The Hunt for Jack Rabbit

This is a story of great excitement, with joy and power thrown in for good measure. But it is also a story of death and fear. So that, almost inevitably, you must know that this is a story of the Divine. My world feels full of such sacredness, and I have had no experience more full of the divine presence than that of which this story speaks.

When I stood by the bed where my father lay, his body ravaged by the cancer that killed him many years ago, we spoke of the giant tree outside his window and of the divine power it seemed to embody looking over him, embracing him in his final hours. This is our experience of the woods.

The Hunt (for jack rabbits)

When I was twelve, my father took me hunting. Two of his buddies from work came with us. And, of course, there were the dogs — three dogs, three men, three shotguns, and me (out from behind my books).

I was familiar with the innards of the 30/06. My fathered cared for his religiously and I had often seen it on the kitchen table spread out in pieces, moist with oil. I knew also how, no matter how gently you might squeeze its trigger, it would still try to knock you to the ground with one giant kick in the shoulder. But my father’s men were big men and their guns obeyed them.

Their dogs were more precious than new born children. Harley Pentford Wellington III, commonly know as ‘Flash’, was a Beagle, and his line was the best of hunters. He was owned by my father, but he lived with me.

Always after supper we lay sprawled out on the diningroom floor in the embrace of the cool hard oak. Flash, the trained hunter, dreaming of the hunt, back there, lying between my legs. But he was not the best hunting dog we ever had. That honor belonged to Peanuts, who was dead — hit by a car, when I was six. Flash knew he was The Best in my heart, though I did love Peanuts, a lot. And I know my father missed him.

It was August and I was covered in bug spray and sweat and the dogs were jumping at their leashes. The men were full of stories, shotguns cradled in the crooks of their arms, cigarettes dangling from their lips. There were two fried egg sandwiches in my pockets — by six in the morning you are already hungry in the woods.

The trees, if they may be called that, were scrub oak; the brush was nearly as high. The burnt edges of scattered limbs testified to the fire that had downed them in days gone by. We grew silent amongst them; dog noses searched the ground. An unheard order required their release, and they charged off before us, racing down trails to destinies we could not follow. Old holes sprang up to view around us where fox or gopher once had lived. The sandy earth crunched beneath us. Leaves rattled in the breeze, when it came, bringing life from distant elsewheres and, then, moving on.

When the dogs began their frantic ritual of yips and darting here and there, they spoke a language no one could mistake. And hunter eyes scanned the brush for other signs of the life we knew, now, must linger here. The men were as keenly into the habits of our prey as were the dogs, and they worked as a single team in harness.

The oldest among the dogs took charge — shaking off the lesser scents, turning away from false trails now grown cold. This was no junior high lark. Matters of life and death were in our hands and in our senses.

And, then, suddenly, they were off! Tiny yips became great howls of excitement. Dogs tore madly through the underbrush, falling over their short legs, leaping more than running, crashing down long hillsides on their bellies. And we, tall monsters, thundered after them, though every step found us falling farther and farther behind until their cries were but a distant map of progress in the chase.

After some time the trail they ran moved off to our left. “They’ve turned him,” the men agreed. We were moving in a tight little circle that emulating the larger one that rabbits run in, when they fear for their lives. Dog voices had grown faint, but, now, suddenly, they grew louder. “They’re heading back!”

The men broke for a clearing directly in the path the fleeing rabbit must surely run. This time there was no time. No Time. There would be no chance for little rabbit tricks, no doubling back, no running in purposeless circles, no distracting our trained hunters from their deadly errand.

We stood silent at the clearing’s edge. The dogs’ cries were frantic, and coming closer. “Arw, arw,... arw, awr!” They were running straight toward us! The gun leapt into my father’s hands. Someone shouted. “Blam!”

I don’t know who fired. Men were running. The jack was down. Dogs were everywhere. A hunting knife flashed in the light. A head flew into a pile of leaping dogs. They were ferocious; their ecstasy almost too great to bear.

Eventually, the day drew gray, the first rain drops rustled the leaves, and we men headed for the cars. But the dogs were still off — too far away. Owners whistled and shouted out names. But only two came back. Our Flash was still on the trail.

The other men drove off after a long embarrassed wait. Rain rattled hard on our car’s hood, but we sat in silence peering out past the rivers of water now running down our windshield. My father got out every once in awhile and whistled and shouted, but Flash never came back. “Damn. He‘s got a deer.”

And in the end we had to go home without him. “We’ll come back in the morning.” And in the morning light Flash was there, bedraggled and exhausted, lying by the roadside where we had parked. My father wrapped him roughly in a blanket and he slept in my lap all the long journey home. “You were a naughty boy,” I whispered, but he paid no mind. Instinct guided him as it guided me, and I huddled over his frail figure with my back as a shield against the fire in my father’s eyes.

Joy Rewards the Great Warrior at Grant Park Nov. 4, 2008

Playing for Change

Green Man Walking

Come, sit here awhile
In the soft cushion by my heart.
Here find home, not rooms for fear.
Here end the flight
That drags your heart from death to death.
Here, halt in moonlight's glow
Where even heartless android workmen feel again love flow
Through ancient corridors to places long forgotten —
This is the destiny for which you have fought and sought.

I, this motherland feeding your dream;
I, this dying god hauling your relentless burden upstream,
By your scars I know you! Through your failures I claim
Your heart.... I have waited so long. Come. Do not fail me.

----


In the garden of my soul where green pastures spread fragrant delights
And lazy horses nibble in the shade of old apple trees
A thin stream glistens in afternoon's slanted rays,
A warm summer sun shimmers in its own milky blue reflections.

In cool shadows down by water's edge,
Where even the smallest pebbles are cleaned and polished,
Glacier rubbed boulders form flat sitting spots for two gangly boys
Groping with sticks in cold depths beyond their minds to grasp.

While young horses munch down rotting apple droppings
To spice their green fodder with stolen sweets,
Flat saucer stones walk the water’s surface
In quick steps propelled by expert snaps.

Their watery graves, unmarked,
Are forgotten
Before their souls may gurgle free
Or their final 'plops' be heard.

