text:
Nov 19, 2014
Tomorrow I am going to participate in a panel at Collegium on the Current and Future State of Unitarian Universalist Scholarship. Here are the remarks, based largely upon the survey I conducted, I prepared for the conference:
My first impulse when asked to participate on this panel was to survey the current state of Unitarian Universalist scholarship. I am familiar with most of the scholars in our movement. Instead of providing an overview of their work I thought it would be interesting to ask some of my ministerial colleagues who they read. I conducted an on-line survey. Seventy-four people, including a dozen who identified as lay people and another eight who primarily identified as academics, responded. I won't claim that the survey is scientific but I do think that it tell us something interesting things about the current state of Unitarian Universalist scholarship.
The question "Who are the five most influential Unitarian Universalist or liberal religious thinkers today?" generated a clear consensus. More than half my respondents included Rebecca Parker's name on the list. Five other scholars were named by at least twenty percent of respondents: Mark Morrison-Reed, Tom Schade, Paul Rasor, Thandeka and Dan McKanan. Three others were offered up by at least ten percent of respondents: Cornel West, Forrest Church, and Sharon Welch.
There are two things that I think are interesting about this list. It is not made of exclusively of academics and there is a disconnect between how influential a scholar is within the academy and how influential they are within our movement. To the first point, Mark Morrison-Reed and Forrest Church are not traditional academics, they are, or were, scholar ministers. Tom Schade is a blogger. Among the academics named only three are, or were, engaged full time in theological education. No one currently on the Starr King faculty makes the list and only one of Meadville's full-time faculty is there.
Second, I compared my list against google scholar's citation tracker to see whom amongst is read by the wider academy. Hands down the three most cited Unitarian Universalist scholars were, in order of citation count: Sharon Welch, Anthony Pinn and Rebecca Parker. Interestingly, two of the scholar ministers received about the same number of citations as established academics: Mark Morrison-Reed and Forrest Church. Less surprisingly, the blogger on the list had not been cited by any scholar.
One conclusion that might be drawn from this data is that the site of scholarship within our tradition will continue to be situated both inside and outside of the academy. As Dan mentioned, there are thirty five either recent graduate PhD or doctoral students. Many of us, I suspect, will not pursue jobs within the academy. Those who opt for a non-academic career will not necessarily leave their scholarly work or their ability to influence either Unitarian Universalism or the academy behind. Indeed, they may be uniquely positioned, as Mark Morrison-Reed and Forrest Church were, to have some impact on their academic fields while at the same time nurturing future generations of Unitarian Universalist religious leaders.
Another is that the people we scholars perceive as influential are not necessarily the same people that those in our movement conceive of as influential. For the past decade there have been a variety of blogs that have had transient but significant on the discourse within our liberal religious community. Tom Schade's The Living Tradition is the latest iteration of these. In previous years Chris Walton's Philocrites or Victoria Weinstein's Peacebang were similarly influential. This suggests a possible project for those of us who are interested in bridging the space between the academy and our wider Unitarian Universalist community: a collective blog.
I am almost out of time. My two other questions were: "What magazines, academic journals, and blogs most impact your work?" and "What is the most important issue for Unitarian Universalist scholars to address?" The responses to both were all over the place. Only three publications--the Christian Century, New Yorker, and the UU World--were named by more than ten percent of respondents. There was no clear consensus as to what issue we should be addressing, though several people did write some variant of "Theology, Theology, Theology." Mark Morrison-Reed was kind enough to send me a personal e-mail in response and given that I value his opinion as I value few others I thought I would let him have the last word here: "exploring the multicultural history of [Unitarian Universalism] ...is important...
Why is this important? If the UUA is to become more diverse is must figure out what is getting in the way. And it must hold up the history that exist[s] but is yet untold. The various Identity groups need to understand that they have been around and have made a difference. That narrative must be told a a corrective to our misunderstanding of who were really are and might become."
Nov 13, 2014
[Colin's note: My good friend the Rev. Ian White Maher wrote this piece in response to the Rev. Rebekah Montgomery's 2014 sermon for the UUA's Service of the Living Tradition. We have decided to post it here in the hopes of starting a much needed conversation within our shared religious tradition.]
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…"
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
I walked out of this year's Service of the Living Tradition in order to play with the cute two-year-old sitting next to me. Like my young friend, I found myself fidgeting in my seat, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the ceremony, and finally I decided that playing with this bundle of joy was more in line with where my life is these days. Although I really love playing with children and will take just about any opportunity to do so, this was not a decision I took lightly. I believe in the ministry and, more specifically, I believe in our ministry as Unitarian Universalists. Serving as a minister in our tradition is one of the great honors of my life, and I am proud to stand in what I consider a beautiful and noble lineage.
Each year, as we welcome new colleagues into the fellowship and say goodbye to those who came before us, the sermon outlines a vision for Unitarian Universalist ministry. No single sermon can hope to capture the depth and meaning of the ministry of our movement and every preacher will always encounter criticism for what they say (or don't say) during the service. We accept this limitation when we get up to proclaim a vision. However, this year's sermon, mostly through omission, normalized a vision of a nation at war that is inconsistent with who we say we are as a religious movement.
As Unitarian Universalists, we repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery—the ideological justification for colonialism, feudalism and religious, cultural and racial biases—as it relates to the indigenous people of this hemisphere[1]. But, as a nation, we are presently engaged in two (potentially three) massive wars of colonialism and feudalism that were perpetrated using religious, cultural and racial biases. As Unitarian Universalists, we made a commitment to the prevention of gun violence,[2] but, as a nation, we are one of the greatest offenders of worldwide gun violence. As Unitarian Universalists, we condemned the racist mistreatment of people of color by the police[3] and are trying to divest ourselves from the fossil fuel industry,[4] but, as a nation, we continue to participate in wars of aggression to protect our access to fossil fuels and police the world while condemning whole nations of people of color to poverty and chaos through the use of military colonization. We have been working to find a space for military chaplains within our movement, an effort that I think is worthwhile because there are people in the military who desperately need us. But we cannot allow this effort to subvert our prophetic mission as peacemakers in the world.
