Would I Be Offended?

The Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt reports that she was once asked by her son if she'd be offended if he chose a different religion when he grew up. She observes that as his mother, no, she and his father raised their kids to think and make choices for themselves. But as a UU minister, well... yeah, it would bother her.

I'm not sure my response would be any different. Just differences in nuance.

I grew up UU, so the choice was mine to stay or not (or, given the realities of my teen years abroad, to return to being an active UU or not...). Neither of my parents were ministers, so that element's not the same, but I'm not sure that it's different for any UU and their kids--save in degree. I know older members of our congregation who raised their kids in the fellowship--and some think of themselves as UU (but don't attend), and some attend somewhere, or here, now and then, and at least some have adult children who went off and chose very different religions.

For any parent, regardless of their faith, I think there's an ouch in that.

The roots of the word, religion, refer to those things that tie us (back) together, with each other and the holy. Having one's child reject those things for others tends to feel like one's less connected, disconnected from, not tied back together with... one's offspring. Ouch.

Would I be offended? Not by the act. Part of me would be pleased that my child felt the freedom to make that right choice (for them, for now)--at least as long as they felt able to be above board with me about it. But there'd still be an "ouch" to it.

Still, I can imagine reasons--people make these kind of choices in order (sometimes) to marry a beloved who is a devout and committed member of some faith tradition. With whatever reservations and mental Twister....

What would offend me would be having them reject the core values we've raise them with. Which are, of course, pretty UU. But I've talked with enough people who aren't UU, who listen to or read the seven principles and observe that they don't really have an disagreements... to know that there are plenty of people who share our values who aren't UU.

Like so many historic figures from the UU past, I guess I'm more interested in the universals of (our) religion than in the particular peculiarities of it, less devoted to the transient in religion and focused on the permanent.

Besides, one of my favorite Oliver Wendell Holmes quotes comes to mind; "We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribes." If one of my children ever takes that step, I'll offer them my blessings on their journey, and observe (to myself, I hope, only) "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Can we please get on with it?

The CATO Institute says it will improve American household incomes by $180 billion/year by 2019.

The Center for American Progress says it will improve American household incomes by $189 billion/year.

Quoting CATO:

[I]t is worth noting that very different think tanks employing two different models have come to the same result: Legalization of immigration will expand the U.S. economy and incomes, while an “enforcement only” policy of further restrictions will only depress economic activity.

Quoting CAP:

The U.S. government has attempted for more than two decades to put a stop to unauthorized immigration from and through Mexico by implementing “enforcement-only” measures along the U.S.-Mexico border and at work sites across the country. These measures have failed to end unauthorized immigration and placed downward pressure on wages in a broad swath of industries.

Comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) would benefit the US economy by something on the order of $2.5 trillion (the studies agree).

Oh, and that fantasy of stuffing all the undocumented into boxcars and shipping them out of the country?

Mass deportation reduces U.S. GDP by 1.46 percent. This amounts to $2.6 trillion in cumulative lost GDP over 10 years, not including the actual cost of deportation.

What's a Soul?

As its Big May Question, UU Salon asks, "What is a Soul?"

Does it exist before we are born? Does it disappear when we die? It is unchangeable, or capable of growing/shrinking/strengthening? Can you lose your soul, or gain one?

Answers to such a question are explicitly rooted in one's theology. Those are theological questions. Is there a soul? What is it? Depending on what one believes, those answers may be defined (by a faith's doctrines, or by authorities who've already weighed in...). Or not.

Unitarian Universalists, of course, don't have an easy out; we don't share a theology that defines these answers. Even if we've adopted an existing theological view, within the context of our UUism, that offers answers, that's something that we have to consciously adopt.

So what are my answers?

Well they arise from the things I've already concluded. I'm not a supernaturalist (and having said that, I think we actually know so very little that I'm entirely confident that there are things that look entirely supernatural...). I'm some form of pantheist. "This"--all of this that we see, touch, feel, experience (and the much, much greater part that we do not) is part of what I describe as nature. And that's all there is.

"Soul" is a term I use to describe that experiential essence of being; the "I" that seems to exist within a living being. Not the thinking, but the aware observer that experiences being aware and observing. Perhaps that is an illusion--but if so, it's a "real illusion," in the same sense that solid objects are illusions.

I tend not to believe in a soul as an entity that has a coherent existence separate from the living wave-form of a being. (But I'm entirely at ease with the idea of being wrong; it's something humans are particularly adept at--being spectacularly, flamboyantly, fervently wrong). It's a part of the universe, too. It, I suspect, ends with death. And just like matter, it doesn't go away. "Away" is a false concept. There's no away to go to. It just changes form. Matter decays into component materials and becomes other forms of matter--living or not. Energy goes off as well. The essential thing that is us doesn't remain coherently us; instead, traces of what we were end up smeared across the rest of the planet and all life and through the universe (given enough time).

