Managing Our Feelings The details are fuzzy. I think we were at some kind of party, maybe a birthday for one of my son’s friends. We mothers were hanging out with the kids, chatting, watching them play. Near me stood a woman I didn’t know well. Her boy was perhaps seven years old. I have no memory of what the child did or said. Probably, I hadn’t noticed. Whatever it was, it triggered in his mother an impressive outrage. Grabbing her son by the arm, she turned to me and said, “We have to leave. He’s upset me so much, I’m just too angry to enjoy myself any longer.” Her…
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Lent, Passion, and Repentance
Lent: A Time of Preparation for Easter As Easter approaches, some Christian communities celebrate Lent, a time of waiting and preparing for the triumphant return of Christ. According to a blog on the website of the Tullamore Parish, a Catholic community in Ireland, the most important way we can prepare for Easter is to do penance. What is penance? The Tullamore website calls it “self denial” and suggests we fast, give alms, and pray. [1] I think of penance as a kind of punishment, like the repeated prayers one speaks after confession or the self flagellation some sects practice in an effort to rid themselves of sin. Punishing Ourselves in Hope of…
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Resistance Revisited
Nonviolent Resistance Nonviolent resistance has been around since Jesus stood up to the Pharisees in Jerusalem, and probably before. Today, books are written about it and workshops designed to teach it. Some scholars insist that nonviolent resistance is more effective than violent resistance; others refute this. I doubt nonviolent resistance is as magical as we like to think, yet I know of no better way to orchestrate change without betraying our own values and becoming as angry, bitter, and oppressive as the regimes we stand against. Yet how do we refrain from lashing out with weapons? Cutting Ourselves Off from Our Emotions One way is to hide our emotions and…
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Mother’s Day and the Joy of Turning
The Mess in Our World Today Thinking about Mother’s Day this year, I feel sad. A month ago, I wrote a song for the holiday, reflecting that it was, in some ways, a good thing my mother isn’t alive to see the mess we’ve made of our political and denominational world. In Unitarian Universalist circles, we still struggle to address race issues much as we did in the 1960s when the “black controversy” divided us. Now, voices are again raised in anger over our association’s “white supremacist culture,” while others defend themselves. In the United States, we are more divided than at any time except perhaps during the 1920s. Back then, the…
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Jesus, Nonviolent Resistance, and the Gospel of Mark
Jesus Heals In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus performs many healings, including one he does without even intending to. Having just returned from Garasene where he used exorcism to cure a man who had been driven mad by demons named Legion, Jesus is stopped by Jairus, a leader in the synagogue. The man throws himself at Jesus’ feet and begs him to save his twelve-year-old daughter who is dying. So Jesus goes off with Jairus. Before they can get to the girl, however, a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years and spent all her money on physicians and their remedies only to get worse, touches Jesus’ cloak,…
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“Only Love Can Do That” – In Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Praying Without Apology Years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, attended Unitarian churches. King was drawn to liberal religion for “its devotion to the search for truth, its insistence on an open and analytical mind, and its refusal to abandon the best lights of reason.” [1] When they chose a tradition to align themselves with, however, the Kings chose African-American Christianity. In her article, “To Pray without Apology,” Unitarian Universalist minister, Rosemary Bray McNatt describes a meeting she had with Coretta King. At that meeting, McNatt commented that she was a Unitarian Universalist minister. King said that she and Martin had attended Unitarian churches in…
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Jesus, Resistance, and the Holiday Season
Jesus in Mark When I first read the Christian Scriptures, I was struck by the Gospel of Mark. Carefully-crafted and well-plotted, the story moves quickly toward its climax of death and resurrection. The book describes the ministry of a man both human and holy, who risked his life to spread his message of love and nonviolent resistance. The gospel is clearly political. Its first sentence, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” is a veiled challenge to the Roman Emperor who called himself the “Son of God” and whose birth was proclaimed as the “good news.” For me, Mark’s story seemed more like an…
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Faith and Insecurity
Faith in Love What do you have faith in? When I ask myself that question, the first thing that comes to mind is that I have faith in life itself. I have faith in our resilience as a species, and in the resilience of the earth to revive, no matter what we do to her. That doesn’t make acceptable the abuse of one another and destruction of our habitat, but I do believe in the power of life to revive itself again. Next, I think of love. My faith in love is unwavering. Even though hate seems rampant right now, and even though at times in my life I tried…
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Honoring the Dream
Facing Our Pain In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, this month, we will talk on Sunday about King’s dream and about our own dreams for a better world. Although I start out talking about pain in this column, I am also talking about the dream for justice, equality, and fellowship that King called for. Last Sunday, I attended a service at Eastrose Unitarian Universalist Fellowship where the Rev. David Maynard spoke about pain. He was discussing the challenges and hopes for individuals who suffer from chronic pain. He quoted from a pastoral care pamphlet on pain that said, “Pain is a reliable indicator that something is wrong in…
