RevCyn

This week's Time Magazine cover of a woman breast-feeding her 3-year-old son sure has a lot of people talking.  My own feelings about the Time cover are conflicted.  On one hand, I think Time is making an important point, and the controversy surrounding it is ridiculous.  I vigorously defend the following ideas: Breast-feeding is normal and healthy.   Breast-feeding is normal and healthy for toddlers, including 3-year-olds like this one. Breast-feeding is normal and healthy for boys, not just girls! It is okay and normal to be a sexy woman and also breast-feed your child.  Women can be both mothers and sexual beings at the same time. There is nothing wrong with breast-feeding standing up, either! This cover does not show anything inherently sexual or abnormal or unhealthy.  The fact that so many people have looked at this cover and had an immediate negative reaction is about the ways we have hypersexualized women in this society, and see br...

One of the truly dangerous parts of General Assembly is what is found in one corner of the exhibit hall...  the UUA Bookstore.  I was very very good... the first time I went in.  I walked around and didn't buy anything.  When my ride called and was going to be 45 minutes late picking me up from the convention center, however, I was not so good.  I stuck to only the children's books, but there were too many gems... This looks like it's going to be pretty ordinary, but it beautifully shows all the world's religion's versions of the golden rule. A prayerful children's book about our earth. Inside the universe is our planet.  Inside you is your heart. Yes it is. And saving the best for last...

At the UUMA Annual Meeting this year we voted in a new code of conduct.  It reads: I will not engage in sexual contact or sexualized behavior with any minor child or unwilling adult. I will not engage in sexual contact or sexualized behavior in potentially exploitive relationships, including with any person I am counseling, with interns, and with any staff person I supervise directly or indirectly except my spouse or partner. I will respect the relationships of those to whom I minister, and not engage in sexual contact or sexualized behavior with any married or partnered client or member of the congregation, agency or enterprise I serve, or with the spouse or partner of a client or member of the institution. If I am married or in a committed partnership I will not engage in sexual contact or sexualized behavior with any person whom I serve professionally except my spouse or partner. In pursuing any special personal relationship of friendship or romance with a client o...