Who said
""The Trump Administration's decision to end DACA today was cruel, immoral and un-American. It is a dark moment in our nation's history. There are 800,000 young people, more than 40,000 of them New Yorkers, who have met the educational requirements and background checks to earn DACA and will be robbed of their opportunity to work and live without fear of deportation. Today's announcement is a call to action for all of us to join with immigrant youth to fight for the DREAM Act and other long term legislative solutions that affirm the value and dignity of the immigrant community. And to those affected by today's decision, I stand with you and will continue to fight with you."
For the answer see the comments.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
Happy To Be Here
UUs covenanting to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person are able to discern the Great Rays of the divine in every person they encounter. The UU Way Of Life is miraculous.
Hi! How ya doin?
Happy to be here.
And I'm so much better now that you're here!
Wow!.
Hi! How ya doin?
Happy to be here.
And I'm so much better now that you're here!
Wow!.
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Existential crisis of midlife when life falls apart.
The UUAW)L fiction book of the month is Dave Eggers' book Heroes Of The Frontier, a story about a 40 year old woman who takes her two children, Paul 8, and Ana 5 and flees to Alaska to avoid her ex-husband, Carl, and find herself after losing her dental practice in a law suit.
Heroes Of The Frontier is low on plot and high on character and scene development. It's over all theme concerns a woman having an existential mid-life crisis going on a quest to the last of the American frontier.
"Now, at forty, Josie was tired. She was tired of her journey through a day, the limitless moods contained in any stretch of hours. There was the horror of morning, underslept, feeling she was on the precipice of something that felt like mono, the day already galloping away from her, her chasing on foot, carrying her boots. Then the brief upward respite after a second cup of coffee, when all seemed possible, when she wanted to call her father, her mother, reconcile, visit them with the kids, when, while driving the kids to school—jail the people who abandoned the manifest right to school buses—she instigated an all-car sing-along to the Muppets soundtrack, “Life’s a Happy Song.” Then, after the kids were gone, an eleven-minute mood freefall, then more coffee, and more euphoria until the moment, arriving at her practice, when the coffee had worn off and she grew, for an hour or so, more or less numb, doing her work in a state of underwater detachment."
Eggers, Dave. Heroes of the Frontier (pp. 24-25). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Josie is acting out the dream of running away that many people have when are feeling suffocated by a life they are trapped in. Have you ever felt that way? Has your UU faith helped in any way with these existential quandaries?
Heroes Of The Frontier is low on plot and high on character and scene development. It's over all theme concerns a woman having an existential mid-life crisis going on a quest to the last of the American frontier.
"Now, at forty, Josie was tired. She was tired of her journey through a day, the limitless moods contained in any stretch of hours. There was the horror of morning, underslept, feeling she was on the precipice of something that felt like mono, the day already galloping away from her, her chasing on foot, carrying her boots. Then the brief upward respite after a second cup of coffee, when all seemed possible, when she wanted to call her father, her mother, reconcile, visit them with the kids, when, while driving the kids to school—jail the people who abandoned the manifest right to school buses—she instigated an all-car sing-along to the Muppets soundtrack, “Life’s a Happy Song.” Then, after the kids were gone, an eleven-minute mood freefall, then more coffee, and more euphoria until the moment, arriving at her practice, when the coffee had worn off and she grew, for an hour or so, more or less numb, doing her work in a state of underwater detachment."
Eggers, Dave. Heroes of the Frontier (pp. 24-25). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Josie is acting out the dream of running away that many people have when are feeling suffocated by a life they are trapped in. Have you ever felt that way? Has your UU faith helped in any way with these existential quandaries?
Should all police agencies have chaplains like Rev. Braestrup?
The UUAWOL book clubs will have articles for its nonfiction books on Fridays and its fiction books on Saturdays so that readers will have regular times they can comment weekly as articles on these books appear.
This month, September, 2017, the nonfiction selection is Kate Braestup's memoir, Here If You Need Me, describing her work as a chaplain with the Maine Warden Service. Kate's husband, Drew, a Maine State Trooper, is killed in a car crash while on duty and leaves Kate with 4 young children to raise. Drew had planned on going to seminary and becoming a UU minister after he retired. After his death, Kate decides to follow in his footsteps and goes to seminary herself and becomes a UU minister and gets a job as a chaplain to the Maine Warder Service.
It appears from the story that Rev. Braestrup provides crisis intervention, pastoral counseling, and support for staff, and people the Warden service serves.
