First Parish Cohasset

First Parish Unitarian Universalist Cohasset

E-mail Update – April 21, 2010

Tomorrow Earth Day turns 40!

I know that sounds a bit strange, since the earth itself is estimated to be about 4.54 billion years old.  It’s seen countless life forms come and go.   Most of us grew up learning about “extinct species” or species “at risk of extinction.”   Now it’s us, folks.  We who are homo more-or-less-sapiens

have demanded so much from our Mother Earth, that she’s just about had it.   Maternal patience can’t go on forever after all.

How to change our behavior and make peace with Mother Earth?   Riding a bike just to burn calories or buying eco-friendly toilet paper probably won’t be enough to appease her.   What if we begin by pondering how the earth began?

According to the Okanogan Nation of North America, the earth was once a human being.  The Creator, called “Old One,” made her out of a woman and charged her to “be the Mother of all people.”  While this Earth woman is still alive, she has changed much.  When we walk on the soil, we tread on her flesh.  When we sit on a rock, we adorn her bones.  When the wind cools us, we feel her breath.  When we lie in the grass, we nest in her hair.  If she moves abruptly, we have an earthquake.

After transforming this unsuspecting woman into the earth, Old One shaped her flesh into forms that became the inhabitants of the early world.  They were people and animals both, but all could speak and had greater powers than just animals or people.  Then Old One formed people and animals as we recognize them and blew into them the breath of life.  They were, we are told, the most helpless of all creatures.  It was in this way that “all living beings came from the earth.  When we look around, we see our Mother everywhere.”

Carrying the story a bit further, I wonder if “our Mother” sees us and looks askance at her children betraying her trust—drilling her oil dry, destroying her water table with our agribusiness, driving our SUVs, dumping our trash into her oceans, spoiling her harvest with concoctions toxic to the entire Earth family.   “And Earth Day,” she asks?   “One day a year you give me and call yourselves green?”

Hmmm….what if 365 days a year were dedicated to honoring our Mother Earth?  This would leave one day every four years for us to act out and act up, to disrupt and dishonor.   We could proclaim February 29 as “Act Out/Act Up Day” for Mama Earth’s kids.  I wonder.  Would we forget how to act out and act up?   Would we find such joy in all the other days that it just wouldn’t be worth it to go back to our bad habits?   We could even let go of the practice that suggests Mother Earth deserves just one day a year for us to say, “Uh-oh!”

What do you think?  What will we do?

Jan

Coming this Sunday, April 25^th at 10:25 AM

Union Sunday at First Parish UU/Old Ship in Hingham, 90 Main Street

“Old Threads, New Textures: Growing from Our History”

Be sure to bring your kids and join us for this annual service that brings together five Unitarian Universalist congregations on the South Shore—First Parish UU/Old Ship Hingham, Second Parish UU Hingham, First Parish UU Norwell, First Parish UU Scituate, and First Parish UU Cohasset.   Our ministers will lead worship, and our choirs will form the Union Sunday choir.  Children will begin in the Meeting House and then leave for “old school games” in the Parish House.

Joan Kovach is off to Haiti and could use our help to pack!

On April 30, with a team of four other psychiatric nurses as part of a group of 20 medical personnel, I will travel to Haiti.  We are headed for Hôpital Sacré Coeur, in Milot, Haiti, a private hospital in the north supported by the CRUDEM foundation, a Catholic organization located in Ludlow, MA.  The hospital has been there 24 years, and was undamaged in the quake.  Soon after January 12, this 75-bed hospital added tents and 400 cots to care for quake victims who began to be airlifted to Milot.  Many hundreds were treated and now the hospital census is shrinking, and remaining patients are learning to accept long term health problems and disabilities.  Still some earthquake victims and all the regular patients remain.

The hospital issued a wish list.  Here are some of the items we could take in our bags when we leave later this month:

Ensure	Powdered milk
Calcium w/Vitamin D	Hand lotion
Vitamin C	Duct tape
Baby diapers – all sizes	Baby Wipes
Infant formula	Chux pads

Of course we have weight limits, but there are five of us with room in our suitcases for some things.  Especially if you have any of these items at home that are not being used, kindly drop them off at the church in front of Sandy’s office.  If you would like to chip in for meds, that would be great too, since we’ll be buying and bringing some.  CRUDEM has an in-kind tax exempt donation form I can send you.  The deadline for drop off is Wednesday April 28.

