Mr. C. for prez

Mr. Crankypants is announcing his candidacy for presidency. No, silly, not the United States presidency, but the presidency of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Mr. Crankypants is running on the Complacency and Status Quo platform. Thus, you will vote for Mr. C. in 2009 if you believe that everything about Unitarian Universalism is just fine and doesn’t need to be changed.

Here’s a few specifics about the Complacency and Status Quo viewpoint to help you decide to vote for Mr. C.:

  • Children should be seen and not heard in our congregations. Let them be sent away to Sunday school where they will not bother the adults.
  • Teenagers should be forced into unproductive and overly anti-authoritarian behavior (the poor dears must rebel against something, why not their church?), and eventually convinced that they do not like church. Thereafter, they should be actively discouraged from attending church until they are earning a decent income and can afford a good-sized pledge.
  • We are religious liberals. By definition, we are not oppressing anyone. We do not need any anti-racism stuff and nonsense, nor do we need to do any anti-classism, anti-homophobia, anti-anything work. Mr. C. is wondering why you even thought there was a need to bring up the subject.
  • We must encourage continued mediocrity in ministry. We want more boring sermons, slip-shod liturgy, and poor religious leadership — and theological schools should continue to educate our ministers to this end.
  • We must encourage continued destructiveness in lay people. We want them to continue to undermine anyone in authority, and we want them to start bruising conflicts about meaningless issues. To this end, Mr. C.’s administration will offer conflict training (as in, how to create conflict).
  • We must discourage growth in our churches. If we let new people into our churches, we’ll just have to share resources with them. And if we let new congregations form, that means there will be less Veatch money for the rest of us. No growth!!
  • We don’t want to become some kind of New Age group, or some kind of pseudo-evangelical church. Therefore, we must actively and absolutely discourage any kind of spiritual vitality or relevance. Religion from the neck up!!

There are other fine candidates for UUA president, but they all seem to be advocating for change. You know everything about Unitarian Universalism is perfect — so instruct your congregation’s delegates to vote for Mr. Crankypants at the 2009 General Assembly.

Vote for Complacency and Status Quo!!

Children seen and not heard — Get rid of youth — No need for anti-oppression work — Mediocrity in ministry — Continued destructive conflict in congregations — No growth — Religion from the neck up.

True confessions

As a child, I was not particularly nice. From about age 8 to about age 16, I thought practical jokes were funny. I was particularly evil on April Fool’s Day. My April Fool’s Day “jokes” included the following:

  • On the kitchen sink, taped down the handle of the spray thingie, and aimed it so that when anyone turned on the main faucet they would get sprayed.
  • At breakfast time, added blue food coloring to the milk. Just enough so that they didn’t actually notice it until they poured the milk onto their cereal, at which point they suddenly realized everything was light blue. (N.B. I have never put milk on my cereal.)
  • Put light coating of Vaseline on the toilet seat of the bathroom used primarily by my older sister. Resulting slipperiness blamed on my younger sister, who was then only two years old, who was assumed to have been playing with diaper rash ointment.

My own memories of my practical jokes fail at this point, mostly because I’d just as soon forget what a jerk I was.

So now it’s true confessions time:– What April Fool’s Day jokes, of which you now repent, have you played on others?

Spring watch

Red buds on gray twigs —
maples come into bloom and
pollen fills the air.

Pollen fills the air,
it makes me stupid, I don’t
feel that cold north wind.

Feel that cold north wind!
Daylight is lengthening but
earth is not yet warm.

Earth is not yet warm
enough to turn green. But trees —
red buds on gray twigs.

Attack ads everywhere

It’s the political season, and attack ads are everywhere. You’ve probably seen the Nietzsche attack ad, the Kant attack ad, and you may even have seen the third-party candidate Kierkegaard attack ad.

No way can I top those. But nonetheless, I couldn’t resist creating a Ralph Waldo Emerson attack ad (0:58)….

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

Oh, and there is also a Thomas Jefferson attack ad.

Spring watch

At 6:30, I finally made the last phone call of the day and headed out for a walk. I figured I had half an hour before it got dark. I walked briskly, not paying too much attention to anything except walking.

Looking down from the pedestrian bridge over Route 18, the man running past the Wharfinger Building on Fisherman’s Wharf looked like John. He wasn’t wearing John’s usual bright yellow Cheerios hat, though, so it couldn’t be John. Only a handful of people run regularly down along the waterfront, and briefly I wondered if another runner had moved into our neighborhood.

As i walked down the spiral ramp that leads from the pedestrian bridge to the wharf, I met John running up. “John!” I said. “You’re not wearing your Cheerios hat!”

“I know,” he said. “I thought it was much warmer than it really is.”

Yesterday was warm and sunny, but today the clouds moved in and it got chilly. I was wearing my big winter coat; John was wearing a long-sleeved jersey and shorts. He looked cold. “Yeah,” I said, “it’s cold today.”

He didn’t linger, but headed on home.