- Carol and I aren’t married, so I call her mother my mother-out-law. And my mother-out-law sent me a link to an incredible online resource, the Cooperative Digital Resources Initiative (CDRI). What is CDRI? — “CDRI has assembled an impressive digital image collection that features woodcuts, coins, maps, postcards, sermons, and other ephemera.” For example, here’s a postcard of First Universalist in New Bedford (First Universalist merged with First Unitarian in 1930, and the old church is now an art gallery).
- Everett Hoagland, former poet laureate of New Bedford, turned me on to a great news story about the Presidential Scholars who, when they met George Bush, presented him with a petition asking him to cease illegal renditions, and to remove his signing statement to the McCain anti-torture bill. One student’s account of the event is here, and Amy Goodman’s interview with two of the students is here. Apparently, Mr. Bush was a bit nonplussed when presented with the students’ petition. Regardless of their political position, I am glad to hear that our educational system is indeed educating young people for democracy by teaching them how to genuinely engage with our elected leaders. Gives me hope for the future.
Category Archives: Ecology, religion, justice
Eight things I noticed on the beach yesterday evening
Ferry Beach, Saco, Maine
A Herring Gull swooped down onto the beach a hundred yards in front of me, carrying something large in its bill. Through the binoculars, I could see that the gull was carrying a fish, maybe a flounder, that looked too big for it to swallow. A young gull stood nearby, watching and hoping the older gull would drop the fish. The adult gull tossed the fish in the air, dropped it several times, tried to maneuver it so the fish’s head was pointing down the gull’s throat, and then, so quickly I didn’t see it, swallowed the fish. I could see a bulge in the gull’s throat. It swallowed hard a couple of times, then flew away.
A light rain shower passed over the beach, leaving the sand pockmarked with tiny craters where the big raindrops had hit.
I looked out over Saco Bay as the rain showers passed. The sun broke through the clouds in the west, and lit up Eagle Island, which is a mile or so out in the bay. The island stood out, bright and green, against the dark blue clouds and the dark gray sea. More sun came out, and picked out the tops of waves as they broke against the beach, turning them from a dull color to brilliant white.
Bits of a rainbow appeared in the sky: two short, bright bands at the horizon, marking out the north and south points of the bay; and pieces here and there against the dark clouds, so faint that at times I wasn’t sure if I was seeing them or not.
A Common Tern hovered over the water. I managed to get my binoculars up in time to watch it break out of its hover, plunge into the sea, and emerge with a small fish in its bill. It flew up, tossed the fish back and swallowed it, and shook itself dry as it flew off looking for more fish.
Halfway out to Eagle Island, fifty or sixty white specks appeared in a sudden ray of sun, circling around, hovering, and plunging into the sea.
Through some odd optical effect that I don’t understand, broad rays of alternating light and dark appeared in the clouds, radiating out from Wood Island; or perhaps I should say, converging down towards Wood Island. If I wasn’t aware that the sun was almost directly behind me, I would have thought that the sun must have been behind Wood Island, as if somehow the sun were setting in the east southeast, instead of in the west.
A dozen Bonaparte’s Gulls stood on the beach, keeping an eye on me now and then, but mostly doing nothing. They were all molting, losing the crisply-defined black heads of their breeding plumage, losing the odd tail feather, looking rather bedraggled. Presumably, these were first-year birds that never made it all the way up to the breeding grounds in Canada, and so here they sat on the coast of Maine, molting and waiting for the fall migration to begin in earnest. It was a poignant sight, an anticipation of the end of summer.
Posted two days after the fact — I’m a little behind in posting due to spotty Internet access here in Cambridge.
Friday the 13th?
Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine
This was the last day of children’s program of the religious education conference at Ferry Beach. Lisa and I are doing nature and ecology with rotating groups of children in grades 1-6, and this morning we ended up with the 5th and 6th graders.
The morning did not start off well. The children were tired and a little cranky to begin with. Then they found out that they would not be allowed to watch the “Banathalon.” The Banathalon is a strange Ferry Beach tradition — a relay race where instead of passing a baton you pass a banana from one competitor to the next. Years ago, it started out like a triathalon, with running, bicycling, and swimming legs, and then at the end someone had to eat the banana-baton. Over the years, other legs have been added — pull-ups, solving a Rubik’s cube in 5 minutes, etc. And during the religious education conference, the banathalon is a competition between the high school youth and the junior high youth — which means that the 5th and 6th graders are very interested in it.
