Commencement

It was a little odd, sitting at graduation ceremonies at Meadville-Lombard, feeling the warmth and pride of the moment, the strong sense of community. And then there was this little bit of dislocation. There were words spoken to the graduates that brought me up short.

The majority of those receiving degrees that day were completing their Masters of Divinity studies and the remarks were addressed to those embarking on their ministerial careers. What in heaven’s name was I “beginning” with this doctorate? For sure I was returning to the same job, the same congregation, the same work.

Then again, we are always “beginning” something in our lives, and in each day we are changed. And then those lines from a Denise Levertov poem crept into my reflection (probably because I used it in a sermon just a couple of months ago… perhaps you remember it?). She begins:

But we have only begun
To love the earth.

We have only begun
To imagine the fullness of life.

How could we tire of hope?
-- so much is in bud.

The poet suggests that we are not yet be done with our work here on earth, even when something seems to have ended. There are so many hints at the possibility of “justice and mercy”; we are only now coming to understand our relationship to all creation. And

We have only begun to know
the power that is in us if we would join
our solitudes in the communion of struggle.

We are always beginning. And so I settled into myself, listening to Dr. Ysaye M. Barnwell speak to us from her experience, with her powerful voice, singing us into this new beginning. And I realized how fortunate I am to be in this company, in this community.

Returning home from Chicago - as it is returning from any journey - is a new beginning. There are lists I could be making of “what to do next,” thinking about what new project should fill the space created by completing this goal. And then I realized that the point is not so much to fill up the time with a new plan, but to find ways to deepen what is already here.

So it is for the congregation as well. We undertake projects and programs to express or fulfill our mission. We revise By-laws and reform our structure and rededicate our selves to the work of “being” this congregation. We might think we are “done” after the Annual Meeting or when a term of service ends - but we are not. We are all beginners, and the work goes on.

So much is unfolding that must
complete its gesture,
so much is in bud.

The Common Good

Well, it seems that Facebook has overtaken "blogging" for me, at least for awhile. I was never very regular anyway. Sometimes it seems like my thoughts and opinions and reflections are too many for even one post!
Right now, for example, I am focused on the idea of the common good - an ethic foundational to democracy and one from which we have strayed.
Years ago, Robert Bellah offered some pointed critiques at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly, basically warning us of the dangers of rampant individualism. As a society and a culture, we in this country have lost sight of the common good. The current situation makes the motto “greed is good” of the 1980’s mere pabulum. Even in this economic crisis, when things are looking pretty dire and people utter the word “depression” and they’re not talking about Zoloft, it’s all about “me and my needs” and not “rescuing” all those undeserving people.
But as Mr. Spock would say: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."
What's got my dander up is yesterday's anti-tax "Tea Parties". One sign read "My Money, My God, My Guns" or something. It had a slightly silly but rather dangerous anti-Obama feel, from what I saw. It was silly and shortsighted... the Gingrich-Limbaugh-sore loser Republicans grasping at straws. Don't they get it? We cannot continue that road of “what’s good for me is good for me, and that’s all that matters.”
Can we look back to some older notions of democracy and how government is "of, by and for” the people... and that the people serve one another?
I feel a little like Galadriel offering a warning: "The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true."
Ah, the drama!

Restoring American Values

Back in July, I bought a wooden cutting bard at one of my favorite Hyde Park spots - Medici Bakery (and I recently read in the NY Times, this is one of Obama’s favored spots as well). This is no ordinary cutting board though… it has marked on it these words: “Restore American Values - Competence, Integrity, Intelligence, Peace, Compassion… ELECT OBAMA IN 2008”.
So far we’ve done the last part - Barak Obama is President-elect. And as I listen to the short acceptance speeches his newest team (today, National Security) are making, I feel that the first three of those “values” are already well in the works. If all goes as hoped, the other two should follow.
Some people/pundits have been carping about the choices Obama has made thus far - they do not seem to represent “change”. But change is more than a new nameplate on the door. Change is a fundamental shift in attitude and in actions. I expect these people, accepting these roles in the Obama-Biden Administration, will be taking on very different values and viewpoints from what we have known in the past eight years.
Folks may have ties to the most recent debacle of an administration or roots in the last Democratic presidency… but what they bring to the table may be skills and knowledge that, when properly directly, will bring about the change we need, change we can believe in!
These post-Thanksgiving thoughts lead me to truly believe in the essential Christmas spirit: compassion, hope, love and peace.

