Thinking outside the box.

Quote du jour: "Broadly stated, a quantum superposition is the combination of all the possible states of a system (for example, the possible positions of a subatomic particle). The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the superposition undergoes collapse into a definite state only at the exact moment of quantum measurement." ~ Anonymous


(This is for Bonnie as a thank you for all those hours of singing!)

There's a very famous theoretical experiment in quantum physics. In it (the experiment is known as Schrodinger's Box) a cat is described as inhabiting a sealed box with a random explosive device. The device may or may not have discharged and the cat may or may not be alive. You don't know the outcome until you open the box. And in opening the box you may influence the outcome, causing the device to discharge. I read this one years ago and it still makes my head hurt to consider it. It's a kind of magic where we shape reality. That two possibilities exist until the moment when one is measured and defined.

In a more recent reading, I came across the notion of our human mortality as that kind of a box. And God, may or may not exist outside the box. The belief in the presence or absence of God is one which holds open the possibilities of both until we *know*in absolute terms if God waits for us outside the box. Does your head hurt yet?

Most religions hold space for belief. Belief in one god or many, belief in a cosmology which can explain the ills and woes of the world, belief in an afterlife and belief in the part of us that is undying and immortal. Religions offer comfort in the belief that we and those we love can transcend death and/or return to another embodied existence. There are other systems of belief, although one may be hard pressed to call them religions - I think they are, whatever label they use. Belief in a rational order to the universe, belief in an evolutionary trajectory that is guided by adaptive selection and a certain amount of luck. Belief in a time to live and a time to die. Those are very appealing beliefs, they have a certainty to them.

I find absolutes to be rather comfortable. My head doesn't hurt as much when I consider them. But in Unitarian Universalism we also hold room for disbelief, for uncertainty, for the possibility that in Schrodinger's box, the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box. We hold space for the possibility that outside my box, there is a God, and that outside yours there is not. I like that. I like the idea that my belief in God does not make you wrong or that your belief in no God does not make me wrong. I like the idea that as Unitarian Universalists it's all equally possible or equally impossible. I like the idea that whatever waits outside our respective boxes, it will be very familiar to each of us, because we taken this whole lifetime to become acquainted with it's nature and possiblity.

Now I'm going to go take an aspirin.

When Perfectly Lovely People Go Crazy

Quote du jour: Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing. ~William James

Is it me? Is it spring? Is it the fact that we're overbooked, overextended, overcharged, overwrought? After all, not much has materially changed in the world. The economy still stinks, climate change is still making itself known, and nations are still at war with themselves or with each other. I'm honestly not sure why the dour moods, but perfectly lovely people are going. crazy these days. I made the mistake of asking one perfectly lovely man "how are you doing". He told me. In. No. Uncertain. Terms. He's stable, he's healthy, he's just really cranky. And a little crazy these days. Maybe it's allergies?

I asked another perfectly lovely person, "What do you think?" And she told me. In. No. Uncertain. Terms. She's prosperous, she's healthy, her ideas and opinions are considered helpful, and she was really cranky. REALLY cranky.

And then there are the kids. You'd think they had been imbibing an endless supply of sugared drinks and are now undergoing a heinous withdrawal. School is ending soon. They. Should. Be. Happy.

I don't get it. I used to be surrounded by charming, quirky types. Now I'm surrounded by dementors.

What's the solution? Well, since I am not prepared to renounce all human interaction, it's time to turn the dial on my sense of humor to high and use a variety of other means to keep myself sane and in relationship without needing to fix anything or doing damage to hard won trust. And tell myself that the pollen will diminish and the perfectly lovely people will cycle out of this phase and back to their perfectly lovely selves. And laugh. At myself. At our human foibles. Often.

After all, it's just common sense. . . dancing.

