Another Reason for the Season
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are –
Emily Dickinson
“Yule” (jul) means “wheel” in Norse. The Norse looked at this time of year, facing the darkest and longest night, “Mother Night,” as they called it, and told a story of the night the goddess Frigga left her spinning wheel and labored long and hard to give birth to the light of a new year.
Hiding in the Christian advent wreath is Frigga’s wheel. And the mistletoe? Well!
Odin, the All-Father, and his wife Frigga (or Frigg or “Fria” in Old Saxon) had twin sons, Baldur and Hodur (or Tyr,god of war).
Hodur was a dark and moody boy, a cold loner who spoke to no one. His brother Baldur was a beautiful, radiant boy, and all the gods loved him (excepting one, named Loki).
One day Baldur came to his mother and said, “Mother, for these past seven nights, each night I have had a dream, and that dream shows me that I will die, killed by an arrow made from the branch of a tree.”
As you might suspect, Frigga was very, very worried about her darling boy, and went around to all the trees of the wood, speaking to each one of them and imploring them, “Please, whatever you do, please do not kill my lovely boy Baldur.”
And each tree in its turn promised Frigga that no harm would come to him by one of their branches.
But in her worry and haste, Frigga failed to speak to one family of the woods—one tree—the mistletoe, which grows without having its roots in the earth.
And so it was that Loki—the terrible trickster among the gods, and the only one of the gods who resented Baldur’s radiance and cheerfulness—fashioned an arrow of the mistletoe and, going to visit dark Hodur, Loki said, “Here. Try shooting my marvelous bow! Here’s an enchanted arrow. Try shooting it over the roof of the house.”
And so dark Hodur shot the arrow made of mistletoe. And who should it hit, standing on the other side of the roof beam, but Baldur his brother, who bled to death, writhing in the lush green grass.
As you expect, Frigga was inconsolable. She wept and wept and as she wept the nights reflected her mood, growing longer and longer. And soon darkness seized the world.
Her weeping was so terrible that Odin the All-Father at last could stand it no more, and so he saddled up his horse and rode all the way to the domain of the dead. There, he found Baldur and brought him back to the land of the living.
And so it is that in midsummer, in all the lands of the North, on those nights when the light never really goes away, there is great feasting, celebrating the sunny god Baldur, though people know that already, even on the longest of days, Hodur is notching his murderous arrow.
And in the darkest nights of winter we celebrate Baldur’s return to Frigga’s womb, because on the darkest night, called Mother Night, Baldur will be reborn, thus slowly bringing the light and warmth back again.
This is the celebration at Winter Solstice. And we remember Frigga, the great goddess of the hearth and of fertility, each week in English, with “Fri-day,” “Fria’s Day.”
I suspect nearly everyone feels a bit of desperation sometimes, looking out the window at what is supposed to be the afternoon—and it’s dark out there. It’s night. It oppresses, as Emily Dickinson says, “like the heft of cathedral tunes.”
Yes. Winter feels like a really long church service. Baldur is dead—slain by the mistletoe. That wily trickster Loki has won again and darkness and sadness rule the land.
Wouldn’t it be nice this time of year if we had something to look forward to?
Well, by golly, the ancestors thought of that. In lots of different traditions.
All those candles mean . . . something.
Perhaps Odin is saddling up his horse again.
And Mother Night will soon go into labor once again.
Or perhaps it’s a peasant girl from Palestine.
Or Demeter wailing for her lovely daughter Persephone.
Or some other mom perhaps happy to be beating the IRS deadline.
Whatever. Whoever. It’s good—even for the most protesting of Protestants—to celebrate the circles and cycles of time because they mark a symbolic space in the chaos of reality, and add meaning to the passing of our lives.
And meaning . . . in the winter dark, meaning is a good thing.
The Real War on Christmas
I confess it all seems a bit silly to me, this whole notion of there being a “war on Christmas” because some institutions are wishing people “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” Does it really matter? OK, I admit that I, personally, am annoyed with the signs that declare that Jesus is the Reason for the Season. The season, after all, is winter, which is caused by the fact that the earth rotates on a slightly tilted axis, which takes the Northern Hemisphere a little further from the sun this time of year. Jesus has nothing to do with it. Jesus also has nothing to do with a variety of holidays that take place in this season, such as Chanukah, Yule and Kwanzaa.
