Underneath It All January 30, 2009

I have been reading up on some basics in economics, and it turns out that economics are enormously complicated.  The issue I keep running into, however, is that economics seem to be based purely on logic.

I dropped out of logic in college, by the way.

Logic is a funny idea.  Like common sense.  Hmm…common sense, something that all human beings possess….

Yet, so quickly common sense becomes about one individual’s idea of common sense.  One individual’s (or a dominant culture’s) version of logic becomes applied (with much pressure) on a diverse social system.  And very bad things can happen…

Take Hannah Arendt, the historian and scholar, who studies the use of logic within the Nazi regime, first in Origins of Totalitarianism and then in Eichmann in Jerusalem.  She points out that the genocide of the Jews was the result of a logic, played out to its horrifying and bitter end.  The logic was self-absorbed and without thought, thoughtless.

Now think of this in terms of an economic system.  It’s easy to say, “Oh, well, those people in OompaLoompaLand are making more money sewing my Liz Claiborne shirt  that they would be any other way.”  This is one form of logic.  Yet, the complexities are born out with more thought.  What is the history of colonialism or conflict in OompaLoompaLand?  What sorts of oppressions have been happening here?  Whose pockets are being lined with cash, who is profiting from the presence of this factory in OompaLoompaLand?  What is my moral obligation as a person of faith to this situation?  Some economists say that if this hypothetical factory closes due to a boycott, the local economy will suffer.  Yet, who has been making the money?  Certainly not the factory workers.  Sadly, the close of the factory could just lead to one form of oppression to another.

The point is, economics is complex, yes.  But I need to know the human stories underneath it all.  I cannot bear to see the human life, our impulse for empathy, drained out of the economic analysis.  And, in economic recession, we need to hear stories of things that are going well and reflecting the ingenuity of our nation’s spirit. We need to know how human lives are affected by the economic policies and then see through to the real cost of things, underneath it all.

Underneath all the numbers and percentages are human lives and stories.  We cannot forget this; otherwise we lose the empathic connection that reminds us, “That could have been me.”

The Bridge Between Heaven and Earth January 22, 2009

We are in the midst of our stewardship campaign and thusly this Sunday is the classic “Sermon on the Amount”

We are blessed with a capable and wise librarian at the church, whose modesty stops even me from listing her name on the world wide web.  That said, she has provided me with a bibliography of books we have in our church library that might deepen the Sunday experience by reading and/or browsing them.  The list is as follows:

Blessing the world, by Rebecca A. Parker
261.8 PAR 2006

The prophetic imperative: social gospel in theory and practice, by R.S. Gilbert
261.8.Gil

Unitarian Universalism and the quest for racial justice
261.8 Uni

To re-enchant the world: a philosophy of Unitarian Universalism, by R. Grigg
288 GRI 2004

The gospel of Universalism:  hope, courage, and the love of God, by T. Owen-Towle
289.1 Owe

241.68  Aza    Money as sacrament

248 Mon         Money matters:  personal giving in American churches

254.091  HEL       Churchworks
649.1 Ede     Measure of our success  (is about giving and generosity)

So come on down to the church library! Happy reading!

love is more powerful than hate January 16, 2009

The Rev. Chris Buice of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church is featured in this week’s Newsweek in the “My Turn” column.  His is pastor to a church still actively involved in healing since the shootings that violated the sanctuary on July, 27, 2008 and killed two people.

His testimony is powerful about the best of liberal religion and our Unitarian Universalist congregations.  We believe in the transforming power of love.  It is a greater love, held by the infinite capacity of the human heart- the same heart that holds hurts, regrets, losses.  Buice preaches of a faith that we can hold on to beyond the times when things are going well- a faith that sustains us in times of great burden, of immeasurable tragedy; a faith that moves us to put our own lives on the line to take down someone filled with anger, hurt, and evildoing.

Chris Buice, you are a treasure.  Eloquent, inspiring, colleague, you!

