Yet Another Unitarian Universalist
A postmodern heretic's spiritual journey
Birago Lion and Belinda Sheep introduce the 2021 Stuffed Animal Sleepover at the UU Church of Palo Alto. Dr. Sharpie and Elephant are going to help out, too.
Full script is below.
Continue reading “The 2021 Stuffed Animal Sleepover”The conclusion of the tale from the Ramayana.
Full script below the fold.
Continue reading “The Pool of Enchantment, part two”Rolf, Sharpie, Possum, and the gang decide to act out another story from the Ramayana.
Full script below the fold.
Rolf: I want to hear the story of the Pool of Enchantment!
Sharpie: Oh, yes, the story from the Ramayana. I’ll act out the part of King Yudhisthira.
Possum: The King, or rather the Queen, and her siblings were chasing a deer who had stolen the wood needed to start a Brahmin’s sacred fire. After chasing the deer for a long time, they sat down under a tree, so thirsty they couldn’t go on.
Sharpie: If we don’t find water soon, we’ll die. Nakula, climb this tree to look for water.
Birago: There’s water over there.
Sharpie: Go get some water and bring it back to us.
Possum: Nakula soon found a pool of clear water. A Crane stood at the far edge of the pool.
Birago: Water! I’m so thirsty!
Voice: Do not drink, O Prince, until you answer my questions.
Possum: Nakula was thirsty, so he ignored the Voice. He drank the cool water, and in a few moments lay dead beside the pool.
Sharpie: Where is Nakula? Sahadeva, you’ll have to go and bring us some water.
Castor: On my way!
Castor: Nakula, dead! I’m so thirsty, I’ll drink before I find out what killed him.
Voice: Do not drink, O Prince, until you have answered my questions.
Possum: But Sahadeva had already drunk from the water, and also lay dead beside the pool.
Sharpie: Arjuna, find our siblings, and bring us water.
Nicky: I’ll take my bow and arrows, just in case.
Nicky: My two siblings, dead! I’ll find who or what killed them. But first, I’m so thirsty.
Voice: Do not drink, O Prince, until you have answered my questions.
Nicky: Who are you? Come out and fight with me.
Voice: Bwa ha ha ha. Do not drink, O Prince.
Possum: Soon Arjuna, too, lay dead beside the pool.
Sharpie: Bhima, go find our siblings, then bring water back to me.
[Nods silently.]
Possum: Seeing his siblings, Bhima wondered what evil demon had killed them.
[Looks around in silence.]
Voice: Do not drink, O Prince, until you have answered my questions.
Possum: When the Queen realized that her siblings were not going to return, she went to the pool herself.
Sharpie: This must be the work of some evil spirit. But I am so thirsty, I will drink first.
Voice: Do not drink, O Queen, until you have answered my questions!
Rolf: They shouldn’t have drunk the water!
Nicky: Who’s that strange Voice that speaks?
Possum: We’ll have to wait until next week to find out….
Dr. Sharpie, Rolf, Possum, and Nicky ask to be told the old story of the UU Flower Communion, or Flower Celebration.
Full script below the fold.
Rolf: Dan, can you tell us the story of the Flower Communion again?
Dan: Don’t you know that story already?
Possum: You tell it better. But you don’t have to tell us that Unitarian churches in the Midwest did flower services starting in 1875.
Rolf: Just start with Maja Oktavec, when she came to the United States from the Czech Republic.
Sharpie: And we already know that she was a librarian in the New York Public Library.
Nicky: And she fell in love with Norbert Capek, and they married in 1917.
Dan: OK, I’ll start there. Norbert was a Baptist minister, but he started to doubt his Baptist beliefs. Maja encouraged his doubts. After they married, he resigned from the Baptist ministry because of his doubts.
Rolf: They sound like Unitarians to me!
Dan: One day, their children wanted to go to Sunday school. Each week, the children chose a church to try. Afterwards, Maja and Norbert asked them what they had learned. It always sounded like the same old religion they had left behind, so they’d ask the children to try a different church next week.
Possum: Until the children went to a Unitarian church.
Dan: And they told their parents that they had been encouraged to wonder and to ask questions. So of course they returned to the Unitarian church. And Norbert and Mája decided that they’d attend the Unitarian services, and then they became Unitarians.
Nicky: Meanwhile, back in Europe….
Dan: The Capeks’ homeland became an independent country. The American Unitarians helped Norbert and Mája to go back to Czechoslovakia to start a Unitarian church in the city of Prague.
Sharpie: And they didn’t want to be reminded of the religions they had left behind.
Dan: In 1923, Norbert and Mája created a new Unitarian ritual that wouldn’t be like anything in any other religion. They called it the Flower Celebration.
Possum: Now we call it a Flower Communion.
Rolf: Yeah, and everybody gets to exchange flowers.
Nicky: Exchanging flowers symbolizes how all we are all connected to one another.
Dan: Soon the Unitarian church in Prague had three thousand members. It was largest Unitarian church anywhere. But next to Czechoslovakia, in Germany, the Nazis had taken over the government. In 1939, the Nazis began invading nearby countries.
Rolf: This is the scary part.
Dan: Maja came to the United States to raise money to help refugees who were escaping from the Nazis. While she was here, the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. Norbert was arrested because he spoke out for freedom. The Nazis put Norbert into a concentration camp, where he died in 1942. After the Nazis were finally defeated, Mája stayed in the United States. Norbert’s death made her sad, but she watned to keep working to make the world a better place.
Nicky: Now for the good part!
Dan: Maja decided to bring the joyous Flower Celebration to Unitarians here in the United States. What better way to remember Norbert, and all the Czech Unitarians who fought for freedom?
Possum: I’m glad Maja Capek brought the Flower Communion to the United States.
Sharpie: I like the way the Flower Celebration honors the connections between all beings.
Rolf: I like the flowers!
Nicky: Now I can’t wait till next year’s Flower Communion!
The conlusion of last week’s tale from the Ramayana….
As usual, full script is below the fold….
Continue reading “Sabala the Cow, pt. 2”In this week’s video, Dr. Sharpie, Possum, and some friends decide to act out a story from the Ramayana.
As usual, full script is below.
Continue reading “Sabala the Cow”Sharpie, Rolf, Possum, Muds, and Nicky want to hear the rest of the story of Jesus in Jerusalem, the way Dan’s Unitarian mother used to tell it.
As usual, full script below the fold.
Continue reading “Story of Easter”Possum, Rolf, and Nicky, want to hear the story of Palm Sunday — although Dr. Sharpie and Muds are skeptical of that old story. So Dan gives them the Unitarian Universalist version.
The full script is below the fold.
Continue reading “Story of Palm Sunday”Possum and friends tell another Jataka tale, of the huge hound (you can find my text version of this story here.)
As usual, full text of the script is below.
Continue reading “The Huge Hound”Sharpie and friends act out the Jataka tale about the timid rabbit. This Jataka tale has been retold many, many times, but Sharpie, Possumm, et al., include a few things that are left out of most modern retellings of the story.
As usual, the full script is below.
Continue reading “The Timid Rabbit”