It's an answer that's actually the same as other answers--it just depends on the perspective one takes on it. It's entirely possible to look at this and say "There's only one soul, and it's shared and interwoven through everything and everywhen." Which is about as good a metaphor for god as anything I've heard.

Can it die? No. Can it be squandered? Sure. Soul is--as best I can make out--'meant' to be exercised and enriched. Shared.

UU membership shrinks... a proposal

I read (unsurprised, but not pleased) that the overall membership of the congregations of the Association shrank this past year. A rather small decrease in the grand scheme, but still, a second year of slight decline.

No doubt there are many solutions possible. Some of them might even be worth undertaking.

Here's one that recognizes an unintended discouragement to membership that the UUA imposes on most member congregations. Large congregations, as I recall, are assessed their dues based on a percentage of their budget. It doesn't matter if they have a great couple years and grow by 30%. Their numbers don't directly affect their dues. Their budget drives their dues. Assuming that new members come in (as has generally been the case) paying below average pledges (there are a variety of reasons for this, all of them understandable and... that's not on topic now), the large congregation's budget would grow, but not by 30%. So growth is a good thing for large UU congregations.

But in those below that dues category, dues are essentially a poll tax on congregational members. You're in a small or small-medium congregation and you gain 30% new members? Yay! Uh... but those 30% won't (see above) increase the budget 30% for some time to come.... However, the dues the congregation will pay will increase by... 30%.

There's a direct effect I've seen to this.

In encouraging new members... there's also a frank and honest conversation about what membership means (that's good), and that it costs the congregation for each new member. Some congregations simply require that new members pay the cost of their membership. Others don't. There are explanations and justifications for each viewpoint....

But it's ironic. At the very time that we're leaning harder on our need to be more open to a more diverse membership, without regard to all those categories we could list in our sleep, we have a barrier that is economic. That means that the relatively poor, those who are young and strapped, or those who are financially strapped for whatever reason... are discouraged from membership.

Which drives down the membership of not-large congregations--and drives down membership of the UUA congregations as a whole.

Does it happen? I know of cases. I know of a woman who would be a member of my congregation right now--but she knows she can't give that much, and since it costs the congregation UUA and District dues if she becomes a member, she's not. She gives what she can anyway, supporting the congregation (but not the UUA...). I believe I know of others, but haven't had the conversation with them that would make it explicit.

Want more members? Use one single system for congregational dues that *doesn't* rest on a poll tax. It's discouraging potential members. It may also be helping hamstring efforts at being welcoming and affirming to all who think they could find their home among us.

It's funny, there are those who insist that to *be* a UU, one has to be a member of a congregation. I understand the idea. It has some--but not enough, I think--merit. But if that's the case, then what we're saying is that there's a wealth-test to be a UU, too--unless you happen to be able to be a member of a large congregation.

A simple percentage of budget scheme would make a lot of things easier on a lot of people. We'd still want to count membership for other purposes. But I think using it to determine funding for the UUA and Districts is a bad idea.

A Reply (and comments) to misstreebc

There being no way for me to post a response to a posting on livejournal (without creating an account, which I do not want, that would oblige me to accept some spam from the corporation behind live journal...), I'm responding here.

The temptation to just let it go, ignore it, and move on would usually win at that point... but misstreebc is clearly speaking of my congregation; I recognize the service from the description.

Today was my 3rd time at a UU service.

I enjoyed the service very much, and am very, very in accord with the idea of a church whose beliefs are based on values and principles rather than creed or dogma.

There is one thing that bothered me, though. The sermon was about church history and a sister congregation in a Romanian village. It was an interesting sermon, and made me appreciate the religious freedom we have in the United States. A couple of times, though, the minister broke into the song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead", and seemed to be celebrating the deaths of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceau,sescu and his wife. I can totally understand celebrating justice, the renewal of religious freedom, and the end of an oppressive regime, but to actually celebrate their deaths really bothers me. IMO, life must always be respected, no matter how vile the person. I could never celebrate the death of another human being.

From what I understand, this seems to violate a core Unitarian belief in the worth and value of every human being. Am I right?

First, I was a little taken aback myself. Not so much because Ceausescu's death was being celebrated (though I did notice...), but because I wondered at how the folk in the congregation who identify as Pagan, as Wiccan, who use the term witch to identify themselves felt.

