What will be

I’ve spent the last few days processing the emotions I felt when I heard on NPR Friday morning that Al Gore (and friends) won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think my feelings have been bubbling under the surface of my consciousness ever since I saw An Inconvenient Truth.

I’ve had a very hard time with the friction between the faith I am trying very hard to live and the emotional turmoil that I and many others have experienced as a result of the political choices our federal government has made since December 12, 2000 (when the SCOTUS issued Bush v. Gore). I want to have faith that the universe knows what it’s doing and that everything will be as it is supposed to be, but I also see thousands dead, tens of thousands injured, rollbacks of civil liberties and civil rights, and politicians more concerned with power than with people. 

And all of a sudden in that 15 second headline before they cut to haranguing me about donating money to public radio, my dilemma unraveled. Faith won.

what do UUs believe?

i’ve been struggling a lot with what UUism is and what our “elevator speech” should be. i’ve encouraged a good friend who was raised quaker to check out the UU church because our RE curriculums are really in line with her beliefs, she could find her niche here, etc. but she balks and says “well, what do unitarians believe?”

i’ve never really had an answer aside from an instinctive feeling that the joy that i receive from being a part of a UU community isn’t just because i’ve found a big group of people to geek out with about philosophy. but i was sitting at a picnic table on a gloriously autumnal afternoon last week thinking about an odd trip through the grocery store check out line in which the cashier was quizzing a child of about 4 or so on christian doctrine.

why lefties are wrong about no child left behind.

it’s about time for my quarterly blog post…

i am currently reading my life in france, julia child’s lovely memoir of falling in love with france and french cuisine. i was surprised to find that julia had a realization unrelated to food at a dinner party talking with a man with whom she fervently disagreed politically. it sums up perfectly the frustration that i have with left-leaning folks and the public debate about the elementary and secondary education act of 2001, a.k.a. no child left behind.

julia wrote:

Under pressure…my “positions” on important questions…were revealed to be emotions masquerading as ideas. This would not do!

the same folks who claim to want to close the achievement gap for minority students, claim to want to end the vicious circle of poverty, claim to want all children to have the opportunity to attain an excellent education are also coming out in droves against no child left behind (NCLB), a law that changed the way most states evaluate their public education systems.

these folks, including many individuals that i adore and respect, need to get real, get informed and get rid of their emotions masquerading as ideas.

fanny pax and the ethic of service

as i was standing in the station, waiting for my train to come back to the house, i noticed a flash. a run-of-the-mill DC tourist: i heart DC t-shirt, check. digital camera, check. bag with smithsonian logo containing something overpriced, check. fanny pack, check.

it was this digital camera that caused the flash that made me notice her. it’s the height of tourist season in DC. the school children have finished their state tests, so the schools have to figure out how to make sure they don’t tear down the walls for the month-and-a-half of not-much-to-do until they’ve done their 180 days. so, they come to DC wearing matching t-shirts. they sort of fade into the background.

but this one, i noticed.

unitarian guilt.

i want to talk about unitarian guilt.

background: i think there is a degree of truth to the statement that there are two types of people – intellectuals and people who get things done.

i think most UUs are in the first category. i, however, am in the second category. or truthfully, more like the bridge between the two. i think it’s one of the ways that i am one of the people the world needs because i translate between the eggheads and the people who make decisions. happily i get paid for that. but it doesn’t make me wish less that a) the eggheads would think about their audience more (or realize that their audience is people who make decisions rather than other eggheads) and b) there were more people who choose to do what i do and do it well.

therefore, i feel a lot of guilt because i can’t do everything.

unitarian jihad

so, i’ve only officially been a unitarian universalist for about a year. but i am possibly the world’s only unitarian evangelist. i think everyone should be unitarian.

 My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sister Katana of Enlightened Compassion.
Get yours.

hmm…i don’t even know what a katana is. isn’t it a mannheim steamroller album?