From Your Minister
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One of my favorite books as a kid was The Boxcar Children, in which four siblings, whose parents were simply and completely absent, took care of themselves and each other. Read more →
REsources for Living
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I admit it. I am a total flirt when it comes to babies and toddlers. I love coaxing a smile from the baby in front of me in a grocery line. Read more →
The CLF Invites GA Delegates
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Would you like to represent the CLF at General Assembly (GA)? The CLF is entitled to 22 delegates at the UUA’s General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, June 22-26, 2016. Read more →
Did You Know?
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…that you can find resources for UU families on the CLF Family Quest page. Read more →
Hospitality
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Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Read more →
Hospitality
February 2016
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. —Hebrews 13:2
Articles
The Fragile Art of Hospitality
Mechthild of Magdeburg, a thirteenth-century mystic, once asked, “How shall we live?” Her answer provides a mantra of hospitality: “Be welcoming to all.” Read more »
Called to Hospitality
What does it mean to a Unitarian Universalist to be called to hospitality? And what or who is calling us? Read more »
Welcoming What We Do Not Want
It was a sunny spring day, and I was getting into my car in a sprawling parking lot when the phone rang. Read more »
Radical Hospitality
It is hard to invite in all that comes, especially when it’s sickness, disability, or death. Read more »
From Your Minister
One of my favorite books as a kid was The Boxcar Children, in which four siblings, whose parents were simply and completely absent, took care of themselves and each other. Read more »
REsources for Living
I admit it. I am a total flirt when it comes to babies and toddlers. I love coaxing a smile from the baby in front of me in a grocery line. Read more »
The CLF Invites GA Delegates
Would you like to represent the CLF at General Assembly (GA)? The CLF is entitled to 22 delegates at the UUA’s General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, June 22-26, 2016. Read more »
Did You Know?
Did you know that you can find resources for UU families on the CLF Family Quest page. Read more »
Hospitality
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Read more »
Hospitality
“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” —Hebrews 13:2 Read more »
The Neighbors are Zombies Living in Maslow’s Basement!
Imagine the laid-back life of a zombie.
First of all, you’re dead. So. No more taxes! That’s for sure. And monthly bills will bother you no more.
Besides no more worries about death and taxes, look at how focused you are: your meaning and purpose have boiled down to searching for brains to eat. Admirable focus.
And zombies have lot’s of friends.
Being un-dead has its moments. You’re well beyond all the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Your only worry is getting shot in the head.
Director George A Romero, who directed “Night of the Living Dead,” is credited with having created the contemporary zombie. He has this to say: “I just took some of the mysterioso stuff of voodoo out of it, and made them the neighbors. Neighbors are frightening enough when they’re alive.”
I have a suspicion this goes a long way toward explaining the huge popularity of zombies. Perhaps they represent all the danger we see in others and in ourselves.
Chip and Dan Heath, marketing gurus, have come up with the term “Maslow’s Basement.” Their argument is that most marketing depends upon the bottom end of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarch of needs” pyramid. In that model, there are three principles that motivate people to buy a product: fear, greed, or lust. These are base desires, Maslow’s Basement.
I suppose the high end of Maslow’s hierarchy, such things as morality, creativity, and spontaneity, as Maslow’s attic. (Zombies definitely live in the basement.)
Research shows that people report that other people are motivated by fear, greed and lust. But people self-report that their actions are motivated by empathy and compassion. In other words, we fear their neighbors, just as director George A. Romero claims.
The counter-intuitive fact may be that the self-reporting is correct. Meaning that all of us—including our neighbors—are more influenced by compassion and empathy than by Maslow’s Basement motivators of fear, greed, or lust.
We may be selling our species short! Perhaps our default mode is NOT to dwell in Maslow’s Basement. Perhaps our neighbors are not potential zombies.
Perhaps we all, as Oscar Wilde said, despite having our feet in the gutter, are looking at the stars.
The zombie apocalypse will not be televised. Because it’s not coming. Because most of us are inclined to treat our neighbors . . . not as zombies but as ourselves.
Please
Tonight we stood together around candles that marked the spot where his body was found this morning. Tonight we poured out our stories and our songs, our prayers and our tears. Tonight we reminded each other that we are loved and loving, that our lives have value and are valued by each other. Tonight we said good-bye to a good friend and a committed organizer.
