We saw the gee-whiz showy things you’d expect to see at Maker Faire: strange metal constructions that belched fire; all kinds of robots; people riding around inside giant self-propelled cupcakes; a Rube Goldberg-style giant mousetrap powered by simple machines and a bowling ball; the CO2 eruptions that happen when you drop Mentos into carbonated beverages. My favorite gee-whiz showy thing was the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir, an art car covered with fish and lobsters that danced in carefully choreographed movements:

And we saw the geeky technical things you’d expect to see at Maker Faire: conventional automobiles converted to electric power; too many projects made with Arduino microcontrollers; robots; drones; giant soap bubbles; a blacksmith; ham radio operators.

We also saw things that you might not expect at Maker faire: goats; chickens; beekeepers; a guy selling New-Agey devices to protect you from EMF radiation; a steam-powered scale-model train; lessons on how to walk on stilts; a really good drummer who used plastic trash barrels and other found objects for his drum set.

It was very satisfying, if for no other reason than being able to spend time hanging out with thousands of other geeky people who like to make things instead of consuming things.

Update: Because a commenter asked, here’s a video (taken by Carol) of the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir:

“What is most distressing about the times we live in, in my view, is our ever accelerating tolerance for cruelty. Prisoners held indefinitely in orange suits, hooded, chained and on their knees. Like the hunger strikers of Guantanamo, I would certainly prefer death to this. People shot and bombed from planes they never see until it is too late to get up from the table or place the baby under the bed. Poor people terrorized daily, driven insane really, from fear. People on the streets with no food and no place to sleep. People under bridges everywhere you go, holding out their desperate signs: a recent one held by a very young man, perhaps a veteran, under my local bridge: I Want To Live….”

In recent months, I’ve been trying to understand why I feel there is something morally unsound in our society recently — and yes, I know that every era thinks their time is morally unsound. But every era does have its own particular moral unsoundness, and I think Walker is on to something: our time is a time when we are increasingly tolerant of cruelty, even amused by cruelty.

When I learned this, I thought to myself: and where are we supposed to find the natural world in downtown San Mateo? This is not Tokyo where, according to my Aunt Martha, who lived there for two years, the residents cultivate little pockets of natural beauty throughout the city. Here in San Mateo, we could walk over to Central Park where the Japanese American community maintains a Japanese garden; but that garden is only unlocked for a few hours a day. Like many densely populated areas in the United States, downtown San Mateo has little to offer in the way of natural beauty; it combines urban density with dreary suburban sprawl; and even where there is some natural beauty, someone will have dropped trash there: fast food bags at the base of a tree, malt liquor cans thrown in among flowers, women’s underwear draped in the branches of a tree overhanging San Mateo Creek (I’m not making that up).

At some point during our wellness class, though, I realized that we have created a little oasis of natural beauty on our little balcony. We have nothing to compare with Japanese bonsai, but over the years we have accumulated quite a few plants. At the moment several of them are in bloom: the purple flowers of the potted lavender; the orange and gold of the nasturtiums; the vivid pink flowers of the succulent Carol can’t remember the name of. I was staring out the window at these flowers this morning. Carol walked into the kitchen and asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

The Judean Village program has us travel back in time during Sunday school. We gather in the village square, where the artisans and shopkeepers of the village (i.e., the Sunday school teachers) exchange gossip and rumors — gossip about what the hated tax collector has been up to this week, what the Roman overlords are doing, etc. — and rumors about the wandering rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth who is rumored to actually sit down to share meals with tax collectors (horrors!), who is rumored to be healing people and even raising them from the dead, and who may or may not be planning a revolution that will drive the Romans out of Judea and reestablish Jewish rule. The artisans and shopkeepers are all wearing long tunics with rope belts and head cloths (available from www.christiancostumes.com). We supplemented the costumes we purchased with ones made by volunteers in the program.

The village song leader comes by, and teaches the villagers a song:

Shalom haverim, shalom haverim,
Shalom, shalom,
Lehitraot, Lehitraot,
Sahlom, shalom.

Good bye my friends, have peace my friends,
Have pecae, have peace,
Till we meet again, till we meet again,
Have peace, have peace.

The song leader says that some of the children don’t seem quite sure how to pronounce the Hebrew words. The artisans and shopkeepers say they don’t understand the strange language in the second half of the song. So the song leader has everyone repeat the words phrase by phrase, until everyone knows it. Then everyone sings the song together, first in unison a couple of times, then as a round.

Everyone thanks the village songleader. Then it’s time for the children to choose which artisan or shopkeeper they would like to apprentice to that week. One by one, each artisan and shopkeeper — the athlete trainer, the baker, the brick maker, the candymaker, the carpenter, the musical instrument maker, the potter, the scribe, the weaver, etc. — briefly describes what he or she will be making. Then one of the village elders asks which children would like to go where this week — and don’t forget, there will be four more weeks when they can choose to apprentice to another artisan or shopkeeper!

