Our Circus

Reviewing a sermon offered at UUCT a few years ago, I found thoughts that are important to share now and again...

“The circus is coming to town!  The circus is coming to town!  

Look here come the wagons pulled by outsized working horses.  See here’s a billboard telling us about the wonders the trapeze artist can perform.  Hear the elephants trumpeting, and the lion roaring!

The circus is coming to town!  Queue up to see and hear and taste all the marvels of the circus...

The circus of romantic memory was a combination of exaggerated feats and ignored labors.  It was hard on the animals and humans that worked in it; and delightedly fascinating for circus goers...

The circus would never have happened if it weren’t for the thousands of hours of training and practice that prepared acts for the main event.  So, too, in the church as circus, the big top and the side-shows and all the other activities of the week need the support of many who are willing to learn how to participate in and lead discussions – over coffee and after services, for newcomers, and for those with specific interests.  It means we need to be willing to develop gifts we may already possess as teachers, leaders and listeners.  It means that learning never ends, and listening always begins anew with the next conversation. Preparing to lead (and participate in) services, discussions, and classes will meet your needs because there is a truth to the observation that whatever isn’t green and growing, is ripe and dying.  You came, and you continue to come, to this congregation because there is a need leading you forward into more discovery, more accomplishment, more and stronger relationships with the people of this church.

In the church as circus, caring for the simple, elemental needs of the people is a high calling. There are no great performances in the circus if the high-flyers haven’t been fed.  No one wants to enter the lion’s cage when the lions are famished. Everything in the church as circus depends on nurturing each other – literally and figuratively.  In the literal sense of the word, we need to feed each  other when trauma or disaster strikes. We need to care about the privations some experience and make ourselves available to help. We can’t turn aside when one of us is in need; because our circus depends on the health and safety of all. The roustabout and the clowns, the ringmaster and the daring lady on horseback share the same needs, and the church as circus asks that we address the needs of all – for the good of all.”*

With thanks to all who make our circus robust with love and good humor.              --      Robin Gray

* an excerpt from Under the Big Top, Robin Gray

Going Squirrelly

They are sleek and insistent.  They take what isn’t theirs, and take and take and take.  They have formed gangs, flying their colors in sharp arcs through the trees around the house. No one could call them stealthy, they crash through the fallen leaves making noise enough for invading troops. Despite the aural message that precedes them, when they take to the trees they attempt a stealth that would do the Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau proud. Now you see them, now you don’t. Jumping sideways from tree to tree they hug the far side of tree trunks. Cue music. Skulking, their shadowy forms approach the target. The bird feeders. 

The squirrels emptied feeders in a flash almost on a daily basis. To thwart their efforts, I put a baffle on the feeder pole.  The grey gang chortled as they slid to the base of the pole and jumped over the baffle.  

Next, I raised to pole up to nose-bleed height. (Fortunately the birds aren’t afraid of heights.) But, I now need a grappling hook to snag and refill the feeders. The smirking gang, however, learned to launch themselves from a wee branch on a sapling onto the top of the feeders. Once there they took up residence for long sessions of eating and dumping seed on the ground. Two squirrels at the feeders and the rest of the gang, a mass of twitching gray tails, pouncing on stray peanut halves and oilseed.

Third attempt to foil the gang. Convenient branches removed. Dang, if they didn’t learn to make a longer jump sideways from the trunk of a sapling. Repeats of the feeder emptying feats of days before.  

I threatened “squirrelicide” every time I rushed them off the feeders. They laughed and circled around to feed again.

Finally, I had three saplings removed. 

Not a day later, there were squirrels at the feeder! They now walked to the tip of a branch on a gracious, draping viburnum and launched themselves successfully to feeder trays. 

The viburnum doesn’t drape quite so gracefully anymore. It’s been judiciously pruned. The birds have been able to reclaim their feeders, and I can imagine being able to afford retirement someday, now that I’m not feeding that gang on their schedule. 

The moral of the story?  Violence contemplated does not lead to violent action, but, might fuel a necessary persistence. 

Note for The Friends of Squirrels: We used to have a dedicated squirrel feeder. The squirrels couldn't figure out how to use it. The raccoons, however, beat a path to our backyard, and then also developed a taste for birdseed. 

