Spring watch

A few of us went up to a gospel concert in Norton yesterday, and as we were walking back to our cars after the concert, we could hear the spring peepers singing away in the swamp next to the parking lot. We all agreed that the spring peepers haven’t yet started singing down along the coast, presumably because it’s cooler next to the ocean.

Most of the waterfowl have left the harbor, but I did see six pairs of Buffleheads this afternoon. I suspect these are not birds that wintered over here, but rather birds that are migrating north and just happened to stop here for a day; perhaps they got stranded due to the strong north winds that were blowing the past two days.

Standing at the end of State Pier today, I saw two Harbor Seals surface quite close to the pier. They stayed quite close to one another, and at one point they twined their necks together, then slipped under water together. I’ve never seen seals behave in quite this way. I don’t know anything about the mating behavior of Harbor Seals (the only reference work I have on mammals covers land mammals, including order Sirenia but leaving out pinnipeds), but I wonder if what I saw was mating behavior.

Your criticism requested…

I’m writing a revisionist essay about the Rev. Dr. Samuel West, one of the early liberal ministers in Massachusetts whom later Unitarians claimed as a sort of proto-Unitarian. I feel West has been slighted to by the standard Unitarian biographies (including the bio on the UU Historical Society Web site), in the sense that his intellectual accomplishments have been overshadowed by exaggerated claims of eccentric behavior. Now I know some of my readers are interested in this kind of thing, and you are good at picking holes in my arguments, so I’m hoping at least some of you will be willing to read and comment on the rather long essay below….

Samuel West was born on 3 March 1730 (Old Style), to Dr. Sackfield West and Ruth Jenkins in Yarmouth, Massachusetts. He was apparently something of a prodigy as a child. He went off to Harvard College, and was graduated in 1754, one of the top students in his class. He decided to enter the ministry, and was ordained and installed on 3 June 1761 in the established church in what was then Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Beginning in the 1760s, West became active in politics, affiliating himself with the Whigs, and he remained involved with the Revolutionary cause through the Massachusetts convention which ratified the United States constitution. West married twice: first, on 7 March 1768 to Experience Howland, who died 6 March 1789, and with whom he had six children; second, on 20 January 1790 to the widow Louisa Jenne, née Hathway, who died 18 March 1779. Due to loss of memory (and possibly what we would now term senile dementia) West “relinquished his pastoral charge” in June, 1803. He went to live with his son, Samuel West, M.D., in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and died there 24 September 1807. (1)

These are the bare facts of Samuel West’s life. Behind those bare facts was a man of good character and superior intellect, who participated in two revolutionary ventures: the political revolution which was the separation of most of British North America from the British Empire during the War for American Independence, commonly called the American Revolution; and in the quiet and slow theological revolution that eventually led to an open breach between the liberal and conservative factions in the established Massachusetts churches. However, because West’s accomplishments are often obscured by his reputation for eccentricity, I will deal with the allegations of eccentricity first, and then give an account of his revolutionary accomplishments. Continue reading →

Conversation on UUA election continues…

I did a post a week or so ago on the upcoming election for the new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), and in the past couple of days there have been three or four new comments that I think are worth reading. Start here, and keep reading down. Feel free to continue that conversation over there….

What’s going to be really interesting to watch between now and the election at the end of June is this — will the candidates have anything to say about the dire financial realities of the UUA? The financial crisis has hit the UUA hard, and from what I hear, UUA staff are slashing the budget right now, before the fiscal year has even ended — yes, things are that bad. I’m sure there will be little room for the new UUA president to start any new initiatives; instead, the new president will have to cut budgets, tighten belts, and lay off staff. Given where the economy is going, it will continue to get worse for at least a year.

So here some questions I want the UUA presidential candidates to answer: (1) Contemporary non-profit management requires increased efficiency because expenses for staff are rising faster than revenue; so what will you do to increase efficiency at the UUA? (2) A true fiscal conservative looks at both revenue and expenses; so in addition to cutting costs, how will you work to increase revenue? (3) One of the things many non-profits are doing these days is using more volunteers, and using them more effectively, especially considering how many Baby Boomers are retiring right now; so how will you work to extend the work of the UUA through volunteers?

That’s what I want to ask the UUA presidential candidates right now. What about you?

The absent-minded minister

I’m currently writing an essay about Samuel West, my predecessor in the pulpit here in New Bedford from 1761-1803. He had the reputation for being absent-minded and eccentric. Back in 1849, John Morison, another one of my predecessors in the pulpit here, wrote the definitive biographical essay of West. Morison tells the following anecdote as evidence of West’s eccentricity, and I’m going to ask you to read it, and then tell me what you think….

