Keep the X in Xmas

I once gave a Christmas sermon: "Keep the X in Xmas!" I thought then and still do now that my line of argument was clever.

I meant X as a symbol of the unknown--the mystery always beyond the progressing edge of knowledge. Mystery invokes wonder and joy, without which Christmas for us postmoderns is an empty commercial shell. My most popular Christmas meditation softly recommends: "If only for the season, the brief season of light and life and love, let us be a little foolish about candlelight and children and matters of the heart, if only for the season!"

To be a little foolish is to keep the mystery, the X factor in Xmas.

Religion Didn't Create Morality

I've decided to speak out more often, more aggressively about religious nonsense, particularly as such nonsense relates to political posturing.

What tipped the balance was a Sarah Palin utterance, quoted in a Washington Post article by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend titled, "Sarah Palin is wrong about John F. Kennedy, religion and politics."

Since Ms. Palin obviously wants to influence religion in American life, it's appropriate to push back, pointing out how misinformed she is.

Ms. Palin contends: "morality itself cannot be sustained without the support of religious beliefs."

There's convincing evidence today, thanks to evolutionary psychologists such as Steven Pinker, that we're hardwired by evolution to bend toward an instinctive morality. (A New York Times Magazine article by Pinker gives a handy overview of moral instincts.)

Contrary to Ms. Palin's pronouncement, religion didn't create morality. In fact, our human moral instincts significantly contributed to the creation of religion--not just one religion but many religions. And, yes, it's possible to be moral without religion.

Resist Not Fools

As the September 11 anniversary of the terrorist attack on Manhattan’s World Trade Towers approaches, a fringe Florida minister with a miniscule congregation, proposes the public burning of the Muslim holy book, the Koran. He’s gotten far too much attention, including requests from the Secretary of State and the President not to proceed with such a demonstration. The mediasphere loves the story, because it panders to a growing intolerance of Muslims, appealing to base attitudes.

There have been plenty of worthy programs across America since 9/11 to promote tolerance generally and Muslim-awareness specifically. Now and again these efforts get notice, but are soon forgotten. But one fringe Christian minister, with a cockamamie call to burn the Koran, gets days of exposure not just in the United States, but around the world. This isn’t fair, is it?

Ecclesiastes recognizes this unfairness: “Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.” [9:18]

I’ve chosen not to contend with the Florida minister, simply saying “The call to burn the Koran is utter foolishness with self-evident, dangerous consequences; yet I support First Amendment rights, especially freedom of religion and of speech.”

To those upset with the proposed Koran burning I recommend they take a positive posture by learning a little about this Holy Book about which most persons are largely ignorant, perhaps by a reading a good encyclopedia article. This familiarization can extend to reading a few surahs from any one of a number online translations.

For me, Wisdom is proactive. Contend with fools and their foolishness as little as possible. There are f ew rewards to come from arguing with the foolish, who through such arguments gain a certain credibility.

The Earth Lasts Forever

"A generation goes and a generation comes," [Ecclesiastes 1:4] has special meaning for me regarding the Monarch butterfly. As summer edges into autumn, across North America, Monarchs swarm and begin an epic migration thousands of miles south to a great wintering area in Mexican mountain forests. Then, in spring, the survivors of that great winter flock flutter north to repopulate landscapes from which their ancestors came, some reaching the prairies of southern Canada.

From March through October, the butterflies drink the nectar and the caterpillars munch on the leaves of milkweed plants—tall, broad leafed plants with a bitter, milky sap. The butterflies, drawn to the perfume of clustered, pinkish blooms, linger to lay tiny white eggs on the leaves. The eggs hatch into minute green and black caterpillars that feast endlessly to become big fat specimens; when they attain full size the caterpillars transform into delicate, beautiful chrysalises, to emerge as orange and black monarchs.

This cycle repeats three or four times throughout a hospitable summer. The final generation “knows” its destiny. Rather than laying eggs, these last Monarchs of summer flock and begin a trek that can be as long as twenty-five hundred miles.

For three summers I’ve allowed a volunteer milkweed to grown in the corner of a border of variegated dogwood alongside my driveway. The single plant, this year, has exploded into a score and more, with a few trying to establish in my lawn, fifteen feet from the original plant. A gardener friend said that milkweed spread by sending out roots, so I now have a well-established colony.