On a far sunny knoll two black hounds lounge unnoticed,
Dreaming minds lost in former hunting glories,
Rerunning chases of great merit
Without present effort or apparent future purpose.

Here fearful minds behold Lord Chaos reigning.
No intentions guide toward long-term goals.
No affirmations of gainful purpose
Beguile serious strivers into mighty efforts.

For in this soul garden romantic histories
Still command respect and gallant heroes wrestle
Their foes to submission without loosing hearts to anger
Or minds to fears they cannot master by a simple cry to god.

Lionhearts beat strong in bony breasts;
Tired hooves stumble to late life victories;
Keen senses still find home through miles of haze;
And our Good King honors loyal knights as friends.

---

A rainbow melted from the sky one day and formed a pond where two small explorers now poke their heads beneath the water’s surface along the shallow shore, and scout out small curious stones while nosy passing bluegills nibble at their toes.

In deeper waters where boys do not go except by accident or by dare, the darkness sits - it's hungry belly primed for feasting; it's shadowed claws flexed and open wide in waiting. Here divers close their eyes lest fright devour their fight to surface.

"Such a pond is no plaything for disrespectful travelers", their mother's soft voice warns them, as she rides out from stables atop flashing hooves with snorts like fire crashing through sharp underbrush to fly across meadows in a sea of hair.

"Take care", she whispers, her lips burrowed in yellow cornsilk hair. "In such depths lie great treasures, hid for good reason from prying eyes that have no care for living."

---

A row boat is an unwieldy thing especially when powered
By independent oarsmen. They struggled with the logistics of backward travel.
They practiced poling off undetected rocks masked by reflection's glare.
A map of underwater dangers unfolded slowly in their minds.

From the haven of their wide-bottomed craft they surveyed their dominion
And their hair grew whiter still as their skin grew dark as night.
And in that darkest hour when the sun's warmth has faded farthest from our earth
They woke together as though hearing the same voice calling.

By their rainbow pond they stood transfixed, bare toes gripping icy sand,
And they climbed into their dingy quiet as the air in breathing.
Their oars they moved in union; their strokes were strong; their aim was sure;
And they plunged beneath the surface as a single splash, now swallowed, now unnoticed.

They were absent still from their beds when she called to wake them
For their chores. Blankets and clothes were scattered about on bare wooden floor.
From the high tower window she could see the dingy floating empty
In the center of the pond and a rainbow was sucking at the water, hard.

She spread her arms to greet it and urge it to its lonely task -
To turn these waters back to heaven; to lift their burden from the earth.
But her boys sat huddled, shaking on the farthest shore.
Four black hounds paced around them. All arms and legs gripped others.

When she stood beside them, they huddled lower. With care she stooped
And encircled them with a deep velvet cloak - a cloak she had never worn herself
But saved secure in a chest long locked in a chamber beneath the tower.
For Lionhearts beat still in bony breasts and friendship is treasure beyond any price.

---

The Green Man poked in the rubble of the rainbow pond departed.
His staff was a sapling trunk - no mere branch held he in weathered hand.
Great boulders toppled to their sides; wet underbellies he lay exposed,
And he glowered down through green flashing eyes beneath great rusty eyebrows.

He cried out, "Ho!", at each new discovery. Boys crouched and watched wide eyed.
They were not afraid. At least so they said as they boldly ventured
In the giant's parting wake. He strode through the pond with majestic step
And they marched in his footsteps with their own staffs tapping.

They had seen him first at the twilight hour, surveying the muck and ruin
Of the summer pond that had been their joy and was still their hunting ground.
They peered hard into places he uncovered. They touched and smelled
The muddy bowels of the ancient creature we now call Earth.

He seemed unaware of their prying presence. Though he sometimes smiled
To an inner joke when they could not see his visage.
A great round hat shaded his ruddy features and wild red hair
Poked out beneath it like raspberry bushes from the roadside.

The excitement of their discoveries emboldened the boys each day.
They rose with the sun and roamed into the night obsessed with their new science.
She stood in the saddle and watched from the hill and waited in stony silence.
For she knew this man and she knew his plan and she sent her dogs to track him.

They crept in a crouch that only old dogs know,
And they hunted him down to his lair in a cave in the rock -
Moss covered and water dripping - back deep in the dark,
Where she now stood and glowered; hands thrust on her hips; breasts heaving.

"These boys," she hissed, "are not treasures to keep.
They live in the sunlight. They dance in the meadow.
Free they are. Free they shall remain so long as Lionhearts are still beating."
And she drew her sword as the lightning flashes.

His foot stomped ground. Rocks trembled and fell.
"Mine!", he roared, like dark wind howling, and his staff he raised
As though to strike her numb. But she stood still on silent ground.
Green eyes stared into his green orbs, and he knew her then for what she was.

His staff he lay on the ground between them and he sank to a rock
To wait. Her breathing slowed and she sheathed her sword.
Her hounds gathered behind her feet. Their teeth were bared,
But they held their ground and slowly sank to the rock to wait.

"I mean no harm." He spoke with a soft, rough sound,
Like a man who has rarely spoken and must search in his throat
For muscles forgotten to clear out a path for his words to follow.
"I love them. My sons. True sons. Not right to stop me."

His voice seared great streaks in her breast and belly
And she thought such wounds must pour out her life on this man.
Her hounds whimpered - her distress was theirs,
And they rose, all crouched to spring to their deaths if need be.

But the man made no move. Kept his hands on his knees
And leaned forward as though the better to see her. He wanted to rise
And his heart felt her pain, but he dared not reach out to touch her.
"Ah," he signed. "I have no match for such anger."

The tears in her eyes shamed her hot warrior heart
And she turned from his gaze to shield them.
He rose, now, without word and strode through the dogs
Who stepped aside as though for their master.

They walked to the pond. He stood apart in the shadows.
Yes, two boys still searched there for meaning. "My boys," he murmured,
And he turned to her eyes: "Treasures they are, but not treasures to keep."
His words burned her soul but she nodded.

