Monthly Archives: February 2007

A rumor of spring

The two red pennants — signifying a gale warning — over the harbormaster’s office snapped in the winter wind sweeping down out of the northwest. Walking across to Fairhaven, I noticed that the frigid weather of the past few weeks has finally caused a thin skin of ice to grow across a good part of the shallow water between New Bedford and Fish Island. The waves kicked up by the wind reflected off the edge of the ice, but the ice was so thin that the waves also passed through it in a diminished state; the ice was so thin that it was still flexible. When I got closer I could see that the ice had faint lines running through it, so that it almost had the texture of skin. Of course there was no ice between Fish Island and Pope’s Island’ that’s where the thirty-foot deep channel for shipping runs. But ice stretched all the way from Pope’s Island to Fairhaven, and from Fairhaven to Crow’s Island, and thin sheets of ice covered much of the water all along the Fairhaven side of the harbor.

In spite of all the ice, I read today that a thousand Red-Winged Blackbirds arrived in Dover last weekend, just twenty miles north of here: the first rumor of spring.

Possibilities for Post-Christian Worship, pt. 8

Eighth in, and conclusion to, a series. Bibliography included at the end of this post. An appendix to the series will follow. Back to the first post in this series.

(F) Conclusion

In the end, the hard work needed to overcome the challenges and threats to common worship liberal worship is well worth the effort. Post-Christian common worship is ultimately a countercultural act; it holds out hope for change for the better in a world that is in dire need of change; it helps to strengthen us as individuals, and the wider democracy, in the face of “the impersonal forces of a mass society with its technological devices for producing stereotyped opinion.” (Adams 1998, p. 172) At the same time, post-Christian common worship without the self-discipline of a private devotional life, or participation in small group devotions, is probably impossible (or at least improbable).

What is crucial for post-Christian common worship, if it is to survive and thrive? I believe that we must remain attentive to the reforming tendencies of the post-Christian attitude. The tendency of many post-Christian congregations is to reform only so far, and then to stop:– to adopt the flaming chalice as a liturgical element, for instance, but not to take the next logical step of figuring out what it means to include a flaming chalice in worship, and then the next logical step of saying those reasons during worship.

Or, more to the point: if we are going to engage in the counter-cultural act of doing post-Christian common worship, we need to start talking about what it means to be a post-Christian, and what it means to do post-Christian worship. Drifting along and letting the wind blow us hither and yon should not be an option — someone had better grab the tiller, and someone else had better watch the mainsheet, and the jib, before we drift onto some rocks of inattentiveness and founder.

Which is the whole purpose of this series of posts. I’ve grabbed the tiller, and if you don’t like the direction I’m steering, now’s the time to say so. If you see rocks in the direction I’m steering, sing out now! It would also be nice if someone selse would take a turn at the tiller. So start talking….

Continue reading →

Adventures in local food

When we moved to New Bedford, we got introduced to a new variety of turnip by the farmers at our local farmers’ market — the Wesport Macomber Turnip, a very mild white-fleshed turnip that I’ve never seen for sale anywhere else. Last time I was at one of our local supermarkets, I saw they had some for sale, erroneously labeled “Cape White Turnips.” I bought two and tonight we ate one.

Carol had figured out that the Wesport Macomber tastes as good raw as it does cooked. I quartered one of the large turnips, and cut thin slices off for us to eat raw. Eaten raw, they’re sweet and succulent, with a faint peppery taste not unlike the peppery taste of turnip greens — it’s a nice combination of flavors. Better still, the flesh is crisp and firm and juicy, a little harder than a really crisp apple. It’s far enough into the winter I really craved that kind of crisp, juicy sweetness; and somehow it felt far more satisfying than the fruit that gets shipped to supermarkets from the southern hemisphere at this time of year.

We cooked the rest — boiled for about five minutes until it was firm but tender, and served drained and with a pat of butter on top. Cooked, the flavor is richer, more like rutabagas or purple-top turnips than radishes, but much lighter-tasting than any other turnip I’ve ever had.

According the Web site of Less Market in Westport, Adin and Elihu Macomber developed the Westport Macomber in the 1870’s by crossbreeding radishes and rutabagas, and it seems to have gotten the best of both parents (more history here). Whatever its history and antecedents, it’s a local delicacy that’s perfect for this time of year.

Possibilities for Post-Christian Worship, pt. 7

Seventh in a series. Bibliography will be included with the final post. Back to the first post in this series.

(E) Some challenges for post-Christian worship, continued

(E.2) Current Threats to post-Christian worship

Continuing with an examination of challenges for post-Christian worship, I’ll look at current threats to common worship include the esoteric impulse and the danger of invisible oppression (or not seeing who isn’t there), and the idolatry of worship as entertainment.

~~(E.2.1) The danger of the esoteric impulse:

A major threat to post-Christian common worship at the moment is what I call the esoteric impulse. The esoteric impulse leads post-Christian congregations to set up invisible barriers to newcomers. Within my own religious community, Unitarian Universalism, the esoteric impulse leads our post-Christian congregations to not have signs on the outsides of their church buildings, to use unexplained acronyms, to shun newcomers, and to make sure that worship services are not comfortable places for outsiders. Generally, all institutionalized religion requires some sort of initiation ceremony.