The children go off with the various artisans and shopkeepers, and complete a project that takes about thirty minutes. Depending on the complexity of the project, the artisan or shopkeeper may have time to explain the importance of what they’re doing. The artisan or shopkeeper will also talk about how they are barely able to survive because the Romans tax them so heavily — and they dare not show open resistance, because who knows what the Roman soldiers may do.

While they are working, the tax collector comes around, often accompanied by a Roman soldier. The tax collector, though despised by the villagers, is obviously better off and wears somewhat better clothes. The Roman soldier walks behind the tax collector, wearing appropriate armor and clothing (though we have learned that it is best for the Roman soldier NOT to carry a sword, just a shield). Each artisan and shopkeeper will complain about how poor they are, how they can’t make any money — and maybe, grudgingly, they will give a few denarii (pennies) to the tax collector — and the tax collector will say that is not enough, and that s/he will be back for more next week. (Sometimes the tax collector and the Roman soldier go into the Main Hall, take over for the ushers and pass the baskets for the offering!)

The Roman soldier will also spend some time with the athlete trainer, looking for likely candidates for the Roman army. The soldier might point out to the potential recruits that if they join the Roman army, they will only have to sign on for a twenty year hitch. They’ll be fed and clothed for all those twenty years, which is more than can be promised if they stay in their poor little village — and at the end of those twenty years, they can sign on for another twenty year term, or the Emperor will give them land of their own in one of the remote colonies. While the Roman soldier isn’t around, the athlete trainer might discourage his/her apprentices from joining the Roman army, since to do so would be to betray their village — and s/he will remind the apprentices that if they join the Roman army, they won’t be able to practice their Jewish religion.

Each week for five weeks, the children serve as apprentices in the Judean village. They can choose to go to a different artisan or shopkeeper each week. (We have found it best if there is a slightly different choice of shopkeepers each week — this gives each Sunday school teacher a week off, and provides some variety and excitement for the children.) Everyone sings the song together each week, and by the fifth week, the whole village sounds really good singing together. In our village, Lena, our song leader, brought in violinists and a violist who play a klezmer-y introduction to “Shalom Chaverim,” and who accompany the singing (especially helpful when we’re singing it as a round). Lena found two adult violinists, two middle school violinists, and an adult violist. Since violins and violas are anachronistic, the artisans and shopkeepers ask, “What are those strange-looking but nice sounding instruments?”

As the weeks go on, the rumors about Jesus of Nazareth keep coming up. Over the five weeks, one shopkeeper, usually the most prosperous one, will decide Jesus is a fake — in our village, Alan the scribe is the most prosperous artisan, perhaps the only person in the village who knows how to write, and Alan serves as our resident skeptic, deriding rumors that Jesus can heal people, pointing out that no one could stand up to the might of the Roman emperor. At the other extreme, in our village, Karl the tax collector gradually gets more and more convinced that Jesus is the real deal — after all, Jesus sits down and shares meals with tax collectors, which no one in the village will do! — and in the last week, Karl the tax collector says he is going to give up collecting taxes and go follow Jesus around the countryside. Then there are one or two shopkeepers who are fans of Jesus but who aren’t going to leave town to follow Jesus. In our village, Dan the carpenter — coincidentally, one of his competitors is Joseph and Sons Carpenters, out of Nazareth, an old firm that’s struggling because Joseph’s son Jesus left the business to become a wandering rabbi — Dan the carpenter supports Jesus, and likes Jesus’ teachings about how all people are equally worthy, and wants to believe that Jesus can improve Judea’s lot, but worries that the Roman Empire will deal harshly with Jesus in the end. During these improvised conversations, we bring in references to passages from the gospels, e.g., we talk about Matthew 5.38-48, where Jesus says that when a Roman soldier asks you to cary something for one mile, you should carry it for an extra mile — and we argue about what Jesus might mean by these sayings.

The Judean Village program is modification and simplification of the old “Marketplace 29 A.D.: A Bibletimes Experience” vacation Bible school curriculum by Betty Goetz and Ruthe Bomberger [Stevensville, MI: B. J. Goetz Publishing Co., 1989]. (This curriculum, developed in the 1970s, went out of print not long after Betty Goetz sold the title to Group Publishing, who printed a 2004 edition but dropped the title quickly. You might be able to find a copy somewhere in your church, a nearby church, or even a library — try to find editions published by Goetz Publishing Co., and dated 1989 or later.)

To adapt the old “Marketplace 29 A.D.” curriculum, I changed it from a five-day, day-long summer camp program to a five session weekly hour-long program. I used the principles behind the workshop rotation method, adapting the various projects in the “Marketplace 29 A.D.” curriculum to fit into a 30 minute time slot. I dropped the lengthy skits used in “Marketplace 29 A.D.” in favor of shorter improvised dialogue between the shopkeepers. I scrapped the preschool unit in “Marketplace 29 A.D.” — that proved to be too much work for the small number of preschoolers we had. I changed the theology from the generic mainline Protestant theology of “Marketplace 29 A.D.” to something similar to the religious naturalism of Sophia Fahs’s book “Jesus the Carpenter’s Son.”