---

A hole in the universe

Wood engraving from 'L'atmosphere: meteorologie populaire', 1888, by French astronomer, Camille Flammarion.

Juliana Hatfield and Peter Adams on The Tonight Show (8/25)

The shootings in Knoxville

The shooting death of two members during a worship service at the Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, Tennessee has resulted in an outpouring of prayers and messages of support from around the country. Waltham Unitarian Universalists, like myself, grieve for our brothers and sisters in Knoxville.

As spiritual seekers who have taken a hard look at human social life, we can begin to understand the depth of feeling that can drive an abusive man with a history of contempt for gays and liberals, as this shooter appears to have been.

But it is still shocking to see such hatred acted out and to recognize ourselves as its victims. Our Waltham church has been plagued by only minor vandalism due to our support of gay and lesbian marriage rights. And, thankfully, here in our city we are not alone in that social stand as Unitarian Universalist churches in other parts of the country often are. It is good to feel surrounded by friends in such emotion filled circumstance.

Most news reports focus on the shotgun-wielding intruder, but I find the churchmen who confronted him more worthy of contemplation — John Bohstedt, Terry Uselton, Jamie Parkey, and, especially, Greg McKendry (deceased) who was the quickest to action.

It is certainly true, as the Knoxville News Sentinel observed, “that no place is immune to such violence”, but the heroes of compassion and bravery, like these who rise to the community's need, are the ones who will see us through to a more just and caring day.

I am told that at the public vigil held on Tuesday in support of our Knoxville parishioners the final song was so emotion packed that the crowd erupted in shouts and cheers for the young singers, applause and tears of gratitude for the community’s concern, as well as grief for the victims of such an outrage. Amen to that.

"The Visitor"

I read one blogger who (with outrage eyes) saw Tom McCarthy’s film, The Visitor, as liberal propaganda about post-9/11 US mistreatment of Muslims. It would help this interpretation of the film if the words ’Muslim’ or ‘Islam’ were anywhere part of the soundtrack or if all Syrians or Senegalese could be reliably depicted as at least non-Christian.

There can be no doubt that the film’s immigrants are illegal and callously treated for no particular reason, but some presumably honest individual finding such a strong religious twist to the film ought to make us wonder about what we actually experience when we go to the movies or even when we walk outside afterwards. How much of our experience is actually happening? Is so much of what we experience being shaped by our expectations that we can never know what is real?

When I watched The Visitor at my local Landmark Theatre, I saw a story about Walter, a college professor who has lost his way, but now begins to discover in drumming new possibility for meaning in his life. This drumming is introduced to him through Tarek, the illegal Syrian immigrant he finds living in his long-abandoned NYC apartment.

Maybe we should compromise between these extreme interpretations and say that “the film’s title refers to [Walter] — a transient presence in his own life —as much as it does to Tarek, who seems at home wherever he is.” *

Walter is no where at home when the story begins. He tries to connect with the life he shared with his dead wife through learning to play the piano, as she did. But that is no more successful than finding meaning in his teaching or in writing another book. By ‘accident’ he is forced to return to the apartment he shared with her many years ago and there he finds through his visitor, Tarek, the musical connection to the feeling life that he seeks.


The Visitor storyline is far simpler than its emotional impact. Political activists will be driven toward righting our panicked Ship of State. Introspectives may be drawn to Walter’s life predicament and the powerful personal connection he finds through the music that embraces his foreign soul.

Go see this movie. I’m afraid that its impact may be lessened by seeing it alone on your little TV screen. For me the film is still about being at home — at home in your own skin; at home in the society where you live; an awkward, sometimes angry visitor.

****
We didn't talk about Tarek's mother, but we should have — a real traditionalist we think she is. The modernist, Tarek, strives to keep her in the dark about his Senegalese girlfriend. [One blogger actually refers to Tarek's girlfriend as "his wife", but nothing could be farther from what we see happening on the screen.] Fortunately, this mother is one traditionalist for whom love trumps all.

Not surprisingly we can feel Walter falling in love with this woman's solid ways. We, too, admire her as she rises above stereotype and accepts Tarek's loving embrace of "ethnic diversity".

Her name in Mouna [The Mouna Diamond weighs 112.53 carats and is of even greater color and weight than the Tiffany Diamond.] and at first it seems like this will be Red State Mouna vs. Blue State Walter. But in the end they are unified in their inability to deal with the monstrosity that our government has become.

The Visitor may be the story of Walter Vale's quest for a truly living identity, but his story takes place in the wasteland that our weak-kneed politicians seem hell-bent on creating.

* A. O. SCOTT in The New York Times film review, April 11, 2008.

Yes, We Can.

Three words that will ring from coast to coast.

Three words that will place a giant period at the end
of eight years of small minded decision-making,
corrupt war-making,
& plain old incompetence.

At the Largo with Justin Currie (6/11)

The new Largo is quite up-scale, but, as you fans know, Justin and Peter are very well dressed, so he fit in as well as any f---ing Scotsman could expect to. It’s a big room (280 seats) and the acoustics are great, so I was very pleased — you can both hear every word and not be jammed into your neighbor’s elbow.


Flanagan seems to have spent willingly on the new place and was eager to show everyone around. Couldn’t have been more different from The Viper Room, which is way too small and way too loud as far as I am concerned. Not a place Justin would want to play in this new solo career, though perfect for the old days, I guess.

Certainly The Viper was the right place for a rock star like Rob Dickinson [The Man from Catherine Wheel] — I don't mean to put the place down. We had a great time there squeezing into the telephone booth they call a green room and the band was great [not just because Peter was in it]. There was Peter's old friend from the Boston days, Michael Eisenstein [USA Mike of Letters to Cleo fame], on guitar — that was a very pleasant surprise. Then, there was Rob's friend, Tim Friese-Greene, on keyboards — even more of an eyebrow raiser; an awesome shocker even, since Peter and I grew-up together musically listening to Talk Talk and similar British pop bands from back in The Day.

