1.
Go ahead, climb up
the Alhambra brick–
taxis can’t come here,
and the effort it takes
is only as much as
you have in mind.
2.
How often we’ve fallen for
another algorithm for bliss,
the snake oil shill of camphor
shadows. Enough. The book
is there now, a shining blossom,
big as a magnolia bloom.
Blank. To be written. Yes, we
think–at last I’m back to myself.
Climb there too. The beautiful
street vendors are selling
therefores. The dark wine
of place. Buy some. But
carefully pluck the book, its soft
leather bent just enough to say,
yes, climb the brick passages.
3.
It may be when you wake
you’ll believe you’ve had
a stroke, but the sunlight
in its morning patterns will
teach that’s OK as well–
the world goes on without
you, us, and that’s always
been OK as well. A lesson in
belonging. Everyone’s place in
the story of the Alhambra.
I expect by now you’ve heard the story: seen the pictures of the people bludgeoned by water cannons, the dog in a gas mask, the sufi dervish whirling in the street with deliberate disregard for the danger of his surroundings. It started simply enough. A group of people decided to sit in to protest a public park being razed in order to put in one more shopping mall. A group of people, young and old, decided that they had had enough of their country being sold off to the highest bidder, enough of the rights of the people being stripped away at the pleasure of the powers that be. And so they went to sit in the park. And there they sat as the bulldozers came at them, non-violent protesters in the long and distinguished lineage of Gandhi and King and Tiananmen Square and so many others. And in the long and shameful lineage of the British in India and Bull Connor and the Chinese government in 1989 and so many others, the Turkish government responded with water cannons and pepper spray, with police in riot gear prepared to do whatever it takes to subdue the population.
Who will not be subdued. Who continue to flock to the streets. I understand the courage of those first protesters, the ones who decided to sit down in a park and make their presence felt, who were willing to see what would happen when they demanded that someone take the needs of the people, and not just the corporations, into account. Sometimes you summon up what is inside of you and do the brave thing, walk the talk. But what about all those other people, the ones who joined the protest once they knew about the water cannons and the pepper spray, once the news spread (by word of mouth and social media, since the official media kept a complete blackout) of the injured and the dead? What about them? What does it take to knowingly walk into that kind of danger and chaos?
It takes, I think, an allegiance to a self that is greater than the self that feels the police batons and the pepper spray—a self that is injured not by physical indignities, but rather by moral ones. Call it Soul, if you will, this larger self, or call it Community Consciousness or Human Dignity or Living in the Kingdom of God. Whatever it is, it does not belong to a particular time, or place, or religion. It’s what led Gandhi, the Hindu, and King, the Christian, and the young man (Buddhist?) who faced down a bulldozer in Tiananmen Square to counter violence with persistent love. It’s what holds the Sufi dervish dancing in the streets of Istanbul and Bill McKibben getting arrested on the steps of the White House in protest against the Keystone XL pipeline. Who we are is bigger than who we are.
Not all of us. Not all the time. But enough of us, enough of the time, that it seems possible that love might have a chance against greed, that freedom and justice might sometimes prevail. Not all the time. But maybe enough.
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If I were trying to develop and deliver a talk about the history of Unitarian Universalist opposition to war and war-making institutions, I could have hammered this out and gone right back to dipping peppermint Jo Jo’s in milk and watching Dr. Who on Netflix. I mean, we are UUs: we don’t blindly obey, we question. We don’t use our hands to hurt, we use our hands to create and heal. We don’t seek and destroy, we search and explore. We only march if we’re carrying tubas or protest signs, and our hair and habits of dress are very far out of regulation. Unitarian is to Military as Peace is to Conflict, as Compassion is to Aggression, as Eros is to Thanatos. But that wasn’t the task my minister gave me.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in 1207 in Afghanistan, which was then within the Persian empire. While still a child he fled to Turkey, along with his whole family, when the Mongols invaded their land. Read more →
The CLF Annual Meeting will be held on June 27, 2013 at 6:00PM Eastern Time
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Before rebirth, there has to be birth. I have never given birth, but I have been privileged to witness two human babies, six puppies, three kittens, and a few birds and turtles enter the world. And I suspect all of us have watched documentaries of the same kinds of thing.
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Perhaps you have seen the bumper sticker: “Born OK the first time.” That’s where we UUs tend to come down. You don’t need to be born again. We don’t hold with the notion of original sin, that babies are born carrying the sin of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. You don’t need to be baptized or washed in the blood of the Lamb or answer an altar call or accept anyone or anything as your personal lord and savior. We’re willing to trust that who you are is OK, at the same time that we hope that as a community we are learning to be ever more responsible, compassionate people.
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In my own worst seasons I’ve come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. Read more →
June 2013
“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.” —Judith Minty
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Quest for Meaning is a program of the Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF).
As a Unitarian Universalist congregation with no geographical boundary, the CLF creates global spiritual community, rooted in profound love, which cultivates wonder, imagination, and the courage to act.