Fascism: A Warning by Madeleine Albright

Here at UUAWOL ministries headquarters, the book of the month for September, 2018, is Madeleine Albright's book, Fascism: A Warning. This book is very relevant for those involved in UUAWOL ministries because it touches on the societal manifestations of our UU principles.

I am enjoying and learning a lot from Madeleine Albright's book Fascism: A Warning. Right out of the gate she asks on page 4, "Why are many people in positions of power seeking to undermine public confidence in elections, the courts, the media, and - on the fundamental question of the earth's future - science?" In other words, why are so many people, especially people in power showing not only a disregard, but contempt and disdain for UUs fifth principle, the right of conscience and the use of democratic process?

As if this question is not enough, she continues with the next sentence being, "Why have such dangerous splits been allowed to develop between rich and poor, urban and rural, those with higher education and those without?" Albright's question focuses on the heart of UUs second principle which is justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

And she continues with the following sentence, "Why has the United States - at least temporarily- abdicated its leadership in world affairs?" This question gets at UUs sixth principle which is the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.

And Albright ends the paragraph with the following sentence, "And why, this far into the twenty-first century, are we once again talking about Fascism?" We are talking about fascism because it is the antithesis of what is good, beautiful, and true and works against the sanctification of the world and the appreciation of UUs first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I have three answers to Albright's questions:

Stupidity or lack of awareness, or what might be called spiritual poverty.

Money

Fears generated by rapid social change leading to fears of missing out - FOMO.

The world, and the United States in particular at this time with ascendency of Trumpism, have a need for the vision of Unitarian Univeralism A Way Of Life Ministries which is to facilitate the growth of holiness among the men and women in this world.

This is the first of several articles which will be published over the next 4 weeks about this book. Please leave your comments.

The Seven Principles in Word and Worship, Ellen Brandenburg, Editor

One of the books being referred to currently in UUAWOL articles is The Seven Principles in Word and Worship, Ellen Brandenburg, Editor.

You can support UUAWOL by purchasing the book through Amazon using the widget below.

What books do for us

UUAWOL Book of the month for September is This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon

The book we will be discussing in September, 2014 on UU A Way Of Life is Linda McCullough Moore's book of short stories, This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon. It is incisive and delightful.

Book "Critical reading of Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver from a Unitarian Universalist's perspective" is now available.

There are 15 short essays in a small book of about 42 pages which are taken from the UU A Way of Life series in the month of June, 2014. PDF copies are free for the asking at davidgmarkha@gmail.com.

Paperback copies will be available next week from amazon.com for $9.95.

It is not necessary to have read Fight Behavior to still enjoy and benefit from the "Critical reading..." book. The book will be enjoyable and satisfying for individual use, and also lends itself very nicely to a book discussion group or a small ministry group or other kind of adult educational program.

Book of the month for August, 2014, The Green Boat by Mary Pipher

The UU A Way Of Life book of the month for August, 2014 will be The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves In Our Capsized Culture by Mary Pipher.

The Book Of Not So Common Prayer by Linda McCullough Moore

Linda McCullough Moore's book, The Book of Not So Common Prayer has been chosen as the UU A Way Of Life book for October, 2014. Here is the review I wrote for Amazon.

When I wrote Linda McCullough Moore a fan email after reading her story "On My Way Now" in the April, 2014 issue of The Sun Magazine she described herself as "deeply Christian". I asked her in a follow-up email what she meant by this. Now having read her book, The Book Of Not So Common Prayer, I understand much more clearly what she meant.

Linda McCullough Moore is not a "cultural Christian". She is a real one and lives the life bringing herself to prayer 4 times per day for 20 minutes, a practice she spends a 160 page book explaining. She explains her prayer life and what she wants it to be in every day language with wit, humbleness, and clarity that made me admire her and maybe want to emulate her practice. I see prayer a little differently than she does, her approach being more traditionally Christian, and I, a former Roman Catholic and now a Unitarian Universalist, more eclectic perhaps, and based on Aldous Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, the writings of the Stoics, the meditative practices of Osho, and the prayer practices recommended in the workbook of A Course In Miracles.