But I digress more than usual—
For Justin's Largo show I brought along an extra handkerchief just in case it got to be too much — his songs are so heart wrenching I can barely stand to listen sometimes. Happy to say I managed to survive even though they ended the show with two incredible Del Amitri B-side classics: ‘Driving with The Brakes On’ and ‘Sleep Instead of Teardrops’.

Imagine this! After an hour and a half of the slick-tongued Scotsman plucking your heart strings, you get [back to back] a guy being driven into the long night by the girl he loves toward some place so desolate that no one where they come from would ever go there, followed immediately by this shot to the now unguarded solar plexus—

Cry, cry out your eyes forever
It won’t go away
I, I’m just a dumb observer
It’s so stupid what I say

Like everyone else will do I’m gonna lie to you
Tell you that life is cruel but someday you’re gonna wake up
With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes

And so, nobody lives forever
The crassest of clichés
Like time, time is the greatest healer
But it’s a murderer today

Like everyone else will do I’m gonna lie to you
Tell you that life is cruel but someday you’re gonna wake up
With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes

You know my holding you won't change anything
I can’t stop this whole charade continuing
As each consoling kiss remains on your face like a stain

So cry, cry out those tears
And let them succumb to gravity
And try, try as I might
I’ll never fill that vacancy

Like everyone else will do I’m gonna lie to you
Tell you that life is cruel but someday you’re gonna wake up
With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes

Someday you’re gonna wake up
With sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes

By now Justin is safely at home in Glasgow. Peter is probably down on Sunset enjoying The Submarines' show at The Echo. And I am left here to reassure you that someday you're gonna wake up with sleep instead of teardrops in your eyes.

Justin Currie & Peter Adams at Joe's Pub, NYC

Justin Currie PLUS Rob Dickinson — Wow!

I descend upon Los Angeles this Saturday just in time to hear [get this] Rob Dickinson [June 10 at The Viper Room] followed by Justin Currie [June 11 at Largo]! I expect Peter to be singing with both guys, but I'm really there for the duo with Justin. [If you're in LA you can always join us, you know.]

On top of this huge musical treat Peter says I'll probably have to take in a rehearsal earlier in the week because a couple of friends [Butch Norton & David Sutton] will be joining Justin and him for part of the show at Largo. Tsk. Tsk. Sure hope I can endure it.

Part of the fun will be checking out the clubs.

As we pass under the purple awning at The Viper will the ghost of River Phoenix rise from the sidewalk where he died [Halloween,1993]? How about the steam of Mick Jagger and Uma Thurman locked in embrace or the smoke from Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche lighting up? Oh, the nostalgia.... Maybe Bugsy Siegel will still be waving his rod around in the cloud of imagination gone wild. (Note to self: bring ear plugs...leave fantasy visions at home.)

Looking for Larry David at Club Largo will surely "Curb [my] Enthusiasm" — yeh, the club is billed as a comedy as well as music stop. But the music is really serious here (the words matter). Michael Penn, Rufus Wainwright, Jon Brion — now that's a musical tradition to live up to, isn't it? It's going to be tough leaving this place.

Race Based Politics in America

A few days ago I heard an extensive up-to-date report on conditions in Kenya. Remember the rampages of destruction after the recent elections that threw-out the current government which refused to disclose the vote and so its own defeat?

Charlie Clements* spoke to us of the terror engendered by the attacks of one tribal group upon another in the weeks that followed. Kenyans who had been living together in peace for all the years of their independence, intermarrying, doing business with one another were suddenly forcibly splitting families apart, destroying one another’s homes and businesses. Hidden tribal grievances suddenly broke into the open and the true nature of peaceful, reasonable Kenya , the democratic beacon of African hope, was called into question.

Or was it? Last night a young man connected to the Kenyan girls schools that my church supports reported to us that all is well back home. The girls are in no danger. Peace prevails. All is normal. ...Oh, yes, food is now very expensive. And, yes, the high school senior we were going to send to university is no longer planning to go to a Kenyan school. She will [suddenly] be going to Uganda ... ‘because the schools are better there.’

The discussion of Race in America led by ministers of the United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalists this Sunday morning suddenly seems, to my mind, illumined by the Kenyan experience.

Undiscussed, unaddressed racial issues suddenly erupted in our homeland, too, thanks to 24 hour TV news shows’ blatant abuse of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Right Wing attempt to smear Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency.

Leave aside for the moment the dirty Rovean politics and the unprincipled, incompetent so-called news people blathering on our TV screens. Consider, instead, how race divides us. Still divides us — despite all the earnest effort of the last 40 years.

Like our young Kenyan friend, we long to believe in Peaceful America, the America we love, where ethnic differences do not divide — “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.” [No, no, ‘Illegal Immigration’ is not about race.] And in our longing for the America of our dreams we conspire with ourselves to not notice the police profiling and racial fear that fills our mammoth prison system with young black men. [Just to name aloud one small affront to decency.] And, now, along comes disgraceful politics in our homeland, too, and what just cannot be is exposed for all to see.

See all those happy white and black faces cheering the hopeful change Obama embodies! That is our America! That is who we truly are. The hundreds of hours spent by political operatives pouring through Jeremiah Wright’s 30-plus year sermonic history just cannot represent who we are as a nation. It’s just too evil... too anti-American in values. It just cannot represent the America, blessed by G_d, and beloved in song at baseball parks all across the nation. Can it?

*Dr. Charlie Clements, head of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, speaking at Andover Newton Theological School, upon his return from a fact-finding mission to Kenya, where he met with local, non-governmental groups in Nairobi and elsewhere.

If I Ever Loved You — Justin Currie

As you can see, Peter and Justin had a great time on their tour across the country and northern Europe, but now its just about over — for awhile anyway. Hopefully they'll play around LA while they rest up. Peter has a film score to get back to, but I'm sure that won't keep him in the house if Justin wants to play. Will he be just 'too busy' when it comes time to jet off to record at London's Abbey Road Studios? [What do you think?]

I hear the title track on Justin's new release, "What is love for?", playing on my supermarket's speakers. It feels really weird trying to take in such heart felt thoughts while shopping for peanut butter and crackers.

