Yet Another Unitarian Universalist
A postmodern heretic's spiritual journey.
Carol was telling me about an influencer whom she follows. She told me one thing that this influencer said that seemed questionable to me. We argued about it for a bit. “You know influencers lack?” I said.
Carol looked at me skeptically. “What?” she said.
“Editors and fact checkers,” I said.
Two dying professions. I just wish we had more of them.
Tracey got a comic zine for me at a recent comic convention. Drawn and written by Sanika Phwade — who bills herself as “an illustrator, cartoonist, and reportage artist” — it tells about a minister who has fun with the signboard outside her church. The zine opens with the words: “Pastor Jamie Washam changes the sign outside the First Baptist Church in America every week.”
According to Phwade, by putting short aphorisms on the signboard, Rev. Washam is continuing the tradition of her predecessor: “He would call it The Wayside Pulpit — that preaches a sermon to whomever is passing by. I love that! But I also like having fun with these.”
As the keeper of the Wayside Pulpit outside our meetinghouse, I was jealous when I learned that people actually talk to Washam about the things she puts in her Wayside Pulpit. But then, her Wayside Pulpit is edgier than ours is. I put up sayings like “The moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.” No one comments on things like that. When Washam put up the phrase, “God Is Non-Binary,” sixteen people made comments:
“I have learned that it is the same signs that evoke both positive and negative reactions in people. Fifteen have said positive things about ‘God Is Non-Binary,’ and one person said, Hey what are you thinking? And I said well, let’s sit down and read genesis together. Because the text does support that. They thought I was just popping off politically, and yes I totally picked that up from Pride Fest. But it is completely substantiated by the text.”
Genesis 1:27 does in fact say, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” That is, both male and female are created in God’s image, which implies that God is (ahem) non-binary. Oh ye of little faith who try to place limits on God, limiting him to one gender (regardless of the pronouns we humans use to describe him).
Actually, February 2 is World Ukulele Day. But Mary Beth, our music director, decided we would celebrate it today, by accompanying the first hymn in our Sunday service. We had maybe two minutes of rehearsal, which is why the photo below shows us all looking at the song sheets on the music stands. But we played it through, we didn’t totally suck, and we had fun.
Mike Lynch, who organized the first World Ukulele Day, said the goal was simple: “Take your uke out of its case and play it.” Beyond that, he said you could use your ukulele to bring some fun and joy into the world. I don’t know how much joy we brought into our Sunday service, but we certainly brought some fun. Besides, Mike Lynch often played uke at his church, so what we did was very much in the original spirit of the day.
The real World Ukulele Day is tomorrow. Plan now to take your uke out of the case and play it….