I don't imagine God as an "other person" who I talk to like an imaginary friend, but rather as an experience of Love's presence getting into a flow state of becoming one with everything as the state of bliss pursued by meditation. I told Linda in an email, I think of God as a verb, the ultimate force of the universe, the unified Godhead, and taking 20 minutes 4 times a day to connect to this wellspring does change one's sense of oneself and the world, no question about it.

I have great respect and gratitude of Linda's sincerity, genuineness, and candor in discussing what for most people is a very intimate and rarely described experience: praying. With the encouragement of Linda's book, I am going to work at my prayer life more seriously, regularly, and enthusiastically. For that, The Book Of Not So Common Prayer, is a great blessing.

UU A Way Of Life book for discussion in July, 2014 - Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

The UU A Way Of Life book for July is Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

UU A Way Of Life - Book of the month - Following The Path

While there are still many more comments to be made on December's book, A House For Hope by John Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker, it is time to announce the book for January, 2013 which is Following The Path: The Search For A Life Of Passion, Purpose, and Joy by Joan Chittister.

Not having finished the discussion on A House For Hope, we will begin a discussion of Following the Path the week of January 6th, so get your copy now. We are hoping you will read along with us and join in the discussion.

The topic for theme based ministry this month is Grace. So perhaps this theme can also be discussed on UU A Way Of Life.

Kurt Vonnegut, the UU prophet of planetary collapse induced by human greed - Player Piano

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, written in 1952, is a prophetic description of a dystopian world run by machines so that human beings have become superfluous.

Kurt Vonnegut was a Unitarian Universalist and his influence on American arts and letters is very significant and is an example of the second of the sixth sources of Unitarian Universalist faith, "Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."

In Player Piano Vonnegut describes a world taken over by technological corporations which have rendered human beings obsolete and makes the Shah of Bratpuhr, the spiritual leader of the Kolhouri, a sect of six million who is touring the United States, to ask the computer, EPICAC "what people are for."

Dr. Paul Proteus, the novel's protagonist, is the head of industry in Iliam, NY and struggles  to choose whether to continue his work and move on to a future of fame and success, or become the figurehead leader of a rebellion against the machine society.

Today, we struggle to decide whether corporations are people and have the same rights or whether they are the servants of a more humane society. We have built a capitalist society where the worship of Mammon and the bottom line supersedes human rights and dignity, and the resentment and rage are simmering just below the surface and is leaking to the surface in the Occupy Wall Street movement and the civil service union protests in Wisconsin, Oakland, and other places.

Vonnegut's novel, Piano Player is a testament to the UU principles of the inherent worth and dignity of every person even though corporate power and technology subjugate and oppress millions of people. Justice, equity, and compassion become values of the past when corporate capitalism values money and investor dividends more than the people the corporations were meant to serve. Vonnegut's city of Ilium is divided in three sections: the office and machine park where robots do the work and manufacture the goods, the gated community where the engineers and the managers live, and Homestead where the lower classes live who are forced to either work in the Army or the Reclamation and Reconstruction Corps known colloquially as the "reeks and wrecks."

Piano Player is a book for our time even though it was written 60 years ago. The dynamics of the culture which Vonnegut describes has gotten worse over those 60 years rather than better with the further financial inequality between the 1 and the 99%. The governance of the country has been captured by the corporations for economic gain rather than the common welfare.

Vonnegut was a Unitarian Universalist and a Humanist.

The moral of the story of Player Piano is that human dignity requires that human beings stand up to the faceless power of the robot machines and the corporations which have dehumanized millions in the name of profit and greed. In the battle between money and human dignity it seems that money is winning but there a few of us who realize that money can't buy you love and that love is by far more important than money.

Player Piano is a bleak indictment of what we have become as a people in the name of "progress". We have sold our souls to the devil and as we progress through the 21st century it becomes increasingly questionable whether civilization as we have known it will survive. It seems that with our technology, especially carbon producing machines that use fossil fuels we have poisoned our own home on planet earth so that in another 100 years it will be unrecognizable. Vonnegut as an artistic prophet has tried to warn us but too few of us especially those in power who stand to gain in the short run financially have heeded his artistic vision of what we have done and are doing to ourselves.

