Minister’s Musings

Last month, our School for Compassion took up the topic “How We Speak to One Another.” We borrowed from Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, where she writes, “During this step, we try to make ourselves mindful of the way we speak to others. When you argue, do you get away by your own cleverness and deliberately inflict pain on your opponent? Do you get personal? Will the points you make further the cause of understanding or are they exacerbating an already inflammatory situation? Are you really listening to your opponent? What would happen if—while debating a trivial matter that would have no serious consequences—you allowed yourself to lose the argument?”
          Here, then, was our homework: “If you find yourself becoming defensive or feeling a need to make a point and correct others in a conversation, attempt to shift to a place of asking questions rather than making statements. Express curiosity. Inquire about another person’s particular view and what informs it. Curiosity can open our hearts to be willing to see something from a different perspective than our own. Ask open-ended questions to shift from a debate to a dialogue.”

With this homework lodged in my mind and heart, I took myself to Mountain View’s most recent “Civility Dialogue.” This series of dialogues, sponsored by the city’s Human Relations Commission, seeks to change the nature of our conversations on hot-button topics from confrontational to civil, helping participants to find common ground, to honor the worth and dignity of those who hold opposing views, and to create hopeful solutions among divided members of a community.

         Each dialogue begins with a panel of experts or advocates on the topic sitting at a round table. A moderator asks questions that draw out the panelists’ different perspectives and experiences, as well as the hopes and fears that fuel their opinions. Then the audience breaks into small groups of ten to twelve. One of the panelists sits with each group as facilitator.

        On the night I attended, the topic was undocumented immigrants in Mountain View. The panel included Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, José Antonio Vargas, who “came out” in the New York Times Magazine last fall as undocumented. Vargas arrived from the Philippines to live with his grandparents when he was twelve. By his side sat Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen; Oscar García, the president of Mountain View’s Chamber of Commerce; conservative politician Don Barich; and Maria Marroquín, executive director of Mountain View’s Day Laborer Center. They spoke passionately but civilly to each other. Their differences seemed almost insurmountable.

          When we broke into small groups, José Antonio Vargas joined mine as our facilitator. In our circle were folks who were convinced that the majority of undocumented immigrants are criminals. A few said that Vargas should be deported immediately; one woman went off to speak with DA Jeff Rosen, a copy of Vargas’s NY Times Magazine article in her hand. She returned to confront Vargas with his “criminal” acts (fraudulent paperwork, which Vargas readily admits). I held my breath, expecting her to issue a citizen’s arrest in the next sentence.

           Others in our circle felt conflicted and confused about the whole topic, uncomfortable with both the longwinded passionate supporters of immigrants’ rights and the strident anti-immigrant voices. Still others wanted to lift up our common humanity, to undo myths about undocumented immigrants, and to get at the root causes of migrants’ desire to leave their homes and families and come to the United States, with or without documentation.

         Throughout, I tried to listen with “compassionate curiosity.” I vowed not to try to win an argument or even to enter into the debate, but rather to listen and to wonder about where each person was coming from. I was striving to empathize, even with those whose words made my heart race and my adrenaline pump. José Antonio Vargas modeled Karen Armstrong’s suggestions, asking questions rather than debating, demonstrating a sincere and respectful interest in what each person had to say.

          When I finally offered a few thoughts into the circle (in response to the woman who seemed intent on having Vargas arrested), I felt able to speak from a more grounded place, rather than from my own fear.

         I watched the former police officer in our group, who had complained about undocumented immigrants’ “criminality” and disrespect for the laws. (By the way, DA Rosen says that the proportion of undocumented immigrants in county jails exactly matches the proportion in the population, rather than their being disproportionately represented. That’s a good fact to know—but there I go again: am I trying to make my point and be “right,” instead of leaving you more space to reflect?) I paid attention, too, to another man who had entered the room with the sense that undocumented immigrants thought they were “better than” U.S. citizens, “thumbing their noses at our laws.” I saw both these men grow calmer and quieter after their initial outbursts; I witnessed them listening deeply to Vargas and others in the group. And at the end, I saw each of these men reach out to Vargas and shake his hand, offering a sincere smile and a “Thank you.”

          Transformation.

          And I felt a change in myself, too. I would not have appreciated so deeply what was happening for others in my small group if I hadn’t listened twenty times more than I spoke. I wouldn’t have understood the nature of my own fears and responses if I had leapt in to convince others of my position. I wouldn’t have been able to still the rapid beating of my own heart and really hear others if I hadn’t had this practice to guide me.

         Transformation.

