Christmas Day Reflections

Good morning BW Readers,

It is nippy but our ground is whiteless. We had snow a few days ago, but the rain washed it away. That's OK, I enjoyed the little bit we had.

Last night, I attended a candlelight service at the UU church in town. I went to the 5:00 one in order to be back in time to make a regular dinner for Mr. Benny and myself. The service was very spiritual--as I anticipated--full of readings from the gospels, poems, a children's book, and of course, familiar Christmas hymns which we sung together. The songs brought tears to my eyes as I hadn't sung them in quite awhile, and they evoked memories of my mother singing songs with us when we were little. It was difficult for me to sing the First Noel as it was one of Momma's favorites next to "Silent Night."

I needed that spiritual fellowship at the 5:00 service rather than the 7:00 for another reason: Momma often called me by 7:30 on Xmas Eve, and I needed to console myself ahead in order to get on with our family dinner, knowing the phone call would not come. I needed to be emotionally available for Mr. Benny who has been feeling glum due to looking diligently for work for 3 months. On Tuesday, the best prospect for employment, after Mr. Benny had interviewed 3 weeks before, retracted the position. I had predicted that might happen, but Mr. Benny held out hope. Now, he has to work harder than ever as job pools in his field are shrinking.

The bright light of the night was getting a phone call from my JRE friends, Animal and Karen about the time my momma would have called. They got engaged. You can see the announcement here. The news lifted my spirits as I've known these two for 5 years, and they have been dating long distance for 3.5 years. I said that John and Elizabeth brought them together. They concurred.

This morning, Mr. Benny and I exchanged cards and DVDs. Simple, but what we wanted. I'm doing some slow food today: Peking Roast (cooked in Caribbean coffee), roasted potatoes, asparagus, a berry salad, and french bread. I'm going to try making an Apple Crisp from the South Beach desserts menu.

Next stop: Daily Kos to participate in the WGLB Presents Family Diary.

Happy Xmas all, i will add more later.

Pax.

Standing on the Side of Love and Competence: Annise Parker Wins Mayor Elect in Houston

(photo courtesy of the Free Press Houston)

This morning, I awoke to several e-mails from our GLBT friends in which they were estatic about Annise Parker's victory in the mayor election last night. Ms. Parker did win in a similar way to Harvey Milk as one of the supervisors in the sense she proved her competence first as being a member of the city council, then became comptroller (the bean counter).

From the Houston Chronicle:

Annise Danette Parker was elected mayor of Houston on Saturday, winning her seventh consecutive city election and becoming both the first contender in a generation to defeat the hand-picked candidate of Houston's business establishment and the first openly gay person to lead a major U.S. city.

Parker, Houston's current city controller who first emerged in the public arena as a gay rights activist in the 1980s, defeated former City Attorney Gene Locke on an austere platform, convincing voters that her financial bona fides and restrained promises would be best suited in trying financial times. Parker, 53, will replace the term-limited Mayor Bill White on Jan. 1.

Annise is gay and has been with her partner for 19 years. They have 3 adopted children. Unfortunately, social conservatives, including many pastors in town tried to make Ms. Parker's sexual orientation an issue. I was heartened to see that the First UU in Houston (my former church) invited her and other ministers to join the congregation for fellowship last Sunday, and she/they accepted the invitation. I suspect this spurred many UU'ers to get out the vote about Houstonian issues, not just the focus on being gay. Ms Parker earned her spot.

I'm thinking Molly Ivins and Ann Richards are smiling today, and I bet Jim Hightower is too.

Congrats to Mayor -elect Parker and her family.

More about the Knoxville UU Shooting

From the Gist (h/t to Jose Cheung at Street Prophets):

This is a clip from my interview with Carla Lewis, who was inside the Tennessee Valley Universalist Unitarian Church when a gunman opened fire little over a week ago. She came on the program last week to take us through the tragic event, talk about the gunman's motives of hatred against gays and liberals and tell us a bit about hero Greg McKendry. The 60-year-old church volunteer was killed in the shooting, jumping in front of the gunman to protect others. He and his wife had recently taken in a transgender foster child.

The Gist Interview with Carla. Worth listening to.

Blessed be.