Many, many thanks—

Joan Kovach

joan_kovach@hotmail.com

Welcoming Congregation Action Request

The Welcoming Congregation Committee urges you to contact the owners of KISS 108 radio station (a Boston station) and ask them to stop the airing of Dawson McAllister’s show.  The station is owned by Clear Channel. The McAllister show is billed as a place for “those 25 and younger to call in and talk about their lives, deepest needs….broken families…depression, addiction, …” etc. What they don’t tell you is that when young LGBTs call in and speak off air to one of McAllister’s representatives, they are told that their homosexuality is no better than drug addiction, prostitution and murder; that being gay will condemn them to hell; and that the only solution is for them is to be “cured” of their homosexuality through God.

Vulnerable young callers are then directed to Exodus International where they ‘will receive the help they need’.  Exodus International is the ‘Ex-Gay’ ministry that claims to convert LGBTs into being straight.  Exodus’ conversions are universally discredited by mainstream psychiatrists and psychologists. It is despicable that the Dawson McAllister show hides its affiliation with these anti-gay religious extremists.

You can register your opposition to the owners by contacting:

Marc Mays, CEO ClearChannel
Executive Assistant: caroleadamek@clearchannel.com 210-832-3306
LisaDollinger, Communications Director, Clear Channel: lisacdollinger@clearchannel.com
Executive Assistant: stacieiverson@clearchannel.com 210-832-3348

Thanks for your support.

The events of this week are as follows:

Tuesday, April 20

10:30 AM – Staff Meeting – Minister’s study

7:30 PM – Parish Committee – Atkinson Room

7:30 PM – “The Almost Church Revitalized” – A Webinar Conversation with Michael Durall

Hosted by Peter Bowden, our Ballou Channing District’s growth consultant.  To learn more about the work of Michael Durall, visit http://www.vitalcongregations.com.  To register go to http://durall1bcd.eventbrite.com/.  Registration is only available on –line with credit card.  A webinar utilizes both a telephone conference call (LD charges paid by the participant) and the UUA’s Persony webinar website (free).  Sign-in information will be e-mailed to registrants 24 hours before the webinar.

Wednesday, April 21

9:00 AM – Ballou Channing District UUMA – South Shore Cluster – Atkinson Room

9:00 AM – Circle Ministry group led by Polly Cowen & Linda Daignault and meeting usually on the 2^nd & 4^th Wednesdays will meet this month on the 3^rd & 4^th Wednesdays – April 21^st & 28^th.

Thursday, April 22

7:55 PM – Choir Practice – Meeting House

Saturday, April 24

9:00 AM – Ballou Channing District Spring Conference & Annual Meeting – First Unitarian Church, One Benevolent Street, Providence, RI

“Can Unitarian Universalism survive?” is the core question for the 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM Annual Conference.  Through presentations and discussion-centered workshops, we’ll look into the future and explore what changing culture and demographics may mean for our congregations.  The annual meeting will follow at 1:15 PM.   Registration fee: $22 for adults; $7 for youth.   You can register on-line at http://bcdfaithforward.eventbrite.com/.  For a mail-in form and more conference information, please see the front bulletin board in the Parish House, ask Jan, or visit, www.bcduua.org.

5:00 PM – Memorial Service for Susan McVeigh – Meeting House

We’ll celebrate the life of Susan Channing Higginson McVeigh, a longtime member of First Parish Unitarian Universalist and native of Cohasset.  Susan died on March 23.  Our hearts go out to her family.

Sunday, April 25

8:00 AM – Circle Ministry (group led by Bill Baird & John Kornet and meeting on the 2^nd & 4^th Sundays)

9:45 AM – Our OWL (Our Whole Lives) Class will meet at First Parish UU in Scituate.

10:25 AM – Union Sunday at First Parish UU/Old Ship in Hingham – Old Ship Meeting House, 90 Main Street – “Old Threads, New Textures: Growing from Our History” (see above)

Refreshments and fellowship in Old Ship’s Parish House will directly follow worship and RE.

12:30 PM – Circle Ministry Facilitators – Atkinson Room

What else?

Hospitality needs you!    Ushering, providing flowers, hosting coffee hour—it all matters! For May and June we hope to fill all hospitality slots with ushers and flower providers and coffee hour hosts.  May openings for ushers/flowers are: May 2, 23, & 30.   May openings for hosting coffee hour are: May 16, 23, & 30.   Won’t you please give Sandy Bailey a call at 781-383-1100 or e-mail her at sbailey@firstparishcohsset.org and let her know what you will do when?   Thank you.