         Karen Armstrong suggests applying this compassionate approach to transforming debate into dialogue on the smaller issues in our lives—the arguments we might be willing to “lose.” The Civility Dialogue gave me the chance to dive into this spiritual practice on a topic that feels hugely important, life-or-death for some of us, and morally loaded for our country, for our faith, for me. It was a great preparation for Justice General Assembly in Phoenix this June—and a wonderful way to grow my own compassion.

From Brokenness to Transformation:

A Theological Reflection first offered to a PACT Interfaith Clergy Gathering

by Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones

In mid March, the PACT (People Acting in Community Together) interfaith clergy gather to discuss the crisis of unequal and unfair wealth distribution in this country. We facilitators have statistics about how the current income gap between the richest and everyone else is now higher than it has been since the 1930s, with the top 1 percent claiming 23.5 percent of national income. We have graphs that show how “good policies” in the 1950s through the mid ’70s (such as minimum-wage laws, civil rights legislation, and an ethic of civic engagement) intentionally “lifted all boats.” Every section of the population in that era did demonstrably better for a while, from the poorest to the richest. Since the late ’70s, “bad policies” have intentionally benefited the wealthiest at the expense of all others. The very poor, and peoples of color, have been particularly hard hit.

          But before we get to the numbers and graphs, we want to start with why this matters to us. What does our faith say about getting involved in turning this situation around? Rabbi Joel Fleekop from Congregation Shir Hadash shares part of his Rosh Hashanah sermon. Father Eddie Samaniego from Most Holy Trinity Catholic parish speaks specifically about the sins of Bank of America. His parish recently divested its millions of dollars from the big banks and moved them to local ones. I offer this reflection, personal and poetic, uncertain and incomplete. Humbly, I share it with you here:

Mine is a wrestling faith—striving through the night with an unknown Source, clasped in the embrace of forces larger than myself, always with that echoing cry, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

          So when Rabbi David J. Cooper from Piedmont reminds PICO interfaith clergy last month of the story of tsimtsum and tikkun olam,[1] I am grateful … and the wrestling begins again.

          Here’s a Unitarian Universalist retelling: An exiled Jewish teacher in the fifteenth century, Rabbi Isaac Luria imagines a time before time when God is everywhere and everything—limitless holiness but with an urge, a need to create. But where? There’s no room for such creation! So God, in a gesture both brilliant and generous, contracts God-self—a holy contraction called tsimtsum. At last, room to work in! Now God handcrafts vessels—mysteriously, because of course God does not have hands—and God fills them with more of God-self, bright sparks of creative potential. Then God—in a risky … or is it playful? … mood—flings these vessels out into the newly made universe. But the Holy can never be contained, even by something God has made, and so the vessels shatter, scattering shards and shooting sparks everywhere.

          From the beginning, the myth says, the whole of our world, and we humans, are made of stuff both broken and divine.

          When I look at the income gap, created intentionally by policies that favor the wealthy and powerful, I see shards of fear and greed on the one hand, shards of want and despair on the other, and shards of isolation and longing throughout. Shards splintered again and again, slivers of those original vessels. The task of tikkun olam, healing the world, putting it all back together, seems daunting, at best.

           I pick up my own shards—loneliness, overwhelm, heartbreak, feeling not enough. Fingering those sharp edges, I long for a cracked yet glimmering wholeness—the vessel reconstituted, and the light shining through the cracks. But the broken edges scrape and burn. I doubt they can be repaired.

And then, miraculously, the embers of those creative sparks begin to stir in the dust, in the air all around us. Always, always, they whisper, God is everywhere, in the sparks, in the shards, in the longing, in the lure. Isn’t that the meaning of the story?

“Gather the spirit, harvest the power, our separate fires will kindle one flame,” we Unitarian Universalists sing.[2] We have been singing about tsimtsum all these years!

The story traces the arc of our oh-so-human lives: longing, contracting, shaping, flinging, shattering, scattering, luring, reconnecting. If I, if we, will fan the flames of our creativity and put even a few pieces back together—then, infused by the Holy, we will wrestle a blessing from the pain, and it will, somehow, be enough.                         

[1] Rabbi David J. Cooper, “On Tikkun Olam,” opening reflection at Land of Opportunity PICO clergy gathering, Hayward, California, 4 Feb. 2012.

[2] “Gather the Spirit,” words and music by Unitarian Universalist Jim Scott, # 347 in Singing the Living Tradition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

The Theater of Microaggressions

by Rev. Nancy Palmer Jones

  At a signal from the teacher, my friend steps into the center of the circle. “Welcome to the Theater of Microaggressions,” Professor Mark Hicks announces. A rustle ripples through the sanctuary; the title makes us squirm. “What are you doing?” I telegraph to my friend by widening my eyes at her. Isn’t she putting herself in danger?