The Year Winds Down

Quote du jour: A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

We're winding up the church year, with the grand finale of RE Sunday (more about that in this weeks calendar notes)on the 17th, but before we heave a sign of relief and check the box next to "church year 2008-2009" I had to share the above quote from dear old RWE. What we worship, we become. Wow. So simple and so true. If we worship a narrow parochial point of view, then we become narrow and parochial. I suspect he was not speaking of theology though, but rather how we spend our time, our energy, and ultimately our lives. I'm not talking about the variety of human experience we either need to attend to - like FOOD and LAUNDRY - or wish to experience, but rather what we WORSHIP.

Some people worship a perfect body to the extremes of plastic surgery and starvation. There are people who worship their various illnesses, defined by what's wrong with them, leaving out a whole lot of what's right with them. There are people who worship their childrens athletic potential. They parent for it, program around it, and eventually reduce their child to a single dimension rather than the complex messy human s/he might be. There are people who move from desiring and acquiring object after object, becoming a closed system of consumption, working, spending, working. (They are about the dullest conversationalists I can think of.) And as we watch the global situation unfold while feeding our appetite for shoot em up movies and bloodied video games, is it any wonder that we have increasing wars and violence?

It's not all bad though. Becoming what you worship can be a great thing. Do we worship, REALLY worship the planet we live on? Or the potential of every human being? Or the mystery of life? If I could become what I worship - I'd love to become a more environmentally active person, or a tireless advocate for leveling the planetary playing field, or a voice for the sacred.

So by now you may be wondering where I'm going with this and what, if anything it has to do with RE Sunday. Fair enough. I paraphrase Ralph Waldo What we attend to, whether anyone knows it or not, is what we are becoming. Only you know your motivations for attending church and involving yourself in the teaching ministry here. Only you know what annoys you about church and what you find transcendent. And yes, both aspects can exist in the same heart at the same time. But at the end of the year, take a few minutes and think back on our time together. Think back on the teaching ministry you've been part of. And among those memories, some will be of snowstorms and frustrations (oops that's mine) and some will be of cute kids and earnest adolescents and silly songs and profound insights. We could worship the snowstorms, disappointments and inconveniences and make those our church memories or we could worship the sunnier moments and bask in them all summer long.

So in closing, because I'm putting together a worship service on this year in Religious Education for RE Sunday, I am asking you all to respond to the question "What did I learn at church this year?". The question is for all kids and teaching adults. You can respond in the comments section or by emailing me privately. It's anonymous. No attributions will be made and yet, everyone will learn what you learned. See you in church!

Coincidence?

Quote du jour: "Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see all the levers and pulleys" ~ Emma Bull

I refuse to title this post "My Vacation" because it always seems like a boast. "Ha, ha, I went on vacation someplace fabulous and had a fabulous time". Although I did go on vacation "someplace fabulous" and there were moments of "fabulous time", temper those words with the knowledge that I spent two days holed up in the MiddleofNowhere, Colorado while several feet of snow piled up around us, the major east-west highway (our route) remained closed, and that I just happened to be all alone in the subterranean geothermal caves when the power went out. AND that there are rattlesnakes in the desert and bears in the back country.

The last morning of my travels, as I prepared to leave a campground in the MiddleofNowhere, Colorado II, I went on 7AM walkabout looking for someone to pass along unused propane and food to. (All those leftovers that weren't going to get used - not worth paying the extra air freight on, but criminal to throw away) So there I was in the Mancos State Park with my trusty cup of coffee, offering our leftovers to some of the few other campers - there was still snow on the ground - in the park. One of the campers, a woman, peered closely at me - what little was visible under hat and upturned collar. "Is that a Ferry Beach mug?" she asked Are you a Ferry Beacher?" It was indeed a Ferry Beach mug. And I was indeed a Ferry Beacher. And she, her spouse and children were Ferry Beachers, also visiting Mesa Verde, also from New England. She's someone I know from the Mass Bay District. That's some coincidence considering that this was low season in Colorado and that no one in their right mind would go camping in April less than a week after a record breaking snowfall.

