I believe that – somehow – the people live on in the memories of those left behind. While that was comforting to me from my perspective – the living perspective – I found I had a lot of questions of what that would mean from the other side. What would such an afterlife seem like to someone who had died?
I’m a Unitarian Universalist. We have a set of seven principles that help us with questions of morality. The death penalty bumps up against four of them at least. Despite that, I do have a nagging suspicion there are certain acts that so violate societal norms that – yes, they should merit death. But I can’t say – specifically – what they are.
Last year we had a couple of garden spiders that were as colorful as Pepper, our rental parrot. I left them alone out there to spin their webs, catch their bugs and crawl around wherever they pleased. In the fall, if I found them in the house, they were dead.
I wrote that line and had some ideas I wanted to convey. But it was still too early. The emotion I felt was too deep. It came from somewhere in my reptilian brain and defied any attempt to put it into language, short of a cross between a low growl and a plaintive howl to the sky.
We wrapped up our Sunday School curriculum with a lesson on atonement and reconciliation. The UU church doesn’t have a formal way to handle these concepts. However a number of other religions do. The lesson plan suggested we mention Yom Kippur and the Sacrament of the Penance as examples. I would have been happy to… if I knew what either of them was.
We’ve been focusing our Service Sundays on the plight of the homeless these past few months. This time, the kids from all the classes got together for a letter writing campaign in the art room.
“How are they going to get the letters?” asked one little girl about five or six. I explained we were writing letters to people who could help the homeless rather than the homeless themselves. That opened up a can of worms.
The recommended song was – of course – If I Had a Hammer. Looking in my vast audio archives, I discovered three versions of the song to choose from. I had the Trini Lopez version. That was a hit back in the early sixties, but sounds a bit dated now. Completely opposite of that, I have a version by Leonard Nimoy, of all people (should have been called If I Had a Phaser).
I feel bad not giving Zachary a more dignified send off, but it was obvious he had gone gently into that good night, leaving his mortal coil at room temperature in an enclosed area for a couple of days.
P was a little bent, making her arms go round.
E looked a little flat, sitting on the ground.
I received several invitations to join a group on Facebook. This one was called “Putting CHRIST Back in Christmas”. As an English major, I’ve always disliked people contracting “Christmas” down to “Xmas”. It always seemed to me if it was going to be reduced to anything, it should be “+mas”. Well, it turned out I was mistaken about a couple of things.
Jingle Bells was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont who happened to be a Unitarian. Because of this “special” connection to the song, we sang the complete version of Jingle Bells in Children’s Chapel on Sunday morning.
Before you ask, the complete song does not include any references to Batman.
We went around the group and talked about all the ways we express ourselves. I suggested writing.
“I think it’s a waste of time,” she replied. I think I broke into a rash at that, but my gentle smile didn’t crack.
The death was totally unexpected and the family didn’t have any last instructions to go on except one. Once he had said someone should shoot his ashes into the forest where he liked to hunt. So, the Honor Guard stood on the sidelines as the family loaded his old shotgun with his ashes. Each relative came up and solemnly shot off a charge in a different direction into the woods.
The last few weeks have been devoted to practicing songs the kids will be singing upstairs in December to the whole congregation. It’s a varied set; we’re doing “Let Us Give Thanks” along with “Black and White” from Three Dog Night. At least I knew the words to that one.
He was pushing his own brand of belief, of course. I accepted the tract he was offering with a polite smile, but didn’t let him in the door. I was on company time, after all. He seemed okay with that. My feeling was he’d been knocking on a lot of doors that day and I didn’t get the impression too many people had been as receptive as I was. Sure enough, I got a hand printed card in the mail a few days later, thanking me for my time.
At 11:00 that morning, the Great War (as it was known before there were two World Wars to choose from) ended as far as the soldiers were concerned. While formal armistice wouldn’t happen for another six months, the guns fell silent behind the trenches where four years of “modern” warfare had done their best to eradicate as many young men as possible in the most efficient manner available, whether it be rapid fire bullets, handheld bombs, tanks, airplanes, or poison gas.
It was a “family Sunday” where the kids start upstairs with the parents. To us, it was like old times. I looked at the order of the service and laughed. It was a “lay Sunday”; Matthew got to have the day off as the congregation put together the show instead. Well, it turned out to be a good time anyway. It featured essays from Mark Twain on the subject of religion.
I do have more homework teaching the older kids. I didn’t follow the complete lesson plan for the younger ones. It was my experience they could handle one activity a week and we spent the rest of the time having our snack or playing with the toys. This past week, not only did I finish up all the activities, but we had something like twenty minutes left in the class.
As he was carrying the planter to the car, my dad happened to notice a familiar looking balloon. He walked over and saw it was attached to someone else’s planter! The gentleman residing there was older than David would have been, but they did share an October birthday. I tried to figure out how this would have gone down.
I flew down to Knoxville, Tennessee, Sunday night. I drove right past the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in the dark. I didn’t even notice it. Monday morning, I was at a client site and heard the first details of the shooting.
I knew where I stood with the younger kids. I teach adults and find they give me very little direction on how the course is going until the end when they fill out the surveys. I’ve never had that trouble in Sunday School; the kids tell you exactly what’s on their minds.
I taught my last Sunday School class for the year the weekend our MRE retired (that’s “Minister of Religious Education” rather than “Meals Ready to Eat”). The kids had a special role in… Read More
This isn’t a decision made easily. There are over a dollar’s worth of tolls between us and Rockford, gas is over $4 a gallon now, and Meka and I are both on Weight Watchers. Still, we went a couple of Saturdays ago. I had an order of toast and some Egg Beaters. Meka had oatmeal. We both eyed Daniel’s pile of French toast and sausage, but both of us managed not to sample it.
And here we were, to vote in a new minister. I knew it was serious when they rolled the coffee pots into the sanctuary.
I don’t drink coffee myself (that’s my controversial stand at the UU Church), but the plates of cookies looked good. They were under wraps though. I figured it was an enticement by the board; you know: do your church duty, vote and you get a cookie.
I’ve pretty much given up on whether or not a given topic is going to fly in Sunday School. For example, a couple of weeks ago I got the topic “Rules Are Fun”.
Fun?
First, let me explain that I don’t know anything about yoga. I don’t do yoga. I’ve never done yoga. I don’t think I can even be casually mistaken for someone who does yoga. But I came in Sunday morning to a book waiting for me in the classroom: My Daddy is a Pretzel.
Ahead of me, I noticed this squat column of light start to appear in the sky over a clump of trees. As I watched, it got brighter and more defined. It stretched and curved. The column was originally yellowish-white. Then it swelled wider and divided itself into colors: first red and yellow and then red, yellow and a thin blue stripe.
One year, our teacher, a nice woman with a beafic St. Francis of Assisi expression was explaining to us about Jesus. He was crucified (i.e., killed with extreme prejudice), put in the burial cave and three days later he came back.
Some of the kids looked horrified.
One finally asked, “You mean Jesus was a zombie?!”
I teach the 4 – 6 year olds in Sunday school. This week’s topic was “monsters”. We normally start our class sitting in a circle on the floor and we go around for… Read More
The first stumper of a question from Daniel wasn’t a “why” question, but more of a “where”: Where did Great Grandma go?
The literal answer – of course – was “in the ground… not too far from the tollway”.