Unitarian Universalist ministers and lay leaders have gathered at All Souls Church in Washington, D.C. to learn about leading vital multicultural congregations. We have just watched sociologist Derald Wing Sue’s video about microaggressions—those unconscious insults and small putdowns that folks in marginalized groups receive day after day. Usually these words or gestures come from good folks who have no intention of doing harm. 

Two examples (notice: does any of this sound familiar?): (1) An academic adviser concludes a session with a graduate student with what is meant to be a compliment: “Your English is excellent!” But the Asian-American grad student winces. Born in the United States, he speaks English as his first language. (2) At a board meeting, men freely exchange ideas with each other. Their body language blocks out the only woman at the table. When she finally gets the chair’s attention and begins to offer her suggestions, no one looks her way. The man next to her reads something on his phone as she speaks.

At the conference, the video stirs our discomfort. But next we listen to a recording of a gay men’s chorale and a black Baptist choir from Dallas singing Labi Siffre’s affirming “Something Inside So Strong.” My friend—herself a lesbian of color—stands taller, and we all breathe easier.

Finally our teacher Mark sets up the “Theater of Microaggressions”: My friend will play the role of the only person in her family who has no gift for math. Her parents and siblings are all famous mathematicians. With her aptitude for literature and the arts, she is the “different” one.

A group of volunteer actors circles her. As they pass by, they look her in the eyes and deliver their assigned lines: “Why aren’t you good at math?” “You must be so proud of your brother.” “Say, are you adopted?” and so on. Inevitably my friend’s posture slumps; she looks down, her eyes glistening. The circling group moves faster and faster. They no longer meet her eyes; they sound almost apologetic as they repeat their lines over and over. The tension in the sanctuary rises. When will this game stop? Should we intervene? What should we do?

Just when we can stand it no longer, Mark breaks up the improvisation, says “thank you” to his actors, and pulls my friend to him in a hug. “You are smart and you are beautiful,” he reminds her. All of us take a deep breath.

“Microaggressions,” Derald Wing Sue teaches, “are unconscious manifestations of a worldview of inclusion and exclusion, of superiority and inferiority.” Microaggressions often target people of color, women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, or people with disabilities, although (as the exercise showed) any kind of difference can prompt these signals that it’s not OK to be just who we are. The perpetrator doesn’t mean to be, doesn’t want to be, prejudiced or condescending, but no one has ever helped this person to examine what lies beneath her or his unconscious actions. “If we are to become a fair, just, and humane society,” Wing Sue suggests—if we are to heal this brokenness in our lives—then we’ve got to “make the invisible visible.”

Through this exercise, we conference attendees feel in our bones just how damaging a lifetime’s worth of such words or gestures might be, even for folks with “something so strong inside.” We testify about our own experiences of microaggressions. We recognize the times when we have used such words or gestures. Our empathy deepens. We wonder how to change these patterns in our congregations. We wonder how to teach our children to be strong. How can we teach them how to respond when they receive one of those daily slights or when they see someone else receiving one?

“Every negative experience takes seven positive experiences to turn around,” Mark tells us. Seven positive experiences to knit together the broken places in our spirits and to remind us that beneath and beyond and through it all, we are whole. We have work to do!

So come then, my good people, join us this month as we “make the invisible visible” and take the next steps on our journey toward wholeness!

P.S. You can watch Derald Wing Sue’s video about microaggressions and learn more about what each of us can do to stop them at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJL2P0JsAS4. And you can listen to Labi Siffre sing “Something Inside So Strong” at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otuwNwsqHmQ.   

The dusty paint-spattered basement of the Art Students League on West 57^th Street in New York smells earthy, damp, metallic. On the first day of class, our teacher leads us to the huge garbage bins filled with dark gray clay. The advanced sculpture students haul out handfuls and hurry to their stations. But when we beginners plunge in our hands, it’s shocking. Wet and cold, the clay resists us, as though dragged down by suction. How will we make something out of this?

That sensation tingles on my skin as I think about January’s theme: Creation. So many creation myths begin with a god or gods who fashion humans from clay. I wonder: what did the gods feel when they first touched the clay? Surprise? Dismay? Pleasure? Inspiration?

The ancient Egyptian deity Khnum, god of the source of the Nile River, gathers silt and clay left behind by the Nile’s flooding. He sits at a potter’s wheel and shapes children. Imagine the clay spinning and spitting off the wheel as Khnum molds legs, arms, torso, the small column of the neck, the tiny delicate head. He will place these children fully formed into their mothers’ wombs.