Is it really a coincidence? Or are there levers and pulleys at work in our world?

I don’t believe in pre-destination, I gave that up a long time ago, but I wonder about unseen forces of attraction that draw people together. I wonder about the drift toward one pole or another, I wonder about the 100th monkey syndrome. I wonder about those perfect moments that find each of us. I don’t know exactly what they might look like, but I think there are levers and pulleys at work. Maybe one of those levers looks like a seagull logo and another one looks like a chalice. We talk about church growth and church welcome and all the reasons we can think of for engaging fully in growth and welcome. I’ve got another one. When a new family shows up, or a new kid appears on Sunday morning, perhaps, just maybe, something unseen is at work. Perhaps the levers and pulleys look just like the face you see in the mirror every day.

Churchiness and Accelerating Change

Quote du jour: If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.
~ General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff US Army


We are nearing the end of the regular RE year and a year of experimenting with all sorts of new configurations. We've collaborated with another church in the middle school group, extended the Coming of Age year to include all high schoolers, hired a professional pre-school teacher and implemented a trail of Rotation Workshop for the primary ages. It does seem like of lot of changes. Good. One of my ongoing frustrations with UU land is that we tend to stick with things for a long time. Perhaps into the time of irrelevance.

Even our most groundbreaking curriculum, Our Whole Lives, was written before facebook, texting and twitter. We risk irrelevence if we do not attend to the realities of the world our children inhabit or speak to them in the ways they most understand. And yet, because there are many things about church which are timeless, we risk losing the inherent 'churchiness' (I've been watching Colbert) of church if we reach for the 'hook' of technology at the expense of human community.

Church inhabits a constant tension between the contemporary and the ageless. And it's not new to our time, of course. Much of our religious thought and tradition have come from radical change, and resistance to the old order rules, whoever or whatever the old order was. What is new to our time is the rate of acceleration. We do not creep along in increments of weeks, months and years, but leap exponentially from one technological advance to the next. And our culture and our kids do likewise. Ten years ago at the Rochester General Assembly, I remember making a stink about assuming everyone had the wherewithawl to own a computer and communicate electronically. Today, even people who consider themselves poor have cell phones, and the most modest households have a computer. Communication technology has become that significant. If these technologies have become so ubiquitous in the past decade, what will the next decade bring? Many of the current ideas around accelating change and collapsing singularities sound like science fiction AND - as I remember it - the science fiction of my childhood could not begin to envision the reality of my adult years.

Technology begats technology at a faster and faster pace, and if we are to serve our own, as well as our children's needs, we cannot take ten years to develop a comprehensive religious education program. We must continually evaluate and shift, rewrite, reprogram, seek out new resources, and acquire the tools kids need to deal with the moral, ethical and social demands of the new technolgies they (and we) continually encounter. At the same time, we can never lose sight of the religious grounding of our Unitarian Universalist beliefs. There is a timeless wisdom in our history, our practices and our theolgies of reason, inquiry, experience and inclusion. Striking a balance between the two is the work of faith development in the current millenium. I have often said and it bears repeating, that balance is momentary. Once we acquire it, something shifts and we must reach for balance again. Thats the cost of living in dynamic interesting, changing times. It's hard work and these days, it's some of the most important work the church can do. These words from Alfred North Whitehead put it succiently, The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order. Let our work be that art.

Long Time, No See

Quote du jour: When you meet up with a disagreeable person, never allow yourself to be upset. Say to yourself, if a dowdy like that can stand himself all his life, surely I can stand him for a few minutes. ~ Unknown


I've been absent from blogging for several weeks and now have wrapped my head back around thinking and writing. (I was thinking and writing, but most of it was nonsense, and considering the already low height of the bar, not worthy of the link)

I spent a few days last week at a pastoral care conference/training. When ever I go to one of these things, I find that along with the formal and explicit program content, the other attendees contribute equal or greater content. What people offer up for solutions, the situations they describe, and yes, the personality traits that drive me up a tree - all content. One of the reasons I took up knitting (and this does not apply to all meetings) was as a way of mitigating the frustrations of (often) pointless or endless meetings I attended in my volunteer and work lives. Whatever happened or didn't happen in a meeting was easier to take if I came home with a sock.

