I don’t know about where you are, but here in California we have hit the peak of Weed Season. A few days of long-awaited rain, a couple of days of sun, and the hills begin to turn gloriously green. So does my gravel driveway, and whole swaths of my yard where you are supposed to be able to actually see the things that I’ve planted. I have to say there is a certain glory to wrenching vast, bushy weeds from... Read more
Food for thought on a very busy week: Living Wage Calculation for New Orleans city, Orleans Parish, Louisiana: (http://livingwage.mit.edu/: “The living wage shown is the hourly rate that an individual must earn to support their family, if they are the sole provider and are working full-time (2080 hours per year). The state minimum wage is the same for all individuals, regardless of how many dependents they may have. The poverty rate is typically quoted as gross annual income. We have... Read more
This week, when friends and acquaintances greeted me with the standard “How Are you?” I answered honestly. My answer wasn’t the standard “Good, good. You?” Our family has had more than our fair share of bad news of late, and it has begun to take its toll. Add a new baby and my spouse finishing his graduate program and a dual job search and I had a lot to say to the question that has become a rote greeting. I... Read more
Living in your own private Idaho underground like a wild potato The B52s You’ve heard about the “Goldilocks Zone,” that temperate place where H2O exists in the form of water and scientists speculate life might exist on other planets. I think a Unitarian Universalist congregation should be a Goldilocks Zone where the free exchange of ideas concerning ultimate meaning and purpose flows like life-giving water. After all, the fourth principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association is, “a free and... Read more
Lately I’ve been struggling with the language of the non-profit world: “giving people a voice” and “empowering people”… Beloveds, people have a voice. The dominant culture ignores it, drowns it out, disregards it…but people have a voice. People are speaking. Empowering is defined as “giving someone the authority or power to do something.” The idea that the dominant culture can or will empower the oppressed is an unlikely one at best, a well-funded lie in truth. Many of you... Read more
I remember as a teenager, home alone one afternoon, listening over and over to David Bowie sing “Is there Life on Mars?” while gazing at the cover of his Hunky Dory album. I longed to be able to articulate the feelings I had inside me, and somehow this British man wearing makeup came closer than anyone else I’d yet encountered. I remember wondering– if my mother listened to him sing “Is there Life on Mars?” would she at least partially... Read more
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible. ~Oscar Wilde There is more than one type of mystery. Some mysteries aren’t even mysterious. For example, how a diesel engine works is a mystery to many, but only those who haven’t taken the time to look at diesel engines. They are a marvel of complexity, yes. But there’s no mystery to how a diesel engine works. People design them. People build them. People repair them. How planes... Read more
I. In addition to the Unitarian Universalist Seven Principles, the congregation that I serve as minister ascribes to a set of aspirational statements that are specifically humanist. Our first Aspiration is, “To live joyfully and ethically, in loving, reverent relationship with humanity and nature.” Why do we say such a thing? Because we are countering a long tradition of life-denying dogma common in the Western world. Doctrines such as that of Original Sin are not an affirmation of life in... Read more
Newsflash: Grief is completely irrational. Does this surprise me? Not rationally. I knew it, know it, have seen it in my own and other people’s lives. But if I ever doubted what I know, this week has given me complete and utter clarity about it. I’m on a trip away from home, doing things in the real world, in my real life. I hadn’t set off to take a trip down memory lane, or through the land of grief. But... Read more
Fred Phelps, of Westboro Church “God Hates Fags” fame, is reportedly near death. Which may or may not actually be true, but has led to some number of people publicly discussing how one is to respond to the death of a man so odious. This is a man, after all, who has picketed the funerals of soldiers as well as spewing endless hate for gay people, and indulged in massive, spit-flinging rants about the evils of everyone who doesn’t fall... Read more
UU Collective
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In