My own fave is "If I ever loved you". I guess I could image writing something like this in response to my own sometimes strange apprehensions of life:

I try to figure what has gone
I seem to look the same
Maybe there's a tightness around my eyes

Sometimes the evening comes
I think I miss someone
And then I realise

That, if I ever loved you, shouldn't I be crying?
Shouldn't I be cracking up
And drinking all the time?
Yeah, if I ever loved you, how come I feel alright?
How come the nights are so easy
And the mornings look so bright?

When I hear Justin sing this, I don't hear him questioning his love for 'her'. He believes that he did love her. His question is about his own reactions: "Why am I not crying? Why am I not cracking up? I'm taking this loss in stride — what is going on in me?" The singer is discovering something about himself that he didn't know before the break-up and is confused about who he really is as a result. He accuses himself of not being conventional in his emotions.

No wonder the song is interesting; not just your usual pop fare.

Can the conflict in Israel/Palestine really be transformed?

Today started at 9am with a discussion of the Israeli/Palestinian situation led by our friend, Rachel, who is just back from a two week visit to the area as part of an Interfaith Peace-Builders delegation.

This is not an easy way to begin the day. It’s not just that The Wall is such a reminder of Berlin and of our own Mexican paranoia. It’s that the situation looks so hopeless.

According to our news media and the implications of the Israeli wall, there appear to be two countries at war — Israel and Palestine. But, when you look at a map showing Palestinian and Israeli settlements, you are confronted by a mammoth intermixing of communities that defies boundaries — Israeli enclaves have been constructed seemingly everywhere. The Wall looks more like a resource protector than an actual political boundary — more like a dam preventing Columbia River water from ever being shared with Mexico.

I’m sure there are many explanations for how this disaster came to be. But, just this brief look, that Rachel provided us, into how people are actually living, was enough to break the heart. “What hope can there possibly be for transforming this conflict that is not just a bloodbath?”

I have been reading, rather naively, John Lederach’s The Little Book of Conflict Transformation, hoping to expand my own theories of conflict transformation based on experience dealing with what turnout to be comparatively petty church conflicts. Vicious as church politics can become we ain’t no Somalia or Ireland or South Africa. I am not a little humbled just meditating for a Sunday hour on the quest for peace in Israel/Palestine.

The fact that, even with his international experiences, Lederach can continue to hope and argue for the possibility of transformation — not merely resolution or management — of conflict like this lifts me a little out of the feeling of hopelessness I carried away from Rachel’s descriptions of life on the ground in Palestine.

Quote of the week

"JOYFUL VOICES OF INSPIRATION is an enthusiastic community of singers who [sic] celebrates and shares the joy, power and message of gospel music. The group rejoices in the diversity of its membership and encourages singers of all ages, cultures and religious affiliations. The singers and the director [James Early] strive to create a family-like environment in which they support and mentor each other.

"The choir seeks to promote appreciation of gospel music as both an inspirational medium and important musical art form. Members believe that by singing together in energetic, spirited performances they can bring joy and inspiration to all present. The group strives to support and participate in charitable events through their concerts and performances."

The Attack on Jeremiah Wright & Trinity UCC

All the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, senior minister at Trinity UCC in Chicago, where Barack Obama worships, got me to wondering how leaders of the United Church of Christ were dealing with this all-out media attack on the pastor of the denomination's largest congregation.

In a quick survey I find that the Rev. John Thomas, president of the United Church of Christ, offered high praise for Dr. Wright at his retirement ceremony about a month ago when right-wing critics were shouting relentlessly from the tube. And the Rev. Jane Fisler Hoffman, the northern Illinois district minister of the United Church of Christ, who also attends Trinity church, spoke out in January in strong support of the church’s ministry. I would love to find that Unitarian Universalist leaders are speaking up, but I do recognize that at stake here are deep philosophical and social issues which challenge all thoughtful Americans.

It turns out the assault on Dr. Wright and Trinity church has been going on a lot longer than you or I may have realized. The Christian Century in a substantial article profiled Trinity UCC back in May, 2007 as a church already under attack by “right-wing bloggers and TV pundits” intent on swiftboating Obama.

I listened to all of Dr. Wright’s rousing 40 minute sermon from April 2003, “Confusing God and Government”, now circulating in a seemingly endless two minute loop on YouTube. The full sermon was quite an experience for this liberal not-Christian, but, apparently, it is an apoplexy inducement for evangelicals who equate G_d and country. This seems to be exactly as it should be given the sermon’s challenge to such beliefs. Elsewhere, Dr. Wright challenges those evangelicals who equate G_d and money-making, but you’ll have to do your own research on that one — at least for now.

Jeremiah Wright is an unabashed student and follower of the black liberation theologian, Dr. James Cone. Barack Obama is not. Obama says he has heard Dr. Wright make statements with which he ‘absolutely’ does not agree. You will understand immediately what he may mean after you hear “Confusing God and Government”; their differences in attitude toward race are passionate. I’m with Obama, but I had great sympathy for Wright’s angry views. I am thrilled to see the United Church of Christ try to embrace such dramatic differences and saddened to recognize the difficultes our own denomination faces along this complex racial fault-line.

A More Perfect Union — Obama Speech

Read the whole speech at The Christian Science Monitor site. Is this the "I Have a Dream" speech of our time?

When Politicians Express Concern for the Environment Mixed with Love for Ronald Reagan

You’ve heard them; don’t claim you never watch Fox ‘News’. Reagan is the last anointed prophet of American conservatives. Presidential candidates have proclaimed his virtues for months. Some paused for a moment at the grave of William F. Buckley, but that moment has past.

Here in The Mail* I find Steve Nelson recalling some of that sobering stuff we like to call history: “To reduce our dependence on imported oil, in 1977 a national goal was set (with bipartisan support) to derive twenty per cent of our energy from renewable sources and conservation by the year 2000. Toward that end the Solar Energy Research Institute was established, in Colorado, along with four regional centers ... to help foster commercialization and adoption of alternative technologies and practices. When Ronald Reagan took office, he slashed the institute’s budget, ordered the four centers shut (on Christmas Eve), allowed tax incentives for renewables to lapse, and, for good measure, removed the solar panels that Carter had installed on the roof of the White House.”

