Don't Forget the Good News

For the past few weeks, my daily commute has taken me past a house with ever-increasing signs in the yard: cat missing! White Himalyan lost! Please call! Reward! Even their minivan had its windows covered in pleas to call them with information. Like anyone, I've felt bad for the folks who lost their cat, especially one they obviously cared so much about.

Today as I drove in to work, I saw a new sign. "Cat found!" it read, "through Craigslist!"

First of all, it was nice to hear about something good happening on Craigslist. But even more, it was nice to hear about something good happening for the cat people--to hear the very happy end of the story. It made me think about the many times that we share only the bad parts of stories, and forget to fill people in on the good.

This happens online, especially. Who writes in to say that a doctor's office wait time was pretty reasonable? Or that the TSA employee was very nice, all things considered? In our personal lives, too, we all have that friend that we complain to about our (fill in the blank: mother, co-worker, neighbor, spouse). Do we also call them up to say that today that person was completely normal and actually rather considerate?

I'm pledging to remember to tell the good news, the happy endings. To post signs letting all the commuters know that the cat was found.

Justice work by day

Last night I was privileged to share the invocation--with a local rabbi--at a candlelight vigil with DC Vote. Six members of WES joined me there, and whttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife all stood in witness as budget negotiations took place in the White House, budget negotiations that will almost surely include riders on the DC budget from congresspeople whose districts are nowhere near our city.

Like this vigil, much of my justice work occurs at night and is part of the ongoing work of the Washington Ethical Society; that is, it involves lay leaders and the whole community is invited to take part. But sometimes I do justice work by day, showing up at a council hearing or a clergy gathering to speak my mind.

I wanted to share with you some daytime justice work I did a couple of weeks ago, when I spoke at a DC Council hearing about hate crimes. The incidence of hate crimes against members of the transgendered community has risen sharply in DC, and the violence is tragic and disturbing. Here is my testimony, from the Human Rights Campaign blog.

My favorite part of Sunday...

I spoke this past Sunday about what it is that we're "doing" on Sunday morning--about why we gather. As usual, my favorite part of the platform is hearing everyone's responses, either during Community Sharing or afterward during coffee hour. And as usual, the responses were all different.

Actually, I think they were especially different this week, and that has me thinking about the very different things we bring to--and take away from--our Sunday morning experiences together. I know some WES members and visitors come for the music, while others far prefer the meditation. Some wish we had the greeting of one another for much longer, and others find that time awkward. Some can't wait to hear from everyone during community sharing, while others would rather slip out at the beginning of that segment. Some love the platform address best of all...but they're divided about whether they like it when we talk about intellectual and philosophical issues or about social justice issues of the day or about pastoral concerns.

In other words, we are a diverse bunch of people, and nowhere is this more clear than in our reactions to various elements of Sunday morning. Still, we keep coming together. What does all this diversity mean for us? Should we expect to like every part of Sunday morning, every Sunday morning? What is the point of Sunday morning, and does it have to do with enjoyment at all?

I'd love to hear from WES folks about these questions, and maybe find some times for us to talk about them in person. What do you all think?

Seeking Justice

I'm teaching a class at WES right now on humanism in world religions--although the best part of this particular class is the side discussions we get into! At the very end of our last session we started talking about the human need for justice. Not "social justice" kind of justice but "you ran that red light you ought to get a speeding ticket" justice. We were thinking about how many religions offer justice in the next life (as in reincarnation and the karmic system) or in a place beyond life (as in the heaven and hell model).


For those of us who don't subscribe to either of those systems...what do we DO with our very human, very real need to imagine that there's justice in the world? Not just for people who run red lights, but for people who do really terrible things. Or for really great people who seem to catch bad, or even tragic, breaks in life.

I wonder if the answer isn't in our internal experience of the world. When I see a really terrible driver, running red lights and refusing to stop for people in the crosswalks, I imagine that they must not be a particularly happy person. Have they already created their own hell? And is that kind of justice enough? Or, even if it's not enough, is it all we get?

Plenty of questions...post some thoughts of your own!

Occupy DC - The Beginning of a Reflection

I've been thinking about the Occupy DC (and sister) movements. I got a chance to visit Freedom Plaza when marching for voting rights last weekend. And it preparation for my platform this Sunday, I've been doing a lot of reading about the national movement--what it wants, what it means, what it tells us about America.

The movement will just be a small part of Sunday's platform, but I have a feeling I'll be thinking more about it in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, I wanted to share the blog of a WES member who spent a night camping in Freedom Plaza this past week.

Somehow as I think about this I keep coming back to something a college friend said. From a former Soviet Socialist Republic, Irina was a tiny person with a strong accent and a very different experience in the world. As we talked about politics in America, she pointed out that eventually Americans could change the system. "If they don't have enough bread," she said, "they will revolt."

At the time I thought she just didn't understand how America worked, that I couldn't quite see the revolution for bread happening here. Now I wonder if she wasn't just ahead of her time.

Changing Like the Leaves

This seems to be the week that all the trees are suddenly changing color. Everywhere I turn, there's a burst of orange, a flame of red to greet me.

My daughter asked me the other day how the leaves change color, and I realized I didn't know. So we trooped off to the library to look for a book that would tell us, and found a great one that follows a tree's lifespan.

It turns out that leaves change color because, as sun becomes more scarce, they are no longer able to make the chlorophyll that gives them the vibrant green. As the green disappears, we see the oranges, reds, and browns that were already present in the leaf--but masked by the overpowering color of chlorophyll. This was a revelation to me, the idea that those deep and beautiful colors are already in the leaf, hidden away but waiting for their moment to appear. It gave me an interesting way of thinking about change, that sometimes we are not acquiring something new but rather allowing what was always there to come to light.

It made me wonder: what colors do we hold inside ourselves, masked by the green, waiting to show themselves?

Mourning Our Innovators

I've been thinking a lot about why so many of us have been affected by Steve Jobs' death. I had a moment of real sadness and shock when I saw the headline, and Facebook lit up that day with people's reactions to his death. Of course any death is sad, but why are we--who didn't know him--so sad?

I can tell you the answer doesn't have to do with how much we like our ipods. Or not exactly, anyway. My sense is that one reason we mourn people like Steve Jobs so deeply is that we are aware of how special he was; we know he was an innovator, a creator, on a scale that we don't see just every day. Just like Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan creator of the Greenbelt movement who also died recently, Steve Jobs was a rare human being.

And somehow, there is something human about us that instinctively recognizes that rarity, that celebrates their place as part of humanity--as giving to humanity in a particular way. Paradoxically, their celebrity in this case is really about our connection to them as fellow human beings, ones that we know have particularly contributed to our humanness writ large.