Thursday, November 26, 2009

UU Thanksgiving litany

I woke up this morning with the ideas of litanies on my mind. I was raised Roman Catholic, was an altar boy, was in the seminary for a while, the whole show, and was bored silly when the liturgy included a litany. It was Saint this, and Saint that, "pray for us" - Ora pro nobis- if I remember right.

I got to thinking what a Unitarian Universalist Thanksgiving litany might sound like.

Supposing the response was something like "We are filled with gratitude, thank you."

So, it would go like this:

Francis David...

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

Clara Barton...

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

James Freeman Clarke...

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

Susan B. Anthony....

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

Rev. Dr. Thomas Chulak, Rev. Sally Hamlin, Rev. Scott Tayler, and all others who have helped our fledgling Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship get started.....

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

Robin Edgar who as persisted in attempting to insist on only the best from UU ministers.........

We are filled with gratitude, thank you.

Rev. William Sinkford who lead the UUA with such wisdom and grace....

We are full of gratitude, thank you

Boston Unitarian for the inspiring and deeply spiritual reflections...

We are full of gratitude, thank you.

James Ford, at Monkey Mind blog, for his wise and encouraging blog posts....

We are full of gratitude, thank you.

Reverend Forrest Church...

We are full of gratitude, thank you


Well you get the idea. Please add your own ideas to this litany, but one last mention

The readers of UU A Way of Life, especially those who leave comments...

We are full of gratitude, Thank you very, very much

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for including me in your litany David, but to be perfectly honest I am not in fact persisting in demanding only the best from U*U ministers, or indeed U*Us more generally. No, I am simply persisting in demanding that U*U ministers not be allowed to "do their worst" to me and other people with complete impunity and virtually no accountability whatsoever. I do not demand the very best from U*U ministers, nor U*U lay people. I simply demand that U*U clergy and U*U lay people should make a sincere and reasonable effort to genuinely "honor and uphold" (i.e. actually practice) the Seven Principles that Unitarian*Universalists supposedly *covenant* to "affirm and promote" along with other claimed ideals of the Unitarian*Universalist religious community.

    I look forward to the day when I will be able to say to the UUA and the Unitarian Church of Montreal, to say nothing of U*Us in general -

    "I am full of gratitude, thank you very, very much for finally getting around to doing the right thing and actually providing some restorative justice to me and other victims of "less than excellent" U*U clergy and stunningly dysfunctional U*U churches."

    Maybe next Thanksgiving I *might* be able to do so, but it sure won't be at this one.

    I wish you and yours a very enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. Canadian Thanksgiving falls about a month and a half earlier than the American observance of Thanksgiving in early October, on or about my birthday so Thanksgiving has a little extra significance for me.

    In light of the ongoing absolute refusal of Montreal Unitarians and the UUA to actually practice what they preach it looks like I will be "basting" big fat U*U "turkeys", and taking the "stuffing" out of overly proud U*Us, for a while yet. . . :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Here is my favorite non-Catholic litany David. I don't really need it all that much being so fearless and all ;-) but it may serve others well.

    Come to think of it some of those deeply insecure, if not outright paranoid, U*U "turkeys" I have the misfortune know might be very well advised to recite this litany a few times and then dredge up the DU*Utch courage necessary to finally enter into bona fiden and viable Peacemaking practices with the dreaded Emerson Avenger, scourge of the U*U World aka DU*UNE. ;-)


    I must not fear.

    Fear is the mind-killer.

    Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

    I will face my fear.

    I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

    And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

    Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

    Only I will remain.



    BTW I recently had the pleasure of rereading Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece 'Dune' which was an influential book in my youth.

    ReplyDelete

Print Friendly and PDF