Monthly Archives: April 2007

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.

UU vlogs grow by 100%?

ck over at Arbitrary Marks has posted her first videoblog entry — as part of “blog against theocracy” weekend.

Aside from me, ck is the only Unitarian Universalist I know of who’s posting videos on their blogs — meaning a 100% increase in UU vlogs, as well as a huge leap up in average quality. Of course, even though we Unitarian Universalists tend to be way behind the curve when it comes to using new technology to talk about our faith, there must be more UU vloggers. I hope observant readers will let me know about other UU vloggers in the comments.

Open source Bible, pt. 2

Open source Bible is back again. A little geekier than part 1, but with a weekend project I know you’ll want to try. (4:59) Part one



Click To Play

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.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

A couple of days ago, I wrote a post about books that changed your life. One such book for me was Slaughterhouse Five. In high school, I was something of a science geek, was one of the officers of the high school science fiction club, and I played Dungeons and Dragons. One day my friend Bill Schmitt (who was a math geek more than a science geek, and who did not play D&D), told me about these science fiction books I should read.

“There’s this guy named Kilgore Trout who keeps appearing in the books,” said Bill. “He’s a character, a science fiction author, in the books, but then there really is a science fiction book published by Kilgore Trout.”

Who could resist books with a recurring character, a fictional character who even (somehow) published a book in the real world? I went to the public library and took out a book by this author named Kurt Vonnegut, an author who was wild enough to create a character like Kilgore Trout. First I read was God Bless You, Mister Rosewater; and then Breakfast of Champions; and then Slaughterhouse Five.

Slaughterhouse Five was the one that changed my life, just a little. Vonnegut himself is a character in Slaughterhouse Five, along with Kilgore Trout, Billy Pilgrim who is unstuck in time, and aliens called the Trafalmadorians who look like toilet plungers. The emotional center of the book is an eyewitness account of the firebombing of Dresden by Allied forces during World War II. Vonnegut himself witnessed the firebombing of Dresden; so did Billy Pilgrim. Reading about the firebombing of Dresden, I began to realize that World War II wasn’t quite the “just war” that everyone said it was. Within two years of reading Slaughterhouse Five, I was involved in the peace movement.

So Slaughterhouse Five remains an integral part of my moral landscape. When I later learned that Vonnegut — fatalist, rationalist, bedrock humanist — belonged to a Unitarian Universalist congregation, I was not surprised. I had already known he was a kindred soul.

And now he’s dead. Or maybe he’s just unstuck in time. So it goes. Damn, I’m sad.

*****

Update: Sf author Cory Doctorow wrote the following about Vonnegut on BoingBoing:

“My first Vonnegut was Breakfast of Champions. I’d never read anything like it. It was a novel that was so easy, everything just happening, one thing after another. The book almost read itself. That was his gift, I think: to tell you things that were hard to hear, without you even noticing it. Like a nurse who can slide a needle into your vein without making you wince.” [Link]

Also via BoingBoing, a link to Vonnegut’s appearance on the Daily Show: Link.

BBC’s obit: Link. BBC’s appreciation: Link.

Vonnegut’s own Web site, with nothing there now but this one image: Link.

All things to all people?

Yesterday’s New York Times carried a story by Neela Banerjee titled “Sex Offenders Test Churches’ Core Beliefs: Safety Is Weighed Against Tolerance.” The story is about a Congregational church that is wrestling about whether they can welcome and accept child molesters and other sex offenders who want to attend their church once they get out of prison. Can a church minister to both sex offenders and to families with children?

“They are conflicting ministries,” the Reverend Patricia Tummino said about reaching out to sex offenders, to children, and to adult survivors of abuse. Since the late 1990’s, Ms. Tummino’s congregation, the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Middleboro, Mass., has dealt with two known sex offenders. “You can’t be all things to all people.”

I couldn’t agree more with Trish Tummino, my ministerial colleague from two towns over. Yes, former child molesters should be able to find a church to which they can belong; the problem is that they will probably need to find a large church, or a smaller church that does not have a ministry to children. But if you’re in a church with less than two hundred at worship each week (which includes most churches in the United States), there just isn’t enough room for both child molesters and children. Heck, I see this with divorces — when a couple divorces in a church with an average attendance of less than two hundred a week, typically one member of the couple gets custody of the church and the other member of the couple has to find a new church.

The only exception I can think of is the smaller church with at least two worship services, where one of the worship services has no Sunday school and no real accommodation for children — in such a church, a former child molester might be able to attend the child-free worship service. But really, as Trish says, smaller churches cannot be all things to all people — and thanks, Trish, for telling this somewhat awkward truth.

Parenthetical note: Trish was invited to talk about this topic live on MSNBC this morning at 10:45 EDT. Unfortunately, it looks like MSNBC didn’t put the video of Trish’s interview online.

