Those of us who are Unitarian Universalist ministers working in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island received an interesting and provocative email message from the executive committee of our local ministers group. They asked: If we were to have 5% membership growth in district congregations in the next year, how do you envision us using our district resources to be most effective? (For those of you who aren’t Unitarian Universalists, the “district” is our middle judicatory body.) I wasn’t quite sure how I would answer that question. An advertising campaign? Training sessions on how to welcome newcomers? What would really help us reach that goal of a 5% increase? I would be really curious to know what my readers think.
Monthly Archives: November 2007
The marriage of Hilpa
Isaac Bickerstaff, astrologer, writes:
I came across the following in a curious old volume of astrological lore, bound in leather, and (according to the title page) “printed privately in Tremont Street in Boston” — the date unfortunately is obscured, but it appears to be an old book; what is printed here comes from the last chapter of the book:
Hilpa, fairer and wiser than any other woman on the Isle of Z—-, was the ruler of the Valleys, which lay in the center of the island, and ruler of all the groves therein. On one side of Hilpa’s realm stood Mount Tizrah, greatest of the mountains towering over the middle of the island, splitting it north to south from shore to the other; Mount Tizrah was ruled by Shalum. On the other side of Hilpa’s realm, just beyond a low range of hills, was a vast plain bisected by a river, and on that river stood a great City, at the farthest reaches of the tidewater inland. This City was ruled by Mishpach, who was a mighty man known throughout the surrounding countryside.
Now one day Hilpa took it into her head to marry, which was unheard of for the ruler of the Valleys; for Hilpa determined that she would like to have children of her own, rather than choose a child from among those who were brought to the sacred grove. For generation upon generation, into the distant and hazy past, rulers of the Valleys had always been women, women who lay, not with men, but with other women; thus the rulers of the Valleys chose their heirs from among the common people. Hilpa wanted offspring of her own flesh and blood, but she felt the old tradition strongly enough that she recoiled at the thought of lying with a man from her own realm. Continue reading
Autumn watch
Alianthus altissima, known as the “tree of heaven” or Chinese sumac, grows everywhere in our neighborhood. Alianthus is an invasive species that grows incredibly quickly, and can reach twenty or more feet in height in two years. It will thrive in places where no other tree will grow: it will spring up in the narrow bands of rank weeds that grow between dreary parking lots; it will sprout along chain-link fences; it thrives along the trash-strewn edges of busy highways. I remember reading one field guide to trees which described alianthus as a “coarse, malodorous tree,” but that’s not an entirely fair description. It is fair to say that alianthus tends to grow in coarse, malodorous places — sometimes a stray alianthus will be the one oasis of greenery in some blasted post-industrial wasteland.
On my walk today, I passed the alianthus altissima that has been growing up near the pedestrian overpass that crosses Route 18 in downtown New Bedford, growing right next to and choking out a fir tree. Yesterday, the alianthus was still covered with green leaves; but today, suddenly it has no leaves left. The leaves never turned red or orange or yellow or even brown, they just fell off. A mature alianthus altissima can become a beautiful tree, with masses of creamy white flowers in the spring, and in the winter with its many branches reaching up towards the sky. But it adds nothing whatsoever to the autumn landscape.
Not the best day
This has not been the best day I’ve ever had.
No heat in the church. I spent the morning an part of the afternoon dealing with that.
Now my laptop is making icky grinding noises, and I think it’s about to die.
Maybe tomorrow will be better….
Assabet Lumber: early September, 1980
An installment in a spiritual autobiography. For other installments, search tags for “assabet lumber“. Cast of characters here. Names have been changed, and some identifying characteristics and events have been fictionalized, to protect privacy. These are early drafts and may be a little rough; bear with me….
The coffee shack was a sort of shed tacked on the back of the main building of Assabet Lumber. The coffee shack was pretty small, all of twelve by sixteen feet, and divided into two rooms. The back room had a shelf with the coffee pot under two windows looking out at the main entrance to the yard, and the rest of the room was mostly filled up with a picnic table. The front room had the time clock, a shelf where we put the yard tickets when the orders were filled, various odds and ends of equipment and junk, and a the window that looked out on the yard. On one wall of the front room, there was huge map of eastern Massachusetts, maybe three feet by four feet, showing all the main highways and most of the smaller through roads.
We got a fifteen minute coffee break every morning. I usually wound up taking mine at the same time as Frances Blood. He was the shipper, or dispatcher, a slight, calm, quiet man with a quizzical smile. He’d always have exactly the same thing for his coffee break: a small container of milk that he brought from home. He was pretty friendly to me, in a non-committal way, and we’d chat idly about this and that.
One day, Sam Gagnon, one of the truck drivers, happened to come in for his coffee break as I was sitting there, and just as Frances was leaving.
“Ever notice how Franny always has milk for his coffee break?” Sam said to me, after Frances was out of earshot.
I nodded.
“He has ulcers,” Sam announced. “He’s so quiet, you wouldn’t think so, but he’s got ulcers.”
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Most of the yard crew got to punch out and go home at five o’clock, but the yard stayed open until five-thirty, so two men had to work an extra half hour. One evening, Ed Fox, one of the truck drivers, and I were the two who wound up working from five to five-thirty. Ed and I watched the other guys punch out, and after they had left, Ed said something about wishing he didn’t have to work late.
