Category Archives: Arts & culture

Interim papacy?

In a news release dated today, the Associated Press reports:

Ratzinger, the oldest pope elected since Clement XII in 1730, clearly was chosen as a “transitional” pope, who would fulfill the unfinished business of John Paul’s quarter-century papacy yet not be another long-term pope.

I had wondered about that. An interim pope — how very interesting.

As an interim minister myself, I’d love to know how the new pope understands his role. Most of us interim ministers understand our role as helping a congregation mourn the previous minister, developing a new identity, and anticipating the future with zest. We interim ministers don’t try to carry on the pet projects of our immediate predecessor. Instead, we work to empower the congregation to take responsibility for its own health, wellbeing, and future success.

Somehow, I think this new interim pope is going to handle things a little differently than I would as an interim minister. However, if he’d like some advice, I’d be happy to share what wisdom I have gained as an interim. Have him call me at the office (just don’t give him my home number, please — waht with the time difference, I don’t need him calling me in the middle of the night).

Search for America

Notes from my week of study leave

Back in 1927, a Canadian author named Frederick Philip Grove published a book titled A Search for America. It remains one of my favorite novels of the American experience. Tonight, I was talking on the phone with my older sister, who teaches writing at Indiana East University, and I was trying to tell her about Grove’s book. I couldn’t find my old paperback edition, but I found the full text of the novel online.

The hero of Grove’s novel (perhaps Grove himself?) emigrates to North America, and after taking a series of menial jobs, wanders across the continent searching for America — long before the Beats and the hippies did so later in the 20th C. Near the end of the book, Grove talks about the differences between the ideals and the realities of the American experience:

I was convinced that the American ideal was right; that it meant a tremendous advance over anything which before the war could reasonably be called the ideal of Europe. A reconciliation of contradictory tendencies, a bridging of the gulf between the classes was aimed at, in Europe, at best by concessions from above, from condescension; in America the fundamental rights of those whom we may call the victims of civilization were clearly seen and, in principle, acknowledged — so I felt — by a majority of the people. Consequently the gulf existing between the classes was more apparent than real; the gulf was there, indeed; but it was there as a consequence of an occasional vitiation of the system, not of the system itself. I might put it this way. In Europe the city was the crown of the edifice of the state; the city culminated in the court — a republican country like France being no exception, for the bureaucracy took the place, there, of the aristocracy in other countries. In America the city was the mere agent of the ountry — necessary, but dependent upon the country in every way — politically, intellectually, economically. Let America beware of the time when such a relation might be reversed: it would become a mere bridgehead of Europe, as in their social life some of its cities are even now. [Author’s note: I must repeat that this book was, in all its essential parts, written decades ago.] The real reason underlying this difference I believed to be the fact that Europe, as far as the essentials of life were concerned, was a consumer; whereas America was a producer. The masses were fed, in Europe, from the cities; the masses were fed, in America, from the country….

That was my idea; and it contained the germ of an error. In my survey of the American attitude I was apt to take ideals for facts, aspirations for achievements….

…America is an ideal and as such has to be striven for; it has to be realized in partial victories. (I have since come to the conclusion that the ideal as I saw and still see it has been abandoned by the U.S.A. That is one reason why I became and remained a Canadian.)

I like the United States, and don’t feel any desire to emigrate to Canada. Nor have I abandoned the ideals Grove talks about. But I think Grove may be right in this respect — it’s too easy to take ideals for facts, and aspirations for achievements. Indeed, you could make the same criticism of us Unitarian Universalists in the United States — as grand as our principles may sound, they don’t do much good unless we live them in our lives.

You might want to read the whole book, a grand sweeping novel of adventure and travel. Get it from your library, or read it for free online by pointing your Web browser here: Link.

What a book

Notes from my week of study leave

Made my bimonthly pilgrimage to the Seminary Coop Bookstore, down in the basement of Chicago Theological School in the South Side of Chicago. (I still say it is the best academic bookstore I have visited on this side of the Atlantic.)

As usual, I walked out with ten or twenty pounds of books, including a copy of The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic, by R. K. Narayan, a prominent 20th C. Indian novelist.

I remember reading a review of this book a few years ago, probably when the University of Chicago Press edition came out in 2000. The reviewer said it was the best short version (179 pages of the massive 100,000 stanza original poem) of the Mahabharata in English. I’ve been meaning to read it ever since.