A few weeks ago the perfume of milkweed flowers wafted a gentle, sweet perfume that caused me to bury my nose in a blossom. To my eye the little blooms look like pastel bursts of fireworks, the variety that radiate from the center out to form a ball.

Milkweed perfumes must be an olfactory siren call to Monarchs. For a few days three, four, and even more Monarchs at a time have fluttered among the beguiling blossoms. They seem besotted to my eye. Now and again a pair spins skyward in a mating ritual.

In Nature everything has a season. The season cycles through the generations, usually resting in the larger cycle of a year. For the Monarchs the yearly cycle has discrete cycles throughout the spring and summer. The result is a constancy of life, but the constancy rests on generation going and coming.

Ecclesiastes in beguiling poeticized prose conveys this intuited truth.

Though generations cease to be, the succession of generations seem right and fitting, and even offers consolation, if not comfort regarding mortality.

"A generation goes, and a generation comes; but the earth remains forever." [1:4]

Election and Exceptionalism

The conclusion to last night's Presidential Address from the Oval Office regarding the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Crisis:

"Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region's fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It's called 'The Blessing of the Fleet,' and today it's a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea - some for weeks at a time.

"The ceremony goes on in good times and in bad. It took place after Katrina, and it took place a few weeks ago - at the beginning of the most difficult season these fishermen have ever faced. And still, they came and they prayed. For as a priest and former fisherman once said of the tradition, 'The blessing is not that God has promised to remove all obstacles and dangers. The blessing is that He is with us always, 'a blessing that's granted '...even in the midst of the storm.'

"The oil spill is not the last crisis America will face. This nation has known hard times before and we will surely know them again. What sees us through - what has always seen us through - is our strength, our resilience, and our unyielding faith that something better awaits us if we summon the courage to reach for it. Tonight, we pray for that courage. We pray for the people of the Gulf. And we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a brighter day. Thank you, God Bless You, and may God Bless the United States of America."

In my estimation Barack Obama once again gives insight into his personal religion, while also giving a religious gloss to the general situation--at least its solution. He offers a complex traditional equation: generic faith, national courage, and trust in a guiding and steadfast Providence.

I suspect that faith, courage and trust are principles significant to Mr. Obama's sense of Self. Perhaps his seeming equanimity, which some criticize as a lack of passion, relates to a core belief of being elected (in a religious sense) and in communion with his God.

And I further suspect that those who disparage him by mockingly calling him "The Messiah" somehow share a similar outlook and ironically project notions of Divine election and exceptionalism on him. This is to say that of recent political personalities, Mr. Obama is the one who, in popular connsciousness, seems "chosen" to fill his office and shape a national destiny--for better or worse depending on your political outlook.

Where's the Love?

Then: Joe

It is one of the most poignant experiences of my ministry.

The setting: a bleak and decrepit little town in Western Pennsylvania not far from New Castle, circa 1980. The town had been an enclave for East European immigrants who worked the steel mills of the region when the steel industry was booming. It had become a place of closed storefronts and old folks left behind.

Joe, the deceased was a more recent immigrant, part of the jetsam of World War II from the region of contentious ethnic groups that became Yugoslavia. He had an old house and a dumpling shaped girlfriend who’d lived with him, a scandal in this insular community.

His only relative, a niece who lived in California with Unitarian ties, had called me in Youngstown. Niece, the girl friend, and I sat in the living area of Joe’s modest home, in the gray twilight of a bleak winter’s afternoon, drinking his homemade wine from cream cheese glasses. The strong wine warmed the belly and lessened the gloom. The niece told Joe’s story.

As the war progressed, Joe’s village was taken over by an unfriendly group of guerillas who threatened to raze and kill. Joe made an impassioned plea for mercy, declaring “Aren’t we all brothers?” His plaintive appeal saved the village.

After the war, in his new American town, Joe and a few other locals had a dispute with the town’s Catholic Church and were excommunicated. As a result they couldn’t be buried in the church’s consecrated graveyard (not to mention buried by a Unitarian minister!). But they’d made plans. The excommunicants had bought a parcel adjacent to the graveyard and as they died, one after another, the little graveyard filled up. The Church had retaliated, erecting an ugly barbed wire fence where the unconsecrated land began. The message was unmistakable, the symbolism as obvious as a crown of thorns.

As I pronounced the words by the graveside, before a handful of dispassionate people, I looked past the granite tombstones embedded with medallion portraits of the deceased, to the barbed wire fence, and beyond to the so-called consecrated land and stolid church. Clots of snow fell from a leaden sky and wind cut my cheeks.

Were the tears in my eyes from weather. Or were they from an aching grief for the inhumanity of a religion too proud of itself to simply love as its prophet had so clearly commanded?

Now: Janine

I remembered Joe’s burial and the enduring image of the barbed wire fence when I recently learned of an Edgewater woman, Janine Denomme, a lifelong Catholic of prodigious involvement with her Church who was denied, in no uncertain terms, the final rites of her beloved faith, because she had audaciously been ordained as a priest by a dissident Catholic group, Roman Catholic Womenpriests. (She was weeks away from death by advancing cancer.) The hierarchy declared she had self-excommunicated.

Once again I look across a barbed wire fence, musing on the spiritual irony of the actions of a Church founded on the principle of transcendent love.

Paul once declared that love trumps faith: “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three…but the greatest of these is love.”

Where’s the love?

A Fierce Unrest

In a well-reviewed (by NY Times) book, The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar, the author cites her own research: “Members of more fundamentalist faiths experienced greater hope, were more optimistic when faced with adversity and were less likely to be depressed than their counterparts. Indeed, the people most susceptible to pessimism and depression were the Unitarians, especially those who were atheists. The presence of so many rules didn’t debilitate people; instead, it seemed to empower them. Many of their choices were taken away, and yet they experienced a sense of control over their lives.”

In my estimation choice linked to the spiritual notion of freedom is a cardinal value and virtue, too. My immediate response to the author's judgment regarding happiness and Unitarians was amusement mixed with a desire to argue. I had plenty of justifications why Unitarian are so, as well as why such a "realistic" outlook is not only fitting but good.

I remembered decades ago discourse about inner locus of control vs. external locus of control of one's own behavior, and that the former was evidence of a human being rising to the apex of self-actualization.

In the end I recalled a Unitarian hymn, "A Fierce Unrest" from a Don Marquis poem: "A fierce unrest seethes at the core of all existing things...."

If choice there were, though I believe it to be already a fact of the human condition, I wouldn't hesitate to choose a fierce unrest at the core of my own life.

The Passion of Barack Obama

On Monday Barack Obama hosted an Easter Prayer Breakfast that included a number of Christian leaders, some of whom serve as his administration’s advisors on faith based initiatives. His remarks clearly identify his personal faith as a Christian. He testified:

“I can … tell you what draws me to this holy day and what lesson I take from Christ's sacrifice and what inspires me about the story of the resurrection.

“For even after the passage of 2,000 years, we can still picture the moment in our mind's eye. The young man from Nazareth marched through Jerusalem; object of scorn and derision and abuse and torture by an empire. The agony of crucifixion amid the cries of thieves. The discovery, just three days later, that would forever alter our world -- that the Son of Man was not to be found in His tomb and that Jesus Christ had risen.

“We are awed by the grace He showed even to those who would have killed Him. We are thankful for the sacrifice He gave for the sins of humanity. And we glory in the promise of redemption in the resurrection.

“And such a promise is one of life's great blessings, because, as I am continually learning, we are, each of us, imperfect. Each of us errs -- by accident or by design. Each of us falls short of how we ought to live. And selfishness and pride are vices that afflict us all.

“It's not easy to purge these afflictions, to achieve redemption. But as Christians, we believe that redemption can be delivered -- by faith in Jesus Christ. And the possibility of redemption can make straight the crookedness of a character; make whole the incompleteness of a soul. Redemption makes life, however fleeting here on Earth, resound with eternal hope.

“Of all the stories passed down through the gospels, this one in particular speaks to me during this season. And I think of hanging -- watching Christ hang from the cross, enduring the final seconds of His passion. He summoned what remained of His strength to utter a few last words before He breathed His last breath.

“'Father,' He said, ‘into your hands I commit my spirit’ Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. These words were spoken by our Lord and Savior, but they can just as truly be spoken by every one of us here today. Their meaning can just as truly be lived out by all of God's children.

“So, on this day, let us commit our spirit to the pursuit of a life that is true, to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord. And when we falter, as we will, let redemption -- through commitment and through perseverance and through faith -- be our abiding hope and fervent prayer.”

In my estimation we each have a narrative by which we comprehend our individual lives. Try to imagine how Mr. Obama’s looks at his astonishing life, in light of his personal testimony.

Perhaps he sees himself as the classic Christian “suffering servant,” bearing scorn and derision for a greater good: “to act justly and to love mercy and walk humbly with the Lord.” And how does he endure? By committing his spirit to his God, as he offers up the sacrifice of Self.

Further imagine that most immediately Mr. Obama is understanding the travails and eventual success of health care reform, one of the most significant transformations of American society, through this classic narrative. (I think this is reasonable. And it was my immediate response upon reading his words.)

Let’s call this narrative “The Passion of Barack Obama.”

Immortality: Mind and Memory

Last week I officiated at a funeral and two memorial services.

In the Unitarian tradition the eulogy and remembrances are at the heart of end of life observances. This affirms that the deceased was this person and not that person, that she or he lived the life that circumstance shaped; but in the final analysis the deceased chose his or her path. We honestly remember and lovingly honor each life in its excellence and in its tragedy. And so I eulogized three unique personalities. Every human life matters is, indeed, sacred.

The great Russian poet Yevtushenko in his poem “People” intoned:

No people are uninteresting.

Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them in not particular,

and planet is dissimilar from planet.

And if a man lived in obscurity

making his friends in that obscurity

obscurity is not uninteresting.

To each his world is private

and in that world one excellent minute.

And in that world one tragic minute

These are private.

In honesty and in love, taking my cues from those who loved and/or were closest to the deceased, I craft eulogies in my end of life ceremonies. Each occasion, though grief marbled, affrms the first UU principle--the inherent worth and dignity of each person.

And I talk about other things in the service that relate to the gestalt of grief and remembrance, including human mortality.

I also speak to the sort of immortality I believe in, linking immortality to love and to memory, saying “We must believe that whatever we have known and loved is ours, blended with mind and memory, joined to our souls. The dead are not dead if we have loved them truly. In our lives we give them immortality.”

I believe that this is so, the only sort of conscious immortality we hope for. We, the living, are the bridge to immortality. This is, when you think about it, an awe-inspiring power to possess and a sacred responsibility to wield—to keep alive, resurrect, if you will, the personality that has otherwise dissolved in time. (It was Jesus who at the Last Supper/Passover Seder told his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me." He wanted to be remembered, one of the most plaintive appeals of the human condition.)

We have traditional yearly days of memory and affirmation: Memorial Day in Spring, All Souls/Veteran Day in Autumn, and today, Easter Sunday. I like the Jewish custom of a year of mourning that releases the mourner to a yearly remembrance, usually on the deceased’s birthday. That’s a good tradition. It grants freedom with responsibility.

I’m of the mind that ceaseless remembrance is the best, the sort recommended in a familiar reading that suggests that the spirit of the deceased is found through all that is beautiful, good, true in the world. You’ll surely recognize the words:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

This morning I want you to realize that relative to the life of a person you have loved and who has died, you are a link to their immortality. In this regard, to practice resurrection is to remember,-- perhaps without ceasing,—to remember honestly and lovingly. What an awesome power, what a sacred responsibility this is.

Hold it in your heart. Cherish it with your mind.

Practice resurrection.

A Mythopoetic Tale of Human Diversity

[from a sermon Around the World Religions]

When Nature’s God, using the slow but sure means of evolution, shaped and then sent our ancestors across the face of the earth to inhabit it, She did so with great expectations:

First, that through the millennia women and men would have many and diverse experiences, thereby teasing out and embodying the vast possibilities of the human condition in varying climates and cultures.

And second, that someday, when the world would seem to grow much smaller, as it has in our times, we might gather together the many people of the earth along with the deposit of their respective cultures. Then, now, we might learn of multitudinous experiences and discover how the various cultures not only evolved but also found and lived the meaning of their lives.

Why did She do so? She did so because she is a bountiful and generous God. She made the human condition virtually boundless that we might discover the many meanings that may be lived and discovered, not just in a particular life but through many, many lives.

No one life, no one culture is large enough to encompass the human condition. For She is a wise and Loving God, who delights and unconditionally loves all Her progeny in all its diversity.

An Anthem, by Goshen

Goshen College, a tiny (1000 student) liberal arts school has deep Mennonite traditions. It's ensconced in lush Amish and Mennonite country of north central Indiana. The Mennonites are a "peace church," with well-established pacifist ways.

One of Goshen College's enduring customs was not to play the national anthem, which they perceived as a war anthem, before college sporting events. As a NY Times article reports, they broke with that custom at a baseball game this week, though they followed an instrumental recording of the anthem with a prayer attributed to St. Francis.

Apparently the administration felt pressure to conform to cultural standards and bow toward a student body that, while still Christian, is decreasingly Mennonite. Perhaps the change was seen as preserving a fragile institution by making its ways less controversial.

In my estimation though prudent, playing the anthem without words still seems a kind of capitulation by Goshen College to public pressure at the sacrifice of values.

The playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" originated in 1918 in Chicago at a World Series Game. The country was at war and President Wilson had declared the SSB the "unofficial" anthem of the United States of America. When the series moved to Boston, the team's showman/owner ratcheted up the ante: at each game a large and enthusiastic band played the anthem.

The SSB didn't become the official anthem until 1931. The events around WWII, then of the Cold War led to a larger practice of playing the national anthem before all sports events.

Richard C. Crepeau, a scholar who has studied the relationship of the national anthem and sports, concludes, "In recent years, the national anthem has lost its patriotic air in most sports venues. It has become an occasion for entertainers to display their talents or lack thereof, fans to create new cheers, and the networks to run commercials. Its symbolic significance has been overshadowed by commercial purposes and public indifference, but it can still rattle the cages when someone uses it as an occasion for protest."

I've often wondered about the incongruous custom of the anthem opening sports events. And I've long suspected that the gestalt of spectator sports has religious significance with ritual, pageantry, patriotism, hero-worship and more to lift the spectator to a higher level of consciousness/being. In this regard the anthem reflects the amalgam of what is called Americanism, the melding of patriotism and religion.

Social Justice and the Hierarchy of Needs

Yesterday I spoke on the theme of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs relative to self actualization. An interesting after-service conversation considered how social justice issues might be predicated on this famous hierarchy, that poverty and its injustices preclude an individual from ever participating in a value-rich life. That is, a person always concerned with securing food, shelter, and safety can hardly begin to consider healthy self-esteem let alone rise to self-actualization.

This morning an article The Obesity-Hunger Paradox in the NY Times sketched circumstances of hunger and obesity in the South Bronx: " A 2008 study by the city government showed that 9 of the Bronx’s 12 community districts had too few supermarkets, forcing huge swaths of the borough to rely largely on unhealthful, but cheap, food.

'“When you’re just trying to get your calorie intake, you’re going to get what fills your belly,” said Joel Berg, the author of “All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?” “And that may make you heavier even as you’re really struggling to secure enough food.'”

In my estimation there's insight here regarding the timeless debate regarding the influences of nurture versus nature. Circumstances matter, not a little but a lot in the formation of character. In this regard social justice, at its best, seeks to change circumstances for the better, so that a person might become all that he or she can be.

The Millennials and Religion

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released the findings of its recent survey regarding the religious practices of the so-called Millennials, the generational cohort 18-29 who came of age after 2000.

The report's summary declares, "Compared with their elders today, young people are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition or to identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination. Fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as 'atheist,' 'agnostic' or 'nothing in particular.' This compares with less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%), 15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older."

They are less religiously affiliated. "Yet in other ways, Millennials remain fairly traditional in their religious beliefs and practices. Pew Research Center surveys show, for instance, that young adults' beliefs about life after death and the existence of heaven, hell and miracles closely resemble the beliefs of older people."

Generally, religion is just a little less important for the Millennials than for the Generation Xers who preceded them. The more significant shift relates to formal affiliations. Hence the report's title and subtitle: "Religion Among the Millennials: Less Religiously Active Than Older Americans, But Fairly Traditional In Other Ways."

In my estimation this report further fills in the emerging outline of religion in the American Experience. The shift away from affiliations while keeping much of what is called "spirituality" differentiates Americans from the rest of Western Civilization, but in an increasingly transformed fashion.

Spirituality matters still matter, while institutional religion further ebbs.

Emotional Communion

The NY Times, Science Section reports today on a study regarding its own "most frequently emailed article" list conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers concluded that "awe-inspiring" stories were at the top of the most-emailed list.

"But in general, people who share this kind of article seem to have loftier motives than trying to impress their friends. They’re seeking emotional communion, Dr. [Jonah] Berger said.

“'Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion,” he said. 'If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.'”

In my estimation this study offers insight into Natural Religion rooted in exerience and emotion, a subset of a broad category of Religious Experience. Awe is one of the strongest manifestations of Religious Experience. Tellingly, when experienced, awe makes us want to reach out to others, "to proseltyze and share." I love the term "emotional communion."

Emotional communion, a unique gestalt of affirmation and connection, is at the center of Religion. Religious Experience compels us to reach out, to be understood and to understand: a deep kindredness.

I'm Taking a Sabbatical from Garrison Keillor

In a mid-December column in Salon.com (and syndicated in several major papers), Garrison Keillor claimed Christmas for Christians in no uncertain words. "Christmas is a Christian holiday -- if you're not in the club, then buzz off."

He had curmudgeonly words for Unitarians and Jews. "Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite 'Silent Night.' If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn 'Silent Night' and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write 'Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah'? No, we didn't.'"

In my estimation this poorly constructed, rambling diatribe of Mr. Keillor isn't satire. (I've reread it to discern the proverbial tongue in cheek.)

It contributes to a prevalent vein of ugly discourse of us against them. And it lacks a simple sense of history regarding the evolution of Christmas. Talk about cultural appropriation! Mr. Keillor knows better.

I honestly can't fathom his intentions in writing this mean spirited piece. It hardly reflects his big-cuddly-bear, aw-shucks persona as portrayed in the image, posted above, from his Salon.com page.

I've decided to take a sabbatical from Garrison Keillor, in the same way I've taken a sabbatical from the "nattering nabobs of negativism" that inhabit talk radio. I began yesterday, when I declined a special simulcast screening of Mr. Keillor's radio show. Before this article, I would have gone.

Avatar: Sometimes a Movie Is More Than a Movie

The movie Avatar has just become the greatest grossing movie ever, passing James Cameron's previous blockbuster Titanic.  The movie has caused considerable controversy among certain groups, according to a recent NY Times article, "You Saw What in 'Avatar?'"

"Over the last month, Avatar has been criticized by social and political conservatives who bristle at its depictions of religion and the use of military force; feminists who feel that the male avatar bodies are stronger and more muscular than their female counterparts; antismoking advocates who object to a character who lights up cigarettes; not to mention fans of Soviet-era Russian science fiction; the Chinese; and the Vatican. This week the authorities in China announced that the 2-D version of the film would be pulled from most theaters there to make way for a biography of Confucius."

In my estimation such a ganglion of protest indicates the power of contemporary cinema.  Is there any more powerful means to reflect and inform a global collective consciousness?  

James Cameron has once again successfully engaged in the creative process of mythopoeis--of telling, in an artful way, a story of contemporary meaning.  He's taken compelling themes of the day and spun them together.  And don't forget what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth of the Hero.  (The formula of the classic hero infected Hollywood script writing and movie making at the end of the 20th century, following the success of Star Wars.)

Sometimes a movie is more than a movie.

Standing on the Side of Love: UUs Are Lovers

I am a big supporter of my denomination's (The Unitarian Universalist Association’s) current campaign Standing on the Side of Love.  Although it began with two hot button social issues, same sex marriage and immigration reform, and was instigated by a hate crime shooting spree at a Tennessee UU congregation, it is a boundless campaign.  

We UUs own a big chunk of the "love franchise."  Our Universalist tradition bends us toward Love.  “God is Love” was the Universalist motto—an essential theological doctrine that compels loving God in return, as well as loving God’s creation, especially our sisters and brothers.

In my estimation Unitarian Universalists are lovers.  We love the human condition in all its manifestations: female and male, young and old, straight and gay, every race and culture.  We love the Earth and its Nature in its many aspects.  We love the many world religions.  We love the senses.  We love the times and tides of our bodies.  We love the free mind and will to meaning we can bring to bear in every circumstance of life.  We love the richness of poetry and myth. We love the preciseness and clarity of science.  We love tradition and we love innovation.  We love contemplation and we love discussion.  We love the arts:  music, the spoken and written word, photographic image and painting, theater and cinema—all the creative forms through which human imagination seeks expression.  We love our own life and we love our larger Life, despite the reality that living means dying.

I often cite Rupert Brooke’s poem “The Great Lover” that begins: 

"I have been so great a lover: filled my days

So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise."

And continues:

"Love is a flame;—we have beaconed the world's night.

A city:—and we have built it, these and I.

An emperor:—we have taught the world to die".