Story of the day - For there to be winners there's got to be losers.

Suzie said to her husband John when he got home from work, "Sophie came home crying today because the cheerleading coach told her if she didn't work harder she'd be cut from the team. She thinks she's fat so she said she is skipping dinner."

"She's not fat," said John. "What would make her think such a thing?"

"She's only in sixth grade, but developing faster than the other girls, and they may be jealous so they are teasing her. You know how girls can be? Or maybe you don't," said Suzie.

"So she thinks starving herself is going to stop her breast and hip development?" said John.

"I don't know," said Suzie. "Kids at this age are so competitive, and catty, and worried about fitting in and being popular. Everyone wants to be a winner and, of course, for there to be winners, there's got to be losers. Some people are just going to be the losers that's how the pecking order for the pre-teen, and young teenagers works."

"I remember when I was kid that age, I would complain to my mother that things weren't right, things weren't fair, things shouldn't be the way they were, and she'd say to me 'John, who have no right to complain unless you can do it better.' And I've walked around since that time muttering to myself, 'I can do it better, I can do it better, I know I can do it better.'"

"So that's where your self righteous indignation comes from," said Suzie laughing.

"Oh, yeah," said John. "I love to blame dear old mom for screwing me up."

"Honey, your desire for things to be right, and your honesty, and humility are what attracted me to you. If you were an arrogant know it all, it wouldn't be attractive, but because of your honesty and humility and willingness to admit if you can't do it better, it works for you," said Suzie.

"So what do we do to help, Sophie? She's got to eat." said John.

"You need to talk to her," said Suzie. "Coming from a man and her father is probably more important that it coming from me. Tell her whether she gets on the team or not is not important. What's important is that she do her best and the chips will fall where they may, she can't control that. And if she is cut it certainly won't be because she is fat, she is just right, and her body is changing just as Mother Nature intended and that you love her no matter what."

"God that's good," said John. "I hope I can remember all that."

And he did, and Sophie listened, and ate her dinner. The moral of the story is that love trumps torturing yourself, turning yourself into somebody you aren't, to win and fit in. Amen. May it be so.

Is winning the only thing? How about fair play?

Vince Lombardi, the former coach of the Green Bay Packers, has been credited with the slogan of UCLA Bruins coach, Red Sanders, "Winning isn't everything, it is the only thing." Many young people in the United States have been taught this ethic. Win at all costs.

Competitiveness, always being right, never giving in for fear of being taken advantage of or seen as vulnerable, are not only preoccupations of Americans and the basis for the perverted view known as American "exceptionalism," but are contrary to the second principle of Unitarian Univeralism: justice, equity, and compassion in human relations to which we all pay lip service and then behave in our society quite differently based on contradictory norms.

My son was playing high school football and I heard he and his friends discussing the coaching directive to "hurt" your opponent when you block him or tackle him so he is intimidated. When I questioned these young men about this instruction, they insisted "that's how you win games."

"By maiming your opponent?" I said. "You are deliberately trying to hurt him?! What happened to good sportsmanship and the love of the game well played?"

"That's what Coach told us," they all insisted. "If you hurt them, they will be intimidated and not play so hard, and you'll win games."

"Really?" I said. The coach was known as a born again Christian and attended one of the Pentecostal churches in our town. I scheduled an appointment to talk to him. He sheepishly denied everything and I could tell he was guilty as charged but couldn't be honest and admit it. I said, "Listen, Coach, your players are getting this message from somewhere."

"All I do," he said, "is encourage them to do their best."

"Doing your best I hope doesn't include playing dirty. If this is the basis of your football program I don't want my son playing, and I don't want any other kids playing as well. Perhaps, the coaching philosophy of this school is a matter that I should bring up with the school board," I said.

"This school takes great pride in its winning teams. A couple of the school board members are former players of mine. They have been the recipients of our coaching philosophy. You don't need to worry about this any more. I will talk to my assistant coaches and the players and correct any misunderstanding," said coach.

Predatory capitalism also puts an emphasis on profit at all costs ignoring the external negative affects of the business practices to the environment, human rights, and the well being of the communities in which they operate. Google "mountain top removal" and see what the coal companies have done to the Appalachian mountain region of the United States and the communities situated in those  areas where this mining occurs. We, consumers, have contributed to the injustice, and inequities by buying cheap goods at Walmart to save some money overlooking the long term effects of these bargains on the injustice, inequity, and disrespect for the people and communities who produced those cheap goods.

