Category Archives: Ecology, religion, justice

This is for you, Mass. clergy

The Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry, a Massachusetts interfaith organization devoted to maintaining the right to same-sex marriage in our state, aims to get one thousand clergypersons to sign the Massachusetts Declaration of Religious Support for the Freedom of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. For faith traditions that do not have clergy, duly appointed lay leaders from a given congregation should sign. Deadline is May 9th, the earliest possible date of the Constitutional Convention at which the Massachusetts legislature could vote to send an anti-gay marriage amendment to a ballot vote.

If you know an eligible Massachusetts clergyperson or lay leader who should sign, send them to this page.

Blogger BioBlitz 2007

I just signed up to do the first annual Blogger BioBlitz. Jeremy, science blogger at The Voltage Gate, writes:

In honor of National Wildlife Week, April 21 – 29, I am inviting bloggers from all walks to participate in the First Annual Blogger Bioblitz, where bloggers from across the world will choose a wild or not-so-wild area and find how many of each different species — plant, animal, fungi and anything in between — live in a certain area within a certain time. Link

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be surveying the garden of First Unitarian in downtown New Bedford, which is a small green space in a highly urban environment, assisted by two teenagers from the church (thanks, Dylan and Tyler!). You may have noticed that on this blog I already maintain desultory lists of birds and molluscs I’ve seen in New Bedford Harbor. The Blogger BioBlitz is an oportunity for me to examine the even more human-dominated environment surrounding our church, ten blocks from the harbor. It’s also an opportunity to live out our liberal religion by doing some low-key citizen science. We expect to find many non-native and introduced species in this urban environment — I’ll post photos and lists later this week.

Want to participate in this blog swarm? Register here.
Thanks to Invasive Species Weblog for the link to the Blogger BioBlitz.

Next post on Blogger Bioblitz 2007: Link.

Living your faith

My friends Jo is a teacher in the San Francisco Bay area, and she sent me a link to a video where she gets to describe the less-than-ideal conditions of her school. Link to video — Jo appears about halfway through, and again at the end. Boy, and I thought some of the churches I’ve served have had building problems. As the video tells us, children should not have to put up with such conditions. And you may notice that lots of the schools they show just happen to be in cities, not in the wealthy white suburbs….

Jo passed along this word from the American Federation of Teachers:

According to recent data, the cost to repair existing public schools or build new buildings exceeds $400 billion. To address this problem, the AFT is working to enact legislation that will provide $25 billion in interest-free bonding authority to school districts, with all decision-making about how to use that money remaining at the local level.

Jo is one of those classic idealistic Unitarian Universalists who lives out her faith in her daily life by teaching kids in the public schools. Historically, Unitarian Universalists have always had a high percentage of schoolteachers, and we have been committed to providing fair and equitable education for all children through public schooling. I’m proud of the fact that I’m related to Unitarian Universalists who lived their faith by teaching in the public schools:– my mother, her mother, and my aunt, all Unitarians, all schoolteachers. (I’m also proud of my older sister, who teaches non-traditional college students in the Indiana State University system, but I’m not sure she’d call herself a Unitarian Universalist any more.)

So here’s a shout-out to Jo, yet another Unitarian Universalist who’s living out her faith by working with and standing up for children.

Just an observation

Today has been decreed to be “Step It Up” day:

April 14, 2007 — National Day of Climate Action

On this historic day, Americans called on their leaders to act immediately to stop global warming. In all 50 states, at more than 1400 iconic places across the nation, we have united around a common call to action: “Step It Up Congress: Cut Carbon 80% by 2050.” Your move, Congress.

One of those 1,400 iconic places was the Whaling Museum here in New Bedford, right across the street from our apartment. I was doing my taxes, but Carol went over and heard the excellent keynote talk by John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford (and, as it happens, a Unitarian Universalist).

When I needed a break from my taxes, I looked out the window and counted exactly three bicycles. But there were cars parked in every parking place I could see from the window. I’m sure a few people besides Carol walked to the event, but the reality is that many of the people who attended the New Bedford “Step It Up” day live too far away to walk or bike; and for others, their busy schedule required them to drive.

Three bicycles. Fifty or more cars.

Just an observation about how hard it really is for us to change the habits and rhythms that release tons of CO2, yet which have become fundamental to the way our society works.

