What Is God’s Love? At our Mother’s Day service, one of our members asked, “What’s the difference between God’s love and a mother’s love?” Now that it’s Father’s Day, we could ask the same thing about the love of a father. Yet how do we answer that question if we don’t know what God’s love is? The God described in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is a complex one. We’ll call this God “he,” since we’re talking about fathers. This God is full of both mercy and wrath. He forgives the sinner, then goes and wipes out entire cities of sinners, their cultures, and even most of the human race.…
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Flower Communion
Communion and Community We Unitarian Universalists have few rituals of our own. The Flower Communion, created in 1923 in Czechoslovakia by Unitarian minister Norbert Čapek, is one of them. The church he founded was only a few years old, yet already he sensed discomfort among the members. Having left behind Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths, many of them struggled to open their hearts to something new. They didn’t trust one another. Knowing that ritual touches hearts and spirits, Čapek thought some kind of ceremony would help, perhaps something like the Christian communion. For many of his members, though, this practice would bring up old wounds. How could he bring the…
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Acting Out of Anger and the Power of Love
Acting Out of Anger For some reason, I’ve never been able to stay angry very long. The energy dissipates, and the resentment fades away. I suspect it’s because my attention span isn’t long enough. I get bored with the same old story, so I’m not likely to keep bitterness alive by rehearsing the injustice of it all. Nor can I convince myself of my own infallibility, so feeling self-righteous and aggrieved doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t get angry, though. Indeed, as recently as fifteen years ago, I liked my aggressive outbursts. Being a shy person, I didn’t act out in public, but…
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Memorial Day and the Waging of Peace
Memorial Day and Remembrance On Memorial Day, we remember. We remember war, death, and those we love. We remember the importance of community and country, the warmth of family and hearth. That which we are willing to fight for, we remember on this day. Soldiers may hope they are fighting for freedom. After all, they say that liberty is the foundation of our country. It’s what the Statue of Liberty stands for; it’s part of her name. On a bronze plaque inside the statue is the poem, “Colossus,” written by Emma Lazarus. It contains the well-known words: “Give us your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”…
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The Importance of Paying Attention
Coddling and Kindness Father Gregory Boyle, who welcomes hardened gang members into compassionate community through his nonprofit Homeboy Industries, has been accused of “coddling” these young men and women. Detractors say this as if coddling were a terrible thing, perhaps as bad as throttling them. On “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Fred Rogers used to gaze kindly into the eye of the camera to make his television listeners feel that he was talking directly to them. Then, he’d say, “You’ve made this day a special day, by just your being you.” For this, he has been blamed for creating a generation of selfish brats who think they deserve to rewarded for doing…
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The Enneagram and the Mother Within
Mothers on Display We were at the playground, my children running, sliding, and swinging, when I noticed shouting. At the wading pool, a girl of about twelve or thirteen sat, her shoulders hunched, her feet in the water. Thin hair hung across her shoulders. Her knees bulged from her emaciated legs. Beside her, an obese woman chastised her for hanging out in a pool for babies, but whenever the girl tried to stand, the woman pushed her back down. As the woman recited a list of sins the girl had committed and told her she was stupid and worthless, the child stared silently at her feet. The bullying was horrifying.…
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Cinco de Mayo and World Laughter Day
Cinco de Mayo and Resilience Mexico lost the war, but won the battle. On May 5, 1862, with half as many men as the French, the Mexican soldiers of Puebla defeated their better-equipped enemy. Although their victory was short-lived, for the French regrouped and eventually established rule of the country, the May 5th battle is commemorated every year as Cinco de Mayo, honoring the boost in morale it gave the Mexican people. [1] The holiday symbolizes grit, perseverance, and resilience. It reminds us that, though threats may be great, when we come together, we can prevail. I think of a family I met once while waiting to visit my son…
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Falling Into Life
Trusting the Catcher Priest and author, Henri Nouwen, loved the circus. Once, while watching some trapeze artists perform, he became so entranced that he pushed his way backstage to introduce himself to the them. After their conversation, Rodleigh, the troupe’s leader, invited Nouwen to travel with them for a week. During that time, he learned all he could about their art. One day, he asked Rodleigh about flying. Rodleigh explained that the one who releases the bar and sails toward his partner is the flier. The other is the catcher. Once launched, the flier does nothing but trust. “When I fly to Joe,” Rodleigh told Nouwen, “I have simply to…
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Easter and Earth Day
Easter and Dominion I write this on the day before Easter. Tomorrow, Christians around the world will celebrate the resurrection of a man who, by his act of being reborn, rendered death meaningless. Instead of life being an illusion, death became one. Most religions describe an afterlife, some continued existence for our souls once our bodies are gone. Many people find comfort in the belief that death is not the end. The story of an Easter that takes away death’s sting brings a similar sense of peace. Without a fall, however, there would be no resurrection. Once upon a time, Adam and Eve lived as if one with nature. Knowing…
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One Little Goat and A Ram
Passover and Chad Gadya Passover has started. Candles have been lit, prayers spoken, rituals performed, songs sung, questions answered, and the misery of slavery remembered. My family never celebrated the Jewish holidays. I don’t know if Passover was part of my father’s childhood. He never told me, nor did he explain the laws or rituals or holidays of his people. He was secular and thoroughly Americanized. Perhaps that is why I seek now to understand what is and is not part of my heritage. As the story goes, my ancestors were slaves in Egypt, and God delivered them in a flurry of plagues and death. Each year, relatives I do…