Having never read the full Mahabharata, I am in no position to judge how good an abridgement it is. But Narayna’s book is well-written, gripping, entertaining, and even manages to retain something of an epic feel to it in spite of its short length. Best of all, I now have a better sense of the context of the Bhagavad Gita, one of my favorite religious texts, which is but one small part of the entire Mahabharata.

Highly recommended.

Education and Unitarian Universalism

The April 13, 2005, issue of the Geneva Sun reports that Kane County voters overwhelmingly approved a bond issue to raise money to purchase land for open space.

However, the Sun also reports that voters in the Geneva and St. Charles school districts turned down tax increases to fund public schools. Most other tax increases for public education that were on the ballot in the area also failed (notably, in the Glenbard school district, according to the Chicago Tribune).

While I’m all for preserving open space, I feel schools are an equally high priority. Clearly, voters did not agree with me — the tax increases for schools were voted down by substantial margins. While final vote tabulations are not quite complete, it looks like Geneva voted down additional school funding by a whopping 13% margin.

It’s true that tax increases are not always the answer to better schools. But remember that Unitarians and Universalists have historically supported public education in many ways — pursuing careers in education, serving in policy-making positions, volunteering in the public schools, doing research in education, etc. We believe in democratic principles, both in our religious life but also in public life, and we have long held that good education is essential to a working democracy.

Unitarian Horace Mann advocated for public education in the 19th C., and his Unitarian sister-in-law, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, brought kindergarten to the United States to improve the chances of inner city children. A century and a half later, it’s time we Unitarian Universalists got more involved in education policy.

untitled

My alter ego, Mr. Crankypants, has requested — no, demanded — that he be allowed to take over the blog today. Before he rudely pushes me out of the chair in front of the computer, let me introduce Mr. Crankypants:

Mr. Crankypants is getting tired of all this talk about Unitarian Universalism. It is too easy to get cranky about Unitarian Universalism. Mr. Crankypants needs a more challenging subject today. So let’s get all cranky about the new design for the United States nickel.

And don’t even think of saying, “Oh no Mr. Crankypants, talking about the nickel means talking about Unitarian Universalism because Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian.” Mr. Crankypants regrets to inform you that Thomas Jefferson was not a Unitarian — not ever, not even a little bit. Thomas Jefferson went to an Episcopalian church.

Yes, Mr. Jefferson did write something to the effect that Unitarianism should be the religion of the future for the United States (that was before we Unitarian Universalists got sidetracked into believing we are a kind of asylum for freethinkers and rebels and we’ve been declining ever since, but we digress). And yes, Mr. Crankypants knows that old T. J. cut up a Bible, which makes many Unitarian Universalists today think he was a Unitarian, but just because you cut up a Bible doesn’t mean you’re a Unitarian. Let’s just admit it — Thomas Jefferson was a Deist and maybe an Episcopalian, but he was not a Unitarian.

Now that that non-issue has been disposed of, let’s start attacking the new nickel. The new nickel is an abomination. Look at the back — what is that bison standing on, anyway? It looks like two rather large meadow muffins. And why are the two meadow muffins floating in midair like that?

Turn the nickel over and look at the obverse side. Old T. J. looks like he had recently eaten something that didn’t sit quite well on his stomach. What’s worse, something appears to have happened to his upper lip and jaw, which are canted at a peculiar angle to the rest of his face. And what’s up with the word “Liberty” which hangs off his chin? It’s supposed to be in T. J.’s actual handwriting, but instead it looks like that cheesy typeface used on cheap wedding invitations.

The Mint should have learned that you can’t delegate coin design to just anyone. Just look at the designs of the state quarters, which are nearly all ugly. The new nickel was designed by a graphic designer, and the design probably looked good on paper, but it did not translate well to three-dimensional metal. Mr. Crankypants would like to remind the boneheads at the Mint that the finest U. S. coins ever made were designed — not by a graphic artist, not by a state legislature, not by Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger — but by a sculptor, Augustus St. Gaudens.

(Oops. Without realizing it, Mr. Crankypants wound up relating this whole diatribe to Unitarian Universalists because Augustus St. Gaudens was a Unitarian. Worse yet, by praising St. Gaudens, it sounds as if Mr. Crankypants is kind of proud of being a Unitarian Universalist. It is just so hard to remain cranky all the time.)

Great stories for UU kids (and adults)

I recently found The Baldwin Project, a Web site dedicated to publishing children’s literature which has entered the public domain. As you may know, in the United States the rights of copyright holders end after 75 years (assuming the copyright holder does not renew the copyright in his or her lifetime), and after that time copyright-protected material enters the public domain. While I have just begun to explore the Baldwin Project Web site, I already found Ellen C. Babbit’s retellings of the Jataka Tales.

