Outdoors

Psychologist Howard Gardner has hypothesized that “intelligence” must be measured on more than one linear scale. There are, says Gardner, multiple intelligences; for example: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences. Gardner also postulates a naturalist intelligence:

A naturalist demonstrates expertise in the recognition and classification of the numerous species — the flora and the fauna — of his or her environment. [Intelligence Reframed, Basic Books, 1999, pp. 48 ff.]

You could argue that this intelligence is not highly valued in our society. When the majority of the population was rural, the naturalist intelligence would have been highly valued. For most of us human beings, this is no longer the case:

…the naturalist is comfortable in the world of organisms and may well possess the talent of caring for, taming, or interacting subtly with various living creatures. Such potentials exist [in the roles of biologists and environmentalists, and]… with many other roles range from hunters to fishermen to farmers to gardeners to cooks.

Fewer and fewer people hunt or fish these days; farmers make up less than five percent of the population; many of us live where it’s impossible to have a garden; and cooking has been reduced to opening packages of pre-prepared food. Yet it is a human characteristic that if we have an ability, we will want to practice it, and there will be consequences if we don’t practice it. Sherlock Holmes needed opportunities to practice his highly-developed ability for criminal investigation (a combination, perhaps, of logical-mathematical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences); without such opportunities, he reached for his seven-per-cent solution of cocaine.

For those of us who have some measure of it, the naturalist intelligence will find expression, even in the typical urban or suburban landscape where there is little in the way of biodiversity. In a debased form, it may be what drives some people to be able to identify the year and model of a Harley Davidson motorcycle glimpsed from a distance. My older sister keeps a horse and my younger sister has cats; the evening attendant at the Elm Street parking garage raises pigeons. I live in the middle of the city with almost no space for a garden; what saves my sanity is birdwatching and house plants; those two things, and I take an hour-long walk every day instead of going to the gym, for I would rather be outdoors in the worst weather than cooped up in a sterile gym.

I have fantasies about quitting ministry and going back to work as a carpenter. At least then I’d be working with wood, which even when cut is a living material. At least then I’d be outdoors much of the time.

Possibilities for Post-Christian Worship, pt. 1

First in a series. Bibliography will be included with the final post.

(A) What is “post-Christian”?

At the beginning of his monumental history of American liberal theology, scholar Gary Dorrien (2001, p. xx) briefly addresses the state of liberal theology today, saying: “Today the liberal perspective in theology encompasses a wide spectrum of Christian and, arguably, post-Christian and interreligious positions.” This statement of Dorrien’s raises the interesting question of what a post-Christian or interreligious position might look like, and the even more interesting question of what a post-Christian or interreligious congregation might look like.

I would state with some confidence that post-Christian and interreligious congregations do exist, and have existed for some years now. In 1971, Dana Greeley, who was president of the Unitarian Universalist Association from 1961 to 1969, wrote:

A question asked of Unitarians and Universalists again and again is “Are you Christians?” I have spoken and written many times on this subject, but I have no simple answer to the question. Most Catholic and Protestant Christians, until fairly recently anyway, would have said that we are not Christians. Most Jews would think that we are Christians. When I told one Unitarian friend that Anglicanism’s Dean Stanley referred to Channing as “the morning star of the second reformation,” my friend immediately concluded that Channing was heralding or prophseying a new era, and as Protestantism (resulting from the first Reformation) went beyond Catholicism, so the second Reformation would go beyond Protestantism; a post-Protestant, post-Christian era would begin. Numerous people believe that, or interpret Unitarianism that way. It is a plausible diagnosis, though Channing would never have thought of himself as the forerunner of a non-Christian faith. (For that matter, Jesus would never have thought of himself as the forerunner of a non-Jewish faith.)

In this passage, Greeley begins to develop one plausible definition for what it might mean to have a post-Christian position as a positive, affirmative religious stance. First of all, Greeley’s post-Christian position looks enough like Christianity to be perceived as such by non-Christians; whereas most avowed Christians would deny that the post-Christian is indeed Christian. Today, many Unitarian Universalist congregations could be characterized as post-Christian using this criterion. They retain certain outward aspects of Christianity, such as holding weekly communal meetings on Sunday morning — a distinctively Christian practice. At the same time, they do not fulfill some common criteria for determining whether or not someone is Christian. Speaking from a Unitarian Universalist perspective, Edward A. Cahill (1974) writes: “Christianity calls for the acceptance on faith of a precisely defined belief system,” in contrast to, say Judaism which requires “observance of rigorous social and ritualistic prescripts”; and both these traditions contrast with Unitarian Universalism which requires “the exercise of the free use of reason in an open atmosphere of mutual respect.” Neither Christian nor non-Christian, Unitarian Universalists might best be described as post-Christian.

Greeley’s second point provides a more positive definition of the post-Christian position. More positively, a post-Christian position can be seen as continuing in the tradition of the Protestant Reformation, by taking what is perceived as the best of the Christian tradition while rejecting certain aspects of the tradition which are seen as non-essential. Thus, the post-Christian position retains a connection with Christian tradition, but moves outside some common definitions of what it means to be Christian. We might expand Greeley’s definition to include positions that are derived from the moral, religious, and/or ethical teachings of Christianity but which retain an openness to other moral, religious, and/or ethical teachings.