It is one thing to talk a good game promoting and affirming justice, equity, and compassion and quite another thing to play it. It is this hypocrisy, often unrecognized and unacknowledged, that is destroying the environment on the planet, as well as a sense of well being in our personal lives as evidenced by the epidemic of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, suicide, and meanness in our communities and society. Listening to and watching our media, radio, TV, tabloids, internet, etc. we are not longer surprised at the scandal, the subterfuge, the tragedy of the day which will last about 48 hours for the news cycle until the next injustice, inequity, disrespectful thing breaks the news, and we can all tsk, tsk, and feel better because we are bad, but not as bad as that.

Are we playing to win or to be fair? Do we always need to be right or can we admit our mistakes? Do we need to ignore and look down on people who upset us, disgust us, annoy us, and threaten us or can we consider how God looks at them and extend some forgiveness and compassion? These are our challenges as Unitarian Universalists. This is what the second principle calls us to do. The ethical imperative of the second principle is so counter cultural, so foreign to the endemic ethic of exceptionalism of Americans that we UUs are the outliers in our culture. We do not fit in. It is very difficult to be committed to our faith and abide by the implicit norms of our society at the same time. Would that we, and the rest of society, could rise to our level of understanding and functioning to which we aspire.

My Kind Of Church Music - More For Your Money, Keb'Mo'

Story of the day - Butterflies and feminazies

"What do you think of that book, Flight Behavior?" asked Alex.

"I didn't read it all," said Brian. "Why would she ask us to read a book about butterflies? Jesus!"

"It really wasn't about butterflies  and you'd know that if you'd read it," said Alex.

"Yes, it was. Did you read it, dork face?" said Brian.

"It's about climate change and how it's affecting life on this planet," said Alex. "The butterflies are just an example, an artistic device, to tell the story."

"Chic lit, if you ask me. I swear you're gay," said Brian.

"How are you going to pass the exam when you don't even get the point of the book?" asked Alex.

"Who gives a shit. I'm cutting class that day, anyway, to go hunting. Deer season opens Friday."

"You're going to take a zero to go hunting?" asked Alex.

"Hell yeah. I can't believe that witch would schedule an exam on the first day of the season. She knows a lot of us guys hunt," said Brian.

"Well, she grew up in Boston, I think. Went to Bryn Mawr, or Vassar or one of the those Ivy League schools for women. She doesn't know about our lives here that well yet. She's only been here teaching for a couple of years. I think this is her second year," said Alex.

"Well she needs to get with the program, ya know, and quit with the butterfly shit already. My parents are paying good money for me to go here and if they knew what I was being forced to learn they'd probably be upset like Rush that these professors are all liberals and the women are feminazies," said Brian.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion for the mature, the courageous, the brave

Dr. Ovid Byron, the entomologist's wife, Juliet, an anthropologist,  has come from California to visit with her husband as he does his field work on the Monarch butterflies in Tennessee. The couple is having dinner with Dellarobia and Cub, a professional middle class couple, with a farming couple 20 years their junior.

      Ovid was explaining something to Juliet that he called the theory of the territorial divide. With some confusion, Dellarobia understood this was her theory, he was attributing it to her, though the terms he used were unfamiliar: climate-change denial functioned like folk art for some people, he said, a way of defining survival in their own terms. But it's not indigenous, Juliet argued. It's like a cargo cult. Introduced from the outside, corporate motives via conservative media. But now it's become fully identified with the icons of local culture, so it's no longer up for discussion.

     "The key thing is," Juliet said, resting her elbow on the table, that beautiful wrist bending under the weight of its wooden rings, "once you're talking identity, you can't lecture that out of people. The condescension of outsiders won't diminish it. That just galvanizes it."

     Dellarobia felt abruptly conscious of her husband and her linoleum. "Christ on the cross," she said without enthusiasm. "The rebel flag mudflaps, science illiteracy. That would be us."

     "I am troubled by this theory, Dellarobia," Ovid said, "but I can't say you are wrong. I've read a lot of scholarly articles on the topic, but you make more sense."