“The following story was told me by his daughter, and is unquestionably true. He had gone to Boston, and, a violent shower coming up on Saturday afternoon, he did not get home that evening, as was expected. The next morning his family were very anxious, and waited till, just at the last moment, he was seen hurrying his horse on with muddy ruffles dangling about his hands, and another large ruffle hanging out upon his bosom, through the open vest which he usually had buttoned close to his chin. He never had worn such embellishments before, and never afterwards could tell how he came by them then. It was too late to change — the congregation were waiting. His daughter buttoned up his vest, so as to hide the bosom ornaments entirely, and carefully tucked the ruffles in about the wrists. During the opening services all went very well. But probably feeling uneasy about the wrists, he twitched at them till the ruffles were flourishing about, and then, growing warm as he advanced, he opened his vest, and made such an exhibition of muddy finery as probably tended very little to the religious edification of the younger portion of his audience. ‘That,’ said his daughter, in telling the story, ‘was the only time that I was ever ashamed of my father.’  ”

So here’s my question: The poor man had a rough ride back home, was probably riding all night, got muddy and dirty, didn’t have time to change his clothing, but made it into the pulpit in time to preach. I don’t get it — this is eccentric how? I readily admit that I don’t pay much attention to my own personal appearance, and have been known to wear a suit on Sunday morning but forget to put on a tie (since I don’t wear a robe in the pulpit, this does not look good). I also admit that I have been asked by Beauty Tips for Ministers to submit a photograph to demonstrate how not to dress if you’re a minister. And I admit that it would be better if people like me and Dr. West had it in us to pay attention to our personal appearance.

But by all accounts, West was an amazing preacher, and can’t we put up with dirty ruffles for the sake of good preaching? And yeah, you don’t have to tell me, if the answer is “no,” I had better find another line of work….

Happy birthday, dad

My father’s birthday is today. Some years ago, Grace Paley wrote a poem describing what her father was like when he was the same age as my father is now. I discovered that by changing a few words, and adding a few words, the poem applies pretty well to my own father (at least, before January 20 of this year):

 

My father said
          how will they get out of it
          they should be sorry they got in

My father says
          how will they get out
          Cheney Bush    the whole bunch
          they don’t know how

goddammit he says
          I’d give anything to see it
          they went in over their heads

he says
          greed    greed    time
          nothing is happening fast enough

 

What are the changed words, you ask? I’ll let you look up the poem yourself, in Paley’s book Leaning Forward (Penobscot, Maine: Granite Press, 1985), p. 69. Hint: Paley’s poem was written c. 1970; the political leaders of that time were more aware of their errors in judgment than are Cheney and Bush.

Sixth anniversary

Today is the sixth anniversary of the invasion of the war of Iraq. So here’s a meditation for pacifists….

Jesus of Nazareth allegedly said:

“Don’t react violently against the one who is evil: when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well. When someone wants to sue you for your shirt, let that person have your coat along with it. Further, when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go an extra mile. Give to the one who begs from you….” [Scholar’s Version, Matthew 5.38-42]

All these suggestions are, of course, absurd. If someone slaps your right cheek, why wouldn’t you just walk away from that person? — and how does this advice apply if someone slaps you on the left cheek? Absurd, absurd. As for that business about the shirt and coat, you have to remember that in a society where people only owned two garments, wouldn’t that would leave you standing around naked? Absurd. Carry a Roman soldier’s pack for an extra mile? Absurd. Give to the one who begs to you? — also absurd.

OK, maybe these things are absurd. But the alternative is the old eye-for-an-eye-tooth-for-a-tooth morality, e.g., when “Axis of Evil” kills some of our people, we automatically go and kill some of their people. Isn’t that old eye-for-an-eye morality just as absurd, in its own way?

Now I tend to be a pragmatic guy, and if someone slaps me on either cheek, I’m going to just walk away. For that matter, I’m not going to give away all my clothes and be naked, I’m not going to carry a Roman soldier’s pack. But as a pragmatist, results matter, and I don’t see that my pragmatism has done much to bring about world peace, either.

I don’t have the answer. But I am drawn to the clarity and elegance of Jesus’s moral philosophy. I’m not sure I want to try everything he suggests, but I do wish I had given money to the beggars I passed on the street today, just to live out his absurd teaching in a small way.

X-posted.