It’s important to remember that some other definitions emphasize that the post-Christian position has lost what it truly means to be a Christian. For example, the term “post-Christian” may be used in certain Christian circles to indicate persons who lack basic knowledge of the Christian tradition; or “post-Christian” can refer to a society which was perceived as formerly being grounded in Christian values, but which had fallen away from Christianity and into secularism. However, in this essay I am using the term in its positive sense.

Next: What is worship for a post-Christian congregation?

Suburban sprawl makes you fat and old

Any eco-freak worth his/her salt knows that suburban sprawl is bad (destroys wildlife habitat, requires excessive use of automobiles, is ugly, etc.). So far, the average response of the average American to the eco-freaks has been: “So what? We love our sprawl.” Now it appears that living in the midst of sprawl is associated with being fat. Better yet, a study has found that living in the midst of sprawl can make you feel like you’re years older:

In 2004, Cohen and Roland Sturm of RAND asked more than 8,000 residents of 38 U.S. communities to list their health problems. The researchers also assessed the degree of sprawl in each resident’s community. “People reported more complaints — more health problems — when they lived in more sprawling areas,” Cohen says. The excess of physical problems such as arthritis linked to sprawl was comparable to the change that would occur if the entire population suddenly aged by 4 years, Cohen and Sturm concluded.

Now we eco-freaks have a new argument: sprawl makes you fat and old. Read more: link.

Plain words

This week, I’m taking one of my weeks of study leave. Most Unitarian Universalist ministers receive four weeks of study leave each year, during which time we are relieved of ordinary duties (although we remain on call for emergencies), and can read, take courses, engage in spiritual reflection, or otherwise study and take in new material.

The congregation here at First Unitarian seems to like responsive readings, but the worship committee and I have become bored with the unison and responsive readings in the back of the current Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition. Increasingly, I have found myself finding such readings elsewhere; so the members of the worship committee suggested I assemble a collection of such readings. That has become my central project for this week of study leave.

It’s an interesting project, because I’m trying to use material that’s in the public domain. Fortunately, some of the best English translations of various scriptures and writings from the world’s religions are now in the public domain. I have been collecting printed copies of some of these, and these days I can find many more on the Web.

Eventually, I’ll post my collection of responsive readings on my Web site. In the mean time, maybe you’ll like this reading, taken from the Taoist tradition, as much as I did:

Plain Words

By abandoning the appetites and restraining the passions, you may escape trouble and anxiety.

By keeping clear of calumny and beyond the reach of suspicion, you may avoid hindrance to your affairs.

By abhorring the wicked and expelling slanderers from your presence, you may put a stop to disorder.

By extensive study and eager questionings you may greatly enlarge your knowledge.

By a high course of conduct and a reserve in conversation, you may cultivate the person.

By providing against disaffection and knowing how to use your power, you will be able to unravel complications.

By firmness and stability of purpose, you will establish merit.

By impregnable virtue, you will be able to preserve yourself securely until death.

By consulting with the benevolent and making friends of the outspoken and blunt, you may receive support in seasons of adversity.

By doing to others as you would wish to be done by, and being sincere and honest in all your dealings, you may attract all people to become your friends.

From “The Su Shu: The Book of Plain Words,” in Taoist Texts: Ethical, Political, and Speculative, collected and trans. Frederic Henry Balfour (London, 1884).

It never hurts to make friends with the outspoken and blunt….

Coda

Back in June, I wrote a series about the time I served on the jury for a murder trial [link]. Five people acting together were accused of the murder; the defendant in the trial of which I was a part managed to get a separate trial. I often wondered what happened in the other trial.

John, over at LiveJournal, served on the jury for the other trial, and now he has written an account of his experiences in that trial. Link. (The link is to the final entry of his account of the trial; each entry has a link to the preceding entry; click all the links back to the first entry and then use the “Back” button on your browser to read the entries in chronological order.)

It was interesting for me to read John’s account of the trial. He remembers some details that I had forgotten, and his trial took a very different direction than ours — his jury wound up being sequestered, for example, and his jury managed to acquit one of the defendants. I wonder about the other people who were involved, and the stories they could tell — the two men who are still serving time for the murders, their families, the families of the men who were murdered, the defendant who was acquitted, the other jurors. I wonder if the judge and the lawyers and the police involved even remember the trials any more, or if those two trials have just blended in with their memories of a long succession of similar trials.

It was impossible to ignore the cold weather today. I couldn’t ignore the raw northwest wind. I couldn’t ignore the chill that worked its way through the heavy coat, the warm gloves, the long johns. I realized that I have been ignoring too much of the world, I have been focused too closely on abstract ideas: congregational administration, organizational dynamics, the link between economic and ecological solutions to global climate change. Some people are at their best with abstract problems. I can get lost in abstractions.