The creator-god Juok lives on the western bank of the Nile, now Sudan. He travels all over the world, gathering different colors of earth, sand, clay to form white, red, brown, and black people. He makes them all legs at first so they can work. Then Juok adds arms for cultivating crops, then eyes for seeing and mouths for eating, and finally tongues and ears for dancing, singing, and shouting for joy.

For the Pangwe of Cameroon, God first makes a lizard of clay and sets it to soak in a pool, as though it needs marinating. A week later, he calls out for the human step forth—and sure enough, a person emerges. Talk about evolution!

In the Qur’an (37:11; 38:71-72), Allah forms a human being out of clay and then breathes Allah’s own spirit into the new creature, commanding the angels to bow down before the human. This particular theme—humans made of a wet, sticky, earthy substance inspired (literally, breathed into) by something divine—shows up again and again in creation myths.

But why do we 21^st-century Unitarian Universalists revisit these myths? Your own responses say it all (see “In Our Own Voices” in this issue). Each creation myth has something unique to tell us about who we are, one of you says, so “which ones can help us find direction?” “We humans are called to be co-creators with all that is!” another shouts, and “we humans get to create the myths we need,” reminds another. (Come hear some brand-new myths in worship in early January!)

Where does creativity come from, and how can all of  us, even if we’re not artists, live creatively? What does it mean to be creative in our relationships, our jobs, our classes, our social justice work, our approach to life every day? “We humans create ourselves,” one of you says. “So how do we put into motion our interests and hopes for the world?”

From clay, from the stuff of the earth, comes life, the myths claim, using metaphor to speak a fundamental truth: We are indeed children of this planet, our Mother Earth. The Earth, through its natural cycles of creation and destruction, sustains all life. But what are we humans doing to sustain or to destroy this Earth and her species? How can we be co-creators—allies—with Mother Earth? At FUCSJ, the Rights of Mother Earth group lifts up these pressing questions so that we may move into effective action. Please join us at our next meeting on January 22 (see the announcement later in this journal).

Back in my sculpture class years ago, our live model breathes, patiently holding her pose. I roll and mold the clay until at last a shape emerges, an S-shaped curve that captures my heart. The lines evolve and begin to tell a story: this creature has a setting, a mood, a life. She comes from another time, lying fearless on her old-fashioned divan. She comes from me but is not of me. I certainly wouldn’t call her an “inspired” or breathing creation! But the process of creation teaches me something about myself: I can plunge my hands in and begin to shape my life.

Come, my good people, the clay is waiting. Let’s plunge in!

With love and encouragement for this New Year,

Rev. Nancy

The most powerful video from the Occupy movement that I have seen shows hundreds of students at the University of California Davis, sitting in silence in the dark, watching UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi walk to her car. The day before, campus police had pepper-sprayed students engaged in nonviolent protest. Since videos of that attack went viral, students, professors, and others have cried out for the chancellor’s resignation.

But on this evening the silence is broken only by the tap of the chancellor’s shoes on the pavement. Camera strobes light the path that students have cleared. Campus minister Rev. Kristin Stoneking performs the most profound of all ministerial functions: that of “walking with” the chancellor. Chancellor Katehi walks slowly, taking in the faces of the students. They meet her gaze steadily. It seems to take forever, that walk, those two and a half minutes of mutual witness. Each time I watch it, I hold my breath.

Some commentators have called this event Chancellor Katehi’s “walk of shame.” I think they are missing its true meaning. The students wanted face-to-face contact; they wanted “to see and be seen by the chancellor,” as Rev. Stoneking describes later. The chancellor agreed. The moment is profoundly humanizing on all sides. It embodies the power of hope—hope for understanding, for change, for reconciliation.

 “Why did I walk the Chancellor to her car?” Rev. Stoneking writes. “Because I believe in the humanity of all persons. Because I believe that people should be assisted when they are afraid. Because I believe that in showing compassion we embrace a nonviolent way of life that emanates to those whom we refuse to see as enemies and in turn leads to the change that we all seek.” 

Hope springs from such compassion. But hope takes the kind of discipline the students demonstrated with their silent, steady, peaceful witness.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion of hope. Hope in this world and of this world. But it is not a glib or easy hope; it must be earned through practice and experience.

My clergy study group, the Sparks for Growth, spent two days last week talking about the “core truths of Unitarian Universalism.” My friend the Rev. Chris Bell said, “We UUs have a positive view of evolution. We believe that things can, and should, and will get better.”

“Really?” I said. “Isn’t that just too optimistic? Look at the persistence of violence, war, oppression, poverty, hunger, and plain old meanness.”