I remember Ceausescu's fall--and death--and as a fan of politics (national and international) and history, I'd have to say... few have been more deserving of execution.

Personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty on a variety of grounds. But I suspect, being honest with myself, that were I a Romanian of that time, in a position to help make that decision, I'd have made the same one. The man was a veritable fountain of evil actions, and there were certainly forces in the country that would have sought to free him and restore him to power. Had be been freed, there'd have been a vicious civil war, and where he had power, there'd have been a sea of blood.

4,000 were massacred--on his orders--at Timisoara. Something like another 80,000 were killed on his orders during his regime. In addition, then (1989) exiled dissident Mihai Botez estimated that at least 15,000 Romanians died annually from starvation, cold, and shortages even though Romania was rich enough to provide those basic requirements. (Ceausescu chose not to do so. He was trying to pay down an international debt to avoid having the failure of his policies revealed....)

It's an imperfect world. It's important to remember that huge numbers suffered badly under his rule. Minorities were demonized in ways that Fred Phelps fantasizes about. Literally thousands of ethnically Hungarian villages were destroyed, meaning many Unitarian congregations were victims, meaning literally tens of thousands of people who are close religious kin were his victims, along with the Romany and others.

It's a sad, sad thing that there are any human deaths that are good things. But the blunt fact is that there are. Across Romania, celebrations broke out spontaneously.

Perhaps the minister could have handled it more delicately, but in terms of expressing how most Romanians felt--and particularly how those who aren't ethnic Romanians felt--the trope from The Wizard of Oz, "Ding, dong, the Witch is dead!" is probably pretty apt. That we, as UU congregations, hold life very highly and affirm the inherent worth and dignity is true. But our sympathies lie with those who have not been the oppressor. Ceausescu was pretty much entirely the oppressor. Think about what Romanians--people who'd been his victims, who'd been oppressed and terrorized by him--must have felt about him to decide to execute him on Christmas Day.

Ding, dong!

No, it's not the enlightened tear that the Buddha might have shed. But it's honest--and the minister was trying to convey what things had been like, and how people felt. It's so easy for us to say, in this country, what we'd never do. We've never faced it (most of us), or anything like it.

You ask an interesting question. Does it violate our affirmation of the worth and dignity of every person to celebrate a death?

My own answer is that were that all it was, I'd say yes. But when that death is utterly woven into liberation for millions, and means the literal salvation from misery, suffering and death for many thousands... I fully understand it. I suspect that were we common citizens of Bucharest in 1989, we'd have celebrated.

Free at last, free at last.

Maybe we've just been misunderstanding...

what "bipartisan support" really means.

It's good to see that there's widespread support for the Constitution still.

Sometimes... even good news gets overspun

Ok, I want to preface this by saying that I've participated pretty heavily in the UU process on Peacemaking--and that I think this is a very important issue and that I support it.

So, from the official (I think it's official...) UU Peacemakers blog:

Congregations voted to place the Peacemaking Statement of Conscience on the agenda of General Assembly (GA) this summer. The participation rate was 74% (counting "yes," "no," and "abstain" votes), with 38% of congregations voting "yes" and 0.8% voting "no". The remaining congregations either voted "abstain" or did not vote.

74% participated. That's spectacular. Since the old process had seen nothing better (as I recall) than 10% and the new one mandated a minimum of 25% as a sort of "quorum" to permit GA to consider it, I had thought it was setting us up for a lot of failure. I'll take my crow medium, with some BBQ sauce, please.

74% - 38% = 36% -- of whom 35.2% abstained?

What is that about?

It takes energy, effort, time, people... to respond. We've historically mustered a lot of ignorance and apathy over issues.... And now we're seeing active apathy? Or is that conflict, inability to agree on how to respond?

Alas, that 38% in favor looks far less spectacular in that light.

But I look forward to seeing what's next, because--as I said--I think this is really important.

Where I've Been...

I've spent the last six months doing CPE (hospital chaplaincy as in intern), taking classes at the same time, and being a (less than) full-time parent. Plus a variety of other things... followed by a month of intensive classes at Meadville Lombard.

I hope to start blogging occasionally soon... but have a pretty intense schedule for the next <> year or so.

It's Called Blackmail

The Roman Catholic Church, as a result of its views on poverty, human rights, etc., provides all kinds of charitable works. Everything from hospitals to soup kitchens to caring for orphans.

All of which is immensely laudable. Worthy, indeed.

Which is why this is so shocking.

What it boils down to is a threat; if the city grants equal marriage rights, the church will cease providing charitable services.

It's their privilege, of course. But it's morally indefensible. It's using the poor, sick, indigent and orphaned as hostages.

Not a number to be proud of