This is a video of Bob Randall, the Australian leader I mentioned and quoted in today’s sermon. I love this video because you get a pretty good idea of how this man moves through and with life. Really a good feeling.
Really a good feeling. We are so lucky!
For a bio of Bob Randall, go here.
On Sunday morning I may refer to this fantastic article in which Gary Mormino, history professor at USF St. Pete, reflects on the future death of Florida due to human negligence and idiocy. Check it out:
I also just got my hands on his book, Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams. Who knows when I will get to reading it. So many books, too tired eyes. Other great Florida books include, A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith and Tales from Old Florida, edited by Oppel and Meisel. I am searching for resources about and from the indigenous folks of Florida. Also, I want to know much more about black history in this uncommon state. Is it true Fort Myers was a sundown town? If so, until when? A white man at the Bar Association (a local pub) told me Fort Myers was a sundown town until the early 80’s. (?!?!)
I am always learning more about this state and am hoping to learn more about local politics with the Lee County Leadership Program some time in the future when I have the time and we have the moolah.
Ah, but to smell jasmine and the grapefruit tree that blooms in our yard, the scent of pine needles n the sunshine at Koreshan State Park, the sound of water against the boat (canoe!)…ah, Florida. I love it here and want to make sure that everyone else can enjoy it for years to come in a sustainable, responsible way. That is part of our mission as the church: to improve the quality of life for all and to work for local and universal justice. And of course, there is no justice when your house is ten feet underwater thanks to climate change. Especially when it is not your second home.
I have to share this reflection from my colleague, co-minister in Gainesville, and fellow member of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of Florida steering committee. The UULMF is an advocacy arm accountable to the UUA Florida district and to our Florida Unitarian Universalist congregations. We provide resources and tools for state-wide legislative advocacy efforts.
Rev. Garmon says it all here…..re-posted with his permission:
Hello, dear Florida UU Social Justice Leaders,
I just want to celebrate. The cause of marriage equality has taken
such surprising and wonderful steps forward in the last week. Amazing!
It is an unexpected gift for people in power suddenly to be so
astonishingly sensible.
Let the celebrations ring out through our state in all our
congregations. Pop the corks and raise the glasses at our UU committee
meetings, social gatherings — and even our Easter Sunday worship
services! Let us toast the good people of:
(1) Iowa. Iowa! Who’d have ever thunk Iowa!
(a) This is the first state out of the middle of the country — the first
state neither in New England nor on the Pacific Coast — right out of
the heartland — to grant marriage equality. Huge.
(b) the Iowa supreme court’s decision was unanimous. UNANIMOUS!
That’s 7-0. When the Massachusetts supreme court ruled
in favor of same-sex marriage? 4-3. When the California Supreme Court
did the same? 4-3. Connecticut? 4-3. The Iowa court’s startlingly
welcome unanimity
sends a strong message that discrimination is not OK. Also huge.
(2) Vermont. Just 4 days after the news from Iowa, Vermont became the
first state to extend marriage equality through the legislature. This
wipes out the argument that somehow a tyrannical court has been
imposing a depraved agenda on the vast majorities supporting
discrimination. In this case, it was the
people, through their elected representatives, who saw that
discrimination was wrong. And they did so not merely by a simple
majority, but by 2/3rds majorities in each house. In order to override
their governor’s veto, 3 Democrats who had, only a few days before
voted against the bill switched
and voted in favor of overriding the veto (and 1 Republican who had
voted against the bill simply made himself absent for the override
vote.) Again, simply huge.
(3) Washington DC. On the same day that the Vermont legislature
overrode their governor’s veto, Washington DC’s city counsel voted to
recognize the validity of same-sex marriage performed in any state
that allowed them. Big, if not huge — with the potential to become
huge if it ends up bringing the US Congress to act on the issue.
Minds and hearts are changing. The tide shifted this week. It feels as
though a historical corner was turned.
And so we ask: Will Florida be next?
We still have a ways to go yet in Florida, and in the other 28 states
who have enshrined in their state constitutions the limitation of
marriage to one man and one woman.