Ah, that’s where choice comes in, Chris and other colleagues reminded me. Unitarian Universalism is also a religion of choice. We humans are free, as individuals and as communities,  to choose how we live. We can choose to meet ourselves and each other face to face, with honesty, compassion, and a commitment to nonviolence. We can choose to walk this strobe-lit path through the evening’s dark.

This month we explore our own pathways to hope. Watch the video of Chancellor Katehi walking to her car at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8775ZmNGFY8. Read the whole of Rev. Kristin Stoneking’s blog, “Why I walked Chancellor Katehi out of Surge II” (Surge II is a UC Davis administrative building), at http://cahouse.org/Weblog/?p=160. And ask, What does this event say to you about the discipline of hope, about the possibility for reconciliation and healing? Where in your own life might the discipline of hope open the door to life-giving choices and second chances?

With gratitude that we walk this path together,

Rev. Nancy

It’s 8:45 a.m., and I am stuck behind a car turning left across a busy Willow Glen street. Still sleepy, I am about to be late for a beloved dance class. I sigh, check my rearview mirror: Can I pull around this car? No. I sigh again.

While I’m waiting, a young family rounds the corner on the sidewalk, rushing toward the elementary school down the block. Mom and young son trot hand-in-hand; daughter, maybe seven years old, plods ahead, her backpack bouncing with each step. Suddenly, the daughter bursts into a final half-block dash, her face lifted and shining, her straight black hair flying. She is running with abandon toward her day, her whole body filled with joyful anticipation.

I realize I have just received a blessing. I wonder: What do I run toward with such joyful anticipation?

Five days a week, I begin the day on the phone with my spiritual buddy Alicia. We check in—“how are you, really?”—then we lift up the “holy moments” from the day before. The little girl running to school becomes one of my holy moments for that Monday. Telling Alicia about it helps me to set my intention for this new day: to be in the present moment, to notice and receive the small blessings.

A few minutes later, I park my car across from Mi Pueblo grocery story and walk around to drag my own heavy backpack from the front seat. The trunk of the palm tree at the curb stops me in my tracks. Where the bark on the bottom three feet has worn away, thin fibrous roots poke out like a colony of dried-up worms. It’s unlike the innards of any other tree I’ve seen. “Oh, you are strange,” I marvel, “strange and beautiful!”

Next, an evergreen bush flings a branch in my direction. I’m awake now, so every spiky dark green leaf seems etched against the sky. “Wow! Thank you!” I say to the bush.

As a minister, I talk with brokenhearted people most days, and most days the world breaks my heart, too. But when I am awake to wonder and gratitude, then I see the strange, strong root system in each person, and the green spiky leaves, and the longing to run toward life with joyful anticipation, if given half a chance.

So what does it take to wake up to gratitude and wonder? Practice, that’s for sure. A spiritual practice, and a community that reminds us, coaxes us, checks up on us. For example:

The Partner Church for my first Unitarian Universalist congregation was only fifteen blocks uptown. To visit the Church of the Resurrection, United Church of Christ, I just had to walk up First Street from the Upper East Side into East Harlem. During Joys and Sorrows on a Sunday morning, we’d hear about all the hard things that often accompany living below the poverty line in the U.S.A. But always, always, someone would stand up and say, “I woke up this morning, and I thanked God I was alive!” The congregation would holler their support and agreement: “Amen!”

I confess: too often I wake up with my to-do list scrolling through my head, instead of the recognition of “Another day! Hallelujah!”

So this is my intention for the coming month: through worship with you, through the School for Compassion (beginning November 13, 1:00 – 2:30), through my own self-care, I will deepen the spiritual practices that awaken me to everyday delight and simple thanks.  

Won’t you join me?