The United States military is not a defensive force and our lack of criticism of the endless war agenda of our nation runs contrary to what our mission is as people of faith and conscience. The Service of the Living Tradition (despite a reading titled "There Must Be Religious Witness") was silent on the impact of military aggression. And while no sermon can cover every angle, the absence of even a nod to our repeated aspirations to be peacemakers left me gutted and frightened as a minister as we seemed to willingly collude with the normalization of the use of the military to advance imperialism.
The war in Afghanistan is now the longest American war in history. The war in Iraq will pass Vietnam as our second longest this December. Washington officials have admitted that the current is strategy is not working when it comes to defeating al-Qaeda, and yet we are still there some 13 years after we first invaded. In the meantime, we have spent over 1.5 trillion dollars on these two wars alone, a number that has lost any sense of reality.[5] Our politicians weakened the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 which explicitly forbids the use of government-made media (propaganda) upon domestic audiences in order to manipulate us into war.[6] They have undermined our moral fiber as a nation by legally justifying torture and indefinite detention as an extension of our global military strategy. Some 2.5 million soldiers have now served in either Iraq or Afghanistan, many of them serving multiple tours, with an estimated 14-20% these men and women suffering from PTSD.[7] And, perhaps worst of all, we just don't seem to even notice that we're at war any longer. Children who are now entering high school have only known our nation to be at war. This is what is normal to them.
The Unitarian Universalists I know resolutely reject this military spending, use of domestic propaganda, justification of torture, abysmal and inadequate treatment of our soldiers, and the normalizing of war. As people of faith, we know that these actions run contrary to our worldview and our understanding of the holy. But these wars are more than just a domestic nightmare; they are an extension of U.S. imperialism that has destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of Iraqis and Afghanis. Yet the Service of the Living Tradition made no mention of these people. Not one.
I knew that it was time for me to leave the Service to play with my young friend after hearing Rev. Rebekah Montgomery preach:
"Often the most remarkable thing would happen. I would stop our vehicle, push open my heavy door and step outside—take off my Kevlar helmet and brush the sweaty hair off my brow. The villagers would gather around us and kids would peek from behind older children, just watching us. After a few minutes, the one or two villagers around me would swell to 5 or 6—then 9, then 12. The thing is—out in some of these areas—Afghans had never seen a female Soldier. They'd especially never seen a female soldier driving a Humvee. The reception I received a handful of times is sort of like landing on a strange planet where you think you're average and nothing out of the ordinary—and everyone else perceives you as a purple dinosaur with green spots and yellow feathers. Then in a hot minute, the Afghans' worldview would completely shatter when the interpreter explained to the amassing crowd before us that I'm an officer and a chaplain, or like one interpreter insisted, 'a female mullah' or religious leader in Islam."
This final line received laughter and cheers. And on one level, I can understand why. Women should be able to serve in the military. Women should drive cars. Women are brilliant faith leaders and interpreters of the Divine. But the subtext of this statement also reveals the very cultural and religious bias that was used to start the war in Afghanistan and has been used in our battle with Islam for a very long time. A hundred years ago these soldiers would have handed out Bibles to these "backwards" people. Today we just cheer along in patriotic smugness.
Rev. Montgomery received a standing ovation at the end of her sermon. People were genuinely moved by her words. But what exactly was moving us? This sermon did not tell the real story of what happens in war. It was a glorified retelling of America bringing light to the "backward" people, those who held worldviews that did not cohere with modern times. It was absolutely uncritical of our behavior, our motivations, and our responsibilities as people who believe in the sacredness of life.
The standing ovation was incredibly frightening to me. It seemed to mean that thousands of people who I consider faith partners could be swept up in a patriotic fervor that tells only about the glory and nothing about the real horror of what we are doing to people and the propaganda that we spread to diminish the worth of others and justify our own behaviors.
The estimated death toll of Iraqis and Afghanis varies widely, with the military taking the official position that it doesn't track deaths (documents released by Wikileaks revealed this to be false). The deaths related to the war in Iraq range from 195,000[8] to 461,000 (civilians and combatants).[9] Enemy combatants amount to somewhere between 50,000 to 65,000 of these deaths.
But the story of what is happening gets lost in the abstraction of these numbers. "One death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic," as the saying goes.* The reality is that the American military is a brutal and terrifying force. The stories that reach us tell of the constant fear our soldiers encounter—one such story made it into the sermon, while the fear that our enemies feel remained unspoken—but these stories are told in a way that makes it seem like we meet our enemies as equals on the field of battle. This is not true. The American military is the best trained, the most skilled, the best funded, and the best educated fighting force the world has ever known. From a patriotic perspective, this sounds great. But if we want to engage from a human perspective, we must wrestle with the impact of the death and destruction that we bring with us. For every American soldier killed in conflict, somewhere between 14 and 19 enemy combatants is killed.[10] Or, stated more graphically, for every American soldier killed in conflict, 3 to 5 families worth of enemy combatants die. But it is also estimated that coalition forces are responsible for somewhere between 12%-35% of the civilian deaths.
I understand that Rev. Montgomery and the other chaplains likely are not in a position to talk about this atrocity. Being in the military means that you agree to a certain degree of censorship. Being in the military means, at least in public spaces like the Service of the Living Tradition, that it is not appropriate to criticize the direction of your superiors and our President. You do not talk about the impact of the five years of drone strikes in Pakistan and the children who have been killed by a practice that seems to have a 2% success rate against strategically important targets.[11] You don't talk about it because ultimately the purpose is not to defeat al-Qaeda. It is to defeat the people.