Tennessee Valley UU Has Its First Service Since Shooting

The Tennessee Valley UU will have its first service to reclaim the church and to reinterate its principles of peace and love. Two stations are carrying the service live and (live stream via Net) at 9CT:

http://www.wbir.com/video/livevideo.aspx WBIR (Windows Player)--this looks to be the best option.

http://www.wate.com/global/Category.asp?C=144099 WATE (looks like Bright Cove)

Nice to see support for the church and its community to heal and celebrate an re-birth.

More l8tr as I will be watching...

Update: I just finished watching the service. It was totally amazing in many ways, but perhaps it's because I haven't been to UU service in awhile. Definitely very UU.

The order of service is here, and hopefully, I can embellish it by recounting my own experience watching it.

The service began with two songs, "Spirit of Life" and "May Nothing Evil Cross this Door." (Luckily, I have a UU hymnal to follow along on most of the readings and songs). Both very appropriate to the theme of forgiveness but reminding each other that we guard the sacredness of not only space but of spirits we carry in hearts and minds.

The Children's Story Moment was just that--not with a story today, but as the Lifespan Education director said, "The Children are the Story", an allusion to last Sunday's performance of Annie when the terrorist came in. Minister Chris Buice gave a personal homily. He said that when his children were scared of storms and they were seeking safety in the basement, often they wanted a toy of comfort, but it was upstairs in their rooms. He said to his children that if any of them wanted to go upstairs and bring down the toy, he would give them each a medal of bravery. He made them out of paper and crayons.

While Rev Buice's own children (now grown) handed out the medals of bravery to all of the children and their parents, 8 members of the congregation were acknowledged--I call them the "Let's Roll" team. I wrote their names down really fast, thus there will be misspellings for now (podcast to be posted later by the church, so you can hear them there when it becomes available):

John Bohstedt (who was the initial person who led the counter attack on the assailant and a precinct chair for the Democratic Party in Knoxville), Arthur Boddles, Michael Wilson, Robert Birdwell, Jamie Parkey, Terry Ulzleton, Amar Assef, and Jennifer Knowles. They were all given a celebratory standing "O". Then the minister asked for anyone in the Congregation to stand to keep the children safe. Everyone stood up---and were going to receive "medals of bravery".

A former congregation member who grew up in that church, attended Sunday School and services in his youth, and is now an associate pastor in a midtown Manhattan parish, read from I Corinthians 13: about love. (same one read at my wedding 7 years ago).

Reverend John Buehrens who was TVUUC's paster from 1973-81, and who later became a president of the UUA, talked about the meaning of "sanctuary". He quoted from a holocaust survivor, in which "sanctuary is often a small human gesture, not grandiose, but small towards alleviating human suffering".

In continuing his theme of sanctuary, Buehrens revealed some history of the TVUCC I was unaware of. Its congregation was the first in the area to set up racially integrated summer camps, long before Knoxville's schools were forced to do so. The camps had to be moved many times over the years because of harassment by the KKK. The Klan also blew up mailboxes at many of the congregations' homes, especially those who sat at lunch counters in solidarity for allowing blacks to be served with whites. In the 1970's, the church was one of the first to be a welcoming congregation to share its space with LGBT's who wanted a spiritual place to gather. Shortly after the first service, all of the church's sanctary's windows were shot out, while children and teens were downstairs. Thus, the latest terrorist who had problems with gays and liberals, was not the first to invoke violence in order to try to intimidate the UU's while children were in the building, and this congregation had set examples to rest of the UUA.

Annette Marquis of the District Office, read a letter from the UUA president, and said that a fund was available for any parish member who needed financial resources for extra counseling if needed. 300 contributions had come in the first 24 hours of the tragedy. Many congregations had been this week and would be doing special services today and many of those were taking up special collections for them. I noticed that some were continuing on after Labor Day to do benefit concerts for the Relief Fund.

Reve Lynn Thomas Strauss, minister of this parish from 1991-2000 during the time a new sanctuary was planned and built, used the theme of "Many Names" to express her love and solace. In 1998, the dedication and the blessing of the building took place. Following the meditation, the hymn, "Bring Many Names" was sung.

Building on Rev Strauss's theme of "Many names for healing", Rev Biuce gave a very rousing sermon, often times sprinkled with tears and his own emotions. He said a man came into their sanctuary:

"..believing that liberals were soft on terror. He had a rude discovery." (loud applause)

"A man came in to invoke violence and hate; he unleashed unspeakable amounts of love."

"A man tried to strike a blow and to divide the community; instead he brought people together."