     "Well, yeah," Juliet said, "that's kind of the point, that outsiders won't get it." p.395

Most human beings although they benefit from the knowledge and technology gained from science are scientifically illiterate. The skill of scientific thinking and problem analysis has never been acquired by most people as a result of their education to facilitate a higher level of more deliberate and purposeful functioning. Most people still function based on emotional responses to what they perceive as external circumstances fueled by unconscious conditioning based on the avoidance, containment, or elimination of fear.

The avoidance, containment, and, if possible, the elimination of fear, is achieved by the security of belonging to a group of like minded people who will have your back and help protect you. Identification with the group, it's symbols, rules, values, beliefs, practices becomes important, so the individual thinks and feels, for survival. And yet we live in a time where "group think", especially if the "group think" is wrong, is especially important for the survival of the whole species of homo sapiens.

Juliet seems to be saying that correct understanding, right mindedness, must come from within the group, because if the group perceives the attempts to change their "group think" as coming from without, they will just feel threatened and become more "galvanized".

What is the Unitarian Univeralist approach to people caught up in "group think"? It advocates in its fourth principle the "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" but not many people have the temperament, or the maturity, to be what are called "free thinkers". Perhaps it is the fifth principle, "the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large" which has the best utility in this situation of dysfunctional "group think". I was taught as a Roman Catholic that my conscience was the final arbiter of right and wrong. To be right with God meant that I was to bring my conscience into compliance with what I thought and felt God was calling to me to do. As long as I went with my conscience I would be all right. As St. Paul says in his letter to Corinthians, "If God is with you, who can be against you." It was the will of God, not the group, that was to be used as the final guide to my choices and decisions.

The psychological consideration is whether the individual is mature enough, has the courage,  is brave enough to stand up for his or her conscience? If not he or she may go along with the group out of fears of punishment, being dismissed as crazy, or exile and excommunication for rocking the boat, going against the grain, disturbing the status quo, stepping on the toes of the leaders of group who have the power to enforce compliance.

Unitarian Universalism is not a religion for the weak, the cowardly, the insecure, the people pleasers. We understand that our environment is being changed by human activity and that species are being made extinct and the weather is changing leading to significant changes in the geological functioning of our planet. The moral question is whether we, homo sapiens, will take responsibility or continue with the same because of the short term profit and security of the familiar? 

What is happening to our climate is a matter of science. What should be done about the changes that science is learning about is a matter of ethics. The ethical base for Unitarian Universalism articulated in its seven principles can be the saving grace for all species at this time in our geological evolution of this planet. Will we be a light unto the world, the yeast in the dough, the salt of the earth?

Story of the day, STD free since 1995

Back in the 70s there was this cheesy, romantic movie starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neil, heart throbs of the day, entitled, "Love is never having to say you're sorry." which was extremely popular at the box office, and the slogan "Love is never having to say you're sorry" gave boomers permission to behave as they wanted without guilt, or even concern for how people they supposedly loved might feel.

Sally said, "That movie was rubbish and it ruined my life. I really believed that tripe. My boyfriends would complain to me about my free love attitude, and I'd tell them I loved them at least at the time of the consummation of our love which now I recognize as lust, and brush them off and go my merry way. Now it all seems so unfair, disrespectful, now, you know?"

Linda said, "Sal, don't worry. We were all that way. A product of the times what with birth control and everything. I saw what look liked a mother and daughter at a peace protest last week  and they were waving to the cars passing by. It said, 'STD free since 1995'. I started laughing so hard I almost pulled over because I didn't know if I could keep my car in its lane."

"Yeah, well, I don't know if I ever told you, but I had a couple of abortions too along with chlamydia and genital herpes which slowed me down a little bit, but often I wouldn't tell my partners and I felt guilty which I tried to erase with pot and LSD. When I got genital warts I knew I was done with my 'free ways,'" said Sally. "I started to feel unclean."

"We had some good times though, didn't we?" said Linda.

"At the time I thought so, but I now I wonder if I wasted part of my life, and I get down on myself."

"Time to find the Lord," said Linda laughing.

"I tried that. Didn't I tell you about the time I got saved? I thought it was right. It was about 7 years ago, and for awhile I felt like my sins had been washed away, atoned for by the blood of Jesus when He died on the cross. But that explanation isn't working for me any more. I think I have more responsibility and I'm still thinking about some of the guys I hurt. I try extra hard to be kind to people, you know, to make up for my uncaring, cavalier ways earlier in my life," said Sally.

