Monthly Archives: May 2008

The local press

The local daily newspaper, the New Bedford Standard-Times, published an article today on convicted sex offenders wanting to attend churches. It’s always interesting to read an article in your local paper on a topic about which you happen to know quite a bit — it gives you a good sense of how good your local paper is. This happened to be a subject about which I know quite a bit — indeed, the reporter interviewed me, quotes me in the article, and went on to interview at least two other people I suggested she call.

Unfortunately, this story revealed to me that the Standard-Times is not a particularly good newspaper. The facts are mostly right, but the story doesn’t really go anywhere. It covers the obvious points:– convicted sex offenders can benefit from participating in a religious community; churches have to protect their children; the situation is difficult. But there’s very little in the way of a specific local story — it’s a collection of loosely-connected generic facts rather than a real story.

I wish I could provide a link to the story so you could read it yourself, but the Substandard-Times requires a paid subscription to view anything except the current news on their site. But the hell with it — you don’t want to bother reading their story anyway; it’s not worth your time. Instead, go and read this really top-notch story on the same topic from the New York Times.

Not that the New York Times is a very good newspaper any more — they’re not. The quality of their writing and editing, like that of most newspapers, has gone down year after year for the past decade or more. And that’s what’s happening at a big national newspaper; the local newspapers are even worse. The local newspapers claim that their readership is declining because everyone gets their news from the Web these days. But that’s not true — we still need local newspapers that report on local news; that’s something you can’t get from the Web. The real reason newspaper readership is dropping is because the quality of the writing and editing is going down.

It’s too bad that local newspapers are so bad, too, because there are plenty of real stories that need to be told. There certainly is plenty of corruption and political intrigue going on in this city that needs courageous reporting. But it has become clear we’re not going to get that kind of reporting from our local newspaper. Oh well. Maybe someone will start a well-written, hard-hitting political blog in this city….

At this point in the year, I don’t have much left in me. The sermons take more and more effort to write; I really need those weeks of study leave this summer to read and study; all year long the thoughts have been flowing out, and now I need some new thoughts flowing back in.

Or to put it another way, on Thursday, supposedly the day when I write the week’s sermon, I made very little progress. I worked for eight or nine hours and all I had to show for it was a sketchy outline; usually I would have the whole thing written. So I took yesterday off, and (grouchily) sat down this afternoon to finish the sermon. I wrote some, but it was utter crap. I stopped, and finished reading a depressing mystery novel in which the whole world is depicted is corrupt and where evil remains unpunished. That put me in a bad mood, so when I sat down to write, absolutely nothing came out. So I made dinner, and had a mug of tea for the caffeine. Felt better, but still couldn’t write, so I took a short walk: down to the end of the pedestrian bridge over Route 18, where I stood and looked out over the harbor. By now the sun was low in the sky, and in its light even the fishing boats, usually so squat and ugly, looked beautiful. I headed back home, still grouchy; but by the time I got home, the mood had lifted, and I went upstairs and sat down and wrote the whole sermon in under two hours. And with the holiday on Monday, perhaps I will have enough down time that I won’t have this problem with next week’s sermon.

An alternate definition of religion

Amazingly enough, the battle between the atheists and the theists is still going strong. Someday, perhaps the atheists will realize that all they are doing is playing the Christian game, by letting the dominant Christian tradition define what religion is. So here’s an alternate definition of religion, from the introduction to The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War, a collection of scholarly essays edited by David J. Hawkin (SUNY Press, 2004):

It is difficult to define what religion is. It seems easy enough at first: most would say that religion entails belief in a god or gods, involves ritual and worship, and has a system of beliefs…. Yet this definition does not include, for example, Theravada Buddhism, which does not have a transcendental being in its belief system. Nor does this definition reflect that in popular usage the term “religion” is used very broadly (as in, for example, references to New Age “religion”). Paul Tillich recognized this when, in Dynamics of Faith, he defined religion as being grasped by an “ultimate concern.” What Tillich meant was that for most people all other concerns are preliminary to a main concern that supplies the answer tot he question, “What is the meaning of my life?” What makes this primary concern religious is that it is the primary motivating concern of one’s life: it makes an absolute demand on one’s allegiance and promises ultimate fulfillment. Using this definition, we may distinguish three types of religion. First, theistic religions, in which the object of ultimate concern is a transcendental being (as in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Second, non-theistic religions, in which the object of ultimate concern is some higher principle or abstract power (as in Theravada Buddhism and some types of Hinduism). Third, secular or quasi-religions, where the object of ultimate concern is such that it resembles theistic or non-theistic religions. What the person holds as ultimate concern gives that person’s belief a character (often unintentional) similar to that found in more traditional religions.

I’m not sure that my own faith community, Unitarian Universalism, fits neatly into this broad-brush typology of religions, since we have both theists and non-theists. You could argue that what holds Unitarian Universalism together (if indeed something is holding us together) is a higher principle, thus plunking us into the category of non-theistic religions. I’d be more likely to argue for a fourth category that mixes theistic and non-theistic approaches to religion. In any case, the real point is that the atheist/theist debates only work within the context of the first type of religion, the theistic religions; and we’re not a theistic religion; therefore the atheist/theist debate is a waste of time within Unitarian Universalism.

Boston book lovers, take note

MacIntyre and Moore Books has moved from their Davis Square location, to a new store near Porter Square. They’re in what used to be Unicorn Books, on Mass Ave heading towards Arlington, in the same block as the U.S. Post Office.