However, pagan symbolism such as fir trees, holly and mistletoe aside, Christmas is Christmas, and I have genuine sympathy for the people who are concerned that it is time to put the Christ back into Christmas. It seems a bit bizarre to me to celebrate the birth of a baby born in a stable by indulging in an orgy of consumerism. But how people conduct their celebrations is not the war.
No, the war on Christmas, on the man who declared “blessed are the poor,” is being declared by the folks who are determined to cut billions of dollars from programs that keep families from going hungry. The war on Christmas, on the man who overturned the tables of the moneychangers, is being conducted by financial institutions that expect the public to assume the responsibility for their losses on risky investments, while they reap the rewards. The war on Christmas, on the baby who could only find shelter in a stable, is being conducted by immigration policies that have no room for the notion of hospitality. The war on Christmas — on the man who said we will be judged on how we have fed the poor, given drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, and visited those who are sick or in prison — is being conducted by those who would describe those in need as “takers” and those who think it’s a good idea to fill prisons with young men so that private corporations can make a profit.
Frankly, I couldn’t care less whether you wish me a merry Christmas, happy holidays or simply a nice day, so long as it’s done in a spirit of civility. Pipe Bach chorales and Handel’s Messiah out into the streets, and put up a Nativity scene on your lawn. Fine by me. Be my guest. But don’t put yourself in the role of Mr. Scrooge, loving the fruits of business so much that you care nothing for the poor, and then step out in the public sphere and declare your horror at the neglect and abuse of Christmas. For that is the real war on Christmas, and it looks like Christmas is losing again.
The Goal of World Community with Peace, Liberty, and Justice for All
December 10, 2013
“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” – so begins the Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
Today marks the 65th Anniversary of this visionary document, created shortly after the end of World War II. In the aftermath of massive global violence, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict happen again.
The decades since have been filled with violence and atrocities.
And.
And the arc of the universe has bent toward justice.
For at least there is now an international promise of how we know we are called to be together, a First Principle
guideline leading to a Sixth Principle vision.
To paraphrase the G.I. Joe cartoon of my childhood, “Now we know, and knowing is half the battle.”
May this knowing lead to loving, compassionate doing in the next 65 years.
“As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, let us intensify our efforts to fulfill our collective responsibility to promote and protect the rights and dignity of all people everywhere.” ~UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
December
I grew up on the western edge of the Eastern Standard time zone. That means that the sun went down a little later in our corner of southwestern Ohio. I did not appreciate this fact until I came East to go to college in Connecticut. I called my mother that first fall: “The sun goes down at 4:30pm!” Mom sent me a high-spectrum sun lamp. I wrote my papers under it and staved off the worst of the seasonal depression, without escaping it all together.
I moved back to Connecticut two and half years ago. And I love it here. There is something about the fall sky in Connecticut – the clouds are like none I’ve seen anywhere else. This year, the leaves were more than stunning. We love being close to the shore and delight in sea gulls in seemingly random places: downtown, the grocery store parking lot.
And once again, daylight savings time (that odd misnomer) came this year on November 3rd, and now the sun goes down at 4:30pm. Today, December 9th, the official sunset time is 4:22pm. I’ve begun turning on lights and lighting candles before the sun sets. As the darkness settles, I think of us spinning our way toward the darkest night of the year, the winter solstice. I remember that after December 21st, the days will lengthen and the sky will progressively lighten. The sun will return. And though months of winter remain ahead of us, we will welcome the light and turn our faces toward the sun.
A devoted detester of winter, I married a man who loves the snow, loves the cold, the coziness of winter evenings. He has helped me to change my view of these darkest nights of the year. One of his most beloved albums is “December” by George Winston. It and Handel’s “Messiah” are the sound track of our Decembers. Winston’s calm, quiet piano solos warm the winter air and make one wish for a fresh fall of snow (which we just may get tonight). Through the music, I am reminded of the blessings of darkness. I pray that I may not just wait out these dark days, but embrace them, lean into them, cherish them. I pray that I might write and cook and reflect and love my way through December and find the joy therein as the light fades and then returns.
