We are the Trolls: Unitarian Universalists in the movie "Frozen"

                Watching Disney’s latest, surprisingly progressive,  blockbuster movie “Frozen” I realized that the Trolls are Unitarian Universalists! Now stay with me for a moment and I’ll explain.

               Kristoff stumbles upon the trolls quite accidently when he is doing something else. So many Unitarian Universalists have done the same. We stumble onto this faith when we are doing something else. And finding our true home we have been adopted into this family as though we always belonged.

And since he belonged from childhood Kristoff knows what he is talking about when he refers to them as love experts shortly after he meets Anna, and when she is injured that is where he takes her. Unitarian Universalists try to raise our children to know they can come to us about anything. And we offer Our Whole Lives programs to teach children what it means to be a human and sexual being on a intellectual, emotional, and physical level. So of course one of our children could consider Unitarian Universalists love experts (and I mean not just a physical and sexual love but love that goes beyond the intimate).

                When Kristoff takes Anna and Olaf to see the trolls they don’t actually believe the trolls exist. How many times have you said you are a Unitarian Universalist only to have someone say: “What’s that?”

                The way to fix problems in people’s lives is with love. And not just intimate love (getting married) but they advocated a community based love.

Lyrics from “Fixer Upper” by Maia Wilson part of the “Frozen” soundtrack.

“Everyone's a bit of a fixer-upper,
That's what it's all about!

Father!

Sister!

Brother!

We need each other
To raise us up and round us out.
Everyone's a bit of a fixer-upper,”

            And we have a spiritual based recognition that no one is perfect but standing on the side of love is always the best option:

Lyrics from “Fixer Upper” by Maia Wilson part of the “Frozen” soundtrack.

“We're not sayin' you can change him,
'Cause people don't really change.
We're only saying that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices if they're mad,
Or scared, or stressed.
Throw a little love their way.

Throw a little love their way.

And you'll bring out their best.”

            When Anna is first injured by the ice the troll king says heads are easy to convince. But to change hearts requires an act of true love. Love is where true change happens. How many sermons have you heard that could be boiled down to that very subject?

            And last but not least… the trolls are rocks. They don’t go anywhere against their will.

Dismissing the message

      I am Unitarian Universalist. I belong in this faith. I know this to my entire core. Yet there are ways I struggle with feeling welcome. I did not grow up in a household where the adults went to university. My parents divorced before I was a teen. We were fairly poor. So there are things I don't do well. Grammar is one of them. It has long been a challenge  I allowed myself to stop writing this blog out of fear of judgment. How often do we allow that to stop us?

       Communication is important. If I say or write something then and you don't understand what I'm trying to say we are not communicating. This is why grammar matters. It helps us transcend barriers created by written communication. When you and I talk face to face we communicate we are using many different levels of communication, including body language and tone of voice that helps get the point across. Grammar takes the place of all of that, but how often does it create barriers of its own.

         How often does it become a weapon we use against one another? I realized I was allowing it to be a weapon I used against myself. My fear that since my grammar is not perfect I couldn't communicate in this way was very real. How often does the culture we set up in our congregations become a  barrier to people being able to express the fullness of who they are in this faith?

        No one told me I couldn't blog because my grammar is not perfect. Yet I have heard so many little comments, assumptions about the intelligence and/or education of those with imperfect grammar that I stopped expressing myself so I could belong to this community I love. And in doing so I have robbed my community of my voice.

       We speak of a desire, that I believe exists, to be a diverse community, but when we create situations that make people feel ashamed for who we are; when we make it clear there is a "right way" to be Unitarian Universalist we are robbing our community of voices that could help us grow. There are identities that are made invisible in our communities. Every time we talk about helping the poor as though a poor person could not be among us, ever time we talk about people in ways that make someone feel like they are the other we are making them invisible.

       I will not allow my voice, my written voice, to be silent any longer. I will continue to work on my grammar because it is important to communicate as clearly as possible; but I will never be perfect, which is the best thing I have to offer this faith I love.