Sunday, May 2 – Plan now for the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up Day

Plan now to stay after church on this first Sunday of May to help with the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up, a festival of rolling up our sleeves, enjoying one another’s company, and spring cleaning our church home and grounds. We’ll begin right after coffee hour and work until about 3:00 PM.  Wear your work clothes to church.   A light lunch will be provided for workers early in the afternoon.   This is coordinated by the Circle Ministry groups led by Annie Spang & Nancy Robertson and by Jack & Carol Martin.

Circle Ministry Group Is Calling All Gardeners – Third Annual Mother’s Day Plant Sale

Spring is here and the worms are up!  Time to dig, transplant and divide in preparation for the third annual Mother’s Day plant sale. We are happy to accept anything you bring us; but please bear in mind that orange day lilies, fever few, etc. don’t sell very well, whereas tomatoes and other vegetable or annual seedlings and most perennials are popular. Members of the Wednesday morning Circle Ministry group (led by Polly Cowen and Linda Daignault) will be at the Parish House on Saturday, May 8, from 3 to 5 pm to receive your contributions, but LABELED plants may be left there any time that Saturday. If delivery is a problem, call Polly Cowen at 383-0400. All proceeds go to the Parish House Landscape Fund. Happy digging!

Our Cohasset Food Pantry needs you to help hungry neighbors!  Please contribute.

During this time of continuing economic challenge, more and more of our neighbors are turning to local food pantries.   May those of us with an ample store of food and more share with those of us who are struggling.   We can do this through our Cohasset Food Pantry.  Our Outreach Committee reminds us to keep those baskets in the Meeting House and at the entrance to the Parish House full.   Items needed are posted at both locations.

Sunday, May 2 – Plan now for the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up Day

Plan now to stay after church on this first Sunday of May to help with the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up, a festival of rolling up our sleeves, enjoying one another’s company, and spring cleaning our church home and grounds. We’ll begin right after coffee hour and work until about 3:00 PM.  Wear your work clothes to church.   A light lunch will be provided for workers early in the afternoon.   This is coordinated by the Circle Ministry groups led by Annie Spang & Nancy Robertson and by Jack & Carol Martin.

For more information on activities at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset, refer to our December newsletter, The Common, and to our website at www.firstparishcohasset.org.

We have a faith worth sharing and a church worth growing!

Come, and bring your children and your un-churched neighbors!

First Parish Unitarian Universalist Cohasset

E-mail Update – April 13, 2010

Earth Day Sunday! We’ll celebrate it here this coming Sunday, April 18^th, the closest Sunday to Earth day, April 22^nd, for which there aren’t other plans.   Yes, I know April 25^th is closer, but on April 25^th, we’ll celebrate Union Sunday with five South Shore Unitarian Universalist congregations joining in worship at First Parish UU/Old Ship in Hingham.   So…this Sunday’s the Sunday to open wide our hearts and minds in reverence and commitment to the well-being of our earth home.

Lay leaders JoAnn Mirise and Eric Kluz will lead our worship.   JoAnn will offer a homily, “A Story, Rewritten.”   Eric will lead other segments of the service—in addition to offering our chalice reflection.  JoAnn is an advocate and practitioner of permaculture—along with her husband, Kevin, and their children Willow, Perrin, and Sunny.   Surrounding their home, you’ll find a thriving eco-system with vegetables and herbs and fruit trees and chickens and even bees!   It’s all “family managed.”   Eric is a celebrated “green architect.”  At the 2008 General Assembly of our Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), Eric received the President’s Award for Distinguished Volunteer Service to our UUA.   Additionally, Eric has served as our Ballou Channing District’s president and as President of the District Presidents’ Association and has provided highly valued counsel to our UUA leaders on eco-friendly practices.    Our choir will be back and with eco-friendly music.

It may not be “easy being green,” but it’s one of the core ways in which we honor our earth mother and our mission statement that includes, “working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.”  So come, bring your kids, bring your un-churched friends and neighbors, and worship together on this Earth Day Sunday.

Where will I be?  In Montpelier, VT at the baby shower of our daughter, Sarah.  She and husband Robb are expecting their first child, a boy, just four weeks from Friday.  We hope that this newborn and all our children grow up in a world that is still friendly to humankind.  It can only happen if we as humans are kind to this earth of which we are a part.