Search committees and the Web

Since many ministers (and to a lesser extent religious educators) in my denomination, Unitarian Universalism, schedule retirements or resignations to take place over the summer — that means that many Unitarian Universalist congregations are forming search committees right about now, getting ready to search for a new minister or religious educator. Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article that job seekers and members of search committees should read. The article, “How Blogging on the Web Can Help You Get a New Job,” by Sarah Needleman (p. B1), is aimed at job seekers, telling them to think about how they can control their image using the Web:

Job seekers who blog increase the odds that a potential employer will find information online that the candidate wants to be seen, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant…. “Everybody has an online identity whether they know it or not, and a blog is the single best way to control is,” she says. “You’re going to be Googled. No one hires anyone or buys anything these days without going online first and doing research.”

If I were on a search committee, that would make me think, “Hey, candidates are going to Google us just as we’re Googling them!” Therefore, as the Wall Street Journal points out, why not consider shaping the online image of your congregation:

Some companies encourage employees to blog because they can use them to recruit others. When recruiter Harry Joiner was hired to fill two positions at Musician’s Friend Inc. in November, he used an employee’s personal blog to help sell his client’s rural location of Medford, Ore., to job seekers. “Candidate were using Medford as a reason not to consider the jobs,” he says. “As a marketer, I thought, if you can’t change it, promote it.”

The blog, by So Young Park, the company’s director of e-commerce…, describes her move to the area a year ago from New York City. It includes details about her work, … a bear sighting near her home, and related topics. While she started the blog to share information with family and friends back East, she acknowledges that it has also been a good resource for attracting job hunters.

I wonder if that kind of idea could help congregations in rural regions to attract top-quality talent.

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.

A word about conflict

Conflict is everywhere, including inside congregations. If you’re part of a congregation that’s in conflict, it really helps to have tools to help you understand and manage conflict. One of the most useful models for helping manage conflict in a congregation comes from the Alban Institute. The model posits that there are five levels of conflict, and as the conflict escalates up to the higher levels it gets harder to manage or resolve the conflict — and the modle helps you understand how to lower the conflict to a more manageable level.

And you can read a great summary of the five levels of conflict online, at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rockville’s Web site. In fact, go read it now, so you’re familiar with this very useful concept before you find yourself in a congregational conflict:–

Link.

Update: the blog “Speaking Truth to Power” has an excellent piece on the limitations of this model: link.

My sense is that the Alban Institute model would not be very helpful for congregations in the middle of revelations of clergy sexual misconduct.

Speaking as one religious professional among many, I personally have found the model useful in certain high-conflict settings, used as one among many diagnostic tools that can help orient me to what’s going on around me — in such situations, if I determined that the situation was at or above level three conflict, I would know that it would be wise for me to seek outside help (at level three I’d be looking for a consultant for me, at level four+ I’d be looking for outside intervention). And I have found that lay leaders and religious professionals can often make effective use of the model for conflicts up to level three.

Thanks to uugrrl for pointing out the very real limitations of a potentially useful model — and for sharing the fact that grief counseling worked so well in her congregation’s situation. (And uugrrl, sorry for not posting my comment at your site, but Blogger refused to recognize my usename….)

Books that changed your life

My sister Abby is a children’s librarian who knows more about the field of children’s literature than anyone else I know. She’s been reading the blog of Julius Lester, a favorite children’s lit author for both of us. Recently, Lester asked his readers of his blog to send him a paragraph on “Books That Changed Your Life.” So Abby wrote to him about a book that she and I both love deeply, and today Lester published Abby’s paragraph on his blog:

There are so many books that have deeply affected me, but the book that first sprang to mind is The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. My brother is eight years older than me…. The first time I felt myself to be more than a little sister to him, the first time that I felt somewhat on his intellectual plane, was after reading The Phantom Tollbooth. Dan and I had many long discussions about the book, most especially its subtle humor and twists of language, and thus began a life-long habit of sitting and talking together about literature and philosophy. There are two messages in the book that have helped to form how I approach my life: that the impossible can be achieved, and that it’s far better to appreciate the here and now than to waste time and life wishing you were somewhere else [link].

The Phantom Tollbooth is a book that changed my life, too, so here’s my own paragraph on how it changed my life (though I’m not so eloquent as Abby):

When I was in fourth grade, I got transferred to a new public elementary school. Structured on the “open classroom” ideas then current, the school was one huge open carpeted room with a library in the middle and groups of children around the periphery. I loved having the library so close at hand, and one day I discovered in that library a book called The Phantom Tollbooth. I remember the moment when my nine-year-old self understood that the whole book was an allegory about opening your mind to the wonders of the world around you. I read and re-read that book innumerable times, its characters and world became a part of me, and yes that book opened my mind. So of course I had to tell my beloved younger sister, Abby, that she should read it. She read it, and fortunately she also loved it; and over the years the book seemed to feed into shared realms of fantasy and puppetry and thinking and conversation. A few years ago, I understood that the book was also about how to cultivate a life of the mind to get you through the bleak times in life. And to do that, you need friends and companions to share that life of the mind with you — along with free and open access to a library full of good books.

So what books have changed your life? I’d especially love to hear about books that you read when you were somehwere between 8-12 years old — but talk about any book that changed your life.