"If you prefer applied and practical theology to the more abstract and vaporous varieties, it is difficult to find a more interesting and challenging ministry than a law enforcement chaplaincy.
Law enforcement officers, like all human beings, are presented with grand questions about life’s meaning and purpose. They consider the problem of evil, the suffering of innocents, the relationships between justice and mercy, power and responsibility, spirit and flesh. They ponder the impenetrable mystery of death. Cops, in short, think about the same theological issues seminary students research, discuss, argue, and write papers about, but a cop’s work lends immediacy and urgency to such questions. Apart from my familiarity with and affinity for police culture, I was sure working with cops would take me right up to where the theological rubber meets the road." P. 60
What do you think about the idea of law enforcement chaplaincy? If more law enforcement agencies had chaplains would there be less police abuse and corruption?
This month, September, 2017, the nonfiction selection is Kate Braestup's memoir, Here If You Need Me, describing her work as a chaplain with the Maine Warden Service. Kate's husband, Drew, a Maine State Trooper, is killed in a car crash while on duty and leaves Kate with 4 young children to raise. Drew had planned on going to seminary and becoming a UU minister after he retired. After his death, Kate decides to follow in his footsteps and goes to seminary herself and becomes a UU minister and gets a job as a chaplain to the Maine Warder Service.
It appears from the story that Rev. Braestrup provides crisis intervention, pastoral counseling, and support for staff, and people the Warden service serves.
"If you prefer applied and practical theology to the more abstract and vaporous varieties, it is difficult to find a more interesting and challenging ministry than a law enforcement chaplaincy.
Law enforcement officers, like all human beings, are presented with grand questions about life’s meaning and purpose. They consider the problem of evil, the suffering of innocents, the relationships between justice and mercy, power and responsibility, spirit and flesh. They ponder the impenetrable mystery of death. Cops, in short, think about the same theological issues seminary students research, discuss, argue, and write papers about, but a cop’s work lends immediacy and urgency to such questions. Apart from my familiarity with and affinity for police culture, I was sure working with cops would take me right up to where the theological rubber meets the road." P. 60
What do you think about the idea of law enforcement chaplaincy? If more law enforcement agencies had chaplains would there be less police abuse and corruption?
UUs and Mother Nature
The huge storms we are seeing now were predicted by climate scientists like James Hansen and others, and are no surprise but predicted. And yet the electorate lives in a delusional world which Mother Nature is now challenging with reality of what we have done to our Mother, the Earth. Al Gore told us this was happening in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and Florida and Texas went for Bush anyway. Then they went for Trump. So now guess what? Their suffering will increase in part due to the damaging policies their elected officials have promulgated.
Jesus said as He was being killed on the cross, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." And, without being at all condescending and patronizing we can pray for the poor citizens of Texas and Florida who voted for representatives who don't have their best long term interests at heart, forgive them father for they know not what kind of demons they have allowed their governmental officials to unleash with their misguided policies.
My heart goes out to the suffering, but I also hope that they learn from their suffering and change their hearts in the direction of healing our planet for the benefit of human kind and Mother Nature. This means at the macro level joining together to promote policies that ameliorate, not destroy, and benefit the majority of the earth's inhabitants not just the 1%. In a democracy, our vote in the ballot box has long term ramifications and we are seeing our past voting decisions contributing to perverse policy development play out in contributing to political decisions with harmful consequences.
We have a lot to offer as UUs helping our collective psyche to identify its self destructive beliefs and behaviors in the service of acting together to benefit all of human kind. To identify the societal forces that contribute to delusional behavior of the majority can be a focus of our work. Without being sarcastic or mocking I would like to ask the citizens of Texas and Florida who championed de-regulation, drilling, pipelines, cheap fossil fuel, putting coal miners back to work, etc. how is that "Make America Great Again" thing working for ya?
Reality has many definitions but one of the most important is the empirical one of natural law. What we, as humans, think and believe is not as influential a factor on life as what Mother Nature actually has happen. So in evaluating the truth of our beliefs and opinions we should put the biggest weight on "How is that working for you?" Climate change denial, and policies and behavior destructive to the environment on our planet, while beneficial to some in the short run, have dire consequences in the long run. The question to monitor is, "Will the hurricane damage in Texas and Florida change the voting behavior of those suffering in the red states?" Mother Nature is a consistent and dependable teacher which leaves an observer to wonder how long does it take for some people to learn?
Take care,
David
Artists often function as prophetic women and men UU's second source
The function of the artist, according to Kurt Vonnegut, is to make people like life better than they did before.
Friday, September 8, 2017
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