I wish the same for you.
Listen to George Winston’s “December” on YouTube
Swimming Lessons
The first sermon at the first church I ever served (which is also the only church I have served) was called “Swimming Lessons.” Countless seminary papers and exams had brought me to this moment. Now, time had come to climb into the pulpit to impart the great wisdom available to a young man with a Divinity degree on his wall.
Here’s the gist: as a swimmer learns to trust that water will hold a body, so, too, must a person learn to trust in the Holy. Have you attended any church in the world for, say, four or five Sundays? If so, you yourself will have heard a take on this very same sermon. It’s like arguing that people should remember to floss when they brush. But, with my pressed khaki pants, and a hair-cut that shone, I delivered the message with messianic conviction.
I told the Congregation that they and I would be learning to risk faith together. It would require of us allowing ourselves to be known and be held in the Spirit, as a swimmer is held by the water. As a sign of my willingness to be seen as imperfect—lest there be any doubt—I confessed to them that, at my advanced age, I didn’t know how to swim. But, I assured them, I intended to learn. So, as their new pastor literally learned how to swim, we would all learn to navigate the metaphorical waters of the newness we shared with one other. Everyone seemed pleased when it finally came time to sing the last hymn, and then go on to the social hall to drink coffee and gossip.
What I imagined the Congregation would take from the sermon was a fresh understanding of the nature of faith. But, a couple days later, it became clear to me that this was not what most had gained from my talk. What seemed to stick with most in attendance was, instead, that the new pastor was bent at long last on mastering a basic childhood skill.
Obligingly, a few of the church elders had already inquired at the Civic Center for me about adult swim lessons. They learned I’d be welcome in a morning class offered for seniors which met three times a week. It was all arranged. The coach would be waiting. The class was made up almost entirely of women several decades older than me, and was called “Swimmin’ Women.”
After a lifetime on dry land, had I really intended to learn how to swim? Well, sure. Almost certainly. Probably. I would have no doubt looked into the matter. At some point in my life. But the congregation seemed to believe that, simply because I had declared from the pulpit my intent to take swimming lessons, I had an intention to take swimming lessons. They assumed, in other words, that I meant what I said.
Growing up, my sister and I had, in fact, spent a lot of time at the faculty club pool down near the University of Tennessee. But, while my sister had spent these summer days in the water, and ultimately competed for the swim team, her stout younger brother could be found outside the fence, on a hill overlooking the Tennessee River, with a steak and cheese sandwich you could get at the snack bar, charged to the account.
It was not that I was afraid of the water. It was that, when you get in a pool, there were people who want to splash you in the face. Some want to grab you and dunk you, while others stand in the shallow end, gazing in reverie at passing clouds while they urinate. If someone offered you the choice of spending summer days being splashed with chlorinated human waste, and then dunked in it, or else going out to a hill on a river by yourself to enjoy a steak and cheese sandwich, you too might end up as an adult who didn’t know how to swim.
Either I live in a small city, or else a large town. Whichever, news here travels fast. So, within a few days, it seemed that everyone around was aware of my future with the Swimmin’ Women. At the grocery store, at the video rental store, everywhere. Wherever I went, there were kindly smiles that only barely masked gentle smirks. People knew.
To that point, my history of physical exertion had been sporadic, half-hearted. I tended to sign up eagerly, then not follow through. It was my way. No one seemed to mind, least of all me. But it seemed I was now living a life in which my preferred sluggishness might become a matter of public concern.