As a nation we are engaged in reprehensible behavior, and we should be much more ashamed of what we are doing abroad than we are. Many of us have taken actions—attending marches, meeting with politicians, donating to anti-war and veterans' programs, working with returning vets, trying to support Iraqis and Afghanis struggling with the consequences of the war, and many other important measures—but like the Confessing Church of the 1930s and 1940s Germany, I fear that we, as people of faith, will be judged for the horrors that are being committed by our nation because we have not done enough.
I am not a pacifist who believes that the worst peace is better than the best war. But in our rush to support the career decisions of our military chaplains we seem to have lost sight of the daily murder that is being carried out in our name by the U.S. military. There absolutely is a role for Unitarian Universalist chaplains in the armed forces, but it is not to normalize war, or even necessarily to promote a UU worldview among the soldiers. We have a faith obligation to minister to everyone, including those in the military, but as a faith movement we have not given our ministers the proper support and guidance to effectively serve the disenfranchised.
While it is not appropriate for the chaplains to speak out against the endless war agenda of our nation—that is our job—the chaplains absolutely can serve those Americans who have been preyed upon by recruiters and now find themselves in desperate situations, fighting people who never intended to hurt them, and often ending up with lifelong debilitating injuries, both physical and mental.
The pressure to meet enlistment numbers for our wars overseas pushes military recruiters to engage in dishonest behavior with high school students and underprivileged Americans in order to meet their quotas. The "prospecting" techniques of recruiters have been compared to the predatory grooming behaviors of abusers.[12] Not everyone, of course, who enlists does so because they see no other option for their lives, and many do see real opportunities in a military career. But to suggest that the military does not explicitly target the poor and underprivileged in our nation is beyond naïve. It is a manipulative system that traps the American poor into conflict with the poor of other nations, leaving them with few resources and little support when they do finally manage to get out.
These people need chaplains who can stand with them as they come to grips with the moral injury that has taken place in their lives, both for what has been done to them and what they have done to others. If the ministry of our chaplains is to those who have been trapped by this system, I am in absolute support of it. If the ministry is to champion American imperialism and colonialism, I do not believe that this is consistent with the moral and ethical vision of Unitarian Universalism. Military propaganda does not serve the living tradition to which I have given my life.
There is a more beautiful world out there. I know it is possible. I can see the promise of that world in the innocent joy of the child who sat beside me. And I pray that the denomination that I call home is willing to help our chaplains become who they need to be and do the spiritual work required to reject the violence and murder that is carried out in our name.
*Often attributed to Joseph Stalin, though this is probably apocryphal.
Nov 10, 2014
Next week I am going to be part of a panel presentation at the UU Collegium on the "The Current and Future State of Unitarian Universalist Scholarship." To aid in preparations for my portion of the panel I am trying to collect some unscientific survey data. There are only four questions and I would appreciate it if readers of my blog could fill it out and distribute it. I will publish the results on the survey next week. The url is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/98ZLCLK
Oct 21, 2014
Recently Juan Conatz put a copy of my 2007 article "The Chicago Couriers Union: a lesson for IWW solidarity union organizers" up on libcom. The piece appeared in the Industrial Worker and served as the basis for my "The Chicago Couriers Union: A Case Study in Solidarity Unionism," which was published in Working USA. You can read the Industrial Worker piece here.
Sep 4, 2014
An abridged version of my sermon "Through Eyes that have Cried" is featured on the UUA's International blog. You can read it here.
Sep 3, 2014
I will be preaching at the Unitarian Church of Marlborough and Hudson in Hudson, MA on September 28. Unfortunately, my November 16 date in Northborough, MA has been cancelled.
Aug 31, 2014
I will be preaching a version of my sermon "Two Bodies, One Heart" at the First Parish Northboro on November 16, 2014. Worship begins at 10:00 a.m.
Aug 30, 2014
preached by the Rev. Joan Van Becelaere and the Rev. Colin Bossen at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland, October 14, 2007
Part 1: Rev. Colin Bossen
Today is Association Sunday, a chance for us to affirm our common bonds, our covenant and our purpose. We celebrate this day with hundreds of other Unitarian Universalist congregations. Today is an opportunity to reflect upon what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist and why our congregation and our religious association are important.
As a lifelong Unitarian Universalist it is clear to me that we need Unitarian Universalism in our troubled world. Our community can give us the strength we need to be healers and to struggle for justice. It can offer us a vision of what a better world might look like. In our community we come together to nurture our spirits and try to heal our world.
I am reminded of the importance of our religious community on an almost daily basis. Thursday we held a candle light vigil in response to the shooting at SuccessTech Academy. Our vigil helped me to remember that in times of crisis and tragedy our community should be, and is, a place for people to come for support, healing and meaning making.
Throughout my life the Unitarian Universalist community has almost always been there when I needed it. As many of you know I am a social activist by nature. Much of the organizing I have done would not have been possible if it was not for the Unitarian Universalist congregations and communities I have a part of. Whenever I felt that it was too hard to go on, pointless to go to another meeting or attend another march, there has always been someone in the Unitarian Universalist community that I could turn to for support.
I have learned about the power of religious community both through direct experience and by watching my elders. In fact, one of the wonderful things about our communities is that they are intergenerational and that they offer us the chance to interact and learn across the generations.
Several years ago, I was a member of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. When I was there the congregation had a strong commitment to social justice. The stalwarts of the community were all longtime veterans of justice work. A couple of the older members had developed civil disobedience into a spiritual practice. I remember a Sunday that Hal, one of the civil disobedience practitioners, got up in front of the congregation during joys and concerns. He wanted to proudly announce that he had just been arrested for the two hundredth time. The day before he had been protesting the death penalty at San Quentin, again, and had been arrested for blocking the road to the prison.
