Author: Daniel Harper

“Healthy Congregations”

Pam, the minister at the Unitarian Universalist congregation just down the street in Scituate, told me about “Healthy Congregations,” a nonprofit that carries on the work of Rabbi Edwin Friedman and Peter Steinke. Friedman applied Murray Bowen’s family systems theory to congregational life, which is outlined in his book Generation to Generation. Beginning in the 1990s, Steinke developed workshops to train workshop facilitators in systems theory.

I read Friedman’s book years ago. Family systems theory really does provide good insight into how congregations work. (I feel it also provides insight into how any face-to-face membership organization works.) Somehow I’m going to have to figure out how to fit one of their online workshops into my schedule….

“Water is sacred”

In an essay titled “Jain Ecology,” Satish Kumar records a “water sutra” taught to him by his mother:

Waste no water
Don’t ever spill it
Water is precious
Water is sacred
The way you use water is the measure of you
Water is witness
Water is the judge
Your wisdom rests on your careful use of water.
(Satish Kumar, “Jain Ecology,” Jainism and Ecology, ed. Christopher Key Chapple [Harvard Univ., 2002], p. 187)

This sutra expresses an ethic that is removed from Western thinking. Most Westerners would agree that humans are sacred, in some sense of the word”sacred.” Some Westerners would argue that animals are sacred. Maybe a few Westerners would contend that plants and fungi are sacred. But as for inanimate objects — or bacteria, archaea, and eukaryota aside from plants, animals, and fungi — I think only a very tiny minority of Westerners would consider these to be sacred.

If water, earth, and air are sacred, it would much easier to advocate for treating them with respect. But since they are not sacred in the West, then if you want to protect them from pollution or wastefulness, you wind up arguing from a selfish point of view — we should protect water, earth, and air because to do so is to protect our own health.

This represents a big difference in the ethics of ecology.

Grumpiness and ukuleles

Three of us were in the office in the early afternoon. Each of us was feeling a little bit grumpy. Each of us was glad to be done with 2022, and hoping that 2023 will be a little bit better.

I told them my theory. Here we are, three years into a pandemic. Historically, pandemics have ended after a year and a half. But this pandemic is still going strong. I told them about this article I read that blamed the Ukraine war on the pandemic — Putin took advantage of societal chaos to launch his war.

I think I might even blame the pandemic for what happened in the U.S. House of Representatives today. The Republicans could not elect a Speaker of the House. Sure, we can blame it on right-wing extremists and ideologues. But I suspect part of the reason that people are voting right wing extremists and ideologues into office is that people are afraid and angry and doing stupid things like voting for people who can’t and won’t govern effectively.

It’s time to start playing ukulele again. I’ll never be a good ukulele player, but who cares. Pick up a ukulele, and you can’t help smiling. To quote George Harrison: “[The uke] is one instrument you can’t play and not laugh.”

Even if I can’t play it very well, a uke makes me feel better. Especially if it’s Carol’s uke, the one with blue flowers painted on it.

Me holding a ukulele with blue flowers painted on it.
Carol’s uke

In person or online….

Three years ago at this time, I was planning to attend General Assembly, the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists. I was finally getting recovering from a major health issue, and ready to travel again. Then, of course, the pandemic hit.

Well, we’re slowly learning to live with the ongoing pandemic. I live close enough to Pittsburgh, the location for this year’s General Assembly, that I could drive there. The question is — by the time General Assembly rolls around, am I going to be psychologically ready to attend a gathering with more than a thousand people?

I’m not ready to make a decision. Maybe I’ll watch online (I’ve come to quite like online attendance at conferences). Maybe I’ll attend in person (if I drove to Pittsburgh I could stop and see cousins Steve and Cheryl, and friends Paul and Gina on the way). Maybe I’ll set up a local conference-watch party, to combine a smaller in-person gathering with General Assembly programming. I hate to admit this, but I’ve been feeling fairly disconnected from denominational politics so I might just ignore General Assembly.

I wonder what other people are thinking about this year’s General Assembly….

An expert look back at the pandemic

STAT News takes a look at what most surprised experts about the COVID pandemic. STAT senior writer Helen Branswell’s article is well worth reading.