Carol gets press coverage…

Carol, my sweetheart and life partner, got some good coverage in an article in yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor titled “Waterless urinals: Cheap. Green. But many think ‘gross’”. She got even more extensive coverage in a March 9 article in the Lowell Sun “Making the Most of Human Waste” (I was sitting there while she was doing the phone interview, and it’s interesting to see what made it innto the article and what didn’t).

Thank you for indulging me while I brag about Carol.

A true story…

I ran across a true story last week, with a plot worthy of a 19th C. novelist. It’s such a good story, I can’t resist writing it down here. (Even though all those concerned with this story are dead, I have changed dates and identifying characteristics anyway — and no, this story has no connection to New Bedford.)

The story begins in 1857, in a small town in northern New Hampshire, when a baby boy is born to a young couple. We’ll call him Albert. Everything is fine until Albert is two and a half, when his parents die, leaving him an orphan. This is a backwoods place, and the only household that can support him is a house of working men; for some reason, they agree to take care of this little toddler. But this is not a fairy tale where cute little Albert reforms these rough, tough men — instead, Albert grows up wild, swearing and cursing from the time he could talk, hearing about the men’s sexual exploits from a young age, having little or no moral guidance (at least, that’s how he remembers it late in life).

When Albert is twelve he becomes friends with a girl three years younger than he. We’ll call the girl China. She lives in a nearby house, and her father is a foul-mouthed drunk, and her older sisters are little better than prostitutes (who knows where the mother disappeared to); in other words, she belongs to the same social class as Albert. Their friendship is the one bright spot in his otherwise miserable childhood. Then they hit adolescence, and before long they start having sex, and by the age of sixteen China is pregnant.

In 1876, society was not tolerant of girls getting pregnant outside of wedlock, and this was especially true for girls living in small New England towns. The townsfolk try to bring legal action against Albert, but under New Hampshire law of that time he is still a legal minor, so they can’t take legal action against him. But they separate China from Albert: he is sent away, and she stays in town and bears the child, a healthy baby boy named Saul. By the time Saul is five, the owner of the town livery stable, a man named Mr. Brewster, marries China and adopts Saul as his own son.

Meanwhile, Albert heads south to Concord, New Hampshire, where he attends school, and eventually winds up studying law with an established lawyer. The lawyer sends him off to Bowdoin, where he doesn’t get a degree, but he does get a year and a half of college. Then he goes back to Concord, New Hampshire, is accepted as a partner in the law firm where he had been working, and almost immediately marries a young woman named Belle who’s from Concord. Before they get married, he tells Belle all about China, and she is broad-minded enough that it doesn’t worry her. They have a child together. When the old lawyer in the law firm dies, Albert decides to try his luck in boston, where he practices law for a time. Then Belle and Albert decide to move to Lowell, and Albert practices law there for a few years before he moves to Somerville.

Thirty-odd years after they marry, Belle dies. While Albert hasn’t been wildly successful as a lawyer, he has done well enough, and over the years he has served with the Massachusetts Bar Association, and has many respectable friends in the Massachusetts legal world. By now, it’s 1925. Albert decides to make a sentimental visit to that little town in northern New Hampshire where he had grown up. He has been gone for nearly half a century now, and he doesn’t expect to find many people whom he remembers, or who remember him; yet whom does he meet but China herself. Mr. Brewster died only eight years after they were married, and she has been single ever since. Albert and China fall in love all over again, and they get married.

Two years after China and Albert marry, a close friend of Albert’s begins to put two and two together. By some freak happenstance, this friend happens to find out when China got married to Mr. Brewster. The friend knows that China and Albert were in love with each other before China married to Mr. Brewster. And this friend knows how old Saul, China’s son, is now. The arithmetic is easy, and the deduction is logical…. Albert realizes his friend has figured out the skeleton of the story. He writes a long letter to his friend, and fleshes out the rest of the story. Albert writes that while he’s thoroughly ashamed of his wild youth, both he and China were victims of their circumstances, they were not immoral but amoral; they are different people now than they were then; and now he is proud of his son Saul, and he is happy, not ashamed, to be married to China. Albert begs his friend to keep this secret, and declares that he would not burden his friend with the story except “I knew when you saw Saul, you figured out that he must have been born before China married Mr. Brewster.”

That’s the end of the story. The friend did keep the secret — at least, he kept the secret until Albert and China and Saul and he had all died. And although I stumbled across this story by pure chance, now I have kept the secret, too; because the real secret is not the story itself — a story that I am sure has happened frequently in the unwritten history of the human race — the real secret is knowing just who the people really were who were the chief characters in the story.