Resilience and Tulips

This morning my vase of red tulips looked ruined--flowers drooping sadly, leaves limp. To my horror, there was absolutely no water in the vase. Somehow, I had managed to so neglect the tulips that they were clearly dead.

But something in me thought...well, why not? Add a little water and see what happens.

This evening, the tulips have perked up, standing up straight, their bright red slightly darkened with age but their leaves once again firm.

I see metaphor everywhere, of course. The tulips, like the human heart, surprising us over and over again with the power of resilience. The power, even after woeful neglect, to drink in the water provided to us and stand tall again. Someone does have to notice the drooping, of course, and fill the vase. But still. What a sight, the tulips proud and beautiful once more.

Who Am I?

Whenever I get frustrated with something one of my children is doing, my mother gives me great advice: wait a minute. Children change all the time, and just as you think you've figured them out they're doing something entirely different.

But of course adults change too, both in minor ways and very dramatically. I often warn couples I am marrying that they should expect their partner to change multiple times over their marriage--that part of marriage is recognizing the change, looking for the kernel that has stayed the same, and navigating the difference.

I read an article recently about a man who suffered brain trauma after a car accident. It was one of those medical mystery pieces, which I always find intriguing, but the real zinger this time was the wife talking about how after the trauma her husband was a different person. She stated it just as a fact--he was a different person than he had been before. It made me wonder about how we manage the much smaller changes that our partners, and our friends, and our organizations undergo. The changes that WE undergo!

How do we navigate the many different people that we are over a lifetime? And how do we look for, and hang onto, the kernel that is only and always us?

Kenneth Patton's Words - Who We Are!

Several people asked me about the closing words I shared at platform service this morning, and at least one person asked that I post them here. So...

Here is the beautiful reading from Kenneth Patton, a Unitarian Universalist minister who is sometimes referred to as the Humanist mystic! I just love what he says about what a religious community is. And a huge thank you to the three amazing WES members who shared their thoughts this morning. Their moving and thoughtful remarks will be posted online in the next few days.



This house is for the ingathering of nature and human nature.

It is a house of friendships, a haven in trouble, an open room for the encouragement of our struggle.

It is a house of freedom, guarding the dignity and worth of every person.

It offers a platform for the free voice, for declaring, both in times of security and danger, the full and undivided conflict of opinion.

It is a house of truth-seeking, where scientists can encourage devotion to their quest, where mystics can abide in a community of searchers.

It is a house of art, adorning its celebrations with melodies and handiworks.

It is a house of prophecy, outrunning times past and times present in visions of growth and progress.

This house is a cradle for our dreams, the workshop of our common endeavor.

You Don't Have to Change At All

I heard a commercial on the radio this morning for a diet pill--the typical promises about weight loss and speed and all that--and then an additional promise: you don't have to exercise or change your life in any way!

Now, this is not a post about weight loss. Weight loss is hard, and as studies are showing there are very complicated biological factors that make it so. This is a post about the general idea that our society promotes that we can have any kind of change...without changing at all. Without giving something up, or adding something in, or having to have our nice little lifestyle altered at all.

And that's just not true. It might be true for this diet pill, I don't know, but it's not true for environmental sustainability, and it's not true for ending racism and addressing white privilege, and it's not true for evening out income inequality. Those of us in privilege will have to give something up, and all of us will have to change.

Part of a religious community's task, I think, is to help people see that there are choices to be made, and to support their own wisdom and strength in making the right choices. How can we hold each other accountable for what we'll have to change, or give up, to create the world we're hoping for? What do you think you need to give up or change or add on to see that world emerge?

Marriage Equality: Not Long

What a week for marriage equality! Washington state has signed it into law, Maryland is getting close (again), New Jersey is in an interesting legislative-executive dance.

And then there's Virginia. Today I was honored to speak at an interfaith rally that supported my friends Rev. Karen Rasmussen and Barb Brehm as they applied for a marriage license at the Fairfax County Courthouse. Their application was rejected, and it was my task to share that news with the 300 people gathered together.

Of course the rejection wasn't a surprise to anyone--but I was taken by surprise at how much I felt it nonetheless. As Karen and Barb walked back to the group, we sang "There Is More Love Somewhere," and I felt tears running down my cheeks. A rejection, even when expected, is still a rejection, and in that moment I felt so keenly that it was a rejection of the love, respect, and care my friends have shared for 26 years.

But I could also feel that those tears were anticipatory, and that what they were anticipating was joy. Because the truth is that things are changing in this country. Virginia may not be next on the list of states to get marriage equality--I'd be surprised if it was--but it will be on that list, one day.

A Baptist minister who spoke at the rally echoed the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. How long, the minister asked us, would Karen and Barb have to wait for their union to be recognized? How long?

Not long! we shouted. And I believe it.

Eating Mindfully, Eating Socially - The Tensions of Life!

I loved this article in the NYTimes about mindful eating, specifically focusing on a Buddhist community that invites people from the surrounding area to eat mindfully (and silently) with them twice a week. The article advocates for mindful, silent eating as a way to increase awareness and presence, and to reduce bingeing or eating when we're not really hungry.

I love the idea, and the practical tips at the bottom of the page, but I'm also thinking about all the articles and studies I've read that advocate family dinner time and the important conversations that go with it. In my family, we share the "best part of our day" with each other. It does connect us to each other and it asks us to be present to the moment...but it's not mindful in the way this article means, and it doesn't do anything to connect us with the food we're eating.

So I'm just feeling aware of the tensions we navigate every day as we--who are not Buddhist monks--try to be mindful and present to ourselves and to each other, and the awareness that at times those feel like competing needs.

I'll let you know when I figure out how to clone myself, so that I can both mindfully talk with my pre-schooler and mindfully concentrate on the bite of pasta I'm chewing.

Am I Talking to Myself?

One of the things I love about speaking on Sunday morning is the instant feedback. People stand up during Community Sharing and say what they think, which is REALLY instant, or they come up to me after the platform service and offer a response.

Blogs aren't quite like that, I find. I don't get many comments on this blog, and I miss your voices! I have just changed a setting which should make commenting easier (you no longer need an account to leave a comment)...so please consider yourself very welcomed.

This makes me think about the value of talking to ourselves. A blog is meant to get your message or your ideas out to some unspecified audience, but it also provides a way to clarify your ideas for yourself. At least it does for me. I'm not a journaler, but I do find that I frequently discover what I think in the process of writing it down.

Actually, I think that's what prayer and meditation do for many people, too: offer a way to listen to yourself, to listen to what you are feeling really deeply, rather than what you're running around saying out loud or what is filling up your mind.

Can a blog be a spiritual practice? Leave a comment and let me know.