How does being conservative lead to the fervent embrace of Oil at the expense of all other energy sources? Are there really any actual conservatives left in American politics?

*The New Yorker, Mar.24,2008, p. 5. Yes, the print magazine.

A Stroke of Insight

This is such a remarkable talk! I hope you will take the time away from the demands of career and plans and fears acquired to listen to Jill for just a few moments. This recording is, of course, widely available on the Web, but, perhaps, finding it here will prove useful. Perhaps, even inspirational.

"A Date which Will Live in Infamy"

Yes, March 19th is the day that our armed forces “suddenly and deliberately attacked” a nation with which we were “at peace and still in conversation” (the two things FDR — in his famous speech condemning the attack— found most revolting about the Japanese government’s behavior at Pearl Harbor).

This evening marks the beginning of Norooz, the Persian New Year. May we all begin sweeping out the old year’s mess along with the everyday folks in Iran, and hope that by morning the world will seem a little brighter despite the dark cloud emanating from the backsides of our leaders. We breath a little easier knowing that, at least on this fateful day, the Lord Cheney has not been pressing to expand this outrageous war across the river into Iran.

Ordinarily, I leave the recognition of anniversaries and such to Monkey Mind, but today he is preoccupied with much brighter news* of his own. So today let us mark the anniversary of The Three Trillion Dollar War, but let us also rejoice in the smaller, hopefully less nefarious events that enrich our personal lives.

*Congratulations Mr. Ford!

Leonard Cohen World Tour

This summer's Leonard Cohen tour, which I was so excited about, never stops in the USA. Yes, I suppose, I could make the journey to Toronto or Montreal, but that don't seem likely, do it. [That's 200$ Canadian for seats at the Place des Arts!]

Perhaps the stock market will make a miraculous recovery and the value of our horded greenbacks will soar! Ha! Perhaps my father’s investment in Florida’s panhandle will suddenly become beachfront property thanks to melting icecaps and rising seas. More likely.

Most likely, I will hunker down in a dark room this summer with my Austin City Limits DVD of Cohen’s October 1988 concert and revel in the way things used to be. "Take this waltz, take its broken waist in your hand."

Getting Perspective

"When people tell you to get your life into perspective, they usually seem to mean that there is one rational, objective way in which to view what you are doing. This will enable you to see things, they say, as they 'really are'.

But I say, 'See things in different ways. At the same time, preferably.' You need to see life at least three different ways to know where you are. Use just one and you're completely lost."

Bread & Roses

The power of beauty for people in desperate circumstance was very much on Bill Schulz’s* mind when we heard him speak Thursday afternoon at Andover Newton Theological School. Recalling one of his trips to a refuge camp in Darfur he told us of a woman, living in the horror of this displacement from human circumstance, who none the less wore a treasured turquoise colored glass necklace which she referred to as herself — not simply something valuable to her, but her very self (the self still in existence despite the degradation of camp life).


Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French impressionist painter, cautioned art purchasers to choose with care what they hung on their walls for the power of the paintings they chose would influence them each time they viewed them.

This same power of the beautiful was recognized by the 20,000 striking women textile workers during their famous 1912 confrontation with mill owners in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The legendary banner the women carried, as part of one of their demonstrations, called for Bread & Roses, just as garment workers had in 1908 when demonstrators marched after the death of 128 women in a New York garment factory fire.

The banner and the courage of the strikers so inspired James Oppenheim, an Industrial Workers of the World union organizer at the time, that he wrote this commemorative poem, later set to music as it appears in our Unitarian Universalist hymnal:

“As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!”

*Dr. William F. Schulz, a past president of the Unitarian Universalist Association and former executive director of Amnesty International USA.

What Can We UUs Offer to Those Who Hunger & Thirst for G_d?

Those who hunger and thirst after G_d should not allow themselves to be deflected from their yearning by our or any other church. It is G_d who answers our prayers, not an institution, not religion.

So the first thing I think we can say out of our UU experience is: “You are on the right path. It is your hunger that will feed you. Hold it close and do not let it go.”

Unitarian Universalists begin with the individual. The ultimate basis of our thought is personal experience. We start in our awareness of life — not in holy books or creeds or traditions. This is not to say that there is no help in these resources, but this is not where it begins. It begins in the heart, in the striving, in the quest, in the transcendent mystery that moves us to renewal of the spirit.

The heart is the seat of knowledge. Our science teaches us that we think with our whole bodies, not merely with our brains. Those who hunger and thirst in their pursuit of true knowledge are already on the path to G_d. We do not urge them to leave that path in order to take our predetermined, one-size-fits-all way.

We can teach that wisdom gathered from many of the world’s religious resources will lead such seekers to recognize that true knowledge does not lie in the content of what we have learned alone, but in the insights we have accumulated through experience of our actions and awareness of our personal characteristics.

For the great Muslim philosopher al-Ghazzali:
“Such knowledge is a ‘disposition deeply rooted in the soul from which actions flow naturally and easily without means of reflection or judgment.’ Such knowledge is not only what we know but what we feel. It is knowledge that is not only known but meant. The fusion of knowing, feeling, and doing integrates the outer and the inner man.” *

In the process of such integration the individual may best hope to find G_d. Unitarian Universalism does not need to invent a separate unique path to G_d. We need to actively point to the many paths already available. In doing so we may reveal the power of the diversity we embrace and provide the open path particularly suited to post-modern times.

The second thing I think we can say out of our experience is: “You are on the right path. It is your hunger that will feed you. Hold it close and do not let it go.”

In your hunger you will digest your experience, becoming one with it. In your thirst you will taste, not merely consume what life brings to you. This path of integration is the path of G_d.

The respect, that you will gain as you experience the interconnectedness of all existence, will draw you more and more deeply into what Christians sometimes call the kingdom of G_d — this place where we belong; this place where your heart’s hunger can find satisfaction; this mystery where you recognize the living G_d that exists beside and within you.


*Revivification of the Religious Sciences as quoted in Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, p. 165.