His cohort in civil disobedience, a man named Elwood, had declined in health by the time I moved to Berkeley. There were wonderful stories circulating about him. Hal liked to share the one about the last time he and Elwood had committed civil disobedience together. They were at San Quentin and Elwood, who was in his eighties, was too ill to stand unassisted. Despite his infirmity he wanted to participate in the protest. So, he and Hal came up with a brilliant solution. They made a fake electric chair, put a execution hood on Elwood and placed him in the middle of the street. At Elwood's trial, this is the part of the story that Hal liked best, the judge threw the charges out. Since Elwood was tied to the chair he was incapable of moving from the street when ordered to do so. That meant that he could not be held responsible for his actions.
I love this story. I think it illustrates a congregation at its best. Hal and Elwood were able to accomplish things together that they could not have done alone. Their faith in their community sustained them over many long years of struggle. It strengthened their voices for social change and gave them comfort in dark times. I knew Hal and his wife Cynthia for many years. I know that it was his community that allowed him to stand going to jail over and over again.
Today, we need our liberal religious communities more than ever. We live in an age of anxiety, in a time when people are anxious and disconnected from each other. In a globalized world we face increasing cultural and political complexity. The world can be a very confusing place. Our liberal religious communities can ground us. They can give us the strength we need to struggle onwards.
At the heart of communities is the idea of covenant. Covenants are agreements we make with each other about how we will live together. They are a practice of loving conduct and a mark of faithfulness to each other in the midst of change, anxiety and differences of opinion.
Covenant is also at the very heart of our congregational polity, our Unitarian Universalist way of doing religion and living together as a faith community. Some of you may be surprised to hear this. You might think that congregational polity means that each congregation simply does its own thing. After all, we each are autonomous and are each run by our members. Does that not mean that we are just free to do our own thing?
That may be the way some folks think about congregational polity, but it certainly is not what our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors meant when they formed the foundation of congregationalism back in 1648.
Part 2: Rev. Joan Van Becelaere
Let me tell you a story about our religious ancestors and what they were willing to risk for the sake of their belief in their covenant.
In 1620, our Pilgrim ancestors landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts. In 1630, our Puritan ancestors arrived at the Massachusetts Bay colony.
Soon after arriving in New England, the Pilgrims and the Puritans began to work together and formed the New England Standing Order of Congregations. This Standing Order began to experiment with a new way of working together, a new way of doing religion in a new context.
Instead of relying on old structures, either the rule of bishops as in the Church of England or the rule of a powerful group of regional Elders and Clergy as in the Reformed tradition, our mix of New England Pilgrims and Puritans developed a new, revolutionary structure where each congregation governed itself, but still lived in cooperative relationship with other congregations. Meanwhile, back in Europe, the Puritans remaining in England grew strong and took over Parliament. These English Puritans favored Reformed church structure—that is, the rule by the group of regional elders and clergy.
In 1642, the English Puritans declared war on the king, took control of Parliament and then tried to take control of the colonies in North America. Then the Puritan Parliament passed the Westminster Confession which, among other things, dictated that all congregations were to use the Reformed polity. The congregations in New England could see what was coming and they were very afraid that the English Parliament would try to stop their new experiment in congregational independence. And they couldn't just ignore the laws from Parliament. After all, Parliament controlled the colonial governments as well as the English army and navy and trade. And now Parliament wanted to control the congregations. This was a matter of politics as well as religion.
So the New England congregations begin meeting to deal with this threat. They outlined their experimental congregational structure and put it all down on paper. Then, when finally faced with a demand to adopt the Westminster Confession, the New England congregations had already formed a very sensitive but risky response which we now call the Cambridge Platform.
The Cambridge Platform diplomatically affirmed the theology of Parliament's Westminister Confession. The platform said that Parliament's Confession was "holy, orthodox, and judicious in all matters of faith."
But then the New England congregations went on to say: "Only in those things which have respect to church governance and discipline, we refer ourselves to the platform of church discipline agreed upon by this present assembly."
In other words, only in that minor matter of congregational governance, that itty bitty little question of polity, we beg to differ with you, dear Parliament, and we will use our own structures, thank you very much. The Cambridge Platform was a declaration of religious independence for the colonies long before political independence was even considered.
The Congregational polity of the Platform includes the autonomy of the local congregation, that the local congregation ordains ministers and that membership is based on covenant, not adherence to a creed. And it also said that the congregations themselves live in covenant with each other.
Covenant for our ancestors wasn't just about the relationship of individual members within the congregations. It was about the relationship between the congregations themselves.
The Cambridge Platform outlined six ways in which congregations covenant, promise to be in relationship with each other.
mutual care,
consultation with one another in times of congregational conflict or indecision,
admonition when a congregation was perceived to be straying from the covenant,
participation in common celebrations and events of the larger community like ordinations and such,
recommendation or reference when a congregant moved from one congregation to another,
and relief and succor which meant sharing financial resources in times of need.
This declaration of religious independence was also a declaration of interdependence. And it was a huge risk for the New England congregations, a very dangerous game. They could have lost their charter, their right o stay in the English colonies. They could have lost their legal rights, their freedom; they could have lost their churches. But they had their faith; their commitment that enabled them to take that risk.
Fortunately for them, the next year, the civil war heated up again and the English Puritans had bigger problems than the New England colonies and their polite but revolutionary congregations.
American Unitarianism grew directly out of these revolutionary New England Standing Order congregations. And it was our Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors who put covenant at the center of our polity and what it means to live in a faith community.
Part. 3: Rev. Colin Bossen
Our ancestors did not understand their congregations as isolated. They viewed each congregation as part of a larger web of mutuality, a covenanted community of congregations. The Cambridge Platform helped to define their duties and obligations to each other.
Today we would do well to remember the Cambridge Platform. Unfortunately, many contemporary Unitarian Universalists have a history of forgetting about our covenantal roots. We like to think of our congregations as individuals, liberal beacons in a socially and religiously conservative sea.
In an address at the 1998 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, sociologist Robert Bellah named this problem "radical religio-cultural individualism." A fundamental tenet of liberal religion is the sacred nature of the individual. Individualism has shaped the view we have of the relationships between our congregations. Often we talk about covenantal relationships and act as if our congregations are isolated entities.