Augustine’s just war theory

Mike Lee and Aaron Krager, two students at Chicago
Theological Seminary, are managing the excellent blog Faithfully Liberal, and Mike Lee has a couple of posts on Augustine’s just war theory that I found worth reading. In Augustine’s just war theory, Mike gives a summary of Augustine’s just war theory, based on the book Just War, Political Realism and Faith, by Bernard T. Adeney. And in Increasing technology and the just war, he has a nice discussion on how Augustine’s just war theory fares in light of nuclear war and other massively destructive war technology. Thoughtful reading for all you religious peaceniks out there.

Pilgrimage

Religions have been basically clueless when it comes to dealing with global climate change. Which is to be expected, because ecological crisis is so completely new, no one has a clue how to deal with it. Being clueless myself, last Saturday, March 24, I walked on the last day of the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue. The walk culminated in an interfaith worship service in Boston’s Old South Church.

I know that a walk for “climate rescue” seems pointless;– certainly, the walk had enough trappings of 60’s “counterculture” (signs with slogans, chanting, etc.) to make it seem even more pointless. And like many interfaith worship services, the one last Saturday seemed more like a disjointed collage than a unified worship service. In spite of all that, interfaith worship services and pilgrimages on foot might be exactly the right thing to do right now.

I don’t know. You watch the video and see how you feel. (6:26)

Quicktime video — Click link, and where it says “Select a format” choose “Source — Quicktime”. Wait until the file downloads to your computer, and then click play. This should work for dial-up connections, and offers higher-resolution for all connections.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Global warming and business

The March, 2007, issue of Harvard Business Review has a good article on global warming titled “Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet.” Authors Jonathan Lash and Fred Wellington point out that it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe global warming is real because “investors already are discounting share prices of companies poorly positioned to compete in a warming world” (take that, Wall Street Journal editorial page). They point out the effects of climate change on business become clear when you consider the kinds of risk associated with it: regulatory risk, supply chain risk, technology risk, litigation risk (they predict that companies with lots of carbon emissions face lawsuits similar to those brought against tobacco and asbestos industries), and of course reputational risk.

Most often, you have to pay to view articles on the Harvard Business Review Web site, but in this case the complete article is available free — and definitely worth reading:

Link.

Welcome news on marriage in Mass.

I just got the news update below from Mass. Equality. A little background information:– Robert Travaglini was the fellow who forced a vote on the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment here in Massachusetts back on January 2. He claimed that the people of Massachusetts should have a right to vote on marriage equality, even though there were other ballot amendments that he refused to let the Massachusetts legislature vote on. So now he’s gone:

This afternoon the Senate elected pro-equality Senator Therese Murray (D-Plymouth and Barnstable) as its next leader. This follows the resignation of Senate President Robert Travaglini.

This is terrific news. Senator Murray is a long-time friend of the gay community and a strong supporter of equality. With her at the helm, we are one step closer to defeating this discriminatory effort to take away marriage rights from gay and lesbian couples.

Please email Senate President Murray today congratulating her on her historic victory (she is the first woman to lead either branch of the legislature). Please thank her for her opposition to the discriminatory, anti-marriage Constitutional amendmentand ask her to use her new leadership position to defeat this amendment once and for all.

You can be sure that our opponents will be putting relentless pressure on her to advance the meanspirited amendment to the ballot. So it is critically important that she hear from pro-equality voices from all over the state. Tell her how much you appreciate her past votes, and let her know that you believe it is WRONG to vote on rights. Please email Senate President Murray today!

Thanks so much for your leadership. Together, we will prevail.

Massachusetts residents may wish to send email to Senate President Murray at Therese.Murray AT state.ma.us

A koan?

One of my favorite religious blogs is “Speaking Truth to Power,” in which blogger “uugrrl” talks about clergy sexual misconduct. She writes with deep insight both because she’s naturally a thoughtful person, and because she herself is a survivor of clergy sexual misconduct (and yes, the perpetrator was a Unitarian Universalist minister). In an especially good post late last week, uugrrl quotes Thich Naht Hanh on sexual misconduct:

Responsibility’ is the key word in the Third Precept. In a community of practice, if there is no sexual misconduct, if the community practices this precept well, there will be stability and peace. This precept should be practiced by everyone…. If you don’t practice this precept, you may become irresponsible and create trouble in the community at large. We have all seen this. If a teacher cannot refrain from sleeping with one of his or her students, he or she will destroy everything, possibly for several generations.

Then uugrrl goes on to comment:

I once read of a Zen survivor of abuse who made the abuse her koan. It seemed a perfect fit to me. Perhaps this is why I still care about this subject so many years later.

I’m still working on how suffering sexual abuse could be a koan — I guess that will be a koan for me to work on. Anyway, read the whole post: