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.

Apology Accepted?

My daughter goes to a Jewish preschool (sort of by accident--we loved the preschool and then realized it was Jewish), so of course she's been learning a little bit about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Featured prominently is a song called "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm really really sorry." I heard her singing this at home and thought...oh great, another way for her to get out of doing the right thing.

Wait, what?! That's right, I am annoyed by my daughter saying sorry so much. She's great at apologizing, and I often find myself thinking (and sometimes saying) "Well, it's nice to apologize, but it would be better not to do the bad thing in the first place."

But how does this parenting experience resonate with my broader belief in the power of apology, and in the possibility of redemption? Does it all fall apart when I'm called on to actually walk the walk with a three year old?

I think the answer is found in what can, or should, accompany an apology. The times when I get frustrated are when I observe my daughter repeating the same behavior without trying to change it...and thinking that it's all right if she just apologizes afterward. So the solution, I think, is in the extent to which we are open to actually changing our behavior, to transformation. Mary, the other clergyperson at the Washington Ethical Society, gave a great platform about transformation last Sunday. And it turns out that the song my daughter learned has the idea embedded in it: the last verse goes "I won't do that again."

Apologies are wonderful. Transformations are even better. Here's hoping for both of them in all our lives.

Good News: Good for the Body and the Soul

Need a lift? Check out this New York Times series on simple advances in health around the world.

I just love stories like this; they are somehow both remarkable and totally unremarkable. And beyond all else, they remind me of how many people spend their lives working to make things a little better for others. Imagine all the folks who contributed to each of these health advances, and will continue to do so. There is something in us that yearns to be of use to humanity. These are great examples.