The Jataka Tales, as you may know, are more than 500 stories that tell about earlier incarnations of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha, the Enlightened One. I’ve been using some of these stories in church school sessions. After telling the children a little about what Buddhists believe about reincarnation, I tell them that each story is like a puzzle — their job is to figure out which of the characters in the story is the Buddha in an earlier incarnation, and why. Then I read the story, and we talk about whom we each think the Buddha is. On Sunday, this prompted a good discussion with one of the 3rd/4th grade groups. We figured out one story, but when we came to “The Woodpecker, Turtle, and Deer,” we couldn’t come to agreement (read the story yourself, and you’ll see why!).

The children learned some more about Buddhism, and more importantly they learned a little bit about how to make moral judgements which may not have one best answer. What could be better in a Unitarian Universalist church school than to run up against a puzzle story where there is no one best answer? You can learn more about the Baldwin Project at:

http://www.mainlesson.com/main/displayarticle.php?article=mission

Spring watch

Home from the Boston area, where Opening Day is considered one of the great religious holidays that welcome the arrival of spring. I know some of you follow basketball, and there were a number of people wearing orange in church yesterday. I, too, hope that Illinois goes all the way. But basketball is a sport. Baseball is religion.

Depressingly, the Boston Red Sox dropped their season opener to the hated New York Yankees. (Please, no nasty comments from Yankees fans, or I will have to remind you what happened last fall, in just four games.) I’m convinced one of the reasons Universalism began in New England is because we New England baseball fans needed an optimistic religion, a religion that assures us that everything will turn out fine, that some day the Red Sox will be perennial winners.

What’s that you say? Universalism started before baseball was even invented? Bosh! I don’t believe it. Haven’t you heard of the Winchester Profession, the 1803 profession of faith of Universalism, which clearly states “We believe that there is one God, whose nature is love, who will finally restore the Red Sox to their righteous place as perennial winners”? This clause was carried over in modified form to our current profession of faith, the UUA “Principles and Purposes,” where it is clearly stated: “We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote the goal of Red Sox Nation with peace, liberty, and the annual demise of the hated Yankees.”

There you have it. Now if we could just get some decent pitching….

Don’t forget to vote April 5

…in the upcoming elections in Kane and DuPage counties.

For those of you living in Kane County or Du Page County, don’t forget that we have an election coming up on Tuesday, April 5. I don’t care how you vote, but we Unitarian Universalists have long been supporters of democracy and this is one of your ministers telling you — make sure you get out and vote!

You can find information about Kane County elections on the Kane County Web site. Du Page County residents can find election information on the Du Page County Web site.

For Geneva residents, I see the most recent issue of the Geneva Sun has a letter from our own Steve Hanson. Steve supports the referendum for a 20-cent tax rate increase. If you don’t happen to agree with him, you still have a chance to write your own letter to the Sun to express your opinion.

Once again, I don’t care what your political position is, or whom you support, or how you vote — just vote. No excuses, now!!

An international perspective

One of the characteristics of Unitarian Universalists over the years is that we have striven to maintain an international perspective. (I have heard rumors that a bunch of Unitarian Universalists were instrumental in starting the United Nations, but I have not been able to substantiate this.) Taking a broad international perspective, rather than a narrow nationalistic perspective, seems to fit in with our religious sense that the fate of all persons is linked, and with our religious attitude of tolerance and acceptance.

(Don’t think I’m promoting partisan politics! In my experience, both Republican and Democratic Unitarian Universalists tend to take an international perspective — to say nothing of those of us who are to the left of the Democrats.)

As a confirmed internationalist, I find my preferred news source has become the BBC Web site. I still look at the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for U.S. coverage, but find them too narrowly focused on the U.S. (and both too partisan for my tastes).

One especially useful feature of the BBC site is the section on country profiles. BBC offers nice capsule summaries of most countries around the world, with links to recent news stories. I have found this useful recently as I continue to follow the deepening crisis in Nepal. Where the BBC has no recent coverage — for example, for Micronesia, another country my partner and I are interested in — BBC at least provides links to local news sources or government Web sites, and a timeline of recent key events.

BBC does not have the depth of coverage I could hope for. But as a confirmed UU internationalist, I find it does provide a useful corrective to the usual U.S.-based news sources.