by WUUC | Jun 30, 2016 | Minister Blog
Thanks to a member of the congregation, a group of us from the Woodinville Church and a few folks from University Unitarian were able to march in this year’s Pride Parade. This congregant knew someone in the group, Sisters of the Mother House of Washington which are a group of “religious sisters” who work on behalf of those who are most marginalized in the queer community. They are not as large as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence but they are might and kind and were so welcoming to us.
As we waited (and waited, and waited) in our contingent, the “Christian Haters” appeared on the sidewalk near us with their megaphone, signs that read, “God Hates You,” and began to spew what I classify as hate speech. After a few minutes of this, I got mad and made my way toward them. We were near the Sounders Rugby men and women, one of whom said to me as I passed, “Go get ‘em.” I stood next to a cop and watched them, holding my sign high. I had purposely worn my Standing on the Side of Love clergy collar and was decked out in rainbow earrings. I wanted to be a ministerial counter presence to hate as well as an affirmative presence of Love.
One of the make Sounders rugby men was standing right next to the man with the megaphone. The brave rugby fellow “vogued” his heart out. To me, that took courage: to place yourself right next to someone who wanted you essentially dead. Later I thanked him.
A short while later I saw a lone individual talking about being saved and handing out fliers calling for repentance. He was trying to hand them to one of the Sisters. I had taken a particular liking to this sister as he was small, bearded, in wonderful attire, and was so gentle. He was sort of trapped in place with this “Christian” trying to get him to take the piece of paper. I moved quickly and placed myself between the sister and the man with the papers. He tried to hand me a paper which I refused instead showing him the sign I was carrying: “Thou Shalt Not Kill; Orlando; Standing on the Side of Love.” He said, “I don’t need that.” I said, “Just keep on moving along.” And made hand motions to help him along. Which he eventually did. I just was not having it that day. I was not having my people targeted by the distortion of the Christian personage of Jesus and his radically inclusive love.
Toward the end of the parade, another contingent stood along the side of the parade route with yet another “God Hates You” sign and a megaphone spewing more hateful rhetoric. I went right over and started yelling “Shame, shame, shame!” Which they then yelled back at me. So I just stood there blocking them with my body and sign letting their hate pour over me. One bearded man in sunglasses just held his arm out pointing at me.
Suddenly I was joined by the slight sister who I had shielded earlier. She, too, stood with her sign. Then a member of the congregation stood next to me. I backed away a bit. My interim Director of Lifelong Learning was suddenly right there in front of the guy with the megaphone. Smiling at him, standing there, signaling to him to bring it on, and letting him bombard her with his words. When I could no longer watch her taking it, I touched her on the shoulder to bring her away from the hate. And we went to catch up with our contingent.
I know we should probably just ignore these folks who show up at every parade with their signs, megaphones, and hatred. But as a person of faith and as a clergyperson, I feel an obligation to make it clear that these folks who distort their religious traditions to justify hate and violence don’t speak for God or religion. What I wished I had had the sense to do was ask all of us UU’s in our yellow shirts to form a line in front of the haters to visually “protect” the parade marchers. And to clap to drown out the megaphone. I am thinking that every march needs a contingent of angels that shows up as they have at the funerals where the Westboro Baptist “Church” pickets and espouses similar rhetoric. These angels and their wings provide a visual separation for those who are trying to make their way through loss and grief.
So what if we UU’s showed up at Pride Parades and events not in our yellow SOSL shirts but in huge yellow angel wings that have written on them, “Standing on the Side of Love?” I feel a creative urge coming on. Anyone else game?
Peace, Shalom, Salaam,
Rev. Lo
by Carol Taylor | Feb 24, 2015 | DRE Blog
God’s Eye Nebula
During our monthly theme of Love, I thought about the number of stories that I have used in Religious Exploration lately that refer to God or are about Jesus. While it is vital for our UU children to hear these stories, especially in a UU context, I wonder what families at this church think about the stories their children are hearing this month and whether God language is difficult for them personally. I always preface the stories by sharing that some people believe in God and some don’t and that as Unitarian Universalists we get to discover what is true for us. I want the children to hear many times that they don’t have to believe the same thing as the person next to them at church or in school–that they can define the mystery however they choose and so can their friends. But you can’t decide for yourself, if you are never exposed to the stories except in a negative way.
God, Spirit of life, Mystery, Great Universe–all are words pointing to something beyond our own selves. We all have direct experiences of transcending mystery and wonder, even if we don’t all have the same experience. This excerpt from “What’s in the Temple?” by Tom Barrett says it well.
If I say the word God, people run away.
They’ve been frightened—sat on ’till the spirit cried “uncle.”
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can’t name.
They know he’s out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.
I can’t talk about God and make any sense,
And I can’t not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.
So we talk around in circles with each other, applying our own meaning to words that describe the ineffable, most likely never able to fully comprehend one another’s experiences.
A couple of Sundays ago I was telling the story of Theodore Parker and the turtle. In the story, Theodore sees a turtle and contemplates hitting it with a stick as he had seen other boys do. As he raises his stick he hears a voice boom “It is wrong!” The moment I boomed those words, one of the children listening to the story said, “It’s the voice of God.” I continued until I got to the part where Theodore’s mother explains that some people call that voice their conscience, but she chooses to call it the voice of God. The same child then said “Shhh. God is talking to me!”
