“The Yellow Emperor”

Another story in a series for liberal religious kids, this one from the Taoist tradition.

Thousands of years ago, Huang-ti, the Yellow Emperor, reigned for a hundred years in the country of Ch’i.

For the first fifteen years of his reign, he took great pleasure in his position. He rejoiced that all the people in the Empire looked up to him as their emperor. He took great care of his body. He ate well, and took the time to enjoy beautiful sights and sounds. But in spite of this, he became sad and depressed, and his face looked haggard and ill.

So Huang-ti decided to change his ways. He saw that the Empire faced great trouble and disorder. For the next fifteen years of his reign, he worked night and day to rule the people with wisdom and intelligence. But in spite of all his efforts, he remained sad and depressed and his face still looked haggard and ill.

At the end of this second fifteen year period, Huang-ti sighed heavily. “I was miserable in the first fifteen years of my reign, when I devoted all my attention to myself and my own needs, and paid no attention to the Empire. I was miserable in the second fifteen years of my reign when I devoted all of my time and energy to solving the problems of the Empire and paid no attention to myself.

“I see now that all my efforts have not succeeded in establishing good government,” he said. “I see now that all my efforts have not succeeded in making myself happy. I have only succeeded in ruining my spiritual life.”

So he left beautiful rooms he lived in within the palace and dismissed all his servants and attendants. He went to live in a small building off to one side of the palace. He stopped eating all the rich food they served in the palace, and began to eat just ordinary food. He sat by himself for three months purifying his mind.

Then one day, he took a nap in the middle of the day. Continue reading →

Solving your church’s financial problems

Is your church budget strained? Trying to support a building that’s just too darned big? Stephen Leacock has described how the people of Mariposa, in Missinaba County, in Canada, handled the financial problems of their Church of England congregation, and at the same time supported their rector, Dean Drone. Leacock’s story is immediately below; my commentary appears after Leacock:

———

“The fire had broken out late, late at night, and they fought it till the day. The flame of it lit up the town and the bare grey maple trees, and you could see in the light of it the broad sheet of the frozen lake, snow covered still. It kindled such a beacon as it burned that from the other side of the lake the people on the night express from the north could see it twenty miles away. It lit up such a testimony of flame that Mariposa has never seen the like of it before or since. Then when the roof crashed in and the tall steeple tottered and fell, so swift a darkness seemed to come that the grey trees and the frozen lake vanished in a moment as if blotted out of existence.

“When the morning came the great church of Mariposa was nothing but a ragged group of walls with a sodden heap of bricks and blackened wood, still hissing here and there beneath the hose with the sullen anger of a conquered fire. Round the ruins of the fire walked the people of Mariposa next morning, and they pointed out where the wreck of the steeple had fallen, and where the bells of the church lay in a molten heap among the bricks, and they talked of the loss that it was and how many dollars it would take to rebuild the church, and whether it was insured and for how much. And there were at least fourteen people who had seen the fire first, and more than that who had given the first alarm, and ever so many who knew how fires of this sort could be prevented.

“Most noticeable of all you could see the sidesmen and the wardens and Mullins, the chairman of the vestry, talking in little groups about the fire. Later in the day there came from the city the insurance men and the fire appraisers, and they too walked about the ruins, and talked with the wardens and the vestry men. There was such a luxury of excitement in the town that day that it was just as good as a public holiday.

“But the strangest part of it was the unexpected sequel. Continue reading →

What the insurance agent asked

I went to get new automobile insurance today. The insurance agent politely asked me for various pieces of information. “Occupation?” she said, looking at her computer screen while she typed.

“Minister,” I said.

She stopped typing and looked me in the eyes. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” she said. “Are you seeing more people in your church recently? Because of the economy?”

“Not really,” I said. “But I’m seeing more desperate people. People without a job, no money, that sort of thing. I think it’s maybe worse here on the Peninsula because everyone has such high expectations for themselves.”

She nodded. “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” We both sat there for a second, and then she went back to entering information into the computer.

Bay area singing event

If you’re in the Bay area, come check out the sixth annual Golden Gate Sacred Harp singing in Berkeley this Saturday, April 24. You’ll experience singing from an American tradition of sacred music that can be traced back to the 18th century, when New England ministers and musicians banded together to improve the poor quality of congregational singing in their day.