On the wall of the Religious Education building at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (UUCB), a tree grows, leaf by leaf. Made of fragments of coffee cups, orphaned earrings, broken tiles, watches that stopped ticking long ago, even a few discarded wedding rings, this mosaic Tree of Life evolves as families, partners, friends, and strangers work together to make one whole thing of beauty from the broken bits of individual lives. “We can bring our broken pieces to church,” the Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway tells congregants at UUCB. The Tree of Life represents unity grown from difference and from brokenness.“How can unity exist without diversity?” a congregant here at the First Unitarian Church of San José asks. What a wonderful theological question! Don’t there have to be differences in order to have something to unite? Then, is there some elemental Oneness that lies below, beyond, or deep within our differences?Humans have asked these questions ever since one culture came into contact withanother. Why are there different languages, customs, and capacities among us human beings?Why are we so fragmented? Why does our communication break down? Stories from the world’s religions—like that of the Tower of Babel in the Hebrew Bible—try to make meaning of these differences. They often say that our differences result from something that we humans did wrong, like being too proud or ambitious.The Unitarian Universalist take on why we have differences is, well, different. Webelieve that everyone holds a piece of the truth. We get at what’s undivided in human nature—and in the universe—by bringing all our pieces together. We need them all for our mosaic. Taken together, our differences can create an even more beautiful whole.In “The Sum of Our Parts,” Rev. Gretchen Haley puts it this way: “In a time when the whole country is retreating to gated communities to be with people who just confirm their own beliefs, and watch television news programs that only confirm everything they already believe …we have the audacity to imagine, to go so far as to live out the proposition that our diversity makes us more unified, rather than less; that being with others who are not like us can make us more connected to something grander, and more a part of something mysterious, and transcendent.”My teacher tells me that in Tai Chi, the human body forms the connecting line between heaven and earth—the place where these energies, or opposites, meet. In the “Five Elements,” we reach our hands toward the earth, draw its energies up through the torso, then fling our hands up toward the sky. We circle them round again until they pause before our eyes, like a mirror.Now that I think of it, the shape we draw resembles a Tree of Life: differences united into something whole. Just as we bring water from our individual journeys to pour into one bowl on Homecoming Sunday, let’s bring our sparkling pieces of the truth, our fragments of beauty, our unique life experiences, and our broken bits to this mosaic we are making—this one Beloved Community.

Sitting in a hotel ballroom at a ministers’ conference in May, my spouse Kevin and I hear the worship leader ask: “Imagine your vocation—your call to ministry—as a light that burns within you. What kind of light is your call right now? Is it a flickering pilot light, in danger of snuffing out? Is it strong and steady like an energy-saving light bulb? Is it in the midst of changing?”           

     We close our eyes. Kevin turns his heart toward his new congregation in Danvers, Massachusetts, and I think of you, the members and friends of the First Unitarian Church of San José, from first-time seekers to long-time leaders. As corny as it sounds, I sure enough see a light, which springs from no one place and from everywhere within me. The light spreads like molasses through my system, glowing brighter and brighter, warming me in that air-conditioned ballroom, from the inside out.            

     Just then, Kevin leans over and says quietly, “My call is a TORCH!”            

     “Yes,” I stage-whisper back, “mine, too!” Our faces shine. 

Before I left on sabbatical, almost six months ago, I shared a long list of paths I wanted to explore, of things to do and ways to be that I hoped would reconnect me with my sources of healing, refreshment, renewal, change, and balance. Most of all, I wanted to remember how to be receptive, for this is how the Holy comes to us. I wanted to reconnect with the Ground of My Being.            

     Now, on the verge of my official return, I can say that every dream I had has been fulfilled—and then some! Some plans unfurled exactly as I had envisioned (I really did learn a whole form of Tai Chi, for instance), and some hopes were satisfied in ways I couldn’t have imagined beforehand—like the heart-pounding pleasure I rediscovered in learning, even when it’s simply a new verb tense in Spanish. I have lived deeply into my life, with its joys, its sorrows, its ordinary and extraordinary days, and I have discovered practices that, with faithfulness, will sustain me even as the “hubbub” returns. Most of all, I have felt my call to ministry and my call to you, dear community, reconfirmed and recentered, brought back to its essence.             

     What is the essence of this call? Unitarian Universalist minister David Pohl writes that the minister’s vocation “is to love those entrusted to our care, build up the church that shelters us, and be faithful to the vision that draws us on.” Ministry, Pohl goes on, “is, first of all, a way of living, and only secondarily a way to make a living. It is about being in love with people, with learning, with the church, with a faith that, for us, is both tough-minded and tender-hearted…. It is about sharing hope and love and courage with those we are privileged to lead and serve.”  

     Friends, in our shared ministry, these words apply to us all. As I reenter the stream of our community life, won’t you join me in renewing our commitment to this call? To love, to build, to stay true to our vision. To be in love with people and learning, in love with this institution we build together and with the faith that sustains it, which asks of us and gives to us so much. To share hope, love, and courage by living our lives out loud together, honoring our learnings, our joys, our sorrows, our ordinary and extraordinary days, always opening our hearts to the stranger, making room for the voices we have not yet heard, drawing the circle wider still.

     With such a “vision of ministry clear,” the flame of our call will, sure enough, brighten our hearts and help to warm the world. I’ll see you in a few weeks! 