Bellah also said, however, that despite our fascination with individualism, we humans are, at root, relational creatures. Our focus on individualism and our forgetfulness concerning the interdependence of our covenant community is a great mistake. It runs counter to our very best natural tendencies.
We humans are essentially relational, we are tied to the rest of the universe through webs of connections. This interconnected reality has long been recognized by a number of religious traditions. Whether it is called the web of existence, the Communion of the Saints or the Tao, relationship lies at the center of our existence. Religion reminds us again and again, that we are ever bound in community. We always live in the reality of interdependence and the hope of covenant.
And it is in community that we find the deep resources to nurture our spirits in times of change. It is in community that we gain the strength to help heal our anxious and wounded world. Whenever I forget this I think of Hal and Elwood. Their story reminds me of how we can help and sustain each other through years of struggle. In telling their story I am honoring my connection to them.
We live in a time of chaos and uncertainty. We cannot cope with this new world using our worldview of radical individualism. If we are to cope with this new reality, we need a new approach, a new worldview, new creativity to navigate this chaotic world.
If we Unitarian Universalists are going to truly cope with our chaotic cosmos, to learn to live and thrive in an increasingly uncertain world, if we are going to nurture our souls as individuals and help heal our connected world, we must rekindle that fire of covenantal commitment, that reality of relationship and interconnectedness that lies at the roots of Unitarian Universalism. That is how we will survive and thrive.
Because we live in connection, as we state with our seventh principle,--to honor the interconnected web of existence--we know that all of our actions, and failures to take action, have repercussions that ripple on throughout the web of life. We are not alone when we take action based on our deepest values, when we work for healing and justice in the world. We are nurtured in the collective covenantal power, that revolutionary commitment that lies at the historical roots of our UU community.
In working to nurture the spirits of persons and heal our society and world, we ground ourselves in the power of those Unitarians and Universalists who came before us as we work with those who are in covenant with us today, for the sake of those who come after us. The web of existence is not bound by time or space.
Part 4: Rev. Joan Van Becelaere
Lately, I have experienced an excellent example of the reality of covenant community, where the welfare of each congregation directly impacts the health and welfare of all other congregations.
A few weeks ago our sister congregation in Findlay, Ohio—the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Blanchard Valley—was flooded. The congregation lost a lot of things: their piano, sound system, chairs, all of their religious education curricula, books, and supplies in the flood waters. And they had to move to a new rental building.
They were able to save their pulpit, chalice, some of their hymnals, and the coffee pots. Yes, the coffee pots were saved. There's a certain ironic humor in that.
Our District Office, of course, put out an immediate call for help. And help poured in from throughout the Ohio Meadville District and the larger Unitarian Universalist community. Ministers, congregations and other districts contributed to help put that congregation back on its feet.
I recently talked to the minister at the Findlay Congregation, the Rev. Beth Marshall, and she said: "It's easy to feel isolated out here, and yet I now know that there are good colleagues and congregations out there we can depend upon." We live in covenant.
The story of the Findlay congregation is a great example of how our Unitarian Universalist community operates when it remembers the Covenantal relationship, that deep commitment to interdependence that is at the foundation of what it means to be Unitarian Universalist.
It has been said—way too often—that trying to get Unitarian Universalists to cooperate with one another is like herding hungry cats past a tuna boat at dinner time. But I don't buy that.
I think in our very heart of hearts, we do remember our covenant. It's in our ancestral DNA. We have just forgotten it for awhile. I believe that the Cambridge Platform, with its six concepts of congregational communion—
mutual care,
consultation in times of conflict,
participation in celebration,
recommendation in transition,
and financial sharing in times of need.
—was way ahead of its time. And with a little creative cooperation, we can re-discover and live into that covenantal ideal—here and now.
Today, we can live our covenant when we participate in Association Sunday—when we celebrate our covenant here in the Ohio Meadville district and across North America.
And why do we do all of this? Because the world today truly needs Unitarian Universalism. It needs our message of hope and welcome and acceptance and interdependence. We need a faith community that can truly provide a welcoming place of spiritual nurture for everyone. A faith that can help heal our fragmented, chaotic world.
W.E.B. DuBois once wrote:
"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow."
Today, we can live our covenant.
We can start here and now to rekindle the fire of our commitment.
Our collection of congregational kitty cats can and will come together.
Because now is the time.
Now is the time to remember our roots as Unitarian Universalists.
Now is the time to come together and remember that we are bound in community.
Now is the time to provide a place of spiritual nurture for people seeking a spiritual home.
Now is the time for our congregations to reach out to help heal our world with hope and love.
The world needs Unitarian Universalism.
The world needs the fire of our commitment.
And it certainly needs the strength of our covenant.
Now is the time.
Amen and blessed be.
Aug 29, 2014
preached at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland, October 7, 2007
All human beings deserve the same rights and respect. It does not matter whether you are black, white, Asian, Mexican or Native American. It does not matter whether you are male, female or transgender. It does not matter whether you are homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. It does not matter if you are rich or poor. You deserve to live your life with grace and dignity.
This coming week marks both Columbus and National Coming Out Days. In very different ways these celebrations epitomize the controversy that often erupts when people insist upon and advocate for human rights for all. Columbus Day is a celebration of the European discovery of the Americas. Most indigenous communities do not view the holiday as a celebration of discovery. For them it is a reminder of the genocide of their ancestors.
Our society denies gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people their full human rights. National Coming Out Day is a chance to raise awareness about this. Like Columbus Day it is not a holiday that is universally celebrated. Those who oppose full human rights for members of the queer community are likely to either ignore or protest National Coming Out Day.
When I was a child we celebrated Columbus Day in my elementary school. In one of my classes we made drawings of Columbus and his three ships--the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. We learned about how he had discovered America and convinced the Spanish king and queen Ferdinand and Isabel to finance his trip across the ocean. No mention was made of the native populations who inhabited this continent before the arrival of the Europeans or of their fate after the conquest of the Americas. To a naive child Columbus was a hero to be celebrated.
