Ok, I will admit I think of each day of General Assembly in relation to the major
events of that day… and yesterday was, to my mind, Service of the Living Tradition Day. It was not only Service of the Living Tradition Day, but my Preliminary Fellowship Service of the Living Tradition Day.
One of the things that amazes me about GA is how things get discussed in real-time… how what might have been a month long discussion through email and the minister’s chat list-serve becomes an intense and interpersonal conversation. I think that having such conversations at GA that gives us the ability to have those conversations later through electronic media. On the first day, it was people who wanted to talk with me about the change in commanders for the Afghanistan War. In the morning at GA, that conversation (in my experience) focused at first on the opening ceremony chalice lighting, and then quickly moved on to the CSAI on Peacemaking.
I have made a commitment this GA not to plan on attending a whole bunch of workshops. Usually, I set up a strategic plan, and I have run from workshop to workshop. This year, I have some meetings and appointments that are outside the GA Schedule (lunch with colleagues, a conversation with the new CLF Minister, baby-shower for a mentor, etc.) I will be at most of the plenary sessions. But overall my plan is to just be, and when I have a time when there is no where else to be, I wander into a workshop or two.
So, much of my GA (besides plenarys) I’m wandering the hallways talking to friends and colleagues. Joyous!
I did attend the UU Christian Fellowship Communion Service, and I felt sad… Sad that one of the few places I get to attend communion that is open and welcoming is at GA. In some of my myriad of minsiterial roles I offer communion to others, but GA (and perhaps the UUCF Revival) are some of the few places where I simply get to accept communion in the open and affirming way of Unitarian and Universalist Christianity. Rev. Alma Crawford preached a high energy and wonderful sermon, but I was there for this moment of connection represented in bread and wine.
Attending a UUCF service also reminds me that, as a Christian Deist, there are places of theological contention for me even with some UU Christian colleagues, in particular to one reference to the resurrected Jesus… but such diversity of theological thought is part of the beauty of coming together into our liberal faith communities. I don’t accept the truth of a resurrected Jesus, and yet here I can still take communion.
Last night was one of those events that I “had” to be at… the Service of the Living Tradition is a whole different experience when you are sitting on the stage. Reading the lines to the hymns backward from the backside of the screen is a skill I have not yet acquired. I enjoyed the sermon… but it did highlight an old adage a minister once told me… “You know you’re a preacher when it’s really hard to listen to someone else’s sermon without thinking how you would have preached it”. So, as always when I’m in worship, I had two sermons happening… and it is an amazing moment when I am truly pulled out of my internal sermon and engaged in someone else’s.
Rev. Paige Getty had me as soon as she said “The Velveteen Rabbit”. Using, in my opinion, the second best Children’s story for adults to read, was genius. It was a metaphor for ministerial formation I had encountered before, and a reminder of what the many years of moving into ministry have been like.
It was also the last time I will ever wear my robe in public without a stole, thereby imitating a circuit court judge… that’s enough to celebrate all on its own.
I also want to celebrate all the members of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, who all sat together next to the line of recession so that they could cheer loudly when I recessed by… you all are in my heart. And thank you for not cheering during the actual ceremony!
I did not get to stay for Peter Mayer’s concert… It would have been wonderful, and I love Peter Mayer… I would love to hear about how it was from those of you who were there.
All in all, day 2 of GA began for me with Peacemaking, continued with meeting, greeting, and re-connecting, and finished with processing and recessing. Day three… or as I know it Bridging Day… begins again. We begin again in love.
Yours in Faith,
Rev. David
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most of that first day in the hallways, greeting friends not seen in awhile. Those who have been there awhile point others in the right direction to get to the myriad of events and places to check in, and we stand in the hallway, greeting one another.
liminality, or to put it another way, to hold my life in an intentional space of creative not-knowing, allowing possibilities and dreams to burble with hopes and visions. That space has allowed me to explore many possibilities for the coming years, to enter into conversations with several different congregations, to explore some civilian Chaplaincy ministries, and to even look at a few possibilities that seem “off the wall” and imagine what my ministry would look like if I were to go in a totally unexpected tangent…
something, deep inside, allowing us to grow. Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken!”
reception such a wonderful success, everyone who came and shared the fellowship with us. I specifically want to thank Chaplain Lt. the Rev. Cynthia Kane for an incredible sermon… it was a testimony to ministry, and the challenge and call of the prophetic ministry in-between communities.
around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, (39) and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! (40) They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. (Mark 12:38-40).
hangs in my closet at home taught me the meaning of Memorial Day. I thought that growing up the child of a soldier, and the grandchild of a sailor taught me the meaning of memorial day. But I was wrong.
The true meaning of Memorial Day is to remember. It is to remember that the cost of war is almost always too high. The true meaning of Memorial Day is not to honor our dead, but to remember the price they paid. To remember the price their families pay. To remember the physical and psychic wounds that the survivors of war, on all sides, carry with them till the end of their days. To remember the lives never lived. To remember the horrors unleashed upon civilian populations by the tools of modern warfare. To remember the losses to our national image and innocence. To remember the loss of possibility. To remember…
rain, there was a sense of solitude, of me and these memorials not to the glory of war, but to their cost. There is nothing glorious about standing soaking wet in a puddle of water in the pouring rain in front of the Vietnam memorial. In the rain, the Korean War Memorial seems to come to life, with the statues of soldiers wearing their rain poncho’s. In the rain, the new WWII memorial seems not to celebrate a victory, but to draw all of that rain into its center pools… like the life-blood of those who died. In a really hard rain, you can barely even see the memorial to WWI.
One of the interesting things about being a Unitarian Universalist Minister who is also a military veteran and in process to become a military chaplain is that twice annually, I have ministerial colleagues from across the country write me for advice in writing their sermons for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.
Our nation is again divided, politically if not geographically. Perhaps there has never been a time when we were not divided, but it just feels different to me now. People are walking along the National Mall in DC carrying signs that declare that they did not bring their guns to the protest, this time… implying a threat of another violent insurrection, another Civil War. Politicians are inflaming this kind of rhetoric for political gain. Others are advocating the use of military force to prevent undocumented immigrants from coming to our country looking for work, rather than doing the hard work of enforcing the laws we have upon those who employ the undocumented. Still others are calling for an expansion of the use of military force in Afghanistan, and an extension of that force into Pakistan. Some are still calling for the use of military force in Iran, in Korea, and in Northern Africa.
often have buried within us layer upon layer of losses, one piled on top of another, the way that sand piles up upon the ruins of ancient cities, gets packed down, and turns to dirt, clay, and stone. Soon, all that we see of those earlier losses and their associated grieving is the tips of the towers, the high places… yet the griefs are always there. Those losses form the foundation upon which we build new hopes… new relationships… new structures of job and passion, almost from scratch. In time, many of these become losses too, with their associated grief. Then more sand, more dirt, and more clay turns to stone, burying them.
I first want to thank everyone for the well wishes that have been sent our way over the last week or so. I also want to thank all of the colleagues and friends in ministry that have offered support and advice to Sandy and I as we have worked with and been integrating a rather significant change in our understanding of our future. That future is still fluid, but it has settled down somewhat.
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