I didn’t mind working late because I had to hitch a ride to and from work with my dad, and because of his work schedule he couldn’t arrive to pick me up until twenty after five at the earliest, so I might as well be paid for that time. But I didn’t say that to Ed. “I’ll work late every day,” I said. “I need the money.”
Ed looked at me seriously. “You wait until you’ve worked here a while first,” he said. “Then you tell Carolina that, and unless someone else wants to work, you’ll probably get to work late every day.” He paused. “Except when Sam wants some extra money and decides to work late, but he needs money he usually arranges with Frances to change the oil on the trucks. He does as much of the maintenance as he can. But if he decides he wants to work late, he has the most seniority, so he gets to bump all of us.”
A customer came out of the store just then, and since I was low man on the totem pole, I had to walk out to him — “Can I help you?” — while Ed stayed in the coffee shack staring at the nearly empty yard.
That evening, when I got in the car to drive home, I told dad there was a pretty good chance that I’d be able to work until five-thirty every day. We both knew that I needed all the money I could earn to help pay for college, and we both knew that the last half hour was overtime pay for me — an extra two dollars and thirty-six cents for that last half hour. Dad nodded, and said something about how it was good that I’d be able to make some extra money.
Friday video: I’m still alive
(1:51)
Conceptual artist On Kawara did a long-running art piece where every day he sent a postcard (or sometimes a telegram) to various friends, giving the date, and saying “I’m still alive.” For all I know, he’s still doing it. I’ve just compressed the concept, and translated it to new media….
I think conceptual art and progressive religion are vaguely related. Worship in the progressive church looks more like conceptual art or a happening or performance art, whereas more traditional worship in the Western tradition looks more like sacred theatre.
Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.
Excuses, excuses
I’ve been meaning to implement “tags” on this blog — tags are a kind of keyword that allow for improved searching within the blog. I wanted to add tags to provide a kind of index, to allow me (and you, or any other reader) to find worthwhile things quickly among the all the junk that has accumulated in the 1000+ posts here.
It proved to be more time-consuming than I had envisioned. I spent three hours yesterday making a false start, and then figuring out how to fix the mess I’d made. I spent another two hours today implementing the fix, and then beginning to add tags to the earliest posts on the blog. That used up all the spare time I have had for the past two days, and so I haven’t had any time to write a real post. Excuses, excuses.
You’ll find a “tag cloud” at the bottom of the sidebar on the main page. Click on any phrase or keyword there, and you will get all the posts that I have tagged with that phrase or keyword. As of now, I’ve only added tags to posts dated February-December, 2005 — eventually, all posts will be tagged.
Assabet Lumber: late August, 1980
An installment in a spiritual autobiography. For other installments, search tags for “assabet lumber“. Cast of characters here. Names have been changed, and some identifying characteristics and events have been fictionalized, to protect privacy. These are early drafts and may be a little rough; bear with me….
That first week, Carolina had to show me how to do nearly everything.
“These here are lally columns,” he said, on the first day of work. I had no idea what a lally column was, but at least I knew where to find the rack where they were kept. One morning later that week, I got a ticket that read something like this:
1 — 6’6″ lally
1 — cut to 6’2-1/2″
2 — plates
I had to go find Carolina, because I didn’t know how to cut lally columns. He was in the middle of making up a load of lumber when I found him. He pulled the fork lift off to one side of the yard, set the load down, turned off the engine, and stalked down the warehouse to where the lally columns were kept. Continue reading
Another kind of church choir
I’ve got all kinds of music swirling through my head right now. We’ve organized a “folk choir” here in our church — not a formal classical choir, not a gospel choir, but a folk choir. In other words, there may be printed music but not every singer will know how to read music. The primary way the tunes are passed on is by ear; and each singer might put their own little twist on a song.
I have to admit that I’m not particularly interested in singing in a traditional choir. I admire people who can sing in carefully structured four-part harmony, but I’d rather sing in a more improvisatory style. I like the texture that arise from each singer putting a slightly different spin on a song: different signers changing the melody slightly, someone singing the first note of a phrase a little before the beat while everyone else is on the beat, one singer altering the rhythm, another signer adding her or his own little ornaments — in other words, a folk choir can tend towards heterophony (and sometimes even more full-blown polyphony) rather than the homophony more typical of a traditional choir.
And a folk choir can use some interesting musical forms that involve the rest of the congregation: call-and-response songs, partner songs, chants and rounds, songs with verses sung by a soloist and choruses sung by all, etc. That means that a folk choir is more likely to involve the whole congregation, rather than just singing as performers within the worship service. A folk choir can also draw in those who don’t read music, and those who don’t read at all (children, for example), because they can teach songs to the congregation by ear.
We’ll be singing in the worship service for the first time this Sunday, and then singing in nearly every service from now through Christmas. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I’m betting that our folk choir will improve our congregational singing another notch; liven up worship services; and I’m betting that those of us singing in the folk choir are going to have a blast. I’ll keep you posted….
Now I’m really curious to know if there are any other churches out there which have some sort of folk choir, as opposed to a more traditional choir. If so, how has it worked out for you?…