Because, face it - some meetings are glorious and productive and some are not. We can't have glorious and productive all the time, but at the very least I think we should strive for relational. If you are asking (as I think you must be by now) what this has to do with a teaching blog - think about the different experiences you've had. Some days, everyone is on. They are eager, attentive, thoughtful, full participants and you leave thinking "I'm so glad I did this".

And then there are the other days. The days when someone is off. Or everyone is off. Including you. You can't avoid it. Everyone has an off day, so sooner or later it's going to be your turn. Or your class's turn. And then there are the poor souls to whom every day is an off day. I watched a few in action last week swinging between the extremes of 'offness' in adults. Most of the extremes took the form of variations on the "look at me" theme, although there were a couple of "don't look at me" moments. Kids do this too. Their vocabulary is a less polished for most of it, but they either push for attention or push to be left alone. Both of those reactions in a classroom are ways of asking to be 'seen'. If you can remember that, it goes a long way to help you address "off" behaviors in a neutral, non-punnitive fashion and maintain caring relationships. Kids aren't always easy. Neither are adults. And there are some folks seem to pride themselves on being difficult. But look at it from their point of view. Poor things. They're stuck with the selves forever. We get to go home. And until then, we can knit.

(Need knitting lessons? See me!)

What should we do on Sunday morning?

Quote du jour: Thought flows in terms of stories - stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories. ~ Frank Smith

The curriculum committee and I are busy working on the selection of core narratives (stories - but core narratives sounds so much more 'official') for next year's primary grades Rotation Workshop. We have developed a sequence and scope for the year, and on the surface it looks like a framework much as we have in secular education. But it's not. The questions we ask as we develop program content and lesson sets are as church centered as the answers to them.

What do we need from our church? What do we wish to have for our children? In answering those questions, I developed three core assumptions about the content of Sunday morning programs. First and foremost we must create community. And for the kids, that's not a one shot deal, but a weekly practice. Every time a group gathers, with even one new face, or one missing face – it's a new community to be built in that day! As adult leaders, we should consider ourselves leaders and guides, as we help children find ways to form relationships, see and be seen, develop awareness of the social contract and practice being with each other in whole and supportive ways.

Secondly, we learn to live as Unitarian Universalists. We don't have enough time with our children on Sunday morning to create religious scholars. What we do have time for is to recognize and guide people who can practice inclusion, accountability, compassion and a healthy curiosity about their world.

And thirdly, we must offer ways to make meaning. Few of us can find meaning in the pages of a book until we have the life experiences that make those pages relevant. We can create those life experiences with worship, with story, with service to others, and with encounters with the mystery (that some people call god and others understand differently). For our children, although I think it vital to include the religious questions of the faiths and the world they encounter every day, it is equally vital to help children become aware of their ability to ask their own questions, in ways that are responsive, not reactive. Notice I say very little about 'curriculum'. The curriculum we use is a tool, something to mine for wisdom, refer to for integrative and group activities, a structure for your morning, AND it is no wiser than your own good instincts about what it means for a child to be religious. What you can give a child - matters.

In just about every teaching workshop or orientation I've led, I've told the following story. Years ago I walked into a Sunday morning religious education room. The leader was valiantly struggling through a lesson on the 'inherent worth and dignity of each individual' while two kids were escalating a war of words into physical violence and the rest of the group sat uncomfortably observing this interaction. The leader told me later, that she 'had' to get through the lesson. As gently as I could, I asked, "and in that room, with two children practicing violence on each other and the other children silenced. ..what do you think the lesson was?"