It was January of 2007 that I first got to preach on Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday.  In my preparations for that sermon, I had an epiphany about my own faith journey.  Having grown up in the rural outskirts of Knoxville area, I was hurt by my pubescent peers who told me I was going to hell, who told me I was a heretic, that I was in need of saving to be accepted.  As a result of a need to fit in, I got saved and was tremendously disappointed by what was lauded as a transformational, life-changing event.  As a result, I turned my back on all organized religion, even to the point that I would not enter the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, choosing to remain in the parked car instead of entering a church.

Luckily, I came around after college.  Yet I still believed in a random universe devoid of meaning.  Even the fact that the Universe, our earth, or humanity existed seemed to be empty of meaning or purpose.  Yet the analysis of my intellect never matched the callings of my heart or the way I was raised by loving families and elders.

It was not until I studied the work of Dr. King in depth that I realized what was missing.  I was missing a belief that gave meaning to life, that embraced what my heart felt was true.  The belief is so simple, given words by Theodore Parker and echoed by King (and now Obama):

“The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice.”

And for me, this assertion is backed up by the belief that LOVE WILL PREVAIL.  Amen and hallelujah!

I still tear up when I think of these two simple notions- two simple beliefs that suddenly gave me more direction and purpose, that gave me the power to look forward into a future of what had not yet been made real- a world imagined again and again by great activists, poets, and prophets.

It is accounts such as the Rev. Buice’s of Love’s triumph that make me ache for this promised land of justice, of unity, peace, love.  His testimony offers a glimpse of the promised land, heaven on earth.  It is the ache that brings me again and again to ministry: a longing to remove the walls of separation that divide us, the “strange and foolish walls” in the words of A. Powell Davies.

Love will prevail, love springing from hands and hearts in community, love that is greater than the sum of its parts;

This is my salvation.

My prayer is that this proclamation of faith stays strong and focused in all aspects of life.  And it is about faith- we have an equal amount of empirical, rational evidence of evil and injustice that points to the triumph of hate.  But faith takes us beyond what can be proven, beyond the horizon into the visionary’s  land of dreams and imagination.  So in order to do what I do, to really be a minister, I simply must believe that love prevails and that a future of justice is possible.  Amen and hallelujah!

PS: Our church has the great fortune of having a library, and an exceptional librarian.  Our librarian has provided me with some timely resources for reflection and study around race, civil rights, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Please email me if you would like this list of resources! minister@uucfm.org

the moral itch January 6, 2009

With MLK day approaching, as well as the Inauguration, and having re-read Race Matters by Cornel West, I am again taken over with that moral itch that I will keep on scratchin’ about intersections of racial and economic justice issues.

The upcoming presidency of Obama could usher a new era of unity in our country, and perhaps even on the globe.  But this unity cannot be in name only; it must account for the vast discrepancy of wealth between those who control the planet’s resources and those who work and live in poverty.  This disproportion is evident globally, nationally, locally.

It is easy for me, as a white woman (who had a college education handed to her as casually and normatively as the next meal) to say, “We should come together to struggle against oppressive systems that keep the poor poor, that keep marginalized groups hopeless.”  Yet part of that process is my needing to account myself to these systems.  The danger in this accounting is, of course, the downward spiral of shame.  This wallowing has kept many whites more in the continued luxury of self-absorbed talking instead of transformation or action.

What does it mean to be an ally?  A white ally?  For me, it is about being bothered by that moral itch I brought up earlier.  Cornel West talks about morality in his book (the 2001 edition- still prescient).  He slices through the jargon around the social construct of race with the steel blade of morality.  He simply asks, What’s morally OK here?  Why is the issue of race confusing how we look at what is right and wrong and where is the future of black leadership in all of this?

Race is used in ways that befuddle well-meaning folks.  Race is manipulated by neo-cons and liberals alike in ways that reinforce patriarchal theocracy and the class divide.  Race as a social construct has been used historically to eclipse the fundamental issues of what is right (life-giving) and wrong (oppressive).  Take ten and watch Tim Wise on the “Creation of Whiteness” here.