The Swimmin’ Women coach was named Bobbie–a retired gym coach who was all business. She lined up her swimmers according to skill. This meant that, while swimmers who had swum since the Truman administration took up the far lanes, where their perfect strokes sliced the water, I had the slow lane entirely to myself. Well, except for the kickboard. Bobbie, it turned out, was a stickler for form. I was not going to dog-paddle, nor run out the clock with my limb-draping take on the dead man’s float. No. More was expected of a Swimmin’ Woman. Bobbie was determined. And so, as I churned through the water behind a kickboard, making my way, lap after lap, there she was, right above me at poolside, calling down corrections to whatever my legs had been doing.
Four months later, at the Christmas party, the Women gave me a new swimsuit in recognition that, while any of them could have beaten me in a race, it could now charitably be said that I knew how to swim. The gap between my declared intent and my actual life, at least with swimming, had been closed. In its place, a grudging pinch of integrity.
Everyone knows that congregations are boring, old- fashioned, and more political than Congress before an election. But, on the bright side, they can also be judgmental. Think of an old friend who lets you know exactly the one thing that you need to hear. Now, picture a whole community like that in your life. Maybe how things are for you matches precisely how you intended them to be. All I know is that, when it comes down to me, for a long time, I was only floating. And it was a congregation that finally required me to apply myself to practice, and keep in the struggle of effort, which as it turns out, is what it takes to swim.
The Pragmatic Believer
Source: Google Images Creative Commons
This time of year also fills me with a number of conflicting emotions. As someone who was raised Catholic, I might be considered a metaphorical Christian by some. Nonetheless, I am very much Unitarian when it comes to my theological beliefs – a Pragmatic Believer of sorts – so Christmas holds no almost no religious significance to me. It does, however, hold a great deal of spiritual significance for me. I love Christmas for its glitter and lights, uplifting carols and delicious cookies, generosity and thanks-giving, time with family and friends, and its somewhat romantic nostalgia. But, the religious humanist in me cringes at the commercialization of the Christmas holiday and the general assumption that all who celebrate Christmas hold tight to Christian theology.
Throughout the entire month of December I find myself thinking: Where does this holiday fit into my faith and spiritual life? And where do I fit into the holiday?
I first heard the poem “Mary” by Philip Appleman at church a few years ago. I enjoy reading it every holiday season as I struggle with the many conflicting emotions and beliefs that I have about Christmas. Regardless of religious affiliation, I find the poem to be a universally powerful reminder of the importance of considering alternate perspectives and the role of the Pragmatic Believer.
Mary by Philip Appleman
Years later, it was, after everything
got hazy in my head – those buzzing flies,
the gossips, graybeards, hustling evangelists –
they wanted facts, they said,
but what they were really after,
was miracles.
Miracles, imagine! I was only a girl
when it happened, Joseph
acting edgy and claiming
it wasn’t his baby – – –
Anyway, years later
they wanted miracles, like the big-time cults
up in Rome and Athens, God
come down in a shower of coins,
a sexy swan, something like that.
But no, there was only
one wild-eyed man at our kitchen window
telling me I’m lucky.
And pregnant.
I said, “Talk sense mister, it’s got to be
the one thing or the other.”
No big swans, no golden coins
in that grubby mule-and-donkey village. Still,
they wanted miracles,
and what could I tell them? He
was my baby, after all, I washed
his little bum, was I
supposed to think I was wiping
God Almighty?
But they wanted miracles, kept after me
to come up with one: “This fellow at the window,
did he by any chance have wings?”
Wings! Do frogs have wings?
Do camels fly?
They thought it over. “Cherubim”, they said,
“may walk the earth like men
and work their wonders.”
I laughed in their hairy faces. No
cherub, that guy! But
they wouldn’t quit – fanatics, like
the gang he fell in with years ago’
all goading him till he began to believe
in quick cures and faith healing,
just like the cranks in Jerusalem, every
phony in town speaking in tongues
and handling snakes. Not exactly
what you’d want for your son, is it?
I tried to warn him, but he just says,
“I must be about my father’s business.”
“Fine,” I say, “I’ll buy you a new
hammer.” But nothing could stop him, already
hooked on the crowds, the hosannas,
the thrill of needling the bureaucrats.
