She says her family
shuns her. She says

it has something to do
with God. She says

the cancer has gone
way too far. She says

when her brother died
the family pastor said

he went straight to hell
and “Let that be a lesson.”

She says, “Will you do
my funeral?” A light rain

falls on the lake,
circles in circles.

On “Faith”

Faith is a noun. It’s a person, place, or thing.

An online etymology site tells me it came into English in the mid-13th Century.

The word means, the site tells me, “duty of fulfilling one’s trust.”

The word comes to English from Old French: feid, foi, which meant “faith, belief, trust, confidence, pledge.”

The word came to Old French from Latin: fides, which meant “trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence, belief.”

The word ultimately derives from from the oldest known ancestor of English, Proto-Indo European: *bheidh- which also gave us the Greek word for faith, the one that appears in Christian scripture, pistis.

The dictionary notes that the word in its theological sense dates from the late 14th Century. Meaning this: What religions today mean by faith, as in “you gotta have faith,” did not exist as a concept when the Christian scriptures were written.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

See for yourself: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faith

There are many biblical passages calling people to offer hospitality to the stranger. Here is one from the 19th chapter of the book of Leviticus:

When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall do them no wrong, the strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as natives among you, and you love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
—Leviticus 19:33-34
We are called to remember that each one of us comes from people who were captured and stolen away and from people who migrated. We are a species who moves. All of our ancestors – though some very distant in the past – came out of Africa.
Each of us has cause to thank our ancestors for their survival skills, for their perseverance in living. Recently my congregation showed the 2011 film, A Better Life, which shows the courage and love of a Mexican undocumented father and his teenaged son. It is both heartbreaking and inspiring, and it is a contemporary version of a very old story. Immigrants come seeking a better life, especially for their children. And they become strangers in a strange land, often yearning for home as they struggle to make this new place their home. They work hard providing services to their new homes. They work hard to survive.
Each of us in our own lives has had times when we felt marginalized, unheard, invisible. Each of us has experienced times of yearning for something lost or left behind. We are reminded to remember, “for you were strangers n Egypt.” We were strangers and we can provide hospitality and sanctuary. Eboo Patel is a contemporary American religious leader, the founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Youth Core. He wrote:

“I am an American Muslim. I believe in pluralism. In the Holy Quran, God tells us, ”I created you into diverse nations and tribes that you may come to know one another.” I believe America is humanity’s best opportunity to make God’s wish that we come to know one another a reality.”
A couple of weeks ago, bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon; perhaps Mr. Patel, like me and many others, prayed that the bombers would be white. Let the bomber not be one the larger culture labels “other.” I guess my prayer wasn’t specific enough! The young brothers were white, but also Muslim and immigrants.

There are some folks that go right to hatred and not even hatred for the persons, but widely generalized hatred – for all immigrants, all Muslims. It was two brothers, not all immigrants, not all Muslims. We don’t need to go to hatred. We need to remember that we were strangers in Egypt. We can provide hospitality and sanctuary. We can grow in compassion and our ability to listen to and understand each other. One way to know each other more deeply is to hear our stories, including the stories of our ancestors. Today, I invite you to reflect on the courage and perseverance of your ancestors and to share those moving stories with others. If you don’t know names of ancestors, then reflect on the qualities of their characters that allowed them to survive.
Jim McGovern wrote on philly.com about this last Sunday’s Philadelphia Interfaith Peace Walk:
“The 10th annual Interfaith Walk for Peace and Reconciliation is scheduled for this Sunday. When I heard the news I wondered if we would still walk. Of course, we will. . . . Walking together will be Muslims and Jews, Christians and Sikhs, Buddhists and seculars . . . We will honor and celebrate our fellowship and the messages of peace and connectedness found in all these great religions, but even more so in the crevices of our hearts.”
For you were strangers in Egypt . As we remember that we were strangers in Egypt, may we also help others to remember. In the words of the great American poet Gwendolyn Brooks: “We are each other’s business; we are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

In The Prophetic Imperative: Social Gospel in Theory and Practice, Rev. Richard Gilbert lays out a Unitarian Universalist interpretation of worship. He wrote:

The church is a worshipping community, a religious community that deliberately and regularly gathers together to celebrate life in all its dimensions. Worship understood as the celebration of life is the most generally accepted definition in Unitarian Universalist circles today. Worship derives from the Anglo-Saxon weorthscipe, pointing to and celebrating that which is of worth. Religion is derived from the Latin religare and means to bind together. The form of this religious worship is called a liturgy from the Greek words laos (people) and ergos (work), literally, “the people’s work.” All this leads to an understanding of worship as a binding together or coming together of people to fashion ceremonies pointing to what they regard as of worth.

A primary point of coalescence in Unitarian Universalism is our emphasis on the value of inclusion. From the first principle to the last, we covenant to affirm the worth and interdependence of all existence. Institutionally as an Association of Congregations, we are working to name and undo systemic exclusions that we have been educated into not seeing. Those at the margins can see the growing edges of an organization most clearly. Our faith calls us to trust this naming and bring these insights into the center of our institutions, welcoming even challenging visions.