Rev Buice was wearing a stole that some woman had given him that week. It was white with a gold Celtic cross, in which the foreground represents the sunrise of tomorrow. He explained the young woman's father wore it and was a good man; she wanted to give it to another good man. He removed the stole from around his neck and placed it on the pulpit to represent the goodness of the congregation, including Greg McKendry, who took a fatal bullet in keeping the children safe. The former minister who wore it was Presbyterian. This symbolism was not lost on the congregation because their neighbor Church, the Second Presbyterian Church, held a candlelight vigil for them that past Monday night.

Buice went on to say, "We are all Baptists [referring to an ecumenical service the First Baptist had to pray for peace on Tuesday], Jewish; we are young people of the Church of Christ who painted a rock at the UT campus." With a rising pitch reminiscent of MLK, "we are all liberals, we are conservatives".

He flashed a cap someone else had given him that read "Knoxville, TN" on it, and declared, "This cap reminds us that all its citizens are members of the cast of "Annie" and the sun will come out tomorrow."

He concluded his sermon with this powerful message:

We are all God's children, yellow, red, black, white, gay and straight. We are woven together. We are one.

The last hymn sung was "Circle of Song." Buice, in his final action, resanctified the space for peace, love and justice.

"Love is the spirit of this church," Rev. Buice said in unison with others in the congregation. "And service is its law. To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another – this is our great covenant."

The cast members of Annie led the congregation in singing "Tomorrow."

Indeed, justice, peace, and love have many names, faces, and symbols of hope. I will close my post with U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" video from The Joshua Tree.



Solidarity. Amen and Blessed Be.

Peace to the Tenn Valley UU Church

Today I saw some reports about a fatal shooting in a church in TN. But on clicking a Yahoo link about a second fatality, I had to look further.

It happened at the Tenn Valley UU church in Knoxville. Details are still sketchy, but apparently:

A gunman opened fire at a church youth performance Sunday and killed two people, including a man who witnesses called a hero for shielding others from a shotgun blast.


Seven adults were also injured but no children were harmed at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Church members said they dove under pews or ran from the building when the shooting started.

The gunman was tackled by congregants and eventually taken into police custody.

It was said that the gunman shouted hateful things, but no one has quite elaborated what those were. All of this happened during a youth service of Annie, which was likely the lay service since the minister was out of town. Tragic if the gunman was playing on the idea of "Annie, Get Your Gun" and trying to hurt those who are for social justice.

UUA President Rev. William G. Sinkford said that "Members of the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Response Ministry are on their way to Knoxville to offer additional ministry to the congregation as it grieves. And Unitarian Universalists around the world are sending love and prayers to the Tennessee Valley congregation to tell them they are not alone on this dark day."

Yep, I am one of them.

Tomorrow night the Knoxville Second Presbyterian Church (close by) is offering a space with light food and counselors to debrief as well as offer crisis intervention. There will be a candlelight ceremony at 7:30 ET.

Prayers for Greg McKendry, an longtime usher and greeter who took the bullet between the gunman, the children, and the congregation, and for Linda Kreager, another victim. My heart is heavy for their families and for the congregation.

More about this from Elrod at the Daily Kos.

Thought for the Day

I offer a thought here that I read out of the UUA Handbook/ (reading 658)

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental
To reach out for another is to risk exposing our true self
To place our ideas-our dreams-before the crowd is to risk loss
To love is to risk not being loved in return
To hope is to risk despair
To try is to risk failure
To live is to risk dying

Seems to fit my life and John and Elizabeth Edwards too.

Speaking of, Barack Obama is going to meet JRE in Chapel Hill today. Should be interesting what portends out of that conversation.

Have a good day, BW readers.

UPDATE: another long thoughtful piece--read David Mizner's post at the Daily Kos on what went wrong on Edwards' campaign strategy. It's very good.

Flower Communion

This thread was inspired by being at Taylor Marsh's blog today, in which she has a really nice piece about the framing of faith by our Founding Fathers and yet in this century thus far, our onward Christian/PNAC soldiers, Bush Co, continues to put us into debt and make us pay a very heavy price for a war 71% of Americans wish we would get out of sooner, than later.

This is what my comment was on her blog:

The separation of church and state, albeit not explicit in our Constitution, is one of the more important aspects of the Founders' framework to keep sacred. Last year and the year before, when I watched the confirmation hearings of Roberts and Alito, I was concerned that their faith might color their judgment and not uphold this separation of church and state. So far, we have been fortunate that not much has appeared before the court that has tested them in this regard.

