Category Archives: Liberal religion

Small RE programs, pt. 3

Read the whole series.

Today’s session started off with one of the participants teaching a sample Sunday school lesson. Four of us participated in the lesson, with the understanding that we would be writing down our observations and reactions after the lesson was over. A fifth person, Sheila, was both a participant and Lisa’s assistant. The sixth person, Mary, acted as an observer, and instead of participating she wrote out a rough narrative account of the lesson while the lesson was taking place.

Lisa led us in a lesson about Queen Esther from the Hebrew Bible. First she asked the participants what they knew (if anything) about Esther. We didn’t know all that much. Then Lisa told the story of Esther in the first person, as if she was Esther (this was a summary of the story told in the book of Esther, chapters 2-9). To reinforce the story, Lisa asked us to make a diorama depicting one of the scenes from the story; Sheila, acting as her assistant, facilitated the making of the diorama. To connect the story to the participants, Lisa introduced the concept of heroes, and said that Esther was a hero (or heroine, if you prefer). Lisa asked us to name someone who was a hero to us; there was silence for a bit while we thought that question over, and then Sheila broke the silence (and modeled for us what to do), telling about a heroine of hers. Lisa ended with a short wrap-up and review.

After the sample lesson was over, we all wrote up evaluations: Lisa wrote a self-evaluation; the four participants and Sheila wrote up their observations and evaluation; and Mary added to her narrative account. After about 10 minutes, we all shared our evaluations, beginning with Lisa. What was most interesting to me and the other participants was hearing Mary’s account of the sample lesson: because she was not involved, she saw and heard things that the rest of us missed. There was general agreement that having such an observer was extremely helpful in gaining perspective on this teaching episode. Continue reading →

Small RE programs, pt. 2

Read the whole series.

We started off this second session in the workshop with me teaching a sample lesson. I taught the lesson pretty much as I would teach it to a small, mixed-age group of children.

A.

We began by saying together a simple affirmation of faith, with hand motions. Then we went around the circle, and each participant said their name, after which they could say one good thing and one bad thing that had happened to them since we had met together yesterday. One participant had something very important to say, and we spent several minutes listening to her.

After the introductory bits, I read the story about the God of the Israelites parting the sea so Moses and his people could escape form Pharoah’s army. I read the story straight out of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (Exodus, all of ch. 14), and of course I made sure to read it dramatically.

The participants wanted to discuss the story right away (a quite different reaction than children would have had). But instead of allowing the discussion, I said, “Let’s act the story out. Who wants to be which character?” Sheila agreed to act out the part of the God of the Isrealites; I was Pharaoh, Mary and Helen said they would be the sea (“the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left”); and so on. We had great fun acting out the story, and we really hammed it up — I had Phraoh talk in a pirate voice, Sheila played God as a deadpan New England Yankee, Mary and Helen were very active as the waters of the sea, etc.

When we had finished acting, it was time to discuss the story. “What happened in the story?” I asked. The participants reviewed what had happened in the story. Then I asked, “What did you think about the story?” Some of the participants didn’t like the story, because it was violent, and the God of the Israelites seemed vindictive to them. But as the participants kept talking they came to some interesting conclusions: Moses was a strong leader; the God of the Israelites was like a superhero character; the parting of the sea could have been explained by natural phenomena. I asked whether this story was non-fiction or fiction. Continue reading →

Small religious education programs, pt. 1

Ferry Beach Conference Center, Saco, Maine

I’m at a religious education conference here at Ferry Beach, leading a week-long workshop on small religious education programs. We had our first session in this workshop today.

My basic contention for this workshop is that small churches are not well-served by the usual Unitarian Universalist (UU) approach to religious education. The usual UU approach to religious education is pretty straightforward: find a printed curriculum guide that you like, buy it, and tell all your volunteer teachers to follow it. Problem is, almost all of the printed curriculum guides that are appropriate for UU religious education are written for churches that have perhaps 50 children in their programs — enough so you can have have 8-12 children in each class, with the classes divided up by age group. But small churches have too few children to divide up by age groups. This is the big problem facing most small church religious education programs — we feel we have to use the existing printed curriculum guides, but they don’t work with the small number of children we have.