“This year, we can’t watch the banathalon,” I said. About half the group erupted. We can’t watch!? Why not? We always watch! (“Always” in this context means “last year.”) “It’s not my rule, although I agree with it,” I said. “It’s the conference coordinators who said we couldn’t watch.” They continued to be cranky and upset, so I said I would get one of the conference coordinators to explain why they couldn’t watch. Anne came, and explained why they couldn’t watch. At that point, some of the children said, Well, if we can’t watch, let’s do something else. Two days ago, we had all agreed that the group would spend alone time in the woods, so finally the group calmed down enough that we could walk over to the woods together, and get set up for spending alone time in the woods.
On film
Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine
The children’s program of the religious education conference continued this morning. Lisa and I are doing nature and ecology with rotating groups of children in grades 1-6.
This morning we had the grade 5-6 grade group for the entire morning. A film crew came to Ferry Beach today to film a short film to promote Unitarian Universalism. The film makers, David and Anne, felt that a key component of Unitarian Universalist religious education is our focus on Nature and respect for the interdependent web of all existence. They wanted to get some footage of children engaged in outdoors religious education, so they decided to film us doing religious education with the fifth and sixth graders.
Before the children arrived, I talked with David and Anne, and with one of the camera operators (also confusingly named David), about the kind of shots they were looking for. He wanted groups of children and adults close together, in a natural setting, looking at something together. Then I figured out how to adjust our lesson plan (we decided to use the same session plan as we used with the 3rd and 4th graders yesterday) so David could get the shots he was looking for.
All that was pretty straightforward. What really worried me was how the children would react with a camera looking over their shoulders all the time. When the children arrived, I started up my computer and showed them photographs I had taken of the Piping Plover sitting on her nest — I had promised a couple of days ago that I would do so.
We sat in a circle, and did everyone (including the film crew) introduced themselves. Then i reminded the children of the Piping Plover photos, and showed them my small video camera. I was sitting next to David with his big video camera, and we compared the two cameras. I told the children that I like to use my camera to help me observe and remember what I see in Nature. Then David talked about his camera, and the kinds of documentary work he does with it. These introductions allowed the children to become somewhat accustomed to the film crew.
We moved into the same basic lesson that we had done with the 3rd and 4th graders yesterday (“secret agents” and collecting things on the beach), and I set things up so that David got some great shots of children crouched on beach sand sorting through different kinds of seaweed. The film makers needed to do interviews with a couple of children individually, so to accommodate that, Lisa and I took the rest of the children down the road to see where the house had washed into the ocean last winter. I hadn’t really planned for these interviews, and this part of the session didn’t go as well as the “secret agent” activity.
After the snack break, the film crew was pretty much done. We all sat in a circle, and we went around the circle, allowing each child some time to talk about how it felt to be filmed. Many of the children said it was “distracting.” One or two didn’t really notice a difference. Several of the children pointed out how many in the group were kind of acting for the camera.
Then I gave them a couple of choices for activities that they could do in the second half of the morning. Nearly all of them wanted to spend alone time in the woods (just as we did last year). So we did that to finish out the morning.
Overall, I felt this morning’s session went very well indeed. The film makers were a little distracting, but in spite of that I felt that the children learned a lot, and had fun besides.
Piping Plover photos
Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine
This evening, I managed to take some photos of the Piping Plover nesting up the beach from the conference center. I know some regular readers of this blog might be interested, so I uploaded the photos to Flickr.
View six photos as a slide show.
View thumbnails of the photos, better for slow connections.
I’ve placed these photos in the public domain, use as you see fit.
Wood Thrush
Ferry Beach, Saco, Maine
The afternoon showers drove most everyone off the beach. I walked down to Ferry Beach State Park, and walked under Route 9 through their underpass, and into the woodlands and swamps of the park. There weren’t any cars in the parking lot, but one of the rangers was still there. He saw my binoculars, and we started talking about birds. I asked him if he had heard any Veeries, and he said no, but there were a few Wood Thrushes in the woods.
Wood Thrushes and Veeries can produce more than one note simultaneously — birds have syrinxes, not larynxes like us mammals do, and many birds can produce more than one note at a time — so they can actually sing in harmony with themselves. A Veery sings a song that sounds like it’s descending in a sort of swooping spiral. I’m not good at describing sounds, so I won’t try to describe the sound a Wood Thrush makes, but it’s a series of notes that I find hauntingly beautiful.
A few steps out of the parking lot and into the woods, I heard a Wood Thrush calling. The quality of the sound is such that it can be hard to tell exactly where the sound is coming from. I walked down the path towards the sound of the Wood Thrush, and it seemed as if the bird was slowly moving away from me, flying from tree to tree — but maybe it was two different birds, and one started singing while the other stopped singing as I got close to it.
Eventually, the Wood Thrush stopped singing. It was getting dark. I headed back to the campsite.