Why does this happen? Broadly speaking, post-Christian congregations seem to have a tendency to make official initiation too easy: all you have to do is sign up as a member, maybe after attending two or three short clases. But at some level we post-Christians still want to maintain some firm boundary between our congregations and the rest of the world, and as a result, although it’s officially easy to become a member, there may be invisible barriers that make our religion hard to understand and hard to enter, so that very few people want to join us. I believe this explains why most post-Christian congregations remain small (under 150 average weekly attendance) and ineffectual.

Continue reading →

Cold

Carol and I went out for a walk this afternoon. It was pretty cold, and there was a stiff wind — stiff enough that the harbormaster had hoisted the gale warning flags. There was ice forming in the shallow, sheltered parts of the harbor. The bitter cold felt good. I’ve been longing for some serious cold, especially after the too-warm fall we’ve had, and at this time of the year, when you can finally sense that each day is a little longer than the day before, the bitter cold doesn’t seem so dire as it does when the days are at their shortest.

This is for you, Craig

Two winters ago, Craig and I were both serving at the Unitarian Universalist church in Geneva, Illinois. We liked to stand out in front of the church and greet people as they came in. Since both of us have a bit of a competitive streak in us, we kept on standing outside to greet people nearly every week right up through the end of December, no matter how cold it was (rain was a different matter — we stood inside when it rained). And we managed to brave the cold at least once a month through the entire winter.

So last week I got a challenging email message from Craig. He’s now at a church in Wisconsin, and he said that he had been standing out in front that church on Sunday morning greeting people. As I said, we’re both a little competitive. Of course I had been outside that morning — I nearly always stand out in front of the church here in New Bedford to greet people before worship. But now, clearly, the gauntlet has been thrown down. So Craig, I’m making this public:

Sunday, February 4, 2007. Stood outdoors to greet people for 15 minutes, from 10:40 to 10:55 a.m. Weather at 10:53 as reported by the National Weather service Web site: clear, winds 17 mph (gusts to 25 mph), temerature 24 Fahrenheit.

How about you, Craig? Any other ministers or religious educators out there want to take the challenge?

Possibilities for Post-Christian Worship, pt. 6

Sixth in a series. Bibliography will be included with the final post. Back to the first post in this series.

(E) Some challenges for post-Christian worship

At this point, I’d like to face up to several challenges faced by post-Christian congregations trying to shape meaningful common worship. I see two groups of challenges: first, the challenges of liturgical changes; second, several challenges to the commonality of common worship. The liturgical innovations that challenge common worship are the challenge of new liturgical elements, the redefinition of the sermon, and the challenge of false intimacy. Current threats to common worship include the esoteric impulse and the danger of invisible oppression (or not seeing who isn’t there), and the idolatry of worship as entertainment.

(E.1) Liturgical innovations

~~(E.1.1) The challenge of new liturgical elements:

Let me begin by examining a new liturgical element that has crept into my own religious community, Unitarian Universalism. The lighting of a “flaming chalice,” typically a candle or alcohol lamp in a footed vase, is a liturgical innovation that has become widespread in Unitarian Universalist congregations over the past two decades. It is my belief that lighting a chalice at the beginning of a worship service dates back to Kenneth Patton’s Charles Street Meeting House in the 1950s, where a lamp (in the shape of an ancient Greek lamp), similar in shape to today’s chalices, was lit at the beginning of each worship service, and extinguished at the end. Now, nearly every Unitarian Universalist congregation uses a flaming chalice in its liturgy. The challenge is this:– what does this new post-Christian symbol mean?

Continue reading →

A day in the life

There I was this afternoon, typing away on my laptop, when suddenly everything froze. I tried all the usual things — nothing worked. So I drove up to the Apple Store in Cambridge where, to make a long story short, the techs determined that my laptop had to be sent off the be repaired. Fortunately, I have back-ups of my most important data here on my office computer, as well as hidden away on my unlimited stoage space on AOL’s server.

The Apple store is in the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall, not someplace I’d ordinarily go. So as long as I was there, I firgured I’d look around and see what it was like. I wasn’t particularly interested in any of the stores or restaurants, but the people were fascinating: families with children, a few pre-adolescents on their own, teenagers in small groups, young adults, and even a few middle-aged people like me. I seemed to notice that everyone was surprisingly well dressed. Then I figured out that many of the young people were playing the mating game when I heard some young men behind me talking about pretty girls they had an eye on — the crowds were so thick I couldn’t tell which pack of young women they were looking at, but that helped me realize why so many of the young people looked like they took such care in dressing. I did not fit in — not that I was badly dressed, but I was sensibly dressed for the cold weather and slushy sidewalks, as opposed to being fashionably dressed.

After I left the mall, I walked over to the MIT Press Bookstore. I fit in better there. Some geeky-looking young women browsed the cognitive science books; had I been twenty years younger, I would have been fascinated by them (I mean, cognitive science, wow). One man was sitting in the corner with the computer science books and I don’t think he moved the entire half hour I was in the store. I browsed their selection of books on ecology and the environment, but wound up buying a book called On Physics and Philosophy. I’ve lost my interest in malls, but bookstores still do it for me.