Love you—

Jan

Sunday Ushers & Coffee Hour Hosts Needed – May & June!

Hospitality is the first step to growth.  Won’t you agree to usher and provide flowers or to host our coffee hour sometime during May or June?   All Sundays of both months are open, except for June 27^th, when summer worship begins and worship leaders agree to provide simple refreshments.  So please, think any of the following Sundays: May 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 or June 6, 13, or 20^th.    Then simply contact Sandy Bailey at 781-383-1100 or sbailey@firstparishcohasset.org with “Yes, I will and here’s what I can do when!”  Thanks for all you do to make First Parish UU Cohasset even more hospitable!

The events of this week are as follows:

Tuesday, April 13

9:15 AM – Circle Ministry (group led by Annie Spang & Nancy Robertson and meeting on the 2^nd & 4^th Tuesdays)

11:30 AM – Staff Meeting – Minister’s study

7:30 PM – Circle Ministry (group led by Jack & Carol Martin and meeting on the 2^nd & 4^th Tuesdays)

7:30 PM – Music & Worship Committee – Atkinson Room

Wednesday, April 14

Note: The Circle Ministry group led by Polly Cowen & Linda Daignault and meeting usually on the 2^nd & 4^th Wednesdays will meet this month on the 3^rd & 4^th Wednesdays – April 21^st & 28^th.

10:00 AM – Ballou Channing District UUMA Executive Committee – Minister’s Study

7:00 PM – Circle Ministry (group led by Jane Goedecke & Lisa Marder and meeting on the 2^nd & 4^th Wednesdays)

Thursday, April 15

7:55 PM – Choir Practice – Meeting House

Sunday, April 18

8:00 AM – Circle Ministry (group led by Joan Kovach & Susan Meikleham and meeting usually on the 1^st & 3^rd Sundays, but during April on the 2^nd & 3^rd Sundays)

9:45 AM – Childcare for our youngest.  Youngsters from third grade up will join their parents and the full congregation for the intergenerational service in the Meeting House.  Our Whole Lives (OWL) meets at 9:45 AM at First Parish UU in Scituate.

10:00 AM – Worship in the Meeting House – Earth Day Sunday

JoAnn Mirise will offer the sermon, “A Story, Rewritten.”  Eric Kluz will lead worship with JoAnn.

(see above column for details)

Refreshments and fellowship in the Parish House will directly follow the service.

Note that Monday, April 19^th, is Patriots Day in Massachusetts.  Church offices will be closed.

What else?

Our Cohasset Food Pantry needs you to help hungry neighbors!  Please contribute.

During this time of continuing economic challenge, more and more of our neighbors are turning to local food pantries.   May those of us with an ample store of food and more share with those of us who are struggling.   We can do this through our Cohasset Food Pantry.  Our Outreach Committee reminds us to keep those baskets in the Meeting House and at the entrance to the Parish House full.   Items needed are posted at both locations.

Register now for our Ballou Channing District Spring Conference & Annual Meeting

Saturday, April 24 – Conference: 9:00 am–1:00 pm; Annual Meeting: 1:15–3:00 pm

First Unitarian Church, One Benevolent Street (corner of Benevolent & Benefit), Providence, RI

Community Service Project for non-delegates: 1:00-3:00 pm

Can Unitarian Universalism survive?  At the morning conference, we’ll look into the future and explore what changing culture and demographics may mean for our congregations.  How might we have to transform our worship, our approach to spiritual exploration, and faith formation and education to meet the changing dynamics of our society in this decade?   Through presentations and discussion-centered workshops, participants are invited to explore these matters.   The annual meeting will follow at 1:15 pm.

Registration fee: $22 for adults; $7 for youth.   You can register on-line at http://bedfaithforward.eventbrite.com/.  For a mail-in form and more conference information, please see the front bulletin board in the Parish House, ask Jan, or visit www.bcduua.org.

Sunday, April 25 at 10:25 AM – Union Sunday at First Parish UU/Old Ship in Hingham

Union Sunday is for the whole family, with some exciting activities for children.   Come, gather with members and friends of five Unitarian Universalist congregations on the South Shore, as our choirs join their voices and we all join across congregations in worshipping around “Old Threads, New Textures: Growing from Our History.”