Memories of John Galt

Sign posted by Craig Root on I-95*

I was traveling along a highway when I saw it.  “Who is John Galt?” were the only words emblazoned on an enormous billboard.  I knew the answer, having read Ayn Rand’s thinly disguised philosophical treatise, Atlas Shrugged, some forty years earlier.  I could even remember when I read it.  

On summer break from school, I was working in a warehouse that shipped non-food items to supermarkets. Women worked in narrow alleys between walls of boxes and a clacking metal track.  At the head of the track, boxes were assembled, orders thrown in, and as a box was pushed a woman she was responsible for “picking” the items in her bays.  Moreover, she was responsible for setting up extra boxes if more were needed, for banding small items, and finally for packing every item neatly and securely, no matter the shape or size. With some regularity, the managers hectored us to do our jobs more effectively. If one woman fell behind in her picking and packing the whole line suffered as boxes crowded the track.  At such times, women often made time to help their overwhelmed co-worker. Management clearly preferred faster work over cooperative endeavors.

Men were employed as stock boys.  A stock boy could make your life miserable.  If he was angry or lazy or both, he might never restock your shelves while orders piled up on the track. Rarely could a manager be entreated to correct the problem. On the other hand, a dedicated stock boy could anticipate your needs and keep a steady flow of stock on the shelves.  

The men were always paid at a higher rate than women. But, we all suffered from the heat, and withstood the useless blast of loud fans; while air-conditioning was reserved for the bosses upstairs.  

As women, we also shared the disdain of the owners and managers. Any woman employed in the dirt, dust, and the noise of the warehouse was treated like a slow-starter in the big race of life. 

I read Atlas Shrugged to the end. So many pages, and so much reading; some of it done in quasi-quiet moments in a warehouse. I know I felt little empathy for Galt in the end. If he wanted to know what it was to be on the oppressed end of a small business, he should stop by the warehouse someday. If he wanted to understand resentment he should be a woman working as a “picker,” paid less money and more arrogance than her male counterparts. 

“Who is John Galt?” -- for me, he’s the figment of a philosophy that sets the individual above community, personal triumph over cooperative effort. I wouldn’t have been able to work five summers in that warehouse without the support of women who came to my aide, or stock boys who eased the path, or other college students who recognized that everyone - everyone - in that warehouse was treated as less than fully deserving of happiness.   

                                                                                                                                            - Robin Gray

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*I-95 John Galt Billboard Mystery Solved; Friday, July 17, 2009, The US Report,  http://www.theusreport.com/the-us-report/i-95-john-galt-billboard-mystery-solved.html, accessed May, 14, 2013

Learning Peace

As I reflected on my own experiences after the service Dreams of Peace this last Sunday, I wondered what pictures of peace I would carry forward into the future.  I was able to surface a number of peace-provoking experiences.  

The meditation we sang and shared together brought me a deep feeling of calm. We sang first: “I am worn, I am tired, in my quiet sorrow. Hopelessness will not let me be. Help me.” Then we followed that with a spoken meditation that called on images of peace through allusions to music, and finally sang: “When I breathe in, I breathe in peace. When I breathe out, I breathe out I’ll breathe out love.” By the end of the cycle, I felt myself releasing real tensions and anger; and, rising in compassion and forgiveness.  I want to hold that feeling inside for as long as I can keep it with me.

I also thought about the Soulful Sundown the Young Adults offered us on Saturday evening.  We sang songs and heard readings that helped me to experience the promised opportunity to slow down. That feeling is another one that I will want to carry into my daily life to renew a commitment to peace.

I will carry with me, too, a memory from the Community Human Services Partnership award process. Last week, I was one of a group of seven ordinary citizens who volunteered to help make decisions about how pooled human service grants would be awarded in Leon County. We were only looking at seven programs that serve low and moderate income people, in a bevy of dozens and dozens of applicants. We did our homework, listened to agency presentations, and then began deliberations.  

Each person spoke about what they’d discovered and seen. Some comments were supportive, others were corrective. When we all gave assent to something, it was posted on the feedback sheet. We ranked the seven programs in a multi-step process. That was good news for some programs, and not so good news for others.  