I'm from the same group of Jefferson and Adams, both who were Unitarians, whereas that group merged with Universalists in 1961, thus the term UU for Unitarian Universalist. Most of us are for peace, support community actvism for the good, and seek out ways that even Jesus told us: to comfort the poor. For us, that is a moral imperative.

Today I am reminded of a UU tradition which is the Flower Communion, often held on Easter Sunday. To borrow from Pastor Margo McKenna, here is the story of the tradition of it:

The first part of how we arrived at the ritual we celebrate today begins with Rev. Norbert Capek (1870-1942), who founded the Unitarian Church in Czechoslovakia. He introduced this ritual to his congregation on June 4, 1923. He had felt the need for symbolic ritual to bind Unitarians together, and chose to use the “communion service,” as it was familiar to many Unitarians who had left Roman Catholicism. He also felt strongly that Unitarians should not allow Christians to claim the word “communion” solely for christological purposes, rather, wanting to return to the original use of the word which is defined as: drawing together.

Rev. Capek chose flowers as the symbol of this ritual. It was his way of honoring the native spring blossoming of Czechoslovakia, drawing Unitarians closer to the earth, a nod to the agrarian life of most members, and a ritual to draw Unitarians together. To him, the significance of the Flower Communion is that as no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike. Each flower contributes its own unique scent and color to the larger bouquet, and thus has a unique contribution to its overall beauty. The flowers, joined together, form a spectacular splash of color and scent that transforms a room. So, each person sitting here is unique and colorful and brings a contribution to our whole bouquet - our congregation! Our common bouquet would not be the same without the unique addition of each individual flower, and so it is with each UU congregation. Flower communion is a statement of this community.

By exchanging flowers, we show our willingness to walk together in our search for truth, setting aside attitudes and actions that work to divide, rather than unite us. Each person takes home a flower brought by someone else, thus symbolizing our shared celebration in community.

The second part of our story today, is the larger history of Unitarians and Universalists. Before the UU merge in 1961, there was a rather large divide on the issue of celebrating Easter. Universalists, who had largely remained liberal Christians, and who believed that Jesus died and was raised again to save all humanity, loved to honor Easter Sunday. Unitarians, who had largely become humanist and/or atheist through the years, usually did not celebrate Easter, due to its connotation of a need for blood sacrifice to a deity, in order to save humanity. This difference was a large one for these two groups as they were discussing merging in the 1950’s. So, when the Unitarians and Universalists decided to merge in 1961, discussions about how to handle Easter were long and heated.

This brings us back to Flower Communion…As I mentioned at the beginning, Flower Communion was first celebrated in Czechoslovakia on June 4, 1923, not on Easter Sunday. Rev. Capek seems to have done this for two reasons: First, the spring blossoming did not arrive in Czechoslovakia until June, and second, Unitarians did not honor Easter.

Though Rev. Capek died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942, Unitarians were already celebrating his Flower Communion service here in the U.S. by 1940. It was being held yearly in many Unitarian congregations just before the summer recess, and continued to be honored for the reasons Rev. Capek had first dreamed of, and in his memory after WWII was over.

The long and heated debate about Easter was resolved when someone suggested a recommendation to congregations: that they honor the Unitarian ritual of Flower Communion and celebrate it on Easter Sunday for Universalists. Thus, in the Flower Communion, the symbol of “drawing together” as envisioned by Rev. Capek is still honored, and when celebrated on Easter, continues to honor those who come out of the Christian tradition.

Given our poor situation in Iraq and the thousands of not only Americans, but Iraqis, Brits, Italians, Koreans etc have died and the violence continues to surge as we are embroiled in Iraq's civil war, I'd like to take a moment to give thanks to all of them who risk their lives each day. I also want to commend those on the ground boots here, serving a meal to the elderly, the homeless, or perhaps inviting a single person to a seder.

At the Flower Communion service, each person brings flowers, either from their yard or elsewhere, and puts them in a community basket. Then at the end of the service, each person goes by the basket (or if a smaller congregation, the basket is passed around) and takes one as a symbol of love, peace, and remembrance.

Here are some baskets from Second Parish's Flower Communion (I'm sure they will share), and I am passing it to BW and Taylor's readers to take a symbolic flower.

Pax.