While it will take years to repeal the constitutional amendment
Floridans approved last November 4, we can also see signs of change in
our home state. We can celebrate this, too. Let us raise us glasses
to:
(4) Gainesville. On March 24, Gainesville voters went to the polls to
vote on an amendment to the city charter. The amendment would have
stripped away protections against discrimination the city council
had adopted. Those protections included nondiscrimination provisions
for transgenders that put Gainesville among the dozen or so more
progressive cities and towns in the nation. Outside interests agitated
to create this charter amendment and campaigned vigorously for its
passage. Yet in the end, Gainesville stood for nondiscrimination –
and by a sizable majority of 58%.
(5) Lake Worth. Susan Stanton, fired in 2007 from her post as city
manager of Largo for being transgender, has been hired by another
Florida city. I learned today that she was named the City Manager of
Lake Worth, selected for the job from a group of 50 candidates.
Friends, after five toasts, we may be starting to feel a bit tipsy. A
sobering reality, however, still lies before us. Throughout most of
Florida, GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender) people can be
fired simply for being who they are. There’s progress in Gainesville
– and important if symbolic progress in Lake Worth — but in most of
Florida transgender people in particular face serious workplace
discrimination.
State Senator Deutch and Rep. Kelley Skidmore are sponsoring bills
that would create a statewide prohibition on the type of
discrimination that cost Susan Stanton her job in Largo. E-mail them
– and your own senator and representative — with your support.
And learn more at Equality Florida’s website:
http://www.eqfl.org. See also:
http://tinyurl.com/susan-stanton .
Let the shouts of our joy mingle with the cries of our commitment.
Let love and justice light our path forward.
Amen,
-Meredith
–
Rev. Meredith Garmon, PhD
Chair, Steering Committee,
Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry
Minister, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
4225 NW 34th St
Gainesville, FL 32605
352-377-1669 (Fellowship)
YAY, IOWA!
From Associated Press article today:
The Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., pastor at the Maple Street Baptist Church in Des Moines, went to the Supreme Court building to hear of the decision.
“It’s a perversion and it opens the door to more perversions,” Ratliff said. “What’s next?”
What’s next is hopefully every other state in the United States ruling hetero-only marriage unconstitutional, finally recognizing civil marriage as a civil right for ALL. The perversion has been that my partner and I in a hetero-relationship can be legally married and receive from the state many rights and protections as a couple that is denied those who cannot legally marry. It’s time for that perversion of justice to stop, in each and every state.
Alberto Hernandez of Southwest Florida beat, raped, and murdered his 13 year old stepdaughter. He confessed yesterday, leaving out the sexual abuse in his confession, claiming he did not remember these parts of the sequence of events that led to the death of Michelle Fontenez.
Hernandez claims that the devil was in control. And apparently, whenever the devil is in control, the devil makes sure to completely wipe out one’s memory.
I understand that the presence of sin and evil is real in this world. But shoving it off into the spiritual realm, into the ether, can all to easily absolve us of our very real, very manifested sins. What consolation does the family of Michelle Fontanez have when a man who is locked away in prison claims that the devil made him do it? Now with unresolved feelings, they argue over wishing he had gotten the death penalty and having him suffer a life-term in prison, feel dis-empowered no one asked the extended family their thoughts, and the aunts of Michelle seem to have turned their backs on Michelle’s mother in anger over the mother’s complicity and/or denial.
With Hernandez making claims to the devil making him do it, nothing real is truly confessed. He may go to prison, but the man will not heal himself until he understand that is was him, Alberto Hernadez, and his own life experiences and whatever abuse he himself had survived, that led to 8 years of sexually abusing Michelle Fontanez and eventually to his murdering someone he loved. And all the more likely, whoever abused him likely separated her/his life of evil and sin and abusing children and/or animals from what was presented to the rest of the world, like Jekyll and Hyde. Friends of Hernandez and his lawyers refer to his being a “good man.” But clearly, his life was polarized and his own illness, his own demon, allowed him to separate these worlds.
The religious life is one that calls us to wholeness, not division. This wholeness is not just for world peace or global social justice; wholeness calls to us personally from deep within. We cannot separate our lives- what we do and who we are in one realm feeds into the other. If they are separate, we risk leading inauthentic lives. And the spiral downward can continue until, like Jekyll and Hyde, the shields of denial and stasis go up, and we completely absolve ourselves of any responsibility for what we do and who are. Hence, the devil. Those of us who care about social justice do well to remember that the smaller units of society, in homes and families, are just as important to address as the larger social concerns.
Every part of our lives yearns towards wholeness.