Then, we were confronted with the fact that we had requests for about $80,000 more than we could award. Five hours of deliberation in total. Feelings shared. Compromises offered. Facts checked. Our mission to serve low-income, vulnerable people brought to the fore a number of times. Decisions made. And, in the end relief.  Relief accompanied by grateful praise. We took our job seriously, spoke our minds, and treated each other with the same respect we hope all our agencies offer to their clients. We took the peaceful path even when we had different opinions. We were a part of making a small peace. 

I am thankful for the peace that is, at times, alive in my heart, alive in my experience.  I am mindful of a living peace working in my memory, creating new opportunities to reach toward peace. May we all be so blessed.

- Robin Gray

Community Services Support

The Community Human Service Partnership (CHSP) was formed sixteen years ago.  Three funding sources, the United Way of Big Bend, Leon County and the City of Tallahassee agreed to pool their human service money, and to involve citizens in awarding grants. This year, for the first time, I volunteered to serve on a Review Team.

There are ten teams reading applications from not-for-profit service agencies and moving out into the community to hear their presentations. All of us serving on Review Teams had to attend a day-long training session where we were given guidelines for reading the applications, and encouraged to read every application with a critical eye.

After reading hundred of pages of application materials, I traveled to four agencies with my team last Thursday, and we will hear presentations from two more human service agencies this week. Then, the team will begin deliberations. Every application and presentation will be scrutinized to determine if the agency will make the best possible use of the money. In tight times, many agencies are looking for increased funding over last year’s award.  Sadly, those same tight times will likely mean that the CHSP has fewer dollars to spend, even while agencies are beginning to experience the squeeze of sequestration.

The team I’m serving on is responsible for reviewing applications from agencies that provide physical health services. I’ve already learned a tremendous amount about a handful of area agencies addressing the health needs of low and moderate income adults. I’m grateful to learn that so many professionals and volunteers are collaborating on fulfilling the needs of people who don’t have health insurance or discretionary dollars to spend on health care. It is also frightening to think that so many hours and so many dollars are devoted to trying desperately to fill the gaps. I’m prompted to once again shake my head over the gulf between generous hearts that want to serve, and the cruel fact that affordable health care is not yet available to all. 

All the agencies I’ve read about and seen could put scads more money to good use serving many of the most vulnerable people in our society.  All of it makes me think of a TED talk by Dan Pallotta.* He notes that homelessness hasn’t been eradicated in any city, and that other great demands are not being met. He suggests, among other things, that we need to completely change our attitude toward non-profits and how much money they should be able to raise and use for the services they provide. I recommend it for anyone who’s ever wondered why Jesus’ prediction that the poor will always be with us has been fulfilled for thousands of years. Dan Pollatta may describe some of the attitudes that help to keep the poor poor and the non-profit agencies that serve them equally strapped.

Yours, in hope,   
Robin  

* (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about_charity_is_dead_wrong.html

Growing Pains

Why are we being asked to increase our pledges for 2013-14?  The simplest answer is that the proposed expenditures and promised pledges don’t match up. Here’s the rest of the story:

We’re growing younger.

We are saying “good-bye” to some older, more established members of the congregation, who are moving on. Many of them are moving on to new adventures away from Tallahassee. Some are moving to be closer to their adult children. Some have died, leaving us sadder, but, enriched by their sojourn with us. At the same time, we’re experiencing an influx of younger members. Young adults. Young families. We are a vital, growing, “youthening” congregation.

The energy and needs of new members of every age is changing the congregation. Their needs move us to expand Religious Exploration programming by offering courses on parenting, and world religions, and by starting a Spiral Scouts group. Their interests are leading us in new directions in music, and in creating a modest multi-media experience in the sanctuary.

We’re more available.

The 9:00 a.m. service opens a new door for people who want to explore Unitarian Universalism.  Five of our newest members became members solely through attendance at that early service. 