Sunday, May 2 – Plan now for the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up Day

Plan now to stay after church on this first Sunday of May to help with the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up, a festival of rolling up our sleeves, enjoying one another’s company, and spring cleaning our church home and grounds. We’ll begin right after coffee hour and work until about 3:00 PM.  Wear your work clothes to church.   A light lunch will be provided for workers early in the afternoon.   This is coordinated by the Circle Ministry groups led by Annie Spang & Nancy Robertson and by Jack & Carol Martin.

Sunday, May 2 – Plan now for the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up Day

Plan now to stay after church on this first Sunday of May to help with the Second Annual First Parish Clean-up, a festival of rolling up our sleeves, enjoying one another’s company, and spring cleaning our church home and grounds. We’ll begin right after coffee hour and work until about 3:00 PM.  Wear your work clothes to church.   A light lunch will be provided for workers early in the afternoon.   This is coordinated by the Circle Ministry groups led by Annie Spang & Nancy Robertson and by Jack & Carol Martin.

For more information on activities at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset, refer to our December newsletter, The Common, and to our website at www.firstparishcohasset.org.

We have a faith worth sharing and a church worth growing!

Come, and bring your children and your un-churched neighbors!

First Parish Unitarian Universalist Cohasset

E-mail Update – April 6, 2010

Colorful and mesmerizing describes the music of Easter Sunday and next Sunday!   How our choir soared with the Alleluias that sounded in the Easter Morning Meeting House.   How our bell choir chimed in and our organist pulled out all the celebratory stops.  How our children raised their voices along with choir and congregation to what has become an Easter tradition—Oh, Bells in the Steeple, Katherine Davis’ song of Easter and bells and daffodils.   The daffodil-laden altar offered visual accompaniment before children distributed them to all, and the radiant yellow beamed like a garden from the laps of all present.   Kudos to Allegra Martin and First Parish Choir, to our First Parish Bell Choir, to organist Carrie Bates, to our children, and yes, to the whole congregation who sang in full force.

The music continues this coming Sunday morning, even with our choir “on vacation.”  Maureen Hague will be our pianist and Jordan Holt, a young student of Maureen’s, will be our guest soloist.    I’ll preach on “God, the Movie!”

And come Sunday afternoon at 4 PM, we hope the Meeting House fills with congregants and more as Zefiro, a professional vocal ensemble based in Boston and Providence, will perform “The Spirit and the Flesh,” a concert of Renaissance music.  This is the final Meeting House Concert of the season, so we hope to see you streaming in with family and extended family, friends and neighbors.  Kudos to Allegra for your amazing leadership in overseeing the Meeting House Concert Series this past year.

May the sound of Meeting House music lift our spirits and open our hearts as we gather in this community of faith and song.

Sing on—

Jan

HELP!  HELP!  HELP!

Sunday Ushers & Coffee Hour Hosts are Needed!

Hospitality is what it’s about.   Won’t you agree to usher and provide flowers or to host our coffee hour this coming Sunday, April 11^th?   Or perhaps April 18^th or any of the Sunday of May or June?   Please contact Sandy Bailey at 781-383-1100 or sbailey@firstparishcohasset.org with your “Yes, I will and here’s what I can do when!”  Thanks for all you do to make First Parish UU Cohasset even more hospitable!

The events of this week are as follows:

Tuesday, April 6

10:30 AM – Staff Meeting – Minister’s Study

11:00 AM – First Parish Common Hope Vision Team – Hingham Library

Our Common Hope Vision Team offers a reprise of their memorable service of January 24 at First Parish, this time at the Hingham Library.   With stories and slides and music, Margie and Steve Brown, Carol and Jack Martin, Kay Mixon, Bev Burgess, Pat Baird, and Dee Lehner recount the story of their volunteer work trip to Guatemala this past October.  This event is open to the public and made possible by the Osher Life Long Learning Institute (OLLI) at UMass Boston.

6:30 PM – Leadership Development Committee – Atkinson Room

Thursday, April 8

7:00 PM – Forum on “Why We Can’t Get Ahead: Job Challenges for the American Worker – co-sponsored by the UUSC and the Tellus Institute for a Great Transition – 6 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain

Join us for a discussion with Steven Greenhouse, New York Times business and economics correspondent and author of The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.  Since the recession’s peak, the U.S. unemployment rate has been hovering around 10 percent. But the challenges to the American worker go beyond the current economic crisis. Steven Greenhouse will talk about how American companies have squeezed millions of workers by clamping down on wages, cutting benefits, and violating labor laws. He’ll also offer a practical set of solutions that government, business, and labor leaders could implement to help working people.  For more information, visit the Jamaica Plain Forum’s website and follow the link: http://jamaicaplainforum.org/.