Prayer after Recent Shootings

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-colorado-grief-over-theater-shooting-and-a-hunt-for-answers/2012/07/21/gJQAIR8w0W_gallery.html

Spirit of Life and Love,

Shaken by sorrow

We wonder why

We wonder how

Humans can find it within themselves

To destroy life

That exists also within them.

Together we grieve the injustice

Of lives cut short by hate

Of survivors touched by terror

And we stand firm in life

Knowing that only love can ease our grief

Even as it is our love of one another

That causes us to grieve such loss

May we mourn as a community

That loves life.

For we know that life and love must continue

May it be so, Blessed Be




http://ctapaac.com/press-release-apaac-responds-to-wisconsin-sikh-temple-shootings-condemns-violence-rallies-in-support-of-sikhs/

The Need for Balance

The Need for Balance

            I just finished reading, "Black Pioneers in a White Denomination," by Mark Morrison-Reed. It's one of the books that people preparing to see the Ministerial Fellowship Committee must read. I'm glad.

            This book has a number of messages. One of the slightly off topic but important messages that Rev. Morrison-Reed is getting across is that dedication to a cause beyond everything else can be a mistake. Elthelred Brown nearly lost everything in his dedication to the Unitarian cause. He was unable to leave the church when it was time, and it died with him. His family was nearly destroyed in this journey; whereas Lewis McGee had more of a balance, not devoting his entire life to the cause of the spread of Unitarianism to the black community. Now there are other, important realities to be considered here. Brown came a bit earlier than McGee. Not much but enough that he had to face much harder obstacles and racism of individuals within the AUA (American Unitarian Association).

            At the same time Brown’s dedication to the cause is admirable and something I have to watch within myself. I have the power to devote myself to a cause above all else. There must be balance. A cause that dies with you, that does not live on without your influence is incomplete. It’s the same lesson about why, as a minister, self care is so very important. If I am preaching, and believing that there must be balance between the mind, body and spirit in my life I must also show that truth. You can tell people any number of things about “Truth” but if you are just telling them it is not going to matter in the same way as showing them. I owe it to my congregation but I also owe it to myself. A life devoted without balance is a suffering life (also the lesson of Brown).

            I can’t help but imagine what he would have been able to do with the support of the AUA. And indeed what the UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) would look like today if we had not been trapped within ignorance, racism and a sort of liberal patronizing. If when approached by Rev. Mr. Jackson of Bedford who told of his conversion to Unitarianism and asked for financial support for his church, we had jumped at the chance and supported him. I can’t help but wonder. Yet it is useless to wonder. It is the past and what we have to look to is the future.

            The need as a minister, to be invested in your own self care is so present, and is sometimes neglected. It can be easy to get caught up in sermon writing, in various crises and in thinking about the congregation that you can forget the importance of caring for yourself. We talked about that all the time in seminary… self care… self care… self care…

            Finding a place of grounding, a place where you are at your center and you love yourself as much as you love your congregation is essential to being a minister. And for some of us it is one of the hardest things to accomplish. I know I still struggle with it sometimes. Does it make it any better that I put self care on the list of required activities for preparing to see the Ministerial Fellowship Committee? It has to be as important as reading the book, because balance, self care, and spiritual practices are as important to ministry as reading the books, although annoyingly less tangible.

            I can see myself in Rev. Brown’s struggle. In Babylon 5 there is a point in one of the sort of side movies where G’Kar (an alien sort of semi-religious figure) is reflecting on the Ranger’s (a sort of semi-military, religious, spy group) who has a motto – “We Live for the One. We Die for the One.” A Ranger is being punished for not following the enemy and thus dying for the one. G’Kar points out that they are focusing on the second half of that motto. How often do we do that? Believe that we must suffer, we must die for our cause. What about the first half? I choose to live for this faith. I choose to live for my congregation and my ministry. And I choose to live a life of balance and love. Of course there will be suffering. McGee’s life was not easy because he maintained greater balance, he still suffered. And Brown’s life was not hard because he was devoted, he found joy within his world. He found something in this faith that was worth his entire life, something he didn’t give up on in the face of racism from the very governing body of the faith to which he was called. Both lives are a powerful message.

