Labels: 0th UU principle, 5th UU principle, 6th UU principle, angry at organized religions, Christianity, Community, favorite scriptural passages, Islam, our mission, paradigm shift, pax hominibus, war and peace

Labels: 1st UU principle, angry at organized religions, anti-oppression, Islam, sexuality, women, Women's Rights

Labels: angry at organized religions, fury, grace, pastoral care, personal bookmarks, personal growth, writing

Labels: angels, angry at organized religions, birds, inter-faith, interconnected web, peace, personal growth, personal religion, tattoos, theological sources

I guess I haven't been keeping up with everything.  I've always enjoyed Sinéad's music (except the showtunes album), and what I've heard "recently," but then again, the last six years I haven't had money or time for new music. Now seeing some news from a recent article, and the article linked above, I guess I haven't been keeping up much with what was going on in the life of my college idol/crush.  If memory serves, the poster I had on the ceiling of my bedroom junior year looked something like the pic at right.





 Huh, times have changed.  






Nowadays, I give support to people with depression and mental illness, and dealing with a Hx of parental abuse, during the course of a regular day.


Below is a quote from her that shines like a quasar for me.  Along with this 1994 quote "There is no too far," from Lee Renaldo, I will carry this quote from her with me forevermore:

 I realised songs were a place where you could say anything at all, the stuff you wouldn't dream of saying in real life.

I will always love Sinéad. Not just for that quote.  Not just for the music.  Not just for her beautiful bald head in times past.  Simply for her being.

lyrics: I will rise, and I will return. 
colors: Rainbow 
mood: A tad depressed 
chant/prayer/mantra: "--" 

pax hominibus, 
agape to all, 
joel

Labels: angry at organized religions, mental health issues, music, nuns, personal bookmarks, tattoos, theological sources

.

From a video of Floyd Red Crow Westerman
The songs that follow are well worth the listen as well.


pax hominibus,agape to all,joel

Labels: angry at organized religions, Christianity, heaven on earth, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, presence, theological sources

.

Here is the Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints document "A Proclamation to the World." It pretty much has their definition of one-man, one-woman marriage, along with some stuff about our Pre-mortal, Mortal, and Eternal states of existence. It was written in 1995, and seems to be a strong antecedent for the Mormons' push for Prop 8 in California, and other anti-gay-marriage efforts elsewhere.

For me, this quote is the one that nullifies the whole document because it stands so strongly against reason, and even stands out as causing a visceral reaction: "We declare that God's commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force." Overpopulate much?

It's stapled to the wall of the common room in this hostel. They also have a cardboard cutout of Aragorn, a cutout of Obi Wan Kenobi, and a knight's suit made out of thin tin, that looks like it would fit somebody about 5' 8".

I am here in SLC with 5000+ Unitarian Universalists for UU General Assembly. Perhaps more comments later on that. For now, just know that I have Obi Wan and Aragorn for housemates.

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: angry at organized religions, sacred texts, theological sources

So apparently back on December 19th, the Yes on Prop 8 folks got Kenneth Starr (the same guy who prosecuted against Bill Clinton) to file a case so that all 18k of the same sex couples in California who got married last year will have that marriage taken away.

Note that at the bottom of the dailykos page, there's a scary video of two Latter Day Saints marching into a lesbian household and taking their rings and marriage certificate, ripping it in half. That's pretty close to the truth. To think that rights that some people have been working to achieve and then win, could be taken away again is TOTALLY unAmerican.

So, if you're a friend of mine, and/or care about equal rights, please go here, and do as your heart compels.

I find it interesting and extremely sad that the Catholics and JC-LDS folks were two of the biggest proponents behind prop 8, and Unitarian Universalism was one of the biggest opponents to it. What I find interesting are these numbers.

The Catholics, a population of roughly 80 million give an average of 1.3%, a total easily over $5 BILLION dollars to the church annually.

The Mormons, a population of roughly 6 million give an average of 7.5% of their income to the church. For argument's sake, let's pretend the median income is a generous $50k/year. That works out to roughly $22.5 BILLION/year.

Unitarian Universalists have less than 200,000 pledging members, averaging less than 1% of their income. That means a total of (far) less than $100 million.

If we're talking about economic power (and the ability to put it to work in the form of making the world match your values), UU and our message and values are hurting. It's not just a question of getting the message out, but of getting it out enough, and getting it out more. The Catholics, the Mormons and the fundamentalists are all a lot more vocal than us, and often, its the loudest or most frequent voice that gets heard. We would be hard pressed to launch an ad campaign anywhere near the size of the Yes on 8 campaign the Mormons put on, or to pay lawyer's fees the size of someone like Kenneth Starr would ask for.

And a bit closer to home -- with the economic downturn, our association of churches are even hard-pressed to train ministers -- significantly fewer congregations are taking interns for the coming year, which means I might get the opportunity to be a stay-at-home dad for a year, and UU will have me as a minister for one less year, or perhaps not at all. My guess is that many other ministerial hopefuls are in a similar predicament. If our movement, and its values, are important, they need to spread. Unless we're going to turn all of our 50 person fellowships into 1000+ member uber-churches, we're going to need more ministers.

Giving 1% is not the way to do it. And I'm not suggesting 10%, or even 7.5%, but how about 3%? If it's about the margins between operating cost and the good social justice work we can do in the world, 1% is continually help us to keep a roof over our heads and a basic staff with bread on the table, but 1.1% would mean 10 million more bucks to go toward real community-roots justice work, and growth.

And yes, times are tough. My grandparents (a farmer, and a farmer's wife -- in other words, two farmers, one of whom fixed the tractor and tossed the hay bales on the wagon, and the other who drove the tractor and cooked and fed the chickens) didn't make a whole lot of money with their small 40-acre farm operation. But they had a policy that when times were tight. Knowing that the church community was the place that people turned to first when they ran on hard luck, if there was a recession or depression, they gave MORE money to the church, to help the community. In short, this recession/depression is an opportunity for Unitarian Universalists and other churches to pull together in community, and to rely on each other just a bit more.

And I say all this knowing full well that money is a substitute, a symbol of our labor. At some point, I intend to write a bit about what happens when the dollar (and other forms of money) get de-monetized, and are no longer current. I think a bit part of the paradigm shift coming up is when our labor gets de-monetized. I believe there can and will be a time when all our fundamental needs (food, water, housing, clothes) will be easily taken care of (if we work things right -- efficient sharing of resources & bringing the population down to 2-3 billion). And our basic modern needs (running water, electricity, communication, education, garbage collection) will also be taken care of. Then the work each of us does can be voluntary and our labor need not be monetized. It's just a question of if and when enough people have the collective will for us to turn the corner. I guess here I am talking parousia again.

Or we could just go the way of the Dodo. At least some of our theology would last, maybe. The thought that it might not is one of the few things that makes me shudder to the bones. Lord knows the mormons aren't preaching it (yet!).

lyrics: "Come around to my way of thinkin'.
Don't you want to, want to get along?"
-Urge Overkill, from Sister Havana

colors: blood red -- the color of hell -- the hell of enforced separation and divorce

mood: side-tracked. perhaps on-track actually.

chant/prayer/mantra: it takes an impulsive creative force, and then sustained energy.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: angry at organized religions, economics, equal rights, LGBT, our mission, parousia, politics, religious community, salvation, theology

This evening I read a few different posts by people I've only recently become acquainted with, or know through other people.

Labels: angry at organized religions, anti-oppression, changing the prison paradigm, LGBT, oppression, racism