So I stopped thinking about the abstractions. I noticed that clouds were moving in. I noticed that the sun is setting later and the daylight is noticeably longer now. I noticed the flocks of starlings wheeling overhead and lighting on the cranes on Fish Island.

Furnace and vacation

Finally, the weather turned cold again. When I took a walk this afternoon, it wasn’t that cold — just below freezing — but the wind was blowing hard enough that I had to lean into it at times. I had to walk hard and fast to get warm. It felt good to take deep breaths of the cold, dry air.

Once the sun went down, the temperature started dropping quickly. I had to make a hospital visit, and on the way there I checked the heat in the church. The furnace was off again. I hit the reset button on the burner, and it roared back to life. I got back from the hospital, had a late dinner, and on a hunch went back up to the church to check the heat again — of course the furnace was off yet again.

So here I sit, waiting for the furnace repairman to show up. He is no happier than I to have to go out on such a cold night; what makes it worse is that he’s been here at least once a week since Christmas. Our architect tells us that the whole heating plant needs to be replaced; so our repairman fixes one thing, and something else breaks.

I’m taking a week of study leave, which begins next week — next week begins in approximately ten minutes. When I’m on study leave, I’m supposed to devote myself to study and continuing education, and I’m not supposed to go to the church at all. But I will still be here past midnight.

I still like cold weather, but I hate deferred maintenance.

New look, upgrade

I finished working on my sermon in the late afternoon. By then, the gloomy clouds had settled in and the rain had begun. It was too gloomy to go out, so I stayed home and finally got around to fixing a couple of things on this blog:– (1) I installed and debugged design changes I’ve been working on for a month now. The new layout should make it easier for you to find what you need on the sidebar; behind the scenes, I cleaned things up to make site maintenance easier for me. (2) I finally finished the upgrade that I botched earlier in the week. The design changes made everything go smoothly. But when I was done I discovered that I had not installed the most recent upgrade. So I still have an upgrade to do, but that’s enough for one day — further maintenance will have to wait until I have my patience back.

Grolier Book Shop

Yesterday, I had to go up to Cambridge for a meeting. While I was up there, I stopped in at a couple of bookstores in Harvard Square, and on a whim I walked over to see if Grolier Poetry Book Shop was still open.

Grolier Poetry Book Shop is one of the last holdovers from a different era. Twenty years ago, there were more than fifty small independent bookstores in and around Harvard Square. Many of those were specialty bookstores, like Mandrake Books that sold only philosophy and fine arts books, or the store on Arrow Street that sold only Asian books, or Grolier that sold only poetry books.

Grolier was special even in those days — it was perhaps the only bookstores in the whole country that sold nothing but poetry. The only other poetry bookstore I knew of was City Lights in San Francisco, but City Lights sold non-poetry books, and most of its poetry had some relation to the Beats. Grolier carried all kinds of poetry. Everyone who cared about poetry went there: people would travel great distances to go to Grolier; walk in there on any given day, and you would be likely to run into a published poet, or at least a young struggling poet.

The last time I was in Grolier was a year ago. Louisa, the former owner, had not been well for quite some time. Store hours had grown irregular, so when I walked by last spring and saw she was open, I went in. Louisa looked ill, the shelves were half-empty, and for the first time ever I walked out of the store without finding at least one book of poetry to buy.

So yesterday, I walked by on a whim; more out of habit than anything else. Miracle of miracles, Grolier was open. Not only that, but the shelves were full again. I climbed up the familiar steep stone steps and walked in.

“Where should I leave my pack?” I asked out of reflex (Louisa vigorously enforced the rule that all bags and packs should be left behind the counter).

“Over there, if you want to,” said the pleasant, relaxed man at the counter, someone whom I had never seen before.

We wound up talking at some length. Daniel is the new general manager of the store; he’s managing it for the owner; sales have been pretty good so far; he’s a professional musician, a trumpeter, who’s taking a break from performing. We both agreed on several things: the level of music education in the general population is declining; we wish Barney Frank was one of our senators rather than in the House of Representatives; Philadelphia is a wonderful city; the war in Iraq is absolutely insane.

Daniel apologized that he did not have the bilingual edition of Portuguese poetry that I was looking for, tacitly acknowledged that in the old days Grolier probably would have had it, and said that it was taking time to build up the stock to the old levels. I managed to find the other books I was looking for, and a few others I wasn’t looking for: Countee Cullen’s collection of African American poetry, a collection of poems by contemporary Chinese poets, the collected poems of Maya Angelou, Given by Wendell Berry, and Audre Lourde’s The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance.

What a relief: Once again, I’ll be able to make regular trips to Grolier to get my poetry fix. Once again, a cultural landmark is open for business.

Grolier Poetry Book Shop: Daniel Wuenschel, General Manager. 6 Plympton Street, near Harvard Square, Cambridge (off Mass. Ave. behind the Harvard Book Store). Phone: 617-547-4648, email: grolierpoetry AT verizon DOT net.

Grolier’s hours:
Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 am to 7 pm;
Thursday – Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm,
closed Sunday and Monday.