually, theCSO joined me. We walked it once holding hands and then once alone and in silence. He said he found the experience similarly helpful.

We're thinking of getting some white rocks from Home Depot at setting up one in the back yard. I'm guessing we won't actually get around to this, but if we do I will post pictures.

CC
Unitarian