The point that I found most interesting: “How long the damn thing has lasted.” Branswell reports:

“[In the past,] the pandemics that have been recorded have mainly been caused by flu. And in the recorded flu pandemics, there was generally a wave or two — sometimes, in some places three — and then humans and the new virus reached a detente. The new flu virus settled into causing seasonal flu activity, not pandemic flu.

“A lot of people STAT spoke to thought that was the way this pandemic would play out. They didn’t anticipate that we’d be where we are now, with waves of transmission still occurring at various points in the year, rather than during the winter, as is the way of most respiratory pathogens.

“‘I never would have imagined that three years later we would still be dealing with this in the way that it’s ever-present in our conversations and in our society,’ said Messonnier, the former CDC official….”

As a layperson, I never dreamed that after three years, we’d still be dealing with high levels of virus transmission, and serious health consequences. I’m glad to know that the experts are equally flummoxed.

And the second most interesting point, from my point of view: “The ripple effect.” Branswell summarizes what one expert said:

“…Hatchett, for all his studying of previous pandemics, wasn’t anticipating the geopolitical impacts of this one. He likens it to a meteor strike. [emphasis added]

“In addition to the crushing waves of illness, the lives lost, the swamping of hospitals, and the disruption to routine health care, he points to the economic disruption of the past couple of years, the onset of inflation, the spike in energy prices, and the upheaval in supply chains as all being of a piece….”

Another ripple effect not mentioned in the article, but which I see every day: the COVID pandemic has changed the shape of religion in the U.S. permanently. The pandemic accelerated the ongoing trend of disaffiliation from religious organizations. The pandemic is finishing off a fair number of congregations already weakened by the Great Recession in 2008. The pandemic deepened the divide between the conservative Christians who were vaccine deniers, and everyone else who was religious (and who had to explain that yes they were religious, but they were vaccinated). The pandemic advanced livestreaming acceptance incredibly rapidly. The pandemic is causing quite a few religious professionals to seek other lines of work….

The list goes on. Yes, it was like a meteor strike. Organized religion in the U.S. will never be the same.

Lichen

Granitic rock with a gray-green crustose lichen growing on it.
Porpidia albocaerulescens?

This crustose lichen caught my eye while out walking today. I was especially taken by the dramatic apothecia, those dark gray spots outlined in a very dark gray. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my hand lens with me, so I couldn’t take a good close look at the apothecia. But here’s what they look like when I blow up the photo:

Close-up of the above photo, showing the cup-like apothecia a little bit better.

I believe this lichen is Porpidia albocaerulescens, which is sometimes called the Smoky-eyed Boulder Lichen. However, identifying crustose lichens accurately seems to require a rock hammer (to get the sample off the rock) and a chemistry set (to carry out the chemical tests used for identification).

#FungiFriday

The year in review: Unitarian Universalism

These are a few of the things I’ve been watching in the Unitarian Universalist (UU) universe here in the United States:

Article II Study Commission

The commission charged with revising Article II of the bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) released draft wording of a revision. From the few reactions I’ve seen online or heard in person, I suspect most Unitarian Universalists (UUs) were expecting minor revisions to the existing wording. But the draft represents a major rewrite — mostly new wording, no more seven principles, no more six sources. Kudos to the Article II Study Commission for attempting a much-needed major rewrite.

The real question, however, is whether we can build consensus around this particular rewrite, or if this reqrite will evolve into something that we can build consensus around. Personally, I’m ready for the Purposes section of Article II to be rewritten, but I’m not excited by the new draft version. What will the lovers of the “seven principles” think of this major rewrite? Will they vote for it? And if there is consensus among the usual General Assembly attendees, a tiny percentage of all Unitarian Universalists in the U.S., will the new wording be widely accepted by the rank and file? I don’t think the answers to any of these questions are obvious.

UU blogs

There aren’t many UU bloggers left. Scott Wells has finally reduced his blogging to just a few times a year. Will Shetterly moved to SubStack, deleting his old blog. People like Patrick Murfin and Paul Wilczynski are still blogging regularly, but they rarely blog about Unitarian Universalism any more. And there are a few long-time UU bloggers barely hanging on to their blogs, like Peacebang — who used to be a blogging machine, but is now down to one or two posts a year — and Doug Muder, also down to a couple of posts a year.