"Look who's turning into a goody two shoes," said Linda.

"You're not helping, Linda," Sally said.

"Okay, listen, this is turning into a bit of a downer. I've got to go. When you get done feeling sorry for yourself, give me a call," and Linda got up to leave.

"I'll see you next time," said Sally.

"Yeah, I'll see you when I see you," said Linda over her shoulder as she walked out the door.

Sally started to tear up and she wondered what was wrong with her. Why was she losing her friends? Her therapist had told her he thought she was outgrowing them, and loneliness sometimes is the price you pay for growing up and moving on with your life.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

It is written in A Course In Miracles:

“Forgiveness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed and its outcome sure.” ACIM, Lesson 169.12.1

As we consider the second principle of "justice, equity, and compassion in human relations" we cannot understand these concepts without considering their opposites: injustice, inequity, and disrespect, and when we do consider the opposites it leads to ideas of rectification of these mistakes or evil as it is often called in theological discussions.

Rectification can occur without an acknowledgment of the harm done requiring the repair, but as human beings, we want to make sense out of our experience and so the recognition and the acknowledgment of injustice, inequity, and disrespect is needed so that the same mistakes and evil is not repeated, unknowingly, again.

It is one thing to be unjust, inequitable, and disrespectful. It is another thing to do these things and know that you are doing them. It is a third thing, to do these things, know that you doing them, and want to rectify the mistakes and harm that has been done. It is a fourth thing to do these things, know that we are doing them, rectify the mistakes and harm, and then teach others to do the same.

Often, we make the mistake of thinking that if we acknowledge our mistakes by admitting them that this acknowledgement and admission should be good enough to assuage the hurt of the victim and yet, the mere admission and acknowledgement is not enough. There are three other things that need to happen: an explanation of the factors that contributed to the mistakes and evil, a genuine apology based on an honest and whole hearted acknowledgement and explanation, and lastly, the making of amends, the repairing of the harm.

Should there be reparations in the United States to African Americans for slavery? Has affirmative action policies been enough to repair the harm of ongoing racial discrimination and financial inequities of wealth distribution in our society? If a spouse "cheats" on his or her partner has there been an exploration and explanation of the factors that contributed to this infidelity occurring, along with a genuine apology, and how could the harm done by the betrayal be repaired?

The path to rectifying injustice, inequity, and disrespect is forgiveness made up of four steps: a discussion of and taking of responsibility for the harm that was done, a explanation of the factors which contributed to the mistake having been made, a genuine, not a band-aid, apology based on the first two steps, and the making of amends. These four steps can take 30 minutes, 30 days, 30 months, or 30 years.

The ethical imperative upon which Unitarian Universalist theology could be based is forgiveness. Can we forgive ourselves for our involvement in actions, policies, and laws that are unjust, for the times we have contributed to relationships in ways that made them inequitable, and for the attitudes we have manifested which have been disrespectful. Once we can forgive ourselves and take responsibility for the mistakes we have made, the evil we have perpetrated, then, with a humble and repentant heart, we can forgive others.

Story of the day - Last days of the world as we've known it

"Climate change deniers are evil," said Laketa. It had been a long day. She was tired and had been listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio and even though she had promised not to listen to him ever again, her husband had left the car radio tuned to the station and she caught his diatribe as she started up the car.

"So why are only the drug dealers and users going to jail," said Chuck, her husband. "It seems that the damage done to the planet by the fossil fuel corporations and their shills and the politicians is far worse that whatever damage is done by drugs."

"Who has the power and the money?" said Laketa disgustedly. "The corporations have bought our government lock, stock, and barrel, and turning this planet into a cesspool."

"People love having pools. You've always wanted one if we could afford it, right?" said Chuck.

"You're not funny at all. Listen, this isn't something we should be laughing about!"

"Come on, sour puss. Ya either laugh or cry, right? It's like having the orchestra play on the deck of the Titanic as it was sinking after it crashed into the iceberg," said Chuck. "While these changes will take decades or a century, it feels like the last night of the world. Remember Bruce Cockburn's great song? We used to make love to it. Remember?