You can support the  UU A Way of Life by buying books with the Amazon carousel widget in the right column.

Who do admire enough to emulate?

I am working with Lama Willa Miller's book, Everyday Dharma, and the last two days she has focused first on asking the reader to consider who they admire and on the second day what qualities do the people you admire have that you would like to emulate? She asks the reader to pick three people and  focus on some specific qualities for emulation. The people can be living or dead, real or fictional, she even allows animals.

There are so many people I admire and they have so many qualities that I would like to emulate that I have found the exercise much more difficult than I would have imagined it would be.

I have always admire my ex wife Angela's determination to do things and her persistence in getting things done, sometimes to a fault, but she pushed me to do things that I would never have done had it not been for her. I would like to have her determination and persistence. I am often too quick to find an excuse and to doubt myself, or the project, or to think of reasons it won't work out.

I admire Rev. Dr. Tom Chulak, the former St. Lawrence District Executive Director who gave me advice several times about how to go about working with others to start BUUF, the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. When Tom retired, I was surprised as my sense of loss, because Tom had been a very wise source of counsel. His words are still repeated in our steering committee meetings, "How you begin is how you will finish." I admire Tom's wisdom, his ability to cut through the nonsense and get to the heart of the matter and his respectful way of working with people. He helped us start GUUSTO, Genesee Unitarian Universalist Societies Together, which is our cluster of Rochester area churches.

The third person I admire the most is Jesus of Nazareth. There are so many things I admire that it is hard to choose one. I guessed it is his love for everybody and his sense of connection with the divine. He lived a heart felt life and shared it with others in his words and deeds. It is hard to believe he was only in his early 30s when he was involved in his public ministry.

Emulation is a good thing, I think. For me it feels a little like positive competitiveness. I want to be as good as if not better than the person I admire and want to emulate realizing with humility that I could never do this because I am not that person.

I like Lama Willa Miller's book very much. I recommend it to you.

March, the book

At the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship we have a book discussion group which meets once per month in the basement of the Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport, NY on the second Tuesday of every month at 6:30 - 8:00 PM.

This month we will meet on February 8, 2011, to discuss March by Geraldine Brooks.

Brooks describes what Mr. March was doing in the Civil War when he left his wife and four daughters in Concord, MA immortalized in Louise May Alcott's novel, "Little Women".

Mr. March is Reverend March, a Unitarian minister who is a contemporary of Emerson and Thoreau and who leaves his family to provide chaplain services to the Union Forces during the first year of the Civil War.

The themes are perrenial such as the abandoning family to serve one's country, and the sadism and evil of war.

I liked the book and found it very readable.

The moral of the story is that war is dehumanizing and tortures human souls in a hell on earth not only in the war itself for the soldiers but also for the family left behind.

I recommend the book.

Viet Nam, a personal reflection, and a book discussion topic October 10 and 12.

The next Brockport Unitarian Universalist Book Discussion meeting will be on Tuesday, 10/12/10, at 6:30 PM at the Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport, NY.

We will be discussing Tim O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried. It is a story about the U. S. soldiers' experience in Viet Nam.

The Sunday before this discussion, BUUF will be hosting Albert Datro, M.S., a licensed mental health counselor, who is a Viet Nam vet, and who, with his wife Nancy, went back to Viet Nam to visit last Spring. Al will be leading our Second Sunday adult education meeting on Sunday, 10/10/10 at 10: AM at the  Brockport Exempts at 248 West Avenue, Brockport, NY.

All people, not just BUUF members, are encouraged to attend the Second Sunday meeting with Al Datro and the book discussion group at Lift Bridge on the following Tuesday.

Please come and bring a family member or friend with you.

Inheriting The Trade, the book

I finished reading Inheriting The Trade by Thomas Norman DeWolf in preparation for tonight's book discussion group sponsored by the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at the Lift Bridge Book Store in downtown Brockport, NY.

