How can I breathe at a time like this,
when the air is full of the smoke
of burning tires, burning lives?
Just breathe, the wind insisted.
Easy for you to say, if the weight of injustice
is not wrapped around your throat,
cutting off all air.
I need you to breathe.
I need you to breathe.
Don’t tell me to be calm
when there are so many reasons
to be angry, so much cause for despair!
I didn’t say to be calm, said the wind,
I said to breathe.
We’re going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.
by Lynn Ungar
12/4/14
www.lynnungar.com
Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uucollective/2014/12/breathe-a-poem/#ixzz3MkFuxZzd
Ministry can be spiritually, emotionally, and even physically taxing. So, how do clergy keep at it for so long? What helps them stay fresh, alert, and focused on mission? Recently, I asked a Facebook group of Unitarian Universalist ministers to share their “ministry mantras,” using no more than 8 words. A ministry mantra might be something a pastor says inwardly, as a reminder; or, it could be a line they use often in ministry, with others. It could be a guiding principle or belief. Whatever it is, it’s a short line that helps keep focus, purpose, and perspective. Their answers are moving, funny, wise, and helpful. I hope you enjoy them as much I did. Here they are:
In the wake of Ferguson, in the wake of Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant and the 12-year-old boy with a pellet gun who was recently shot by a police officer in Cleveland and all the other young Black men killed because a White man found them threatening, it’s hard to know what to say. It’s hard to know what to say to my Black teenage daughter as we take the long way home from downtown Oakland to avoid protests that have started to turn violent. It’s hard to know what to say to Black friends who are grieving publicly on Facebook, who feel assaulted once again by a system which has betrayed them over and over. And it’s hard to know what to say to a good, kind-hearted White friend who feels that her police officer son is being defamed by complaints against the police, and says that we all experience racism, and that we should just all be nice to one another.
It’s hard to know what to say, and it’s hard not be impatient with people who seem hopelessly out of touch. I have to start by remembering that we all speak from what we know, what we experience, what we see. We speak as eye-witnesses to our own lives. Which means that for a lot of White people, racism doesn’t really exist, or exists only as a few isolated instances. After all, what most of us who are White see in our daily lives is that the police are there to keep us safe. What we see is that our walking down the street or driving a car is not a subject for police investigation. What we see is that the folks who turn to look at us in stores are wondering if we need help. That’s reality.
And if that’s your reality then rage against the police seems misplaced, unreasonable, unjustified. If the justice system has always looked to you like, well, justice, then protesters on the streets are threats to the public safety, not advocates pushing for public safety. We know what we see. Who we imagine the public to be are the people who look or dress or talk like us.
I suspect that everyone who drives has been in the position of wanting to tell off the idiot who has come to a complete stop in the middle of the street in front of us. Maybe we honk our horn, or just sit there grumbling about the rude, clueless twit blocking our way for no reason—until we finally see the pedestrian crossing past the vehicle that was blocking our view. It turns out that the driver in front of us could see something that we couldn’t, was acting on information that we didn’t have.
It isn’t easy. The folks with the privilege have every habit of assuming what they see is the “real world,” and every incentive to stay in that comfortable world. The tricky part is that it’s really the job of the White people to help other White people see around the corner. There are many terrific books and blog posts and articles by people of color about their experiences, and White folks would do well to read them. But ultimately it is the responsibility of the White people who’ve caught a glimpse of the pedestrian in the road to help other White people see what is beyond their field of vision. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when you don’t quite know how to do it. Even when you’re pointing toward something that’s not altogether clear to you.
Maybe it’s enough to just ask everyone to enter the conversation aware that the fact that you don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The Reverend Joseph Cleveland is the settled minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Saratoga Springs, NY. Before he found his calling in Unitarian Universalist ministry, he squandered much of his time on the guitar and banjo. He also founded the Folkus Project of Central New York, a nonprofit group that presents folk and acoustic music in Syracuse, NY.
Every now and then, you’ll find Joe’s put another song up on his page at http://soundcloud.com/joe-cleveland.
Markus Grae-Hauck is a conductor, pianist, and vocal coach based in the New York City area. He has been a UU musician since 2005 and is currently serving as Music Director for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair, NJ.
Markus has conducted and/or accompanied big bands, various vocal ensembles, and over 70 musical theater productions, including a national tour of Irving Berlin’s “I Love A Piano”. He has also lived in Germany, France and Spain, figured out the meaning of life, played keyboards in a rock group while dressed in a neon pink jumpsuit, co-founded an opera company, and released two CDs of his own piano compositions; his music has been featured on nationally syndicated German network radio and on the sampler “le classique abstrait” published worldwide by Universal Music.
You can contact Markus at musicdir@uumontclair.org. Some of his music can be found at www.markushauck.com.
December 2014
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”—Socrates
Dear God,
Well, here it is, early in another church year and, silly me, I have decided to lead off by talking about you…whoever or whatever you are. Read more →
I don’t know how often you get asked. Maybe never. But every couple of months somebody asks me if I believe in God. They might ask in exactly that way, “Do you believe in God?” Or maybe, “You do believe in God, don’t you?” Or, from a child perhaps, “Is there really a God?” Read more →
Many people have questioned whether any concept of God can be meaningful in a modern, scientific world. Others, however, find the idea of God to be profoundly meaningful. Read more →
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In a meeting the other night we lit a small chalice and someone shared a blessing to center us down and gather us in for whatever work it was, and the blessing ended with the question, “What do you welcome in winter?” Read more →
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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.