My consciousness about Columbus Day changed when I became involved in indigenous solidarity work in Chiapas, Mexico. I now understand that it as a complex holiday. On the one hand, it is an important day for Italian Americans and others to celebrate their heritage. On the other, it is a reminder of the suffering of generations of indigenous people at the hands of European colonialists. This complexity makes the Columbus Day holiday an ideal time to reflect upon one of the pressing issues of our day, immigration. Columbus was, after all, the original immigrant. Many of the undocumented immigrants to the United States today are descendents from the original inhabitants of the Americas. The debate about immigration is in part a continuation of a long debate about whom this continent belongs to and who has a right to participate in our society.
The immigration debate has gradually been heating up for the last several years. In 2006 it reached a boiling point when Congress attempted to pass a series of laws to clamp down on undocumented immigration. One of the measures that conservatives hoped to pass called for the deportation of the at least twelve million undocumented immigrants currently in the United States. A mass deportation of this type would prove disastrous, not in the least because, according to the Center for American Progress, the costs would be at least $215 billion.
Right now, undocumented immigration is an issue in most wealthy countries. Things have gotten so bad in the Global South, in the developing countries of the world, that people are willing to risk anything to have a shot at a better life for themselves and their families.
Many do risk everything and ultimately die attempting to reach the wealthy countries. In five months in late 2005 and early 2006, for example, between one thousand and fifteen hundred sub-Saharan Africans died trying to sneak into Spain. According to the journalist Jeremy Rose that is "five and seven times the number of people who died attempting to reach West Berlin during the Berlin Wall's entire history."
People do not take such risks and leave their families behind because they want to. They do it because they have to. People emigrate to places like the United States because the options of staying behind in their home countries are much worse than risking death trying to leave them.
There are many people in our country who are afraid of immigrants. They are afraid that undocumented immigrants erode border security, take jobs from American citizens and threaten American culture. These issues frame most of the debate around immigration. I believe they obfuscate the central issue. The central issue is: who do we, and by we I mean both the people in this room and our culture at large, consider a human being? I believe that we all deserve the same rights and respect. We are all human beings. We all deserve to be able to live our lives with grace and dignity.
This idea is at the core of the first principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association. This first principle says that our community affirms and promotes the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That means that we think all human beings are human beings and are worthy of respect and dignity. This idea is at the heart of the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It says, in part:
"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
The Declaration of Human Rights is supposed to be the global standard by which countries are judged, both in terms of how they treat their citizens and how they treat others. The Declaration contains all of the basic things that human beings are supposed to be entitled to. According to the Declaration all people are afforded the right to own property, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to work and not be forced to work, freedom to choose their own sexual and life partners and freedom of movement. To deny people these rights is to deny them their humanity.
For undocumented immigrants the words "other status" are the key phrase in the document. That means that everyone in this country is supposed to be afforded these rights, whether or not they are here with the approval of the government.
The question of who really is a human being has been one that our country has wrestled with for a long time. Throughout the colonial period and during the first decades of our history as a nation the only people considered to be full human beings were land owning males of European descent. Anyone who did not meet the criteria of being male, white and a landowner was seen as less than a full citizen and, therefore, less than completely human. Slavery was justified by claiming that Africans and people of African descent possessed less developed faculties than Europeans. They were thought to need the guidance of others, their slave masters, to become civilized. Women, likewise, were denied the vote because they were thought of as less rational and capable than men.
Today, though most of us would not admit it, our country continues to have such attitudes. Today we do not consider people who live in the Global South, that is developing nations like Nicaragua, Iraq or the Sudan to be full human beings. If we did we would never let our government pursue the foreign policies it has in those countries.
In fact much of the immigration to the United States is a direct result of the failed economic and political policies of Washington. The last few years have seen an average of 500,000 undocumented immigrants from Mexico per year. Currently the greatest export from Mexico is Mexicans. As a result, remittance, money sent back to Mexico from the United States, is one of the top sources of income within Mexico. This is a direct result of the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, more commonly known as NAFTA. NAFTA has decimated the Mexican countryside by placing small Mexican subsistence farmers in direct competition with large agricultural combines from the United States and Canada. Unable to compete, over 1.3 million Mexicans have left the countryside in the last ten years.
The violence that our government has perpetrated in Central America is another major reason why so many people have been forced to emigrate to the United States. Throughout the seventies and eighties the United States backed repressive regimes or right wing guerilla movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. The conflicts in these countries led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of primarily indigenous peoples. Those that could, fled. And those that fled, fled to the United States.
One of the major reasons why people immigrate to the United States is that they want to be treated like human beings. I remember talking with a campesino in Chiapas, Mexico a few summers ago about this. He told me: "You Americans care more about your pets than you care about us." At least three thousand people from Latin America have been found dead along the United States border in the last ten years. I cannot help but wonder if he is right.
The material poverty that most of Latin America lives in is staggering. Through my work with CASA, the human rights organization that I helped to start in Mexico, I have visited Mexico a number of times. While there I have taken trips to the poorest rural communities and urban slums. People live without running water, far from the nearest school or doctor. They live in shacks with dirt floors and thatch or tin roofs. And they work hard for very little. Many live on less than a dollar a day.
The journey that many people from Mexico and Central America take to escape this kind of poverty is arduous. It involves a difficult and lengthy trip to the border, often through dangerous areas where immigrants are preyed upon by organized crime and harassed by governmental authorities. Once at the border immigrants will locate a coyote, a professional people smuggler, to take them into this country. Coyotes charge as much as $3,000 to people who wish to cross the border. Most of the people who cross into the United States lack the resources to pay up front. So coyotes often deliver them directly to potential employers through whom they can work off their debt. This can amount to modern slavery. Undocumented immigrants have been held in bondage for years while working off their debt. Once their debt to the coyote is cleared they often continue to live in fear as their employer threatens to have them deported if they step out of line.