So what’s a small church to do? Continue reading →

Deconstructing “standing on the side of love”

An anonymous correspondent wrote recently about the General Assembly experience, noting in part: “…all the Standing on the Side of Love stuff about did me in….”

I realized that felt the same way about the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo as did Anonymous Correspondent. Because I feel that way, and because I am a postmodern guy, let’s deconstruct both the catch-phrase and the logo:

  • Linguistic deconstruction: Love doesn’t have sides, certainly not sides that you can stand on. This is sloppy language, which implies either sloppy thinking or doublespeak (see below).
  • Theological deconstruction: The catchphrase implies that love is on one side (our side), and hate or evil is on the other side. Instead of an “I-Thou” relationship, the catchphrase promotes an exclusivist theological position. (This is actually consistent with most Unitarian Universalist theological praxis, if not with professed Universalist theology).
  • Political deconstruction: Politically speaking, the catchphrase is applied to subjects as different as same-sex marriage and immigration reform. Thus, the catchphrase becomes a form of political doublespeak: “It means what we want it to mean.”
  • Pop culture deconstruction 1: The catchphrase is a blatant attempt to use late twentieth century modernist marketing techniques. The catchphrase, through its inanity and puerility, aims to reach a broad market segment; in its meaninglessness, it attempts to be all things to all people.
  • Pop culture deconstruction 2: The graphics for the campaign, roughly-drawn hearts, attempts to look cute (sort of like Hello Kitty for the liberal religious set). But because the graphic image is repeated over and over without variation (except in size), it comes across as a modernist attempt to force an unvarying narrative on us, with no chance of customizing it for specific and tiny segments of the population.

Feel free to add your own deconstructions of the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo. You will receive extra points for use of irony, multisyllabic-words, and “quotation marks”. Feel equally free to defend “Standing on the Side of Love.” But since this is a postmodern blog, you will be expected to express your feelings, and shy away from reason (just like the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase does… hey, wait a minute….)

Hospice choirs in New England

I’m passing along the following announcement about hospice choirs (see the end of the post for a definition of “hospice choir”):

The hospice choir movement has begun to blossom in New England, primarily thanks to Hallowell and its founder, Kathy Leo, who has given workshops all over New England.

We started our choir, Eventide Singers, in western Massachusetts in October 2007. There are others, too. Some are directly associated with hospice organizations such as The Noyana Singers; some are directly connected with a church such as the Harbour Singers; and others, including Eventide, are separate organizations.

If you are interested in this subject you might wish to visit the Chalice of Repose which, for thirty years has been studying and teaching “prescriptive music” to be performed by “contemplative musicians.”

Long story short, I am researching for all existing hospice choirs to assemble into a network for the purpose of sharing information, repertoire and experience.

Any information you may have on such choirs will be greatly apprecated.

Thanks in advance,

John Bos
Founder
Eventide Singers
eventidesingers AT verizon DOT net

Hospice choirs are groups of singers who sing for dying people, or sometimes more specifically for people in hospice care. Kate Munger’s Threshold Choir is probably the best-known example of a hospice choir. The repertoire is carefully selected, and the performance is usually by two or three singers practiced in singing in a low-volume, healing tone of voice. Many hospice choirs work with the rest of the healing team, helping people at the end of life to navigate the natural process of dying with dignity and serenity.

While I’ve never had the opportunity to work with one directly as part of a care-giving team, I’m a fan of the hospice choir concept. If you know of a hospice choir, please let John Bos know. And if you want to start your own hospice choir in your church, follow some of the above links to learn more and to make connections.

Final impression of GA 2009

I’m about to go to bed, because I have to get up at three in the morning (heaven help me) to catch my train back east. Before I do, though, here are a few impressions of General Assembly 2009:

— The weather was just about perfect: dry, warm but not too hot, and a couple of thunderstorms to keep it from getting boring. I have a theory that when the weather is perfect, there are fewer major conflicts at General Assembly — and indeed, this year I have heard of no erupting conflicts.

— The schedule was grueling. I had noticed that I was feeling particularly tired, but I hadn’t thought about why until someone pointed out that the GA schedule had no consistency. Plenary happened at odd times, workshop slots got thrown in when you didn’t expect them, UU University required an exhausting commitment of six hours Thursday afternoon and four hours Friday morning. I found the lack of regularity draining.