I have run the Judean Village project in three different Unitarian Universalist congregations — First Parish in Lexington, Mass.; the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, Ill.; and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, Calif. — and it has been a big success each time. It makes a great late spring project, and generates enough interest that you don’t see the usual spring drop in attendance.

Over the years, I and others have thought it would be great fun to develop similar programs for other interesting religious figures. How about “Bodh Gaya 600 B.C.E.,” where you hear about former Prince Siddhartha’s alleged enlightenment? How about “Medina 615 C.E.,” where you hear rumors about a prophet from Mecca? How about “Concord 1845 A.D.,” where kids hear about Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and other Transcendentalists? (As a former licensed tourist guide in Concord, Mass., I have enough knowledge that I might actually be able to develop a pretty good program for “Concord 1845 A.D.”) In the mean time, “Judean Village” has proved to be an interesting and fun program that is definitely worth repeating every couple of years.

This is sacred music; many of the texts are by Isaac Watts, which means this music would never be sung in most Unitarian Universalist congregations, where people tend to squirm at the mention of God and Jesus. Even though I don’t agree with the theology of most of the songs we sang, nevertheless I got more religion out of singing Sacred Harp than I generally get in a Unitarian Universalist worship service. I’ve been thinking about why that is so, and here are four of my reasons:

(a) Sacred Harp singing is DIY — do-it-yourself — music. There is no paid choir director, no soloists, no experts; there are no performances or performers; everyone participates in order for the music to happen. By contrast, Unitarian Universalist worship services feel like performances in front of an audience; if I don’t show up, it won’t make much difference.

(b) Sacred Harp singing can be, and often is, an ecstatic experience. Ecstatic and transcendental experiences tend to make Unitarian Universalists very uncomfortable.

(c) There’s a broad distribution of ages among Sacred Harp singers, from the late teens to the eighties and nineties. Unitarian Universalist congregations tend to be made up mostly of people who are fifty and older.

(d) The singing is loud, exuberant, and enthusiastic. The tunes are pitched so that ordinary singers can sing them comfortably. By contrast, singing in Unitarian Universalist congregations tends to be restrained, and the tunes are pitched so high that those of us with ordinary voices can’t sing them.

I still love my Unitarian Universalist church; Sacred Harp singing would not be an adequate substitute for what I get out of my religious community. But I can still wish the Unitarian Universalism would embrace the DIY ethos, welcome ecstasy and transcendence, include younger people, and sing better.

We looked at used cars online. The next day I rented a car, and we drove to the Toyota dealer in Palo Alto to look at some of the used cars we saw online. When you shop for cars, you enter a never-never-land where nothing is quite what it seems. The mileage posted in the online description did not match the mileage on the actual car. One online description said the car had a moon roof, and the sheet posted in the window of the car also said it had a moon roof, but there was no moon roof. The salespeople will tell you whatever you want to hear: does it have a full-sized spare? yes of course it does; but the spare tire turns out to be one of those little dinky ones. We finally settled on a 2008 Camry hybrid. Of course the price wasn’t what we thought it was. Carol haggled with the salesman; he tried to show her his sales awards, but she didn’t want to look; he went off to talk with his manager; he came back with a price that was still too high; Carol haggled some more; another talk with the manager; we accepted the deal; and when the salesman seemed too cheerful, Carol turned to me and muttered, “We could have gotten the price down more.” Then I went and talked with their finance people, and had to sign away all my rights to sue them if the car turns out to be a lemon — California law protects car dealers, not consumers — and wrote a check. And of course, the next day the driver’s side visor fell down and wouldn’t stay up; this in spite of being assured by the salesmen that they check every car over very thoroughly, which leads me to believe that we should never take the car to that dealer for service, if they could miss something so obvious.

We like the car pretty well, in spite of everything. So far we’ve been getting about forty miles per gallon of gas. But I miss the old car. I bought it from Carol’s mom before she died. It drove us across the continent five times (or two and a half round trips). It looked forlorn sitting in our mechanic’s parking lot as we emptied everything out of it — snow brushes and maps and jumper cables and crumpled coffee cups from under the seat. Now it sits there waiting for the junkie to come and pick it up and take it away.

“In Canada, the reality of religious polarization is a far cry from what was anticipated by theories of linear secularization. It is literally A New Day for religion, where market demand remains high, precisely at a time when growing numbers are rejecting religion. Changing demographics and varied market performances are contributing to a restructuring of players. But the inclinations to embrace religion and reject religion co-exist, with the balance always in dynamic flux. Such religious polarization, as I’ve been emphasizing, is found everywhere — even now, as the Pew Forum data remind us, in the United States.”

The Alban Institute article, “Welcome to Religio8us Polarization,” is available here. This article is adapted from Bibby’s book-length study, A New Day: The Resilience and Restructuring of Religion in Canada, available as a free download from Project Canada.