This is a doodle I made based on a sermon about heartbreak and gun violence and the healing power of community. The sermon quoted Mary Oliver's poem "Lead."
Many Unitarian Universalists, myself included, are regular NPR listeners. And among them, many listen regularly to Garrison Keillor's " A Prairie Home Companion ." It's on weekly at about the time I leave church, so I have listened to it many times. Garrison Keillor makes a regular practice of poking fun at Unitarian Universalists on his show. I've often had church members come and tell me he mentioned us again, often with delight, because we're so rarely mentioned in the media. One example of a Unitarian Universalist joke attributed to Garrison Keillor is: "A sign at the Unitarian church said: Bible study at 7:00. Bring your Bible and a pair of scissors." So, yes, some of the joke are funny, some point out our foibles and idiosyncrasies. But lately I've been turning off NPR whenever "A Prairie Home Companion" comes on. Listening to him talk about us over the years it's becoming more and more evident that he isn't laugh...
The UUA has announced a new campaign against hate crimes, "Standing on the Side of Love." Hate crimes are definitely something we've had enough of in the last year: July 27, 2008: Jim David Adkisson enters the Tennessee Valley UU Church and kills two people and wounds more. He says in his manifesto , "This was a hate crime: I hate the damn left-wing liberals." May 31, 2009: Scott Roeder enters a Lutheran Church and kills Dr. George Tiller. He is quoted as saying on a blog, "Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp." June 10, 2009: James Wenneker von Brunn enters the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and kills a guard. Von Brunn ran an anti-Semitic website and had connections to hate groups. What is striking about these three, in comparison to all the other horrible hate crimes that happen, is that they all took place in places that should be places of peace, where we hono...
I’ve preached and blogged on a number of justice-related subjects over the dozen years that I’ve been in ministry. I’ve written about feminism, racism, classism, and homophobia. I’ve written about immigration and war and reproductive freedom and prison reform. I’ve written about religious intolerance and all sorts of types of bigotry. But there’s one issue I’ve always avoided writing about. I used it as a one-sentence illustration of a different issue once, but only, I think, once. There are some prejudices that most of our society knows are wrong. Most people in our society know that racism is wrong, although there is still plenty of racism out there. And then there are issues that as a society we’re divided on, like homophobia, but where the liberal circles I’m in have a clear understanding that it’s wrong. But there are some prejudices that are still deemed completely acceptable. Those can be hard to write about, harder to speak up about, and hardest to confront when they...
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