— The election for the next UUA president seemed to dominate everything else. I didn’t hear many people talking about their workshops, but everyone seemed to have something to say about the election.

— UU University (UUU) got mixed reviews this year. Some people liked their UU University track, some people thought it a waste of time (Doug Muder says much the same thing). Two years ago, I heard nothing but glowing reviews of UUU; maybe it didn’t scale up very well? It will be interesting to read summaries of the evaluations of UUU.

So ends another GA. Now off to bed.

Crossposted.

Bzz bzz bzz

“Bzz bzz bzz” go the little sounds of rumor.

Last night from 10:00-10:45 p.m., there was a “Post-Election Celebration,” described in General Assembly Program Book as an “opportunity to meet and congratulate the newly elected UUA officers and trustees, and to hear from the new President.” Peter Morales, the newly-elected President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) spoke. Several other people spoke, congratulating him. However, Gini Courter, the just re-elected Moderator of the UUA did not show up.

Gini Courter had endorsed Peter Morales’s opponent, so her non-appearance started people talking. “Bzz bzz bzz” go the little sounds of rumor.

Or maybe she was running a little late, and just happened to miss the 45 minute event. Or maybe some crisis came up to prevent her from coming. Who knows? (Update: Now we know. Gini Courter’s real simple explanation is up on her blog. It was a scheduling snafu — which has happened to all of us at GA.)

But this does raise a larger issue, the issue of endorsements. I don’t like the idea of endorsements in a denominational election. (I don’t look at endorsements, either; I don’t care who is supporting whom, I want to know what the candidates plan to do if they get in office.) I particularly don’t like it when an elected officer or Trustee of the UUA endorses one candidate or another. Stop the “bzz, bzz” of rumor before it starts: don’t endorse.

So I’m surprised…

Peter Morales has just been elected president of the Unitarian Universalist Association with 59% of the vote. And I’m surprised.

I was pretty sure Laurel Hallman would win, since she seemed to have higher-profile people endorsing her candidacy, and she seemed to have the better organization and more money at her disposal. But she didn’t win.

I thought it would be a close vote. I was expecting Laurel Hallman to win by two or three percentage points, or even less. But it was what Chris Walton of uuworld.org is calling “a decisive vote.”

Not only did this result surprise me, I was surprised to discover that I was relieved. I saw Laurel Hallman as offering more of the same — back to the same thing the UUA was doing before Bill Sinkford started to change the UUA’s direction ever so slightly — and I wanted a new direction. I don’t know if Peter Morales will be able to institute the kind of organizational change that I’d like to see, but at least I have some hope that there might be a little organizational change.

I’m still skeptical, but I’m relieved. I’m feeling a little more hopeful for the UUA.

So what are you feeling? Do you think it even matters who’s president of the UUA? Do you even care? Are you depressed that Laurel Hallman didn’t win? Conversation in the comments, if you feel so moved.

Heading off to Salt Lake

Tomorrow morning I start traveling to the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association. I’ll get up early and catch the 7:20 Acela train out of Providence. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll take the Capitol Limited from Washington DC to Chicago. Monday afternoon I’ll climb on board the California Zephyr in Chicago, and get off Wednesday night in Salt Lake City. When I get to General Assembly in Salt Lake City, I won’t have jet lag, I will have seen some spectacular scenery, I won’t have had to take off my shoes and hat for security guards, and I will be able to lord it over the people who flew to Salt Lake because my carbon footprint will be half of theirs. Physical comfort, beauty, moral superiority — what more can I ask for?

Once I get to General Assembly, I’ll be doing some text-based reporting and some live blogging of plenary sessions for the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). I’ll also be posting here (saving up all my snark for this blog, since snark won’t be appropriate on the UUA Web site). I plan to do some videoblogging, too, if time permits.

So what about you: Will you be going to General Assembly this year? or do you have better ways to spend your hard-earned time and money than by going to some denominational meeting? Will you be following the online coverage of General Assembly? or will you be watching the Red Sox instead? And finally, do you believe General Assembly is worth the thousands of dollars the denomination spends on it each year? Discuss freely. (And if you’ll be blogging General Assembly, don’t forget to plug your blog in the comments.)

P. S.: While traveling, I’ll be able to update this blog in Washington and Chicago. I’ll also be posting to my Twitter feed, http://twitter.com/danlharp, while en route.