Cooper at 2 1/2 weeks since the accident

Peter & Amy Tell the UU Story

We all have to start somewhere. What could be better than to be a Beginner with such good hearted souls as Peter Bowden and Amy Freedman? Amy grew-up in our Waltham church and is the minister at Channing Memorial Church in Newport, RI. Check out Peter's website especially if you are thinking about trying to organize small groups in your church.

Ice Palace

"What do we offer to those who hunger for God?"

I don’t usually wander very far in the blogger world, but I had to check out the popular PeaceBang site when a friend sent me a referral to her treatise on “What Depressed Me About GA”.

I had to read this, my correspondent said, because we (she, Sue & I) were standing with PB when she witnessed, at last year’s General Assembly, this really stupid spectacle of a UU man mocking an evangelical Christian who was distributing pamphlets on the street corner nearby.

It was not the first time I had had the pleasure, if you will, of witnessing this sort of arrogant behavior by one of our merry band of tolerant souls. Perhaps I should have been more shocked, but church-people-behaving-badly is pretty old news. It was old news in my childhood Methodist church. It was old in either congregation of the United Church of Christ in whose choirs I sang. That’s why we observers of the world reject the idea that the USA would be a more moral nation were it also a Christian nation. [That and the George W. experience, of course.]

I was shocked the first time I heard a UU belittle Christianity. When I first stepped into the UU world, I hoped to find a far better place than I had known before, but I learned quickly that we are pretty much like everybody else.

What remains truly shocking for me is the perception that, without a quick descent into warmed over liberal Christianity, a large percentage of UU clergy would be unable to answer PB’s question, “What do we offer to those who hunger for God?”.

PB, herself, seems drawn by this escape back to Christianity. But, if mainline Protestantism is answering her question so well, why are its churches losing membership? Why do so many people, who join evangelical churches, leave them? I can’t imagine why any capable UU minister would long to run off to the long-struggling Episcopal church down the street here in my adopted hometown, no matter how classically reassuring its wordy ritual.

Liberal Christianity seems to be struggling, just as Unitarian Universalism is, to enter the 21st century with a meaning filled understanding of G_d that relates successfully to the way-things-really-are. Thanks to the stubborn rationalism of modernists (as, I think, we may well suppose our UU mocker of Christians to be) and the blind attachment to the distant past of evangelical traditionalists on the corner significant portions of our populous are left hungering — certainly PB is right here. But, if either liberal or evangelical Christianity were working, why this hungering?

I am not arguing that contemporary Christianity is wrong. I’m just saying that it is irrelevant to the post-modern world because it doesn’t see the life that we are actually experiencing. It is stuck in scientific beliefs of the past that have led it down deadend paths. And it is further hampered by an inappropriate relationship to its traditions. But, are we, Unitarian Universalists, any more relevant as a Third Way? That’s the real question, isn’t it.

PB seems frustrated by Unitarian Universalism’s continuing failure to provide that Way. Good. But how about broadening the search for truth and meaning beyond our Christian heritage? How about bringing forward those UU clergy whose reactions are leading them to a better understanding of the life unfolding around us? Surely, so powerful a person as PeaceBang could find them were she determined in her search.

Blaming denominational leaders is a peculiar way to go, I think. If the average elected politician could lead, our world would be full of Barack Obamas. Believe in ground up leadership. Be true to our democratic experience. Be the change we are seeking.

More Recovered Memories

I remember these guys as old friends. We met in 1999 and '98. They were difficult to find, but, once discovered, they demanded that I stay in touch.

Found Images

By some miracle of technology or lucky intervention, these images (and several others) that I created over a decade ago are still readable thanks to my now ancient Zip Drive. I’m wondering what to make of them.

I remember spending countless hours engrossed in the minutia of each picture, fussing over details most viewers would, in all likelihood, never notice. Was I ill or enraptured? The distinction between artistry and insanity is not always that clear to me.

Leonard Cohen says that it can sometimes take years of revision before he is ready to call a song or poem satisfactory. Perhaps my pictures are like that. Will they ever be finished? Do I even want them to be finished? How can a picture ever be finished, if the artist is always changing?

Today’s me is really an emergent form of the old me; not something radically new. That makes sense, doesn’t it? So each version of any one of these pictures reflects the emergent phenomenon* that goes by the same name on each renewed driver’s license.

Even though I be Born Again down by the riverside, I am still born anew as a version of the self that used to be. Yesterday I may have been just a green plant, but today I emerge as a flower nestled in green leaves. Wow!

When the flower fades and the green leaves wither, will I still be me? Will you recognize me in the wrinkled aftermath of earlier glory or disaster?

*See Jim Sherblom's November sermon at the First Parish in Brookline, "You are an emergent phenomenon".

Quote of the week

"What is the point in all this effort to be your true self, if you must always do what other people want just to please them?"

Out of the Many — One

This week’s Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey release seems to have captured the media’s attention, perhaps because, like so much else in American life, it defies their either/or perceptions. It turns out that not only are we not a Christian nation; we can’t even be called Judeo-Christian — too many Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, et al.

It appears that the Unitarian Universalist experience of religious identity reflects the American landscape better than we might have imagined. Our identity cross-section is different in many ways, but our diversity mirrors the nation. How well are we dealing with our diversity?

Some of us are still trying to absorb the possibility that we may be classified as Protestants! Who knew? I did hear a reference to the Christian Bible during a worship service the other day. No, it was not during the Christmas Pageant Service — that was largely a Christmas-like stories from around the world sort of adventure.

In our church we hear occasional reference to Christian or Jewish scriptures, just as the preacher may call upon Buddhist or Sufi thought at other times. There are even periodic movements to have our various religious traditions celebrated more intentionally. But, mostly, our diversity seems to be taken for granted and not explored very closely. Often we seem, like Barack Obama, to be a little embarrassed by our heritage, rather than eager to celebrate it.

In any case the Big News about our many religions background is not the multiplicity but the seeming ability of parishioners to put together a more or less satisfying spiritual practice based in multiple sources.

The modernist drive to find the single truth all must believe will find no satisfaction among us. How ironic is that — given our Humanist bent for the last couple of decades!