Our internet presence is expanding all the time.  The website continues to grow to meet expressed needs.  We have multiple Facebook pages - disseminating information and encouraging connections. We use the internet for everything from greeter sign-up lists to sharing the concerns of Freethinkers. Thanks to the work of many dedicated members, we are ever more widely represented outside the walls of our congregation.

Our newsletter, the Meridian, is becoming more user friendly for smartphones and tablets. Evolving changes in the newsletter mean that instead of writing one “minister’s column” for the monthly newsletter, I’m writing four times as frequently and posting to this Tallahassee UU blog. 

People are generous. 

Two-thirds of the people who returned their pledges by last week, had already increased their pledges. New members are offering many different kinds of support for the congregation - enlivening our music programs, stepping in to manage the sound system, teaching, joining classes themselves, and helping with the Shelter Meal. Still, to maintain our services and programs, and to protect the accomplishments of the past, including our property and buildings...we need everyone who can be generous to share in the excitement of all our activities and the promises offered by pledging. 

Membership, enthusiasm and energy is up, and pledges are down. Why?

Often younger members, many of them new to Unitarian Universalism, are not able to pledge at the same level as their older counterparts. All of our new members are in the process of becoming established, committed Unitarian Universalists. Every congregation that is growing has an opportunity to experience this same problem.  We are living into the gap created by a younger, growing congregation.  Isn’t it exciting?

The Marrying Kind

        One of our members was asked if he supported equal marriage did that mean he also support polyamorous relationships? He hadn’t given it much thought until the question was posed. While I was not privy to that conversation, I have been a part of others like it, and I have seen how one issue is being used to undermine another. 

About a month ago, a headline blazed “Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet.” That phrase leading into Lisa Miller’s article is misleading in several ways. First, the denomination is the Unitarian Universalist Association; and as cumbersome as that moniker is, it’s members are properly referred to as Unitarian Universalists. That wouldn’t fit neatly into a headline though. Unfortunately, the other thing that didn’t fit into Miller’s article was any documentation that “many” Unitarian Universalists wish polyamory activists would keep quiet. She cites a friend who is studying “to become a Unitarian minister (sic)” who is glad she hasn’t been asked to bless a polyamorous relationship.

Clearly, Miller wishes that polyamory activists would keep quiet, and she wants the UUA to stifle them.

I don’t think that’s the way we do things as Unitarian Universalists.  We let the reality of diversity be known in our midst.  You may not have known until reading this article that Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA) exists, but, now that you do, you might seek out the website and absorb some of it’s arguments. You might, in inner dialogue and in conversation with others, grapple with the idea of polyamory -- either in opposition or affirmation. 

Sometime in the late 80’s, a member of the UUA staff published a booklet of civil unions. The booklet included a service for three people. At that time, I decided that I wouldn’t offer a ceremony for three people if asked. Fast forward a quarter century. 

If you’ve ever watched Sister Wives, you’ve seen Kody, Meri, Janelle, Christine and Robyn Brown negotiate their lives in a polygamous marriage.**  Along with their 17 children, they’ve let cameras into their living rooms and family-led worship.  They’ve let people see good times and bad times, too.  Speaking as a group of wives and husband to an audience, they were hurt and shocked when someone asked if Kody had to take "pills" to keep up with all the wives. They knew, as the questioner did not, that their marriage wasn’t about sex, but, about commitment and caring that encompassed all the members of the family: infants, children and spouses. 

Marriage, when sanctioned by the state, promotes the application of rights for all members of the family.  Marriage, when sanctioned by a religious body, encourages seriously considered commitments and vows of caring that must be lived to be fulfilled.  When adults come to me seeking a blessing for a union they wish to offer each other, I look for caring, commitment and continuity.  Then, my answer can be ‘yes’, even when the state would deny them their legal rights. 

* Miller, Lisa, “Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet”, Washington Post, March 22, 2013,  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-22/national/37938821_1_unitarian-universalists-union-of-one-man-marriage

Accessed April 16, 2013

** The Browns sued Utah in an attempt to overturn the state’s bigamy law as unconstitutional. In Utah, multiple relationships, not multiple marriage licenses, define bigamy.  Huffington Post, July 25, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/25/sister-wives-lawsuit-kody-brown-utah-bigamy-law_n_1701450.html