Beware the meme!

There is a meme going around that points out that the girl who gets called a slut might be a virgin, the unwed pregnant woman might have been raped, the boy everyone sees as uncool might be working nights to support his family, the girl being abused by her school peers might be abused at home, the fat girl might be starving herself yet unable to get rid of the weight, the old man with ugly scars might be a veteran of one of the wars our nation asks mostly young men to fight, and the boy ridiculed for crying might be facing the death of his mother.

It calls on us to admit that we just don't know everything we would have to know to make correct judgments of others' faults. This is true. Totally true. But it is also way off. It says, in essence, don't abuse people for their faults because you could be wrong about them - NOT don't abuse others because you have no standing to set up a standard by which to judge - NOT don't abuse others because abuse is wrong. It does not necessarily call us to compassion but only to a more careful judgment.

Jesus, whom many say they turn to as a moral authority, would point out that even if you could know others' faults with accuracy, we don't have any moral authority to bring punishment on anyone for their faults, as doing so is hypocritical for anyone who is less than perfect to do.

And Buddha would point out that even if doing so were not hypocritical, it would entail a totally wrong understanding of being, causation, relationship, responsibility, interdependence, inter-being.

Thich Nhat Hanh expressed a Zen Buddhist understanding in this poem:

"Call Me by My True Names"

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Shavuah Tov!

May you have a blessed week!

Mine's going to be spent putting a service together for next Sunday at my home congregation, Mt. Vernon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. The title of my sermon and the topic of the service is Preparing for Peace. Our tradition is to light an Advent Wreath each Sunday of the Advent season to matching readings that are grounded in Earth-based spirituality as well as seasonally appropriate scriptures.

Advent II I will light a chanukiah and chant the blessings in our service, which will largely be a Lessons and Carols service, led by Donna Beaumont. Advent III I will be visiting the St. Louis home congregation of a chaplain colleague. And Advent IV I will again be leading the Sunday service on the Psych Ward at Christian Hospital. Then December 30 back at MVUUF for a Fire Communion service, led by Gail DeVilbiss.

As I wait for a possible call, my 24/7 on-call period lasting to 7:00 AM tomorrow, I feel myself on a pivot, looking ahead to this week and next Sunday's sermon while still thinking about yesterday.

I was woken up yesterday morning by a call from the operator at Christian Hospital. When I was patched through to the Trauma Nurse, I was asked to come in for a death. As I asked a few questions, though, I found that the patient was and the family are Catholic and they had called their parish priest to come in. At my suggestion, the nurse double checked with the family and found that, indeed, my presence would be superfluous. I stayed up, expecting to get another call, but didn't.

Though I was on call, I went on to shul at Central Reform Congregation with my pager and phone on vibrate. I didn't get called, though, after all. Enjoyed a wonderful bar mitzvah. Ate a light kiddush luncheon. (Loved the lox! Wasn't so fond of the chopped liver...) Then stayed for Talmud study, taught/ facilitated by Will Soll. In the selected text was the ancient rabbis' discussions of the reward for doing mitzvot and punishment for transgressions. Naturally, the ancient sources did not provide an easy answer, and we had great discussions. I was particularly interested in our supplementary use of Pirkei Avot 4:17, which in translation reads:

Rabbi Jacob used to say, “Better is one hour of t’shuvah (returning/repentance) and good deeds in this world than the whole life of the world-to-come and better is one hour of spiritual bliss in the world-to-come than all the the life of this world!”

Will introduced it as a great paradox. But I think there is a way out of the paradox. That the apparent paradox is a facade for something not paradoxical. As Br. David Steindl-Rast has taught, the only thing that exists is now, and while "now" sounds like a time word, now is actually out of time. Duration is not now, and without duration one is not in time. Similarly, 4:17 shows two parallel durations of time: this world and the next world; and two breaks out of time, if you will, one in each "world." So I read this verse and choose to see, that the present "now" of t'shuvah and good deeds is the same now as the "now" of spiritual bliss in the next world, making the two statements of the verse essentially an identity rather than a paradox. And because we have only now, this world and the world to come are not chronologically sequential but simultaneously experienced in the now.

After four very pleasant hours at shul, I was off to the St. Louis Art Museum. As I pulled up the hill from Lagoon Drive, I saw the sun glinting off Roxy Paine's "Placebo" (2004), a leafless stainless steel tree among natural trees on the museum lawn, and felt a frisson of joy at the sight. Inside, it was the following four works that drew me in today:

• A 2nd-3rd century CE Gandhāran "Standing Bodhisattva" made of phyllite, a black stone, 18-or-so inches tall; it is believed probably to be a representation of Maitreya, the future Buddha, and is shown as a young noble man with a mix of developed musculature and gentle, refined features;

• Across the gallery from it was a stucco 4th century CE Gandhāran "Head of Śakyamuni Buddha" with faint traces of polychrome on white plaster; the face is very smooth and had been formed in a mold; the hair had been formed by hand and tool; the Gandhārans (Afghanistan/Pakistan area) were the first to visually represent the person of the historical Buddha, and their style had strong Hellenistic influences, which you can see lessening over the centuries - indeed just between the centuries of these two pieces sharing a gallery;