7:55 PM – Choir Practice – Meeting House

Saturday, April 10

10:00 AM – 1:11 PM – BCD Workshop “Electronic Social Networking” – Cape Cod Community College, West Barnstable

(For details, please see the April newsletter, The Common.)

Sunday, April 11

NOTE:

Today is the Cohasset Road Race.  We can legally park on the Common until noon.   After that, parking is available in the lots across from the Post Office and off the main roads.

8:00 AM – Circle Ministry (group led by Joan Kovach & Susan Meikleham and meeting usually on the 1^st & 3^rd Sundays, but during April on the 2^nd & 3^rd Sundays)

8:00 AM – Circle Ministry (group led by Bill Baird & John Kornet and meeting on the 2^nd & 4^th Sundays)

9:45 AM – Childcare for our youngest.  All other children will join their parents and the full congregation for the first part of worship in the Meeting House and then leave for RE classes, which extend to 11:15 AM.   Our Whole Lives (OWL) meets at 9:45 AM at First Parish UU in Scituate.

10:00 AM – Worship in the Meeting House – Sermon: “God, the Movie”

3:00 PM – UU Urban Ministry Donor & Volunteer Appreciation Tea – First Church in Roxbury

The invitation:

To show our gratitude for your support of the UU Urban Ministry, we are cordially inviting you to attend our Second Annual Donor and Volunteer Appreciation Tea.
This year’s event will feature a selection of delicious Asian teas and desserts. Guest speakers will highlight the important work of the UU Urban Ministry and how your generosity has changed lives. This Afternoon Tea is simply an appreciation for all that our supporters do for the UU Urban Ministry. It is not a fundraiser, so please just come and enjoy!

Directions are at http://www.uuum.org/templates/System/details.asp?id=42140&PID=771779.

RSVP to Greg Friedman, Development Coordinator,
at 617-318-6010 x201 or gfriedman@uuum.org.

4:00 PM – Meeting House Concert – Zefiro

Zefiro, a Renaissance vocal octet, will perform works by Josquin, Palestrina, and others.  Zefiro is based in Providence, RI and is an ensemble of truly exquisite musicians.  This is our final Meeting House Concert of the year.  Tickets are available at the door and are $15 for adults and $12 for senior adults and children. Don’t miss this concert of classic choral repertoire!  (See above column for more details.)

What else?

Our Cohasset Food Pantry needs you to help hungry neighbors!  Please contribute.

During this time of continuing economic challenge, more and more of our neighbors are turning to local food pantries.   May those of us with an ample store of food and more share with those of us who are struggling.   We can do this through our Cohasset Food Pantry.  Our Outreach Committee reminds us to keep those baskets in the Meeting House and at the entrance to the Parish House full.   Items needed are posted at both locations.

For more information on activities at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset, refer to our December newsletter, The Common, and to our website at www.firstparishcohasset.org.

We have a faith worth sharing and a church worth growing!

Come, and bring your children and your un-churched neighbors!

“God, the Movie”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
April 11, 2010

 

A nine-year-old boy is out playing with his dog. Tau, the dog, runs off into high grass. Matthew Berger, the boy, chases him. Matthew runs hard, and then he trips. Probably a log, he thinks; but he stops, looks down, and is suddenly wild with excitement. “Dad, I found a fossil!” he yells to his father. It was August 15, 2008. The setting was South Africa, just north of Johannesburg, in a town called Cradle of Humankind, honest! Matthew’s father is Dr. Lee Berger, an American paleoanthropologist, who had been searching for hominid bones “just a hill and a half away for two decades.” What Matthew had found was a clavicle of a new species of hominid, a prehistoric form of mammals who were erect and bipedal and yes, one of our ancestors. Dr. Berger was ecstatic. I trust that Matthew’s dog, Tau, turned around to see what all the fuss was about.

Matthew had found the partial remains of a young boy, perhaps a year older than he. Since then, Dr. Berger and his colleagues at the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, have found more of the boy’s skeleton, including his remarkably preserved skull. And they’ve found the remains of three other hominids. All lived close to two million years ago. As for the ancient child, the children of South Africa will name him.

