Spring-like Tulsa weather

Now that I am back in the spring-like weather of Oklahoma (it will change soon) and I already fit in two long bike rides over the weekend, this perspective on Chicago cold weather made me laugh. Too true!

Chicago temperature conversion chart...

60° F: Arizonans shiver uncontrollably; people in Chicago sunbathe.

50° F: New Yorkers try to turn on the heat; people in Chicago plant gardens.

40° F: Italian & English cars won't start; people in Chicago drive with the windows down.

32° F: Distilled water freezes; Lake Michigan 's water gets thicker.

20° F: Floridians don coats, thermal underwear, gloves and wool hats; people in Chicago throw on a flannel shirt.

15° F: New York landlords finally turn up the heat; people in Chicago have the last cookout before it gets cold.

0° F: All the people in Phoenix die. Chicagoans close the windows.

-10° below zero: Californians fly away to Mexico . The Girl Scouts in Chicago are selling cookies door to door.

-25°: Hollywood disintegrates; people in Chicago get out their winter coats.

-40°: Washington DC runs out of hot air; people in Chicago let the dogs sleep indoors.

-100°: Santa Claus abandons the North Pole. Chicagoans get frustrated because they can't start 'da car.'

-460°: All atomic motion stops (absolute zero on the Kelvin scale); people in Chicago start saying, 'cold 'nuff for ya?'

-500°: Hell freezes over. The Cubs win the World Series!!

Saying Goodbye

I will miss many things about this intense month at Meadville Lombard in Chicago.

New friends
Smart, compassionate teachers/ministers

Lively theological discussions

Rituals
SnowRadiator heat (Much better than forced air)

Obama fervor and inauguration joy

Chicago pizzaand thousands of other things.

Wisdom from Rodgers & Hammerstein

Unexpected insight into a source of racism and bigotry from the 1949 musical "South Pacific."

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught!

by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II

Overheard in Seminary (part 3) - Becoming whole

Why look into racism at this point in time? Because we cannot be whole people until we acknowledge the past and its potent grip on today. African Americans have been knocking on the doors of Unitarianism and Universalism from the beginning. But they have been turned away over and over again.

“I just cannot accept the proposition that some people are better or worse than other people because of their race – whatever that may be. I accept my race and the race of everyone simply as a condition of existence, like height, weight, age, sex, or shoe size. Now this doesn’t mean at all that I am blind to the fact that other people may regard race at the most consequential aspect of their being and my being. I have almost a half century of scars, fortunately most of them on my memory and not on my body, to remind me that I live in a racist society. However, I refuse to permit anyone to infect me with the virus of racial pride, because I know it would turn out to be a cancer that would destroy my spirit, my physical self, and the world in which I live.”

-The Hon. Wade H. McCree,

Unitarian. Served on American Unitarian Association board.First African American to serve as USA Assistant Solicitor General

First Sermon & Ouroboros

The crunch of papers, reading and my first sermon took priority over the blog. I have survived, more than survived, got much support, accolades and helpful critiques to very first sermon. In honor of that milestone in my seminary career, here is a photo of the inside of the 1st Unitarian church of Chicago. My sermon was entitled "Radical Hospitality Has No Beginning and No End." It discussed race relations, human relations and hospitality. One image throughout the sermon is Ouroboros, the serpent eating its own tail as a symbol of re-creation and how hospitality is transforming.

In the Dark

Some post-inaugural thoughts about communication and our country, our families.

Councils
by Marge Piercy

We must sit down
and reason together.
We must sit down,
men standing want to hold forth.
They rain down upon faces lifted.
We must sit down on the floor
on the earth
on stones and mats and blankets.
There must be no front to the speaking
no platforms, no rostrum,
no stage or table.
We will not crane
to see who is speaking.
Perhaps we should sit in the dark.
In the dark we could utter our feelings.
In the dark we could propose
and describe and suggest.
In the dark we could not see who speaks
and only the words
would say what they say.
No one would speak more than twice.
No one would speak less than once.
Thus saying what we feel and what we want,
what we fear for ourselves and each other.


Perhaps we should talk in groups
the size of new families,
not more, never more than twenty.
Perhaps we should start by speaking softly.
The women must learn to dare to speak,
The men must learn to bother to listen.
The women must learn to say I think this is so.
The men must learn to stop dancing solos on the ceiling.
After each speaks, she or he
will say a ritual phrase:
It is not I who speaks but the wind.
Wind blows through me.
Long after me, is the wind.

Time is the Healer

I was introduced to the ideas of Richard Packham and his notion of atheist spirituality today. He explores how that sense of awe and wonder does not have to have a religion attached to it. For a 12-step group he attended he rewrote the Lord's Prayer to fit his understanding of the world.

ATHEIST PRAYER

Our Powers are within, Whatever be their name. What they have done, what still may come, This Earth can yet be as Heaven. Live then this day, and without dread, And forgive your own trespasses As you forgive those who trespass against you. And be not led into temptation, But flee away from evil, For Time is the Healer, With power to restore me, Forever and ever, Amen.