Saying Goodbye - Ending a Ministry

Saying Goodbye - Ending a Ministry

  I participated in a church saying good bye to the minister a couple of weeks ago. It was powerful and touching. The relationship of a minister to her congregation is such a unique relationship in the world. I don't know if it is the same for every tradition, I've never been deep enough into any other tradition to know the relationship between the minister and the congregation. But for Unitarian Universalism the minister is a source of support, a source of spiritual guidance and the spiritual leader of the congregation. Which is a different relationship than a friendship. Sometimes they look very similar because the minister is called to be themselves in the ministerial role. Yet when a minister leaves the congregation it is expected that they will not maintain contact with their previous congregation, at least for a number of years.

    This can be hard for people, understandably so. It is a deep and important relationship that people share with their minister. At the same time, and for the same reason if this minister maintained contact with the congregation after leaving the new minister, whoever that ultimatly becomes, will not have the opportunity to bond with the congregation and to take his place in the role and vocation that is ministry within this congregation.

Muppets - Saying Goodbye

    She handled the transition as well as possible, making this need clear while also making it clear that she loves the congregation and always will. Both things can be true. I don't believe you can be a minister to people without loving them. It makes me think of Orson Scott Card's book "Ender's Game" where Ender talks about how he has to love the Buggers (Aliens for those of you who haven't read it) as they love themselves. Now ultimatly this is a book about war and Ender kills them, but my point is in the first part of this. He has to love them as they love themselves. Even if you disagree with someone, even if they are the most annoying person you have ever meant it seems that as their minister you are called to love them. Thats what makes ministry possible, or perhaps what makes it bearable. Is to never forget you love your congregation. So knowing the necessity to cut off contact is gut wrenching for the minister as well. I think we often comfort ourselves in endings by our assurances that we will keep in contact. Sometimes it is true.

Yet without endings, if nothing ever changed, how would we find beginnings? How would we grow? So even when there is sorrow, there is joy, somtimes it is just a bit delayed. And that is okay.

Diversity - Problems with the Numbers Game

A fellow UU said something that has been with me for days. She wondered if we weren't making a mistake by focusing on being more diverse. If it was all about numbers... "we want more people of color in the pews" is that really about diversity? Or is it about making ourselves feel better? If we look into the congregations and see more faces of color does that mean we are done? Have we dismantled racism? Of course not. Of course the numbers are important, but perhaps not in the way they have been talked about.

We need to focus on our congregations, on dismantling the racism there even more than that we need to work on preparing ourselves to challenge the the systems of power and privilege of which so many of us, and in many ways our entire faith, are a part.

What if we changed how we approached this issue? What if it became less about changing our numbers and more about changing ourselves and our approach to the world? What if we have been working with the wrong goal all along?

And then... if we focus on addressing systems of power and privilege, about changing our relationship to those systems, perhaps the change we wanted in the beginning will happen. Perhaps we will become more diverse in more ways than race. And perhaps we won't. But won't we become closer to the faith we hope to become?

Graduated

So... I've graduated. I have my degree in hand and an award that says the school appreciates my leadership during my time there. It was a wonderful beautiful experience... Now onto an intense focus on studying for the MFC.

Transitions are hard. They always come with loss, even when it is a beautiful, wonderful expected thing. I will miss being there. I will miss the friends I have made and the easy community of the school. At the same time I wouldn't give up what is coming to stay behind. I wouldn't give up my future internship for another year. I went to school to learn Ministry. I am so excited to be finished with that phase of my education.

Blessings to all 2012 Graduates!!