Utah Phillips

Utah Phillips, the folk musician with the big white beard and the great stories, has been having some health issues recently. Last Wednesday his son, Duncan, posted a letter from Utah here — the gist of which is that Utah Phillips is doing better, but still faces major health challenges.

Like many of his fans, I like Utah Phillips not just for his music and his hilarious stories, but for his integrity and for his commitment to social justice, and yeah, I’m proud to claim him as a co-religionist (he’s part of the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Nevada City). Looks like I won’t get a chance to hear him in concert again, but at least he’s still alive and writing songs and podcasting.

People across the country are hosting benefit concerts for Utah Phillips — Pete Seeger and Dar Williams held a benefit concert for Phillips back in April, at which time Seeger pointed out that folk singers don’t get health benefits as part of the job. There’s a benefit concert coming up in Chicago on June 14, and no doubt more to come.

I almost never post other people’s videos on this blog, but — in case you’ve never experienced him live, here’s a taste of Utah Phillips singing and telling stories at what must have been one of his last appearances before he stopped performing. The story about his daughter (about five minutes in) is hilarious:

Or you could listen to this, his most famous story.

The joy of science

I’m reading a new biography of Maria Mitchell, Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the Romantics. Mitchell, the first American woman who was a professional astronomer, and probably the most famous American woman scientist of the 19th C., said this about the joys of watching the skies:

“The aurora is always a pleasant companion, a meteor seems to come like a messenger from departed spirits and even the blossoming of the trees in the moonlight becomes a sight looked for with pleasure. And from astronomy there is the enjoyment as a night upon the housetops with the stars as in the midst of other grand scenery. There is the same subdued quiet and grateful sensuousness — a calm to the troubled spirit and a hope to the desponding.”

I suspect I’ll have more about this biography after I finish it.

(Mitchell plays a minor role in my mother’s family folklore. My mother’s family comes from Nantucket, where Mitchell spent the first four decades of her life; and Mitchell left the Quakers to join the Nantucket Unitarian church where my mother’s family attended worship. I remember hearing about Mitchell as a child — mostly I remember learning to pronounce her first name “muh-RYE-ah,” not “mah-REE-ah.”)

Surviving General Assembly

I’ve begun planning for General Assembly, the annual convention of U.S. Unitarian Universalists. The key question to ask before going to any convention is where to find cheap food — no one wants to eat the expensive crap they dish out in convention centers. And when you’re at a convention in Fort Lauderdale in the summer, you really want to know how far you’re going to have to walk in the hot humid Florida air before you get to a restaurant.

I went to one of my favorite Web site, Walk Score, and typed in the address of the convention center: 1950 EISENHOWER BOULEVARD, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33316

The Walk Score Web site spit back its usual comprehensive list of nearby restaurants, stores, etc. Bad news: there aren’t that many restaurants near the convention center; only half a dozen restaurants and a couple of coffee shops within a third of a mile; and there’s a supermarket four-tenths of a mile away. More bad news: the nearest book store is half a mile away. Looks like we’ll have to choose between staying cool and eating yucky convention center food, or getting hot and sweaty walking in the Florida sunshine. On the other hand, it’s not as bad as it could be — the convention center gets a “walk score” of 66 out of 100, which is not as bad as it could be.

The good news is that Broward County bus #40 stops at the convention center — bus system map — schedule. The bus will take us to the downtown where there are lots more restaurants (and book stores and movie theatres) — or heading the opposite direction it will take us to the beach (South Beach Park).

From the comments: Scott M. has a Web site with basic General Assembly info up and posted here — thanks, Scott!!

Yup, another joke

Ken, who has one of the driest Yankee wits I know of, told me a joke today. (When you read it, you have to imagine it being told in a completely deadpan voice, with plenty of pauses.) Here’s the joke:

— How far is it to Westport as the crow flies?

— About four thousand flaps.

This joke will probably not seem funny to non-Yankees — I pity those people.

Local history

Sometimes you find the best stories in local histories. In The Meetinghouse on the Green: A History of First Parish in Concord [Massachusetts], Eric Smith tells a story about Elmer Joslin, who was both a member of First Parish in Concord and the Superintendent of Roads in Bridges for the Town of Concord:

“In days past, the Concord dump was open seven days a week. There was no nonsense then about a sanitary landfill. A column of smoke by day, a glow of flame by night, and a warm enduring odor floating down the wind, the dump was a center of social life, especially on Sundays. This happy situation ended in the 1950s. The dump was closed on Sundays, obliging all residents who worked out of town to bring their offerings on Saturdays. The resultant traffic jams were not conducive to socializing. Why did this happen?

“Allegedly Dr. Daniels, then the [Unitarian] minister, facing a small congregation one Sunday morning, announced that he would hold his service at the dump on the following Sunday, as he presumed that most of his parishioners would then be there. Elmer was in church and was heard to mutter that no such event would take place. Accordingly he closed the dump on Sundays thereafter, thus outraging some Episcopalians who, like the Unitarians, patronized the dump on the Lord’s Day.” [p. 263]

And now, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story: That dump was finally filled and closed, and they built a new high school on top of it, the high school which my sisters and I attended. The new dump was built a little further down the same road, which placed it between a highway and a trailer park, just down the street from Walden Pond. The new dump served as a social center up through the 1990s; it was also a sure place to find various gulls during the annual Christmas Bird Count.

Alas, the Concord dump was closed for good when the Thoreau-followers complained about its proximity to Walden Pond, although I suspect Henry Thoreau would have liked it because it was a good place to scrounge free stuff. (If you sneak under the gate you’ll find it’s still a good place to go birding, though.)