In a report issued Friday in the journal Science,

“Dr. Berger…and a team of scientists said the fossils from the boy and a woman were a surprising and distinctive mixture of primitive and advanced anatomy and thus qualified as a new species of hominid, the ancestors and other close relatives of humans.”

In Cradle of Humankind on a sunny August morning almost two years ago, a boy chased his dog. If young Matthew could have leapt roughly two million years into the past, he may have met a strange counterpart to himself, standing upright on two legs, but with features that would have startled Matthew and his dog. Rarely do we as humans see and touch our beginnings as did Matthew. For his father, it was a moment of spiritual ecstasy.

Why call it spiritual you might wonder. Wouldn’t we more accurately describe it as a moment of scientific ecstasy? Hold this thought for a few moments. We’ll return to it.

Now imagine yourself snuggled into a seat at the Loring Theatre. You’re intrigued by a new film that’s come out—“God, the Movie.” Reviews have been mixed, but reviews on God anything have always been mixed. Popcorn in hand, you’re ready to see for yourself. The theatre darkens; you survive the previews. In a clear legible script, the film is announced with the names of producer, director, and a few of the actors. No, God is not among them. The background graphic is a scene of tall wind-blown grasses under a morning sun. Wind suffices for the initial soundtrack. The film begins. A dog appears, barking playfully. A boy appears, chasing his dog.

You get the picture. It is with this story of Matthew and Tau and their romp in the grass and what comes of it that I would begin “God, the Movie!”

Why? Because this story illustrates the notion of transcendence in the everyday. There are no miracles. There is nothing supernatural about it. It recounts the chance discovery of something extraordinary by a child at play, albeit a child who tripped over what he was savvy enough to recognize for what it was and a father whose professional passion was the search for hominid remains. Dr. Berger had even written his doctoral dissertation on “hominid shoulder bones,” of which one is the clavicle, precisely the specimen found by his son.

I suppose we could see it as an episode of “The Twilight Zone” in the light of day. But this story is no more twilight zone than God or whatever or however we imagine God to be. One doesn’t have to be an avowed deist or theist to understand that there is a life force at play in the universe. God is a name common to what much of humankind calls this life force. I like the way Forrest Church, my late friend and mentor, referred to God as “that which is greater than all but present in each.” Is this supernatural? I don’t think so. Is it extraordinarily natural? I believe it is, as natural as the extraordinary epiphanies of life, as natural as breath—“breath,” a translation for the Hebrew ruach, spoken in the second verse of the first chapter of the biblical book of Genesis:

“…and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.”

which could also be read:

“…and the breath of God…” or “the wind of God,”

just as the wind moves through the tall grasses in the opening scene of what I’m envisioning as “God, the Movie.”

Such an opening scene perhaps confounds popular notions of God as supernatural—that is, non-natural. Such notions give rise to the definitive proclamation that there is no God, that it’s all nonsense. Nature is; God isn’t. What I can breathe and touch and smell and taste and think and feel is real; God isn’t. Theology and literature and often cinematography commonly play into this supernatural, non-natural notion of God.

According to the late Unitarian preacher, A. Powell Davies, such a notion is resisted because the wrong question is asked, implicitly or explicitly—that is, “Is there a God?” And in Davies’ words, folks who ask it “bring before their minds the image of a majestic personage….an image…which prevents them from seeing the reality at which they should be looking.” Such an image suggests a far different “God, the Movie,” but indeed one that is a projection of an image wrought by the mind, though a quite different image than that of a boy chasing his dog amid wind-blown grasses.

Davies claimed that thinking of God as outside “ordinary experience” assumes an external reality that we could not possibly know anything about, because our minds function within the reality that is nature. “…how can we imagine,” he asked, “anything that is not known to us in the natural world?” What we should be asking, he contended, “is not whether there is a God, as though God could be something outside everything else, but what it is of which we have experience when we feel the power of truth, or the claim of justice, or the sense of beauty.”

Now let’s return to what I promised we would get back to…Matthew’s father in his moment of recognition, the moment that he knew the import of what his son had discovered, a moment of spiritual ecstasy and yes, a moment of scientific ecstasy. Do we doubt that Dr. Berger might have cried an instinctive, “Oh my God!”—not in deference to some “majestic personage,” but in wonder, in awe, in over-the-top delight. His spirit was moved within the embrace of his mind. His mind was moved within the embrace of his spirit.