Between the Lines…

The National Guard Armory where I vote is a specious gymnasium kind of room. The tables and voting cubicles for the different Districts in this Ward surround the perimeter of the room. Usually it’s a calm scene… a few voters wandering in, poll workers chatting with one another. I freely stroll across the room to the table for # 26 (which I never remember from year to year, but I know the spot they occupy and recognize the man standing next to the “booth”).
But this morning… this morning! What a scene. A traffic jam at the narrow entrance to the small parking area. Surrounding streets parked up, and people crossing busy Hamilton Avenue with apparent energy - at 6:40 AM in the morning!
The voting area was filled with people - filled. Lines snaked around, each heading to one of the cubicles. It could have been chaotic, but it seemed to be working just fine. I thought we were going to be there for an hour at least.
The people jamming the room, the folks having to wait in the long lines, were mostly African American and people of color. They were there, as were we all, to have our say, cast our vote in this momentous election.
At our District there was no line. A five minute wait and I was in the “booth”, pressing those little boxes on the touch screen. I hope that the people staffing these other Districts’ booths are going to make the wait and the process as easy as possible for everyone.
And I hope the people all over this country will have patience with this process, hang in there and wait to vote, even when the lines are long and the mood perhaps not as patience and cheerful as this morning. We all have to hang in there with the process.
And if things go the way I hope [and if you could not tell, I am a dyed-in-the-wool “blue state” girl], we will have to be patient again. There will be a process of transition and a process of change that is not going to happen overnight. But it will happen. It may not happen exactly as the campaign speeches promised - but it will come. The turning will be slow, but turn we will.
Yes we can. Si se puede. Yes, we can!

You’re a Winner!

Those are words I always long to hear after I’ve bought a raffle ticket or entered a sweepstakes to win a trip to France or Italy or the Caribbean. But I never do. Except for yesterday.

It was a moment straight out of “A Christmas Story”, except it wasn’t a crate with Fragilé written on it. It was a white plastic envelope with something soft inside. I tore it open…

The cover letter informed me that I had indeed won something in a special sweepstakes for Amtrak riders who departed from one of their stations in a 75 mile radius of… Yankee Stadium. To accept the prize, I had to “agree to” a page and a half of single-space typewritten sweepstakes rules. I wondered - did I break a rule just by opening the package? But I’m not sure how I could break the rules even if I wanted to.

Because all I had won was an official Yankees polyester jersey - a $250 “value”. And I’m a Mets fan.

So the disappointment is multi-pronged: it’s polyester; it’s huge; it’s for a Yankees fan. Okay, so I love New York, and the large “NY” logo that is on the front is, in and of itself, not too shabby. But what in heaven’s name am I to do with this? Is this a foreshadowing of disappointment to come?

Or is it a sign that I am one lucky son-of-a-gun and I ought to be grateful for whatever the universe - or Amtrak and MasterCard - send my way! This shirt may make its way to eBay. Me, I’m staying hopeful…

wink, wink; nudge, nudge... say no more!

I’ve relied on that little “winky” emoticon to denote when I am teasing or being a little flip in an e-mail message. I physically caught my fingers reaching for the keys earlier today and had to stop myself. I just can’t go there… after last week’s Vice-Presidential debate, I just can’t do it any more.

Not to get too political here, but I am really worried about the state of things. If a folksy, cutesy, snarky persona is all that is needed to get elected… I don’t even know what to say.

I, as a citizen and as a Unitarian Universalist, value democracy. I prize reason and intellect. I “get” ambiguity; I know that it (whatever "it" is - the world, our little lives, the meanings we make of things…) is all full of gray areas. Yea, that may be our very creed! We don't need it boiled down to simplistic messages or cheer-leading slogans.

So to see this immensely important election grinding on and twirling itself about on winks and jumbled facts and distortions makes me want to run and hide… is this what it's really all about? Oh, and I'm not talking about the hokey-pokey, either!

The race is on...

Hard to believe my last posting was before the Democratic Party’s Primary here in New Jersey. We’ve come a long way since then, baby!
Part of the silence was due, I think, to the sheer “Alice in Wonderland” kind of world I seem to live in… paralyzed by the sheer number of things I can worry about or get worked up about, so that the simpler reflections I might write then seem trite, even if they are what we need right now!
Just when I started to feel like the voice was coming back into balance, I read a piece in Monday’s paper (the New York Times, what else?). Another of those worries of mine I tried to categorize as “irrational” or “paranoid” is affirmed by someone who actually knows whereof he speaks. Check out this Op-Ed piece by Brent Staples on race and the presidential race: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22observer.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

“Mr. Obama seems to understand that he is always an utterance away from a statement — or a phrase — that could transform him in a campaign ad from the affable, rational and racially ambiguous candidate into the archetypical angry black man who scares off the white vote. His caution is evident from the way he sifts and searches the language as he speaks, stepping around words that might push him into the danger zone. These maneuvers are often painful to watch. The troubling part is that they are necessary.”

Since I cast my vote back way back in the Primary, I kept telling myself Obama was too good a candidate to have it come down to this. Naive of me, I suppose. So white folks speak in Jim Crow code, a hockey-mom in a beehive pretends she is Presidential enough and mocks “community organizing” as a real job… and I am supposed to take democracy seriously?
I will and I do… Lord, give me strength!!!

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,"
Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.