Two myths about undocumented workers are that:
They do work that Americans do not want to do;
and they depress wages for American workers.
If either of these myths are true it is only by the slightest degree. Economics is not a zero sum game. There are not a set number of jobs available. More people in the United States means more needs for goods and services. This in turn means more jobs. The extent to which undocumented workers depress wages is also open to question. An article in the Economist argued that at most undocumented workers depressed wages for other Americans by 8%. Their analysis suggested, however, that the actual number was much closer to .4%.
Most undocumented immigrants do the work immigrants and poor people in this country have always done. They work in fields, in restaurants, in the garment industry and in domestic work. The wages in these industries are low in part because the management in these industries has fought tooth and nail against unionization efforts. Management would prefer that the workers stay undocumented so that they continue to live in fear and stay docile. Giving undocumented workers papers and a path to citizenship would in fact raise wages much more than clamping down on undocumented workers would.
It is certainly true that the income gap between the rich and poor in our country is growing. This is not the fault of undocumented immigrants. It is a result of the same economic and political policies that cause people to immigrate to the United States in the first place. Through trade agreements like NAFTA, a situation has been created where there a free movement of capital but not free movement of labor. Companies are free to move their factories wherever they like if labor costs get to expensive and workers are not able to follow them. This creates a series of captive labor markets, each trying to outbid the other in terms of low wages and services. The governments of poor countries vie with each other for the right to exploit their citizens. Working conditions in those countries are not fit for human beings. In some, children work twelve or fourteen hours a day, seven days a week for only a few dollars in wages. Such practices were outlawed in the United States three or four generations ago. Yet we allow our government to pursue economic policies that support such behavior. And in the end it hurts our country as well because manufacturing jobs from the United States leave for places with cheaper labor.
This is not capitalism as envisioned by Adam Smith. He believed that capitalism required free movement of both labor and capital. Restrict one and you distort the capitalist system and deny someone's basic rights.
Columbus Day and the debate around immigration are connected to National Coming Out Day by questions of human rights. Both undocumented workers and members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities are denied some of their human rights. The struggles of both challenge us to make our society more inclusive.
Not long ago almost all members of the queer communities lived in the closest, afraid to admit their sexual orientation to any but a trusted circle. Over the last several years this has changed and, in many communities, it is now more acceptable to be queer. The stories from lesbians of two different generations that Dana read earlier demonstrate this. Young people questioning their sexual orientation or identity today have far more opportunities to safely explore whom they love than they did twenty years ago.
This does not mean that our society treats members of the queer community justly. It does not. Most states do not recognize the right of gays and lesbians to get married. The murder of Matthew Shepard a few years ago also served as a tragic reminder that while our society has become more tolerant of queer lifestyles, we still have a long way to go.
This is why celebrating National Coming Out Day is important. Coming Out Day reminds us both of the struggles that have been fought in the past and those that must be waged in the future. It is a time for us to pause and remember Stonewall, Matthew Shepard, Harvey Milk, and the countless others who have either suffered because of who they loved or struggled for equal rights for all people. Coming Out Day is also a time for us to roll-up our sleeves and commit to making the lives of those around us and those who will come after us better. Never again should it be permissible to hate someone because of their sexual or gender orientation.
The history of this country is in part the history of the expansion of the franchise. Gradually more and more groups have been allowed to become full participants in our society. First white men without property and then women and black men were granted equal rights, at least under the eyes of the law. They are now all considered human beings and the laws for committing crimes against them are, in theory, the same. It is time to expand the franchise again. This time we must expand the franchise to truly include all human beings. We must recognize all of our brothers and sisters on planet earth as human beings.
In the hopes that it may be so, I say Amen and Blessed Be.
Aug 28, 2014
preached at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland, September 30, 2007
My theme this morning is the transient and the permanent in liberal religion. When I talk about liberal religion I mean Unitarianism, Universalism or Unitarian Universalism. Over the course of our almost five hundred year history our religious movement has changed a great deal. We have changed so much, in fact, that what seemed essential to us in one era now appears to be only tangential. Despite appearances I believe that no matter what the changes in our movement we have retained an important and discernible core. At our essence we are a covenantal community committed to truth, love, freedom and the ability of each person to find his or her own spiritual path.
The inspiration for this sermon comes from a seminal sermon by the Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker entitled "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity." In that sermon Parker tried to discern the essence of Christianity. He believed that much of what people took to be Christianity was actually a product of the time and culture in which they lived. He wrote:
"In actual Christianity... there seem to have been... two elements, the one transient, the other permanent. The one is the thought, the folly, the uncertain wisdom, the theological notions... the other, the eternal truth of God. These two bear perhaps the same relation to each other that the phenomena of outward nature, such as sunshine and cloud, growth [and] decay...bear to the great law of nature, which underlies and supports them all."
Parker wrote as a transcendentalist. For him the essence of Christianity stood in for all religious truth. He thought that Jesus taught not Christianity but absolute religion, the essence of spiritual truth that lay behind all religion. Despite the title of his sermon, Parker was part of a movement that helped turn Unitarianism away from its identity as an exclusively Christian religion. Today, in our congregations, we recognize that all religions contain a kernel of truth in them. We understand that each religion is an effort to reach toward an understanding of ultimate reality. The interpretation may be different but the impulse to reach out is the same.
To help us explore the transient and the permanent of liberal religion, our own attempt at reaching towards the absolute, I would like to offer you three images from my and our religious ancestry. If examined closely, these images can teach us much about Unitarian Universalism.
First, imagine the gathering of a group of 17th century New England colonists. They have left the Church of England and fled their native land. They have come to a strange continent seeking religious freedom and, after months of discussion and debate, they have decided to form a religious community. Finally, they have reached agreement about the shape and form of their community. It is important for them that each individual be allowed to find truth in God and in the Bible as they best know how. One by one they write their names in the membership book and sign a covenant, an agreement about how they will behave together in religious community. Their covenant reads:
"We Covenant with the Lord and one with another; and doe bynd our selves in the presence of God, to walke together in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveale himselfe unto us in his Blessed word of truth."