In joyful anticipation of our reunion, 

One of my favorite passages from the Hebrew Scriptures comes toward the end of the Bible’s longest sermon (the book of Deuteronomy). After preaching for hours, laying out hundreds of rules for the people of Israel, Moses—exhausted, exhilarated—finally blurts out the Cliff Notes version. I hear his summary this way: “Listen up, people! It all boils down to this: you can act and think in ways that bring more love and life to yourself and the folks around you, or you can act and think in ways that are soul-killing and life-destroying for you and others. With every act, every thought—large or small—you can choose life or choose death. For your sake, for the sake of your children, for God’s sake: choose life! Choose life!!”            Hear me, UUs! In these days of a gathering storm of socially conservative legislation, please know that this passage is not a slogan for anti-abortion activists; it is not about limiting a woman’s right to make choices about her own body, however difficult those choices may be. That is not the liberal religious reading of Deut. 30:19-20.           

Rather, these words—“choose life!”—leapt to my mind when I heard the sad news of the death of our beloved V Kingsley, member, parent, and youth advisor in our community. If anyone ever embodied how to CHOOSE LIFE—how to love fiercely, and act courageously, and extend herself toward giving life and hope and joy to those around her, even in the face of her own pain and mortality—it was V. Her works of art, her leadership, her strong opinions, her passionate commitment to Unitarian Universalism, her wide web of friendships—all sprang from the same intention: to cherish life and to demonstrate her love for her family and friends, for her many communities, for this church and our youth. In the last months of V’s life, our community offered life-affirming gifts to V and her family, too. Heartfelt thanks to everyone who cooked and coordinated meals, offered encouraging words, listened and paid visits! V’s wife, Dani Hope, has asked me to come off sabbatical for a day in order to participate in the Celebration of V’s Life on Saturday, May 21, at 1:00 p.m. in the FUCSJ sanctuary, and I am deeply grateful to be there. Let us all gather on that day to honor V’s gifts, to support her family, and to be strengthened in our own abilities to choose life.           

My sabbatical continues to offer rich opportunities to practice “choosing life” in thought and action, through mountaintop experiences of blazing intensity, focus, and joy, through inevitable valleys of grief and loss, and through the plain old plateaus of ordinary days. Oh, friends, what a remarkable road to renewal I am traveling!            

My two weeks of intensive cultural and language immersion in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, provided one of those mountaintop experiences. I lived and studied among a United Nations of ethnicities, faiths, and ages: from my host Mexican family (laughter-loving Seventh-Day Adventists) to my housemates and fellow Soléxico students—a young doctor-in-training from New Zealand (a nondenominational Christian seeker); a retired and recently widowed French Canadian (an adventurous Catholic); two young Turkish-Swiss women (Muslims who love to party); and two Brazilian women whose spirituality ranges from the Dalai Lama to agnosticism and more. Imagine the conversations around the dinner table and in the classroom! We puzzled over issues of justice and religion, family, politics, and soccer. I was blown away by the courage of folks who arrived with not a word of Spanish, yet plunged into the small classes and wide-ranging social life, and left Playa weeks later, able to converse. I loved discovering my own balance of action and reflection—the thrill of learning, the exploration of Mayan ruins and cenotes, the chance to swim with huge tortoises and bright-hued fish, the long hours lounging with books at the beach, the gentle greetings—“¡Hola! ¡Buen día!”—among strangers on the street, in the shops. Even through the inevitable discomfort and unfamiliarity, I could choose each day to turn my thoughts and actions in the direction of self-care and creative engagement. The pulse of life beat strong. Singing “Fuente de Amor”/“Spirit of Life” for my teachers and housemates, complete with the gestures that embody the words, I watched my new friends light up with joy and recognition, across all our diverse languages of faith. I realized: So this is what it feels like to be an “ambassador” of our faith: organic, inclusive, impactful, good!           

UUA Moderator Gini Courter, minister Rev. Wendy von Zirpolo, and I are working with the administrators at Soléxico to create an affordable short-term program that would help prepare Unitarian Universalists for the Justice General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 2012—and for life in our multicultural communities, too. Would some of you like to return with me to Playa del Carmen for a week or so next winter? Visit www.solexico.com for an introduction to the school.           

With mountaintop experiences, we often wish we could linger in that territory of intense insight, but in truth we are called to come down off the mountain, back to the valleys and plateaus of our lives—bringing with us the new ways of being we have learned in the heights. Back on the plateau, I now seek out those life-giving elements of balance and of challenge that I found in Mexico. Back on the plateau, I am open each day to serving as a Unitarian Universalist ambassador, simply through my way of being in the world.