Gainsborough after van Dyck: "Lords John and Bernard Stewart"

• A 1760s Thomas Gainsborough large oil copy of a 1630s Anthony van Dyck portrait of the teen "Lords John and Bernard Stewart," both of whom died in their early twenties in the English Civil War, fighting on the royalist side; the brothers are handsome lads, proudly exhibiting their privilege; I could not see them without thinking of the lines from Chidiock Tichborne, "The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,/ And now I live, and now my life is done"; I probably would not have liked them, had I met them, teen children of privilege and power that they were, and I know I disapprove of their royalist position, but they were and then, too soon, were no more, and I mourned them today as if I had known them;

• And Vincent van Gogh's 1890 "Stairway at Auvers" dominated by greens and his signature bold strokes; the green lane draws the eye, and with it the mind to the center of the painting, where the title staircase begins; if you look really close, you see a male figure descending the stairs, almost invisible, but two very noticeable pairs of women - old in black and young in white - heading down the green lane to the staircase; everything else is green - except that it is not - there are pools of blue and rays of yellow, yet somehow it all blends in the eye; and there is a house that just sort of stops because it is inconvenient, and landscape that makes no sense at all; and it is beautiful - and haunting.

I spent about a half hour with each then came out just before the sun's descent shaded the lagoon and its fountains in dusk. A beautiful day!

Then I came home and put together this morning's Thanksgiving service for the psych ward at Christian Hospital...

Shavuah Tov!

Be Dangerous! Be Yourself! Make Peace!

Order of Service
Mt. Vernon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
November 11, 2012

Gathering Music:
“Asma Allah”  – Sami Yusuf

Prayer:  
“On the Road to Realization” by Paramhansa Yogananda, adapted

Welcome and Chalice Lighting

Hymn #23: 
“Bring Many Names”

Responsive Reading #443: 
“We Arrive Out of Many Singular Rooms”

Sharing Our Joys and Sorrows and then Silence

Prayer:  “Gentle Me, Holy One”  by Ted Loder

Reflection on Gratitude: 
“A Good Day” – Br. David Steindl-Rast

Hymn #123: 
“Spirit of Life”

Reflection on Diversity and Change:
"Be Dangerous!" – Paul Oakley

Reflections of the Congregation on Being Dangerous

Hymn #121: 
“We’ll Build a Land”

Reading: 
“Let Us Learn Peace”  by L. Annie Foerster

Announcements

Blessing for Extinguishing the Chalice Flame: 
“Out of Our Yearning”  by Susan Manker-Seale

Music before parting: 
“Voices of Many Waters - מקולות מים רבים”  – Nava Tehila

Closing Blessing:
“Blessing of the Children"  by Marcia Falk

Morning Prayer

modeh ani l'fanekha melekh ḥai v'kayam
sheheḥezarta bi nishmahti b'ḥemlah
rabah emunatekha

ablutions. let's start this day

"Splash" © 2012 by ~umb123
via Urban-Muse.com's Facebook gallery
(~umb123 is a 25-year-old Polish hobbyist named Mila)

open my lips
and my mouth shall proclaim praise

in the shadow of what is passing away
may the light of presence
surround my steps

as i rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of presence
set my heart on fire with love for all

amen

Worship on the Psych Ward - רַבָּה אֱמֽוּנָתֶֽךָ

This morning, as part of my on-call chaplain's duties at Christian Hospital in St. Louis MO, I led worship for patients in the psych ward who wished to attend. Restricted to their ward as they are, these patients only have the on-call chaplain to serve them in this way. There is nothing they can be expected to have in common in matters religious and spiritual, though most are some variety of Christian.

For the invocation, I riffed on the "Modeh Ani" and Sue Bojdak's "B'Tzelem Elohim." Read the 84th Psalm. Opened the space to sharing Joys and Sorrows (Prayers of Thanksgiving and Petitions for Comfort), shared a moment of prayerful silence, and then we recited the Lord's Prayer in unison. I read Deuteronomy 30 and gave a reflection on choice, choosing life, repentance, and forgiveness that was based in that passage, ending with the words of Philippians 4:6-8. Prayer. "Amazing Grace" (the nurses joined in the singing with the patients). And we closed with my recitation of the words of the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26.

Some of the patients were in tears, some rapturous. Several of them commented on how meaningful it was to them on that day in their particular emotional state. Others asked for guidance related to their particular challenges. Some expressed thanks that they had been allowed to ask their questions. I had dreaded this potentially interfaith or at least ecumenically attended service, but leading it turned out to be very fulfilling and meaningful to me.

I feel ready for Central Reform Congregation's Erev Rosh HaShanah service tonight at the Chase. I'll sit near the door in case my beeper starts vibrating and I am called to the hospital. My 24/7 week of on-call ends at 8:30AM tomorrow at the beginning of my normal Monday hospital hours.