I stopped reading and asked what God was saying. Her reply was “LOVE.” What a beautiful moment of sacredness and grace. At that moment God was defined for this child as love – a simple four letter word. If hearing the word God brings thoughts of other more colorful four letter words for you as an adult, could this child’s experience of God give you a new four letter word to use when someone says God. Even if you were wounded by a religious experience in your past, remember it was the religious experience and the people that wounded you, not God or a god or gods or the mystery or the universe. Love is a beautiful way to describe the ineffable. Real love is all-encompassing, boundless, larger than we can fully comprehend and express. It renews our spirit and makes us more open to life. Love calls us to be better to ourselves, each other and our world.
I don’t know about you, but for me that is a beautiful way to think about God.
by Carol Taylor | Jan 29, 2015 | DRE Blog
Click for February’s Theme, Love
“Everybody, everybody wants to love. Everybody, everybody wants to be loved,”–the chorus of this Sunday’s introit. So many songs and stories have been written about love lost, love found, enduring love. As a religious educator I am thrilled when anyone, especially a child, sees the connection between our faith movement and all-encompassing love. It is in our Universalist DNA, a knowing that all are worthy of love–the theology of love as a force or grace that saves. We have even been nicknamed the “love people” since showing up en masse in our bright yellow Standing on the Side of Love T-shirts for Justice GA in Phoenix.
So why can it be so difficult to love? Maybe it is partly because of our romanticized notion of what love is and the fact that there are so many ways to define it – romantic, altruistic, parental, unconditional- that we aren’t sure which one fits. What about loving the ‘unlovable’? Does it make it harder to love when we see something in others that we don’t like about ourselves, a shadow side that we haven’t accepted or truly uncovered. How can we love a murderer or the person who consistently treats us badly or the person we don’t even know or our imperfect selves? Maybe that question could be answered by asking what they need? Are they outcast, fearful, angry, lonely, seeking — what motivates the actions that we do not like? Asking out of compassion opens the heart and makes room for a connection, and for me, love is connection. It is feeling like I am part of the world and reflecting that feeling back to others.
Love is the core of my theology. I believe that abiding love grounded in experienced truths and in relationship with others is what provides hope. It’s what drew me to Unitarian Universalism, the theology of a saving love, one that doesn’t exclude based on belief, but offers redemption for all. Redemption isn’t about being absolved from sin, it is about restoring my humanity over and over again by acting in love. I believe everyone has inherent worth that can be redeemed. It is in my struggle to love all, even those people who challenge me to expand my heart even more, that I learn more about myself and become more whole. Leaning into the love I want to embody is my salvation. “Everybody, everybody wants to love. Everybody, everybody wants to be loved.”
With love,
Carrie Krause
by WUUC | Oct 9, 2014 | Minister Blog
Family Word Cloud
I remember reading a one-page article that appeared in the back of Ms. Magazine sometime in the 1970’s or early 1980’s. I think the title was something like “My Family Is Not Broken.” It was written by someone who was tired of hearing that her family was broken because it was a family of divorce and only consisted of she and her mother. She never felt the brokenness, she never felt the lack of a father. She and her mother were a solid, whole unit. Imagine walking around as a child hearing your family referred to as “broken” or yourself as “a product of a broken home.”
Today there are probably other family configurations that people would refer to as broken: grandparents raising children, families with an incarcerated parent, families where a woman is inseminated and has raised her child alone, foster families, families in which a parent has transitioned genders, etc. Yet they are not broken either, just different. Why do we insist on labeling and judging families against an outdated model of what a family is? Being a family is hard enough without adding a layer of societal marginalization.
And even when we love our families (however we define them), we can ride a roller coaster of emotions in regard to them. Families just come with “stuff” attached. Each family has its own set of patterns and dynamics. And God help the family member who wants to try and change them: everyone rebels consciously or unconsciously to maintain the status quo. We often joke that when a child is born we should start two funds: a college fund and a therapy fund for all the ways in which we will screw them up. But whatever the dynamic, freedom comes when any of us decides that whatever went wrong in our childhood will not ruin the rest of our lives. That we will not be “broken” by our families, that we are able and capable to make our way forward in the world.
At its best, family is a safe, nurturing place. A place where we are loved and where we learn to love. Where we get to practice relationships. Where we learn what it means to be alive. What breaks a family is not is configuration but an interruption in love. May all of our families be bound by love…
Rev. Lo
As we waited (and waited, and waited) in our contingent, the “Christian Haters” appeared on the sidewalk near us with their megaphone, signs that read, “God Hates You,” and began to spew what I classify as hate speech. After a few minutes of this, I got mad and made my way toward them. We were near the Sounders Rugby men and women, one of whom said to me as I passed, “Go get ‘em.” I stood next to a cop and watched them, holding my sign high. I had purposely worn my Standing on the Side of Love clergy collar and was decked out in rainbow earrings. I wanted to be a ministerial counter presence to hate as well as an affirmative presence of Love.