My last two months of sabbatical include more travel, more conferences, more connections with new and old friends. As I turn toward home, I am getting ready for our pilgrimage to Hungary and Romania in July, and I am focusing on practical preparation for our years to come at the First Unitarian Church of San José. Please see the invitation to contribute to worship themes for the coming year, in the newsletter. And will I see some of you at General Assembly in Charlotte, North Carolina, in June?

Finally, my beloved community, I am bursting with curiosity: How is it with your soul? Does the idea of being a UU ambassador intrigue you, shock you, entice you, worry you? How are you already embodying that Spirit of Life, that “Fuente de Amor”—the source, the fountain of Love? What choices are you making, every day, toward life or toward death? Who inspires you to live more abundantly, and how can you follow their example today?

“Listen up, people!” Moses came down from the mountaintop to say. “It’s up to you! For your sake, for the sake of your children, for God’s sake: choose life!” 

With great warmth and affection, 

Nancy

Sunday afternoon, February 6, 2011 

It is a balmy 39 degrees, the sun is blazing, and the piles of snow are melting in Danvers, Massachusetts, as the first six weeks of my sabbatical draw to a close. What a journey this has been so far! Now I am in that liminal space between homes, as one chapter ends and another is just a page-turn (and a cross-country flight) away. I am sitting in Boston’s Logan Airport, waiting for a delayed flight to wing me home to California for the next month—and you, dearly loved community, are much in my mind and heart.           

Here are a few verbal snapshots from this first leg of the journey:

n  4,322 miles, 12 days, 11 towns and cities, countless states, and at least 22 opportunities to pack and repack the Mini Cooper as we took the southern route across the country from San José to Danvers in late December and early January: what worlds this country contains! Ever-changing landscapes unfurled past the window—desert, plains, forests, mountains, lakes, and seas—with time enough for the beauty of each to work its way into my system. Each day’s drive dropped us into a new region’s culture. We witnessed the depth of the recession in some towns, and everywhere we were struck by the power of simple acts of kindness and hospitality from strangers to touch our hearts and make our day. It matters how we speak and act with each other.

n  Once we arrived in Danvers and were safely moved in, our pictures become white-on-white images of … snow. Mountains of snow. Blizzards and flurries, sleety snow, flaky snow, snowy air itself. Pastures of untrampled snow; walls of snow blocking the sightlines on freeway entrances and in parking lots; peaked roofs piled high with snow (and the disaster of collapsing roofs keeping everyone on edge). Six-foot-long icicles hanging like spears from the gutters. Even the hardy New Englanders have grown weary of this toughest winter in some 15 years. Kevin and I have the incredible blessing of apartment living—no need to shovel!—so our exploring of the picturesque neighborhoods all around us has been only partially restrained. Still, moving has its challenges: getting lost, getting sick, losing possessions, losing our bearings. I knew that my “flexibility” muscles would be strengthened by these changes in our lives—and they are indeed getting a workout!

n  Sabbatical study: Though I am still learning how to slow down, there is a spaciousness to these days that allows each reading and reflection to enter into my mind and heart with a depth I had been missing. This month’s study has focused on the art of preaching, on Buddhist meditation and philosophy, and on the discovery of a Unitarian novelist from the Victorian era (Elizabeth Gaskell) whose values and spirit for social reform and for gender and class equality have much to teach us 21^st-century UUs!

n  From the heart: Friends, I miss you more than I expected! I miss walking together through all that life brings us—and I know that a whole lot of Life is going on out there among you, and that you are caring for each other and for our wider community in generous and thoughtful ways. It has been particularly hard to be away from you when crises arise. I have hungered to be with you and to wrestle our way toward meaning in the face of tragedies like the shootings in Arizona in January or in light of the recent pro-democracy uprisings in Egypt; in times of illness and joy, and in times of community distress or discovery. One of the unexpected gifts of this sabbatical is the chance to experience afresh the value of and the need for the community we make together. I often wake up singing one of the chants that Anand Solest and the choir have taught us: “Love, you are fragrance” or “We are blessed.” I carry you with me, close as a breath—and I move forward on this sabbatical journey with you as my companions and my desire for your well-being as my guide. 

The next chapter of this journey begins tomorrow, February 7, as I join 375 Unitarian Universalist ministers at Asilomar in Monterey for the Institute for Excellence in Ministry. I look forward to being with Rev. Geoff and other dear colleagues—and to reconnecting with those aspects of my identity that can only be expressed at home!            May your own journeys take you to a depth of appreciation for the love that surrounds you; to new sources of personal, spiritual, and communal hope; and to the actions that best express who you really are as the “Love people” and makers of justice and peace. 

With much affection, 

Nancy