Sacred Harp singing is bold and loud, full-throated singing with a strong rhythmic drive that’ll get your feet tapping. According to this short video, it is increasingly being sung by “young urbanites.” (And yes, my regular Sacred Harp group has a much greater percentage of people under 30 than does my Unitarian Universalist church.)

We’ll be at the Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut Street, Berkeley (close to BART). Look for me at the registration table mid-morning. Free and open to the public — beginners welcome — loaner books available. Check out the website for all the details: http://www.fasola.org/sf/goldengate/

The real April 19

April 19 is the anniversary of the Battle of Concord and Lexington in 1775, a minor military engagement that wound up having major political repercussions. Patrick Murfin has one of the best summaries of the events of that day that I’ve seen in a long time, and you should go check it out.

As someone who lived the first 42 years of his life mostly in Concord, and who worked for several years at the church on Lexington Green, it has been interesting to watch over the years as different political groups have tried to claim that the participants in the Battle of Concord and Lexington agreed with some narrow political ideology of the present day. In 1975, quasi-leftists staged a “people’s” celebration of the bicentennial of the battle, saying that the British colonials who presented armed resistance to His Majesty’s troops were in fact aligned with what was then called the New Left. More recently, right-wingers are wrapping themselves in quasi-colonial costumes, saying that the British colonials who presented armed resistance to His Majesty’s troops were in fact aligned with what is now called the “Tea Party” movement.

Both these claims, and all similar claims, have little to do with historical fact, and must be dismissed as silly. The 18th century men and women in the colonies of British North America inhabited a very different political and social world than we do in the early 21st century. Those 18th century men and women were colonials, subjects of the worldwide British empire. They were also subjects of an 18th century constitutional monarchy, and they owed allegiance to the person of King George. As colonials, they were subject to the laws promulgated by Parliament, yet they had no elected representation in Parliament. As colonials, whatever local government they had could be removed or replace by His Majesty’s government; in fact, that’s exactly what had happened, and the colonials had had essentially no political recourse when their elected officials were removed from office. Any recent citizen of the United States — and that includes the Tea Partyites and the old New Leftists — inhabits a very different political world than the colonials of British North America.

In my years living and working in Concord and Lexington, I saw plenty of political infighting; Lexington had a particularly nasty split between liberals and conservatives. But on April 19, we all tried to put aside our present-day politics. In Concord and Lexington, everyone is a patriot on April 19 (yes, even the guys who dress up as Redcoats in the re-enactments of the battle). We knew that trying to claim the battle for one or another present-day political ideology was bad form, serving merely to distract us all from the serious duties of knowing the historical facts as accurately as possible, and celebrating the courage and commitment of those long-ago men and women.

Even as I write this, the re-enactors have just moved across Lexington Green for the second time today, this time with the colonial militia and minutemen in hot pursuit of His Majesty’s regulars. There’s no one re-enacting the role of Tea Partyites, because there were no Tea Partyites back in 1775, no New Left, no small-minded politicians trying to claim a mantle that wasn’t theirs to claim. There were only men and women, both black and white, slowly and painfully, sometimes bloodily, working their way towards a new political system that was still only vaguely imagined.

“The Sandy Road”

From my teaching notes of 11 April 2010:

Over 20 children, ages 4 through 11, at the 9:30 session; school vacation week for many kids so we expected low attendance and had all the kids together. I had my doubts about having the preschoolers in the class, but thought it was worth a try. C—, one of the older kids, volunteered to light chalice; turns out he had never lit a match before, so I talked him through it while reviewing fire safety for the benefit of all kids.

Read aloud the story “The Sandy Road,” from Ellen Babbit’s retelling of Jataka tales (Appanna Jataka, or Appanaka Jataka, tale no. 1). The children were completely attentive while I was reading.

Then we acted it out. There were enough major roles for all the older children (gr. 4 & 5) who wanted one: the wicked demon and helpers, the foolish merchant, the wise merchant. The children were very inventive in acting the story out: the smallest children were the oxen, and they dragged chairs as their wagons; they were very focused on dragging their chairs. The children were much less attentive while we were getting ready to act the story out, and I did my usual thing and tried to talk over them — this never works well, but I have a big voice and have gotten into the bad habit of relying on it.

Finally we settled down and actually acted the story out. Continue reading →