So tomorrow, when you read in the paper or hear in the news that another black teenage boy was found shot to death in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, stop. Please stop and send love to his family, to his friends, to the community that cared for him, cares for him still.
Please stop and let your heart be broken, broken open at least a little bit, with compassion for a child who was loved, will always be loved, and for those who love him. Mark the passing of a dear soul light who shined brightly in this world and made it a better place.
If you pray, pray for us, pray with us.
Grieve with us. Mourn with us.
And then – organize.
Organize with us to heal this world, to change it into a place where 15 year olds are not killed by guns — are not killed at all. Make George proud.
Companions on the journey
“May beauty and passion and compassion be our companions. May we be fully alive. Amen.” ~Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie (Healing Places, 9/14/2014)
Keep the faith, beloveds.
Keep showing up.
Keep paying attention.
Keep speaking your truth.
Because we have changed,
the world is changed.
And you are not alone…
#blacklivesmatter
#FergusonOctober
#MoralMonday
#Not1More
#RaiseTheWage
#ClimateJustice
#bethechange
A Touch of Nature Makes the Whole World Kin: So What’s Our Excuse? (A Humanist “Theology” of Radical Welcome)
Mystical and Scientific
The author of the Gospel of Matthew reports Jesus saying, “If you welcome your sisters and brothers only, what are you doing more than others? (5:47)
Monk and mystic Thomas Merton wrote about one of his mystical experiences:
“Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, I suddenly realized that I loved all the people and that none of them were, or, could be totally alien to me.” He felt, “. . . as if waking from a dream—the dream of separateness.” He goes on to say, “Thank God! Thank God! I am only another member of the human race, like all the rest of them.”
The insistence of Jesus that more than just our friends deserve welcome and Merton’s mystical insight that “none of them were, or, could be totally alien to me,” and his awakening from “the dream of separateness,” describe the truth of the human condition.
Fact is, human procreation is exponential—two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents . . . Bill Bryson did the math in his book A Short History of Nearly Everything. Twenty generations ago the number of direct forebears for each of us is 1,048,576. Twenty-five generations ago the number jumps to 33,554,432 .Thirty generations ago the number jumps to over a billion.
It is demonstrably true: no person is alien to any other, at least on a physical level.
The Cut Worm Cries Out
As part of his enlightenment, the Buddha felt the pain of the earthworms cut by plows. As in Merton’s case, the Buddha’s is based in reality—human beings and earthworms share 98% of our DNA.
Animals, plants. The earth itself. As a humanist, I’m not allowed the fiction that human beings are the crown of creation. Human beings are part of a complex web, a web we still barely understand. We ignore the other parts at our peril. We consider ourselves better-than others—be they humans, animals, plants, or the planet itself—only out of ignorance of the facts that science teaches us.
Human beings share 99.9% of our DNA with each other. All the diversity we perceive—gender; race; ability; hair color . . . what-have-you . . . it all resides in that point-one percent of our DNA.
How can a humanist not welcome everyone?
And religion, that most divisive of issues—since we view scriptures and religions as products of the teeming human brain, it’s difficult to say one is better than another. All of them paint reality, albeit with a limited palette. Religions are fun . . . as long as nobody looses an eye. Or a tooth. As long as they do not interfere with human flourishing.
And politics. Since humanists know that human beings have made it up, and that there is no “invisible hand” guiding capitalism or any other economic system, we see economic disparity for what it is—not a reward or punishment from a deity or from hard work but as the effect of many causes, mostly of human design. Politics and economics are fun. As long as nobody’s eye gets put out. As long as politics and economics do not interfere with human flourishing.
Brothers, Sisters, and Others
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Worm.JPG
Since humanists interrogate beliefs intensely—and are open to changing our beliefs when reason and evidence point in a new direction—we focus not on common beliefs but on common values.
Our highest value is human flourishing. Flourishing for each and every human being, because each has inherent worth and dignity, no matter about religion or national origin or social or economic location or what-have-you.
Humanists are human, and therefore full of prejudices, but we can’t hide behind those prejudices. If we do not welcome our sisters and brothers—and those questioning the gender binary—what are we doing more than others?”
Since religions and science are products of the human mind, one story, one truth, does not suffice—be it a scripture or science itself.
Since humanism considers religious thought as a product of the teeming human mind and human flourishing as a primary goal of human activity, our movement is uniquely able to pitch that “big tent” that Unitarian Universalists hope for.