But the post-modernist embrace of the many may help us build a sturdier religious platform as we become more accustomed to not knowing with the old, should we say arrogant(?), certitude.

The Storm Is Passing Over

Two nights ago we brought our dog home from surgery — both right-side legs shattered by confrontation in the night with superior forces (automotive). The stillness is wonderful as we sit or lie in our peaceful house; together at last after our five days of forced separation.

Sometimes the soft sounds of Peter’s latest songs lull us. Sometimes the silence cradles our stillness and rocks us gently home to our stronger selves.

The nights are hardest for him, and so for us. So much can go wrong when you can only shuffle along leaning against the walls for support while your splinted and pined together limbs splay about striving for a control that never comes.

We are so dependent — he on his gods; I on mine. But the storm is passing over, as Dr. Tindley* says: “O courage, my soul, and let us journey on, for tho’ the night is dark, it won’t be very long.” We’ll pull ourselves along with hope as our guide and our soul’s resolution as standard bearer.

“By and by, when the morning comes,
When the saints of God are gathered home,
We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome,
For we’ll understand it better by and by.”

*Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933) composer of such other black gospel standards as Stand by Me, We’ll Understand It Better By and By, and the original version of the civil rights anthem We Shall Overcome. Tindley’s songs were the inspiration that led the great Thomas A. Dorsey to begin writing his popular blend of spiritual and hymn with blues and jazz underpinnings.

Quote of the week

"It is not a matter of seeking stillness — stillness is everywhere to be found. It might help to shut-up."

Dog Down

It happened as I was walking down the driveway toward the back of the house looking for our housemate to see if she would like to come out and see the lunar eclipse we had been emailing about. It was about 10:30, the night was reasonably cloudless, and the earth’s shadow was well across the moon’s surface.

And, then, there was the high-pitched cry of the dog being hit and the screech of tires and the shouts of neighbors out on the street for the moon. Teenaged boys came running from our house and a neighbor’s doorway. Adults are already encircling the dog (my dog, our dog) lying frantically in the street. “No! No! No!”

We lifted him by blanket into the back of our wagon. The gurney came out to meet us at the curb. Multiple fractures. One leg a mass of shattered bone ... another more modestly useless ... blood ... one deep gash ... other multiple abrasions also filled with crumbled asphalt and road dirt. Beautiful x-rays. Ugly messages. We went home to lick our heart wounds. Cooper remained with the tubes stuck in him and the kindly vet monitoring his breathing and heart rate; vigilant for signs of internal bleeding.

Now we wait for the surgeon’s call. Now we field the phone calls of empathy and advice we have solicited; the knocks at our door; the cards in our mail box. The remorseful concern of our neighbor who drove the car that brought our Cooper down — the single car that passed unhappily through the dark theater of our night.

How are we going to care for our buddy who, no matter what the outcome, will not walk on his own for weeks, for months? Both his injured legs are on the right side. Will he be able to even stand while his body works to heal? There are thirteen steps up to our doorway from the street. We don’t know if he will even have half of that shattered rear leg when at last he comes home to us.

As we drove home, the moon was nearly out of its once-in-a-decade eclipse. Our sun’s light glowed from its surface. The two planets and a star still accompanied it through the night sky. We turned inward — each to his or her source of strength and compassion. Now, for another night, we wait while Cooper’s bruised lungs recover their capacity before the anesthesia comes. Now, he waits, alone, with his blanket, where our love cannot warm him.

Keeping an Open Place at the Table

These days, when I walk from the parking lot to the main office door at our Massachusetts church, I automatically check the rainbow flag to see if it is still flying proudly. You know the sun has been assaulting those bright colors all summer and winter. Spring winds will be especially cruel. One part or another of that rainbow flag is torn loose with such regularity that repairing its destruction has become just routine maintenance. New flag, new pole even. But still it flies.

Rather like a metaphor for life, isn’t it? The attack on gay and lesbian and bisexual life continues every day across America, and folks like us have to keep rising up to the challenge and maintaining the flag so that it may continue to fly bravely and proudly.

I feel the pride when I see the rainbow flag outside our church door, because I feel, also, the pain we had to brave in order to get to the point where we could agree to fly it, and, then, continue to shoulder our way through the consequences of our decision.

It was 1997 when we voted to make a place at our table for gay and lesbian folks. What a change that has made for our community!

As I think about the changes that face us in the future, I remember this one big change in our past.

The thing that surprises me most about our decision is how good it has been for our life together. I mean, I never really questioned whether it was the Right Thing. That has always seemed abundantly clear to me. But I hadn’t really appreciated how Good it would be; what a tremendous asset to our community all the new people would be!

I knew we were supporting good people (usually families), but I didn’t really appreciate how good, or how loving and thoughtful, talented and dedicated these new people who flocked to our church would be.

I hadn’t anticipated how alive it would feel because of their presence; how it would not just be the people here at the time of our decision that I loved, but a whole new crowd of exciting presences.

And, then, I began to notice other, apparently unrelated consequences, like: “Hey, we’re pretty good at this welcoming stuff when we put our minds to it! I’ll bet we really can welcome everyone just as our hearts tell us we want to.”

The more we welcome, the stronger we actually become. The more able we are to make a place in our life for others — even older long term members whom we haven’t felt all that much at ease with; even kids crying in the morning services and clogging up the basement classrooms.

Perhaps we don’t have to circle the wagons as we thought to protect this precious life together because others will treasure it just as much as people have in the past; maybe more so, because they haven’t known it before out there in the world of sixty hour work weeks and arrogant disregard.

Well, I am a very conservative person and I don’t want to ask you to push this one idea too far; I just wanted to outline what I think are some of the consequences of opening up our life to others.

I have gone through virtually every major change in my personal life kicking and screaming: “I want things to stay the same!” And, sometimes, I have believed that I need to hang onto even the things I hate. I can be so stubborn it takes a good smack from a 2x4 to get me to change direction. But, now, I am sad to see so much of our country hanging on to hateful ways, and wonder how to smack the whole stubborn populous up the side of the head.