In Inheriting The Trade DeWolf traces the involvement of his family in the business of slavery from Rhode Island to Africa to Cuba and the Caribbean and back. It is a fascinating description for many reasons, the foremost of which is the institutional and structural racism which allowed the practice of slavery to flourish and be sustained. The creative tension in the book is based on DeWolf's description of his own feelings and thoughts, and others in the group who participated in this project, as he discovers the horror of our history.

It is a rare glimpse at the shadow side of America which is not taught in our history books in school. While America is based on high ideals, the reality is grim when confronted in its stark actuality. The reader recoils with DeWolf and says "This is not the America I was taught about. Is this really us?"

It is not just the collective us, but for the DeWolf family it becomes exceedingly and painfully shameful. Of course, the DeWolf family were not alone. They did what they did with the full blessing of their community and society. It not only was condoned, it was celebrated with the economic benefits of the country in which all, in some way, participated.

In a sense, slavery is the great American way, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as a result of the powerful manipulations of society by the privleged. Laws are passed in Arizona and acted upon in the rest of the country to discriminate against and oppress people of color not for what they do but for who they are.

At the age of 64, I remember the laws of segregation in the south and the killings that went on to domestically terrorize one segment of the population by another segment of the population in order to keep control and continue to reap the economic benefit of privlege of white over black.

It goes on today if one only looks at who the 2,000,000 people are in America's prisons and under criminal justice supervision.

DeWolf articulates the idea of privilege and how white and male privilege provide huge benefits to those in power and control to oppress people of color and women. This privilege continues today and as DeWolf writes until we become aware of it, and can name it, we cannot manage it in a more equitable and compassionate way.

DeWolf makes a compelling and very readable case for how racism has become institutionalized in our capitalistic economy, our churches, and other social institutions.

DeWolf's book, Inheriting The Trade is must reading for every American. Unitarian Universalists especially should read this book since it validates our values and encourages a deep reflection and action to heal the wounds of racism and oppression in our society.

I give it a 5 out of 5 stars on the Markham must read scale.

For more information at Inheriting The Trade web site click here.

The spiritual practice of reading

"In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change or accident. The oldest Egyptian or Hindu philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. No dust has settled on that robe; no time has elapsed since that divinity was revealed. That time which we really improve, or which is improvable, is neither past, present, not future."

Henry David Thoreau, Reading

I started reading a little book entitled The Widsom Of Thoreau and I have been blown away by some of what I have been reading.

Thoreau was a naturalist in the modern tradition and we, supposedly, have moved on to the postmodern notion of there being no truth, but I understand what Thoreau is getting at when he points out that reading the "truth" in the classics is as fresh today as the day it was written.

Of course, the recognition of that "truth" seems to be in relatively short supply. The "truth" is understandable only to those who comprehend what is written and this takes a training, Thoreau writes, as vigorous as any athlete.

"To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written."

I enjoy reading and it is almost, if not, a spiritual practice. The thoughts and ideas of wise and reflective people lift my spirits immensely.

Unitarian Universalism is a thoughtful religion which seeks the truth in a free and responsible way. I would guess that one of the most important spiritual practices of Unitarian Universalists is reading.

There are so much nonsensical and trivial books being published these days that it is hard to winnow the grain from the chaff. This is another reason that a good book is so precious and while not necessarily a commercial success is a treasure.

I comment on books I have really liked on this blog. I hope that you will share not only your favorite books but a comment about why that book spoke truth to you whether it is fiction or nonfiction.

Inheriting the Trade, the book

The Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Interfaith Book Discussion Group is reading Inheriting The Trade by Thomas Norman DeWolf. We will be discussing the book next Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at the Lift Bridge Book Store in Brockport, NY from 6:30- 8:00 PM. Everyone is welcome.

Some of the interesting things I have learned so far is that most of the slave traders were working in the north not the south and half of the slave voyages originated in Rhode Island.

De Wolf mentions that in the late 1700s and early 1800s there were 14 million immigrants to the United States and 11 1/2 million of them were slaves.

Inheriting The Trade is not so much about a family's genealogy, and the slave trade, but rather about the structural aspects and legacy of slavery and how people still feel about it.