Holier than thou, he got, roughing up
the rabbis even. Every night
I cried myself to sleep – my son,
my baby boy – – –
You know how it all turned out, the crunch
of those awful spikes,
the spear in his side, the whole town watching,
home-town folks come down from Nazareth
with a strange gleam in their eyes. Then later on
the grave robbers, the hucksters, the imposters all
claiming to be him. I was sick
for a year, his bloody image
blurring the sunlight.
And now they want miracles, God
at my maidenhead, sex without sin.
“Go home,” I tell them, “back to your libraries,
read about your fancy Greeks,
and come up with something amazing, if you must.”
Me, I’m just a small-town woman,
a carpenter’s wife, Jewish mother, nothing
special. But listen,
whenever I told my baby a fairy tale,
I let him know it was a fairy tale.
Go, all of you, and do likewise.
Nelson Mandela
The great Nelson Mandela has died. Peacefully, after a long illness, surrounded by the love of his family, his nation, the world. To lose a hero is always an enormous grief, and yet Mandela was one hero who got to see his work through. This time we got the whole inspiring story – not just a man who stood up for his people and who suffered for his rebellion, but also a man who emerged from his long years in prison with a whole heart, with his capacity for love intact. Who was able to lead his country in the path of truth and reconciliation; who was able to walk a long ways down that road toward the land of freedom and justice.
What a gift. Too often we have the stories of the martyrs, the heroes cut down in their prime who live on in our memory and our aspiration, but who never got to step into the Promised Land. Of course South Africa is not a perfected Land of Milk and Honey. This is the real world and grave problems are never simply erased. But Mandela got to see his people choose justice over revenge. He got to see his country tear down barricades, reach across chasms that seemed like they could never be crossed.
In Mandela we had the story of a great man who suffered for his cause, but this time the suffering was the middle of the story, not the end. And as much as we owe to the martyrs, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Victor Jara and Megar Evers and all the rest, we owe still more to the people who live out decade after decade of speaking truth in the spirit of love, who never stop pushing the world toward justice.
Of course, most of these people we never hear about. So today, I will remember the tremendous legacy of Nelson Mandela. But I will also remember people like Molly Piontkowski, who came to this country as a young woman and never stopped working to make it meet up with her hopes of what she would find here. Who was already in her 80s when I got to know her, and was still pushing on the city of Chicago for fair housing, for services for seniors, for shelter for abused women. Who I remember not for the saintly gentleness we expect of elderly women, but rather for her cranky determination that the world simply needed to be a better place than it was.
Molly, like Mandela, is gone now. But we still have Bill Moyers and Wendell Berry—and thousands, maybe millions of you who keep on doing the work of justice and love and truth and peace because it is there to be done. The need won’t go away. I give thanks daily for the people who won’t go away either.
Images, Imagination, and Iconoclasts
In 1642, during the British Civil War, Protestant troops of Cromwell’s New Model Army celebrated taking the city by looting the cathedral at Winchester. Troops used the stained glass windows for target practice and showed their disdain for monarchy and Catholic saints by smashing open crypts and pitching the bones through the stained glass windows. Construction on Winchester Cathedral had begun in 1079 on a site where a Christian church had stood since the 600s.
This was the second iconoclastic spasm in England. The first, three hundred years earlier, had been under the direction of Henry VIII. At that time, medieval statues had been smashed and used for building material. Perhaps the most egregious instance occurred at Canterbury Cathedral, where the shrine to Thomas A Beckett, constructed in 1220, was smashed to dust in 1538. The shrine, destination of Chaucer’s pilgrims, had long stood for the supremacy of religion over the state. Henry was having none of that.
The Protestant iconoclastic spirit traveled to the Western Hemisphere with the Pilgrims and Puritans, who built wooden meeting houses without adornment or symbol.
Religions are funny about symbols. Hebrew law forbade graven images. Muslim art is abstract and Muslims get testy about depictions of Mohammed. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches split over the question of icons. Worn out Torahs are buried. Don’t burn the Koran. And Bibles? Search the web on that one. Protestants are all over the map in relation to religious symbols.