One named challenge is time of worship. This is not a criticism of Sunday worship, but rather, a critique noticing “who is not at the table” as well as, “who is there but not getting fed.” Sunday morning service is deeply embedded in the Protestant tradition from which Unitarian Universalism emerged. It matters that we examine this practice with anti-racist/anti-oppressive/multicultural lens, unpacking the assumptions and exclusions that come with simply following this tradition. Certainly, no single time will work for everyone. But having only one day and time for worship each week excludes many from being a part of an inclusive religious community with a life affirming faith.

Similarly, having only one way of worship, (the “sermon sandwich” Protestant-style service, which with a few modifications can be traced to the 17th century), can be seen as an exclusionary practice through AR/AO/MC lens. Not only does it privilege a particular canon, it is extraordinarily challenging for many youth and elders of multiple identities to engage meaningfully in the service. It is said that how a society treats the youngest and the eldest tells us about the state of its soul. As a faith, we are morally called to serve the youngest and the eldest with as much attention as we give to everyone in between. The integrity of our “collective soul” depends upon it.

Social change agents tell us that people fear not change but LOSS. What could be lost when all are included? Comfort. Security. A sense of control, maybe. What could be gained? Our very humanity and the embodiment of our faith.

Come beloveds, let us do the people’s work together…

As a good Pentecostal kid, I read the Bible. I read of a God who condemned the oppression of the poor. I read of a Messiah executed for threatening power structures. This is not what I heard from the pulpit. I could not reconcile this dissonance in my mind. I felt alone.

At college I found a small group of humanists who called themselves Unitarian Universalists. They were joyful people whose values of commitment and compassion I admired. I was not alone.

I became a poet. I began to think that all scriptures are part of a vast and beautiful human project to capture compassion and awe. I began to believe that scripture is creative writing. I began to believe that the writers of sacred texts were poets. And, like me, all were bound in understanding by barriers such as time, geography, and language.

I am a Unitarian Universalist because I believe religions are very human attempts to find meaning and purpose. The texts and practices that have accumulated over time are at once sad and glorious, brutal and loving.

We humans, all through time, have been whistling in a graveyard. And writing poetry.

This is what’s happening, now.

It is the last day of our week-and-a-half West Coast trip. We are in Portland, Oregon, the city where I was born and grew up, where I know a thousand places I would love to go–this and that bookstore, that cafe, and oh, the breakfast places I would love to savor, and the parks and walks and hikes. I’d like to get my hair cut (the last time I got it cut was in December) and take Robin to that all-children’s-book store on Alberta. Instead, we are staying close to the house today. We will be running some laundry while the few friends who are free on a weekday come by and say hi. It is so much easier this way–to not make plans or have big aspirations for the day.

This is what’s happening.

One of the highlights of this trip for me was on the very first day, just after our plane landed in San Francisco, after we waited for everyone else to get off first so that we could take our time looking around under every seat and in every overhead compartment for our whole assortment of bags and belongings. We walked up the ramp and past the boarding gate, and Robin started kicking-kicking-kicking and shrieking with delight. She looked around at the bright shops, kiosks, and quickly rushing stream of people moving in all directions in that busy airport terminal and laughed and giggled, smiled and cooed and laughed some more. And I realized–startled–I realized that she may well have thought that we had permanently moved in to that Boeing 737 with 160 other people and less than 2 vertical square feet per person.

This is what’s happening.

As a Unitarian Universalist minister, an occasional meditator, and a regularly-irregular practitioner of yoga, I have a great appreciation for all the variations of “be here now” that circulate around and through our religious and spiritual traditions and practices. But I also have always loved to plan, to anticipate the next thing, to schedule and “calendar” and try my best to organize the future. A baby is a sure-fire way to cure a person of the enjoyment of planning. It is the planned things that inevitably stress me out, now. That planned gathering will fall right during her new nap time, or come with expectations of getting Her Wiggliness into some outfit that is not her usual comfy footed sleeper. Planned things will often involve driving, or bus schedules, neither of which dovetail with easy nursing. Planned things often involve other people, and most other people are so much busier than we are, these days. I have cut back, and cut back, and cut back, until, most days now, I spend most of the day barely aware of what time it is. I keep a running list going in my head of what Robin might need; that is my ongoing daily meditation now: diaper, food, nap, play, and repeat.

This is what’s happening.

Robin has just this afternoon discovered the clanging joy of banging on overturned pots with wooden spoons, wooden spoons which also make fine teethers. We leave tomorrow morning, and there are so many people and places I would have liked to have seen. But it is a privilege and a practice to set aside for now all the other things we might like to do, and just enjoy this sweet day together, with both Mamas around continuously this whole delightful week, playing in the sunlight and savoring the luscious green that is spring in Portland. An acquaintance told me she looks back on her children’s first years and thinks of them as the “I didn’t” years, a reference to all the things that go undone–dishes, projects, housecleaning, travel. I like that phrase, the “I didn’t” years; it resonates. And at the same time, I want to look back on these years and think of them as the “I did” years. We did, we are. We are choosing to focus on being with our Little Bean. We are lucky and privileged to be able to make this choice, and it is financially stressful some days, energetically challenging other days. For now, for us, this is what’s happening, right here, on the floor: overturned pots, wooden spoons, clanging and laughing and kicking, going nowhere today except around the block to look at the newly bursting flowers, letting our own focused lives be full enough, letting this be bountiful, this ordinaryness be beautiful. This is what’s happening. May it be so.