Perhaps it is not race that is the elephant in the living room that everyone feels anxious talking about but slavery. How is it that our country was founded on the idea that one race of people can exploit another race of people as property, as objects to buy and sell and enforce labor and degrading conditions upon? What kind of moral deficiency is this that justifies such behavior by human beings?

Taking care of others

"When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal perrogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. She never let a chance escape her to point out the shortcomings of other tribal groups to the greater glory of her own, a habit that amuse Jem rather than annoyed him."

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee p. 172

The Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Interfaith Book Discussion Group meets tonight, 02/09/10, at 6:30 PM at the Lift Bridge Book Store on Main Street in Brockport, NY at 6:30 PM.

I love To Kill A Mockingbird. I know people like Aunt Alexandra and see some of myself in her. I would hope that when I become overbearing that people, like Jem, will find it amusing rather than annoying. There have been plenty of times recently when people have shut me up. I thought I was being entertaining, informative, and inspiring but my audience, apparently, didn't appreciate my elocutions as much as I did. It would seem that people are getting dangerous when they love hearing themselves talk more than other people do. It's not that I'm not humble, it's just that I am enjoying myself too much to become silent.

The world needs Aunt Alexandras to some extent. They just need to know where to draw the line.

Can Atticus Finch be an honorary Unitarian Universalist?

"Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong..."

"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, p.139-140.

On the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, the Brockport Unitarian Universalist Fellowship has chosen this book to discuss in February. The BUUF interfaith book discussion group will be meeting tomorrow night, Tuesday, 02/09/10, at the Lift Bridge Book Shop on Main Street in Brockport, NY at 6:30 PM.

I have enjoyed my re-read of To Kill A Mockingbird very much. Atticus Finch is a modern day saint as are some of the other characters like the housekeeper, Calpurnia, and the children, Jem, Scout, and Dill.

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience" is a great line.

It is one of the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism, "the right of conscience and the use of democratic process within our congregations and in society at large." Atticus, though, points out the rub which is when the individual conscience is in conflict with the democratic process. Atticus struggles with this mightily in Maycomb County in the 30s when an all white jury convicts an innocent man based on their democratic prejudice.

What happens when democracy is wrong? What happens when good people group together and do bad things? How does one lone individual stand up to a mob mentality? It is the perennial question as when just about the whole congress except for one, Barabara Lee, voted to support the United States entering into a pre-emptive, immoral, and unfounded war in Iraq. These are disturbing and frightening observations to watch your country, your state, your community, your family, your spouse go off half cocked.

The need to be right especially when supported by a group is primitive herd behavior or circling the wagons and protecting one's own. Might makes right! Love it or leave it! My Country Right Or Wrong! Are You With Us or Against Us?!

You've heard all the defensive slogans. There is no person or group that is as dangerous as people who are trying to protect themselves from shame. Shame, along side fear, is the most destructive and malignant emotion that humans can experience. It makes humans dangerous, unreasonable, and destructive. Atticus Finch knew this and worked hard to avoid shaming people. It takes a big person. Would that I could be as good a person as Atticus Finch.

I am proud that my daughter, Maureen, and her husband, Rodney, named their first born, a son, Atticus. He just turned 4. Would that he live up to his namesake.

I am not sure what religion Atticus Finch subscribed to or would subscribe to if he were alive today, but I would be very proud if he would be a Unitarian Universalist because he "gets it" and walks the talk.

The Mountain Of Silence, the book

For the Sociology of Religion course which I just finished at SUNY Brockport we had to read 4 books. The last book we were assigned is entitled, "The Mountain Of Silence" by Kyriacos Markides.

Markides is a sociology professor at the University of Maine and he spent several years studying the spirituality of the Athonite monks at the Panagia monastery on Cyprus. It is a fascinating book and I learned a lot from it. Not only did I learn a lot intellectually but it has deepened my faith in remarkable ways that I am still discovering even after finishing the book.

I highly recommend the book to people who are interested in deepening their own spirituality and coming to understand monasticism.

I will be making comments about things I found interesting in the book for the next couple of weeks.