“The spiritual,” proclaimed Davies, “is completely real.”

Of course there are countless notions of God and spirit, countless notions that counter what I’m suggesting, what Davies suggested, and what my dear friend Forrest suggested. “God, the Movie” holds the possibility of every imaginable projection humans have cast onto the particular screens of our thought and imagination since we could think and imagine.

Karen Armstrong, one of the most original scholars of our time, challenges assumptions of all kinds, including the religious. In her arresting work, A History of God, she remarks, in the same tenor as Davies, that

“the statement ‘I believe in God’ has no objective meaning, as such, but like any other statement only means something in context, when proclaimed by a particular community.”

The notion of “God” varies across communities and changes across history. Without this “flexibility,” observed Armstrong, “it would not have survived to become one of the great human ideas.” She continues:

“….throughout history, men and women have experienced a dimension of the spirit that seems to transcend the mundane world. Indeed, it is an arresting characteristic of the human mind to be able to conceive concepts that go beyond it in this way.”

Transcendence is a human notion, a natural notion. It is our experience of the extraordinary, fully within the scope of the real, the natural. Some call it God, but even in the Judeo-Christian Bible there are many names, so many names. In the lyrics of Brian Wren that we sang earlier, we “bring many names.” In the poetry of Nancy Shaffer that we spoke earlier, she who prayed

“wanted everyone to feel included in her prayer,” so “she said right at the beginning several names for the Holy: Spirit…Holy One, Mystery, God…Spirit of Life, Spirit of Love, Ancient Holy One, ..and also Spirit of This Earth…” and my favorite, “One Who Is an Entire Ocean of Compassion.”

Onto the screens of our wonder, our imagination, our hopes and fears, our dreams, our beliefs and our disbeliefs, we each project our very own version of “God, the Movie.” Netflix couldn’t possibly carry them all. The Loring would perhaps feature one or two.

Imagine that you’re back at the Loring, watching my version. You know the opening scene, but a couple of hours have passed. You’ve long since forgotten your popcorn. Up on the screen you’re watching what might be a young child running through tall grasses, chasing what might be a dog. But this child doesn’t look any more like the young boy we met in the opening scene than the young boy of the opening scene looked like the child who was once far more than a clavicle. After all, two million years have passed. As this new boy-form runs through tall grasses in pursuit of something resembling a dog, he suddenly trips. On the screen, you read: “Intermission…..a very long Intermission.”

May the wind, the breath, the spirit of life, the God of many names never cease to astound us in the endless bounty that is Nature.

Amen.

 

Sources:

Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
Ballantine Books, New York, 1993, xx-xxi.

Rev. A. Powell Davies, “People Ask About God,” January 13, 1957, http://www.dmuuc.org/Davies/PeopleAskAboutGod.Sermon.html.

Celia W. Dugger and John Noble Wilford (New York Times), “Fossil find may link humans with apes,” The Boston Globe, April 9, 2010, A10.

Celia W. Dugger and John Noble Wilford, “New Hominoid Species Discovered in South Africa,” The New York Times, April 9, 2010, A1, 10.

Nancy Shaffer, “That Which Holds All,” in Instructions in Joy: Meditations, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2002.

The Book of Genesis in the Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Brian Wren, “Bring Many Names,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 23.

(Cohasset, MA, March 30, 2010)

First Parish is located on the green at North Main Street, Cohasset, MA 02025.  Admission will be $15 for adults and $12 for seniors and children.

More about the program:

The program is called “The Spirit & The Flesh,” and will feature selections from Palestrina’s Canticum Canticorum; selections from Monteverdi’s fourth book of Madrigali erotici et spirituali; and Duruflé’s Quatre Motets Sur Des Themes Gregoriens, Op. 10: No. 4. The Palestrina selections are among the most beloved of this exquisite composer, who was arguably the most famous musician of his time.  Listeners may also be familiar with the most famous of Duruflé’s motets, his setting of “Ubi Caritas,” which is beloved of choirs everywhere.  Don’t miss this concert of classic choral repertoire!

More about the performers:

The octet specializes in the performance of Medieval and Renaissance a capella music by composers such as Byrd, Gesualdo, and Palestrina, performing at numerous venues in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Most of the singers are featured soloists at churches in both Providence and Boston.  For more information about the ensemble and the singers, go to www.zefiroensemble.com.

For more information about the concert, please contact Allegra Martin at (617) 872-0461.