Continue reading “The year in review: Unitarian Universalism”

Reviving the Perry Mason project

More than a decade ago, I created a checklist on this blog listing all the Perry Mason novels. I planned to write notes on each novel, talking about recurring characters, recurring or unusual plot devices, and mention of any interesting legal points. This project was abandoned for a number of years, but I finally decided to revive it (though it will remain on the back burner). Here it is: Perry Mason novels.

Part of the reason I’m putting this out there again is I have a faint hope that someone else who’s a fan of the Perry Mason novels will find the checklist, and contribute to it.

InCoWriMo

Scott wells no longer does much with his blog, but he’s active on Mastodon. And one of his Mastodon posts pointed me to InCoWriMo, or International Correspondence Writing Month.

The month is February. The idea is to write letters to random people all over the world. The tagline is “Vintage Social Media.”

How it works: People post their mailing addresses to the InCoWriMo website. Other people (maybe you, maybe me) write letters to them. I’m giving you enough advance notice so you can start watching their website.

Noted, with comment

I’m slowly making my way through Lewis Gordon’s new book, Fear of Black Consciousness. It’s slow going, because Gordon keeps dropping in this little observations that make me stop and think.

Like this one:

“The expression ‘black bodies’ pops up often wherever antiblack racism raises its ugly, and at times polite, head. It is there on blogs, in news interviews, in editorials in major newspapers, in broadcast lectures, and in award-winning books ranging from Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me to Ibram X. Kendi’s How To Be an Antiracist. It makes sense since racism involves a form of two-dimensional thinking in which black people supposedly lack inner lives. [Frantz] Fanon referred to this as ‘the epidermal schema.’ It refers to treating black people as mere surfaces, superficial physical beings without consciousness and thus a point of view — in short, only bodies. Yet in the midst of this attention to black bodies, many blacks are left wondering what happened to black people. How has it become acceptable — indeed, even preferable — for black people to refer to ourselves as ‘bodies’ instead of as ‘people’ or as ‘human beings’?” [pp. 31-32]

It is not for me, a white person, to tell black people how to refer to themselves. But I have been uncomfortable with the way it has become fashionable to refer to people, not just black people, as “bodies.” I suspect this comes from some kind of post-Foucauldian analysis, that is, an analysis that attempts to follow in the footsteps of philosopher Michel Foucault.

Foucault’s philosophy does place an emphasis on the body; his philosophy “aims to bring the body into the focus of history.” [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article on Michel Foucault, section 3.4]. This move by Foucault was brilliant and necessary, to help us understand how modern society uses hierarchy and discipline to control and punish people. I don’t think Foucault’s intent was to reduce persons to bodies; however, some of his followers may have adopted Foucauldian discourse without adequately reflecting on the deeply humanistic purpose of that discourse.

Returning to Lewis Gordon’s argument — Gordon points out that the term “bodies” is now being used in a way that can indeed reduce black persons to something less than three dimensional beings — reduce them to less than human. Whether Gordon is also offering a critique of Foucault isn’t something I can comment on, since I’m not up on Foucault (I admire his work, but reading him is a chore that I don’t care to put myself through). It does look like Gordon is suggesting that Fanon would be a more useful thinker if we’re going to explore this topic.

At the same time, I don’t hear Gordon telling people to stop using the term “bodies.” Rather, as a philosopher should do, he’s pointing out where public discourse has gotten imprecise, sloppy. He’s suggesting that writers and speakers should think hard about what they really mean when they use the term “bodies.” Is “bodies” the more precise term, or are the more precise terms “people” or “human beings”? It’s fine to use “bodies if that’s what is really meant (if you’re doing Foucauldian analysis), but Gordon clearly favors the latter two terms. If you’re talking about people, says Gordon, then say “people”; if you’re talking about human beings, then say “human beings.”

You can see how reading this book is slow going for me. I had to go look Foucault. And now I’m going to have to dig into Fanon. But this is what books by philosophers should do — cause us to think hard about the way we’ve been thinking.