On the rooftops, part 2
A little over a month ago, I posted a short video about the Herring Gulls that nest on the rooftops of New Bedford. Here’s an update on the Herring Gulls that nested on our rooftop. (2:20)
Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.
Just thinking out loud….
In the June 12, 2007, issue of Christian Century magazine, I was particularly struck by the opening paragraphs of an essay titled “Unqualified Christians” — you may find it hard to get through the first three sentences, but see if you can keep reading:
You may find it strange that I, an African American, do not believe in interracial marriage. I do not believe in interracial dating or even in having friends of other races. I do not espouse trying to understand racial differences or promoting awareness of other races. I can say all of this unabashedly because I do not believe in race!
Race is a relatively recent construction conveniently created at precisely the moment when nations from the European continent were setting out to colonize the world. The construction is a precursor to an economic policy, not a result of scientific study. It came from the desire of some people to legitimate the taking of land from others. Because of perceived “racial” differences, people could be set on a hierarchical ladder of superior and inferior types; those declared “superior” then had an “obligation” to tend to the interests (natural resources and labor) of the “inferiors.” With this thinking, the “enlightened” peoples of Europe colonized the “primitive” peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. Such scriptural passages as Genesis 9 (the “curse of Ham/Canaan”) and Genesis 10 (the “table of nations”) gave theological significance to theories of subspecies variation and to a God-ordained system of enslaved peoples and a “master race.” Because the genesis of the word is spurious, I suggest that the concept of race is problematic. Even the most innocuous use of the concept perpetuates the notion that perceived differences in appearance relate to actual differences in intellect, criminal potential, and sexuality. Hence, to suggest that the theory of race is legitimate is a racist proposition, one that leads many to conclude that perceived differences in appearance are consequential for human valuation.
Towards the end of the short essay, the author, Rodney S. Sadler Jr., writes:
In the church we are too often isolated in segregated communities as “qualified Christians.” We are “black” Christians, “white” Christians, “Korean” Christians, and “Latino” Christians worshipping in separate sanctuaries….
Within Unitarian Universalism, it can be risky to state that race is an invalid construct. If you say that even the most innocuous use of the concept of race is a problem, there’s a good chance you’ll be accused of racism. For good reason — saying that “race” doesn’t exist makes you sound like the people who try to gut affirmative action and civil rights legislation by saying “race” doesn’t exist. Yet at the same time, I think maybe Sadler is right — even though to admit that Sadler is right might be to question the legitimacy of such beloved anti-racism strategies as breaking into racial identity groups.
“Race” may not exist, but we are still left with the problem that the effects of racism are quite real. So how do we address the real effects of an unreal construct? Sadler’s answer, from his Christian perspective, is to affirm the primacy of the Christian’s identity as a Christian: “Christ’s death has radically altered the nature of our identities so that who we are from the world’s point of view is no irrelevant as a determinant of power.” I don’t share Sadler’s theology, so that won’t work for me.
But Sadler also points out how his theology plays out in real life:– he claims that his theology forces us to question “persistent inequalities in our nation that are often seen but rarely examined.” Here’s how I’d put it in my theological language:– my religious perspective, which claims that all persons are equally worthy of love, requires of me that I understand and address persistent inequalities between persons.
In other words, it is possible to ask hard questions like — Why do certain persons get paid less just because they have darker skin? — without falling into the trap of using the suspect concept of “race” to frame the question. Sadler’s essay raises some interesting possibilities for new ways to address the persistent inequalities that exist among us.
Hooray for Massachusetts
I received this email message from Mass Equality this afternoon:
We won!
Thanks to you, the Massachusetts Legislature has beaten back the discriminatory, anti-gay, anti-marriage Constitutional amendment.
The final 151 to 44 vote happened because of the leadership of Governor Deval Patrick, Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, Senate President Terry Murray and House Speaker Sal DiMasi, who worked tirelessly to defeat this amendment.
Thanks to them, our strong group of legislative allies and the courageous new allies who realized that no one’s civil rights should be placed on a public ballot, all Massachusetts families are stronger and safer today….
There’s a lot to celebrate. But FIRST, we must say thank you.
— Call or email your legislators TODAY who voted NO today. See how they voted here.
— Call or email the three leaders who made this possible: Governor Patrick, Senate President Murray, and House Speaker DiMasi.
— Finally, send a short letter to your local newspaper thanking these leaders and your legislator for their support and their vote.…We will always, all of us, remember this battle for equality. We know in our hearts that not only are we and our families safer and more secure today, but all the loving couples and families that follow us. It’s a proud day in Massachusetts, indeed.
Good news, indeed! I had hoped to go to the State House today and show legislators my support for marriage equality, but I wound up making a pastoral call instead. But who cares whether I was there or not — the discriminatory anti-gay marriage amendment was defeated. Hooray!