Look at the Burris issue with Blagojevich.  Note the befuddled Democrats wondering what racialized landmines they are stepping on by keeping Burris from entering the Senate floor.  And Burris avoids the elephant in the room all together, saying his career has never been about race.  In the racialized kerfuffle, Blagojevich has succeeded in the sleight-of-hand that has turned our attention (i.e. the mass media’s) from his immoral act.  His appointment of Burris is a clear choice to use race as another tool on the belt of political corruption.  (And don’t even get me started on Saltsman and the perceived GOP’s new music tastes).

Do not become distracted.  What the IL governor has done is wrong.  What our culture deems as normative in terms of the discrepancy between rich and poor is wrong.  In a moral universe which I believe bends towards justice, we must wake up.  We have opportunities to act morally in this culture by waking up to what was/ is/ and shall be happening systemically to the poor, particularly poor people of color.  It is not, I repeat, NOT normal or OK for the poorest, most vulnerable folks in our society to disproportionately be people of color.   In fact, who said poverty was okay at all when we live in a nation of tremendous wealth?

At the end of the day, West’s book leaves me with the deeper, more insidious itch about the immorality of our market culture in which

our attention

our dreams

our fears

our health

our morality

All are up for sale

Yet, ironically, the current economic crisis has many folks turning hopefully back to the basics that cannot be purchased at Walmart or on e-bay.  And we have an opportunity to offer each other these basics at no cost: caring, hospitality, kindness, and gratitude.  And my hope is to learn more about and support the places in my local community that remind us that there is an infinite supply of love and all are worthy to receive it.

For more eloquent sites and blogs, visit

Racialicious, a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture

and

Color of Change.org, a site dedicated to “changing the color of democracy”

longevity, aching, and softness January 1, 2009

Noodles for Longevity

My best friend from Chicago makes a point to eat noodles for new year’s, a tradition that Andy and I will now uphold when without the physical presence of her pancit.  The noodle represents longevity in life.  Last night we enjoyed rice vermicelli with a spicy-coconut peanut sauce.  As I ate my noodles, I missed my friend.  I missed her in the way that I know she is only a phone call away- but that we will never be best friends in Chicago working at Planned Parenthood in our early twenties again.

I have first memories of noodles.  In the first house I can really recall- 801 West Pine street in Johnson City, TN.  In the mud room off the kitchen, my mom had set up broomsticks across the counters and the laundry drying rack.  Again and again, we would feed slabs of eggy dough through the pasta machine clamped onto the edge of the kitchen counter.  The kitchen was a burnt orange and dark blue with plaid and quilted patterned wallpaper, in the way only the early eighties could have made manifest.  I can still smell the dough, a clean smell of possibility and creation.  And when cranking out the noodles from the machine, I remember holding my hands out as if for benediction- as if receiving a wafer of communion or catching a small baby.  The noodles, still soft and pliable, were laid all the way up to the soft underside of my arms, ending at my upturned palms.  Then the short, attentive trip to the mudroom delivered the noodles to dry on the racks.  I can still hear the pasta machine cranking and turning.  I can still feel the pride of being entrusted to help with the pasta.  This memory makes me ache for my mother in the way that I know she is only a phone call away- but that I will never live in her house as a child again.

With a body coded for survival and fight vs. flight, I marvel that we are able to  trust, to turn up the soft undersides of ourselves and to be loved and entrusted.  It is a wonder that we still cherish soft and vulnerable things.  I ache for the auld lang syne, for what will never be again.  But the possibilities that extend forward into the future are pliant and new, albeit delicate.

Make ready to receive a world, to catch it with the soft skin of your arms,

a world

in which you know you deserve blessing

in which you know you are a blessing

god love us

and as for longevity, if life be long, make it a life that is not hardened or stale, but one that remains pliable and soft, trusting and receiving.  And where you see hardness, know there is a soft underside of things, waiting for communion and benediction.