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, where I serve as minister, is a good example of what we might call the ultimate in Protestant protesting. There are no symbols at all in the sanctuary—called in classic humanist fashion an “assembly hall.” Built in 1951 in the International Style of the time, the walls are brick and wood and glass. Cromwell’s New Model Army would find nothing to complain about in the assembly hall. Kings and saints; icons and symbols have all gone out the window. There is even some suspicion of the one image—deliberately left ambitious in the tradition—of Unitarian Universalism, the chalice.
What’s up with religions and symbols? What is it about images and imagination?
It’s easy to forget that for most of human history there were no movies; no TV shows; no photographs. Not even “realistic” art of the sort that developed in the Renaissance. For the most part, realistic representation occurred only in sculpture, a 3D representation.
There is still debate about whether or not audiences ran in terror upon seeing the first motion picture, Lumiere’s “L’arrivee d’un train en gare de La Ciotat,” in 1896. Whatever really happened, the human mind began to change when pictures began to move. Previously, movement had occurred only in reality, dreams, or visions. Now, we see moving images everywhere. What has that done to the human mind?
The image, the symbol, is central to human understanding. The McDonald’s “M” speaks to more people than any other in the world. The Mercedes icon is one of the most often stolen objects in the world. We huddle around glowing screens to watch stories unfold.
Even atheists, in the unadorned walls of an assembly hall, imagine a symbol—even if a negative one—called “god.” John H. Dietrich, a minister at the church I serve and one of the originators of “religious humanism,” said, “The human mind invariably confuses the symbol with the thing symbolized.” The implication: mistrust symbols. Yet, oddly, it is not only the most protesting Protestant who believes this. A Byzantine hymn contains these words: “Free me from symbols, from words, that I may discover the signified.” And Hindu thinkers, in their own forest of symbols, said, neti, neti, “not this, not that.”
We may hurl bones through all the windows of stained glass, yet, somehow, as happened at Winchester Cathedral after the Civil War, the windows will be restored. The citizens of Winchester could not afford to repair the windows to their former glory, so they glued the pieces back together as a hodgepodge, a mosaic. The symbol always comes back.
Deep South
Planned Parenthood of Louisiana hosted a screening of deepsouth last night in honor of World AIDS Day. Filmmaker Lisa Biagiotti joined the panel after the screening and shared that it was the startling statistics of HIV/AIDS in the south, combined with the SILENCE about this reality – in stark contrast to the national story that HIV/AIDS is “under control” – that drew her to create deepsouth. As Elizabeth Pandolfi writes in her review of the film:
Unlike the rest of the nation, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the South has not been controlled and conquered. Instead, it’s rampant and largely invisible. Deaths from HIV/AIDS are 50 percent higher than in the rest of the country. The South also has the highest rate of incarceration, the highest number of uninsured people, the highest rate of STD infection, the highest rate of poverty — and the list goes on. Those Southerners who are HIV positive are still mired in many of the same problems that patients faced during the early years of the disease, from discrimination to lack of access to care.
Born and raised in the southland, I often respond to news like this with a Gina Forsyth song:
Oh, I love it and I hate it
Every now and then berate it
Oh, the sweet and sunny south where I was born
And yet I know the South is simply the identified patient in the United States – where every place is suffering from an illness greater than HIV/AIDS, an illness endemic to the structure of this nation from its creation. The dis-ease of racism.
Panelist Deon Haywood, Executive Director of Women With A Vision,went directly to the soul of the matter when asked what can be done to address HIV/AIDS in the South. Address racism. Address poverty. Address homelessness. Address food access and healthcare access and daycare options. Address the internalized racial inferiority and internalized racial superiority that destroys lives.
Beloveds, in this interdependent web of all existence, nothing exists outside of relationship.
Let us shine the light of our faith on these connections. Let us address the root illnesses of our nation – structural racism, sexism, heterosexism – every –ism that privileges anyone and demeans another for the superiority of a few. If we spend our lives addressing only the symptoms, the next generation will suffer even more from this dis-ease.
Let the SILENCE be broken by a multitude of voices rising up with truths, with stories that remind us we are all in this together – and together, we can heal. Only together can we heal.