Now we turn to our second image. It is late at night. Theodore Parker sits at his desk. He is writing a fiery sermon calling for resistance to the fugitive slave law. That law demands that Northerners return fugitives to their supposed masters in the South. In front of Parker lies a loaded pistol. He has the gun because he and his wife are sheltering Ellen and William Craft, fugitives and members of his congregation. He plans to shoot anyone who comes and tries to return them to slavery.
The third image is of myself as a youth of fourteen. I am on the beach with about two hundred other Unitarian Universalist youth. Moonlight bounces off the sand and waves tumble rocks ever smoother on the shore. We are at the evening worship service of Con Con, the international annual conference for Unitarian Universalist youth. We are singing, sharing stories, running our hands over the soft warm earth. Amid the song, starlight and fellowship I experience an almost overpowering feeling of love and unity.
Each of these images is taken from a different moment in the history of liberal religion. The first image is from our earliest roots on this continent. The last is almost contemporary. We can draw a direct line through all three images to our worship service today. What has changed in our communities since the New England farmers gathered almost four hundred years ago? What has remained the same? What is transient and what is permanent?
I approach these questions from two directions. First, I take a theological tact, and look at the beliefs of both Unitarian Universalists and our ancestors. Second, I examine our culture, that is I look at who makes up our communities and how we relate to the wider world.
To the casual eye it would appear that almost nothing of Unitarian Universalist theology has remained consistent. Our religious ancestors who gathered together in Massachusets were self-identified Christians. The Bible was the central text in their religious community and all of them regarded Jesus as their lord and savior. A sociologist of religion would call them Protestant Christians.
Today, only a portion of Unitarian Universalists and Unitarian Universalist congregations identify as Christian. The members of our religious communities follow a variety of spiritual practices and beliefs. In our congregations we find Buddhists, Christians, Humanists, Jews, Agnostics, Pagans and others. A sociologist of religion would call us Post-Christian Protestants.
We are post-Christian because, as a religious movement, we come out of Christianity. That means that while we do not retain much of the theology of Christianity we continue to use many of the forms of Christianity. Like most other Protestant movements we have ministers, gather together for worship primarily on Sunday morning and organize ourselves into congregations. In addition we have taken a central idea of Protestantism, the belief that each person is capable of direct relationship with God and able to read and interpret the Bible, to an entirely different level. We recognize that there is truth in religious communities beyond Christianity. We do not just believe that each person is capable of interpreting the Bible. We think that each person is capable of interpreting their own religious experiences and naming their own source of religious authority. For us personal experience, and not the Bible, is the starting point for theological reflection.
Despite the shift from Christian to post-Christian we are united with our New England ancestors by our use of covenants. When we form communities we agree to treat each other in a certain way. The New England religious communities from which we are descended used similar covenants. The Salem covenant of 1629 that I read earlier is an example of one such covenant. Another, couched in slightly different language, is the Bond of Union of this congregation. If you look on our web-site or in our by-laws, you will find a statement that reads:
"We warmly invite into membership all in common with our purpose as expressed in our Bond of Union: mutual helpfulness in the search for truth and for enduring value in ways of life; advancement of sound morals among ourselves and in our community; encouragement and protection of individual freedom of religion."
This Bond of Union is meant to guide us as we live and work together in religious community. It contains several clear expectations about how we will behave in our congregation. It describes what it means to be a member of this community. We agree that when we gather:
We will help each other
We will seek truth
We will try to live moral lives and promote morality, as best we understand it, in our communities
We will respect and protect freedom of religion
Our Bond of Union is not really that different from the covenant of our New England ancestors. Laying them side by side it easy to see how they contain the same spirit. The language may be different, one mentions the Lord and God while the other does not, but both covenants speak of a commitment to truth, of mutual aid and respect. Neither explicitly mentions a standard of belief that people must meet in order to join the community. Instead we are asked to agree to "walk together" or be "in common with our purpose."
Our use of covenant unites us with our religious ancestors across almost four hundred years. We have long understood, to quote the Transylvania Unitarian Bishop Francis David, "we do not need to think alike to love alike."
With our Unitarian Christian, Universalist and Transcendentalist ancestors we share a belief that human beings are at the very least morally neutral. According to the first principle of our Unitarian Universalist Association, our congregations "covenant to affirm and promote:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person."
This pledge is at the heart of what it means to be a religious liberal. Historically, the very definition of a religious liberal was someone who objected to the argument that humanity is somehow inherently wicked. In the Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association this sentiment is not couched as a belief—to affirm and promote is not the same thing as to believe—but in looking back at our history it might as well be.
The origin of the American Unitarian Association, one of the precursors to the Unitarian Universalist Association, lies in a 19th century dispute over whether or not human beings had innate goodness within them. The principle spokesperson of Unitarianism during this time was William Ellery Channing and he engaged in numerous debates with more orthodox clergy. In his famous sermon, entitled "Likeness to God," Channing argued that each person had within them the likeness to God. The purpose of religion was to help us nurture that divine spark. Channing felt that it was possible for us to reach an almost Godlike consciousness because, in his words, "we carry within ourselves the perfections, of which its beauty, magnificence, order, benevolent adaptations, and boundless purposes, are the results and manifestations [of God]. God unfolds himself in his works to a kindred mind."
As a young man, Channing was Parker's hero and provided him with much inspiration. Looking at texts like Channing's "Likeness to God" and Parker's "The Transient and Permanent in Christianity" one cannot help but notice similarities between them. That said, Channing and Parker had their differences. Channing acted as a sort of senior statesman for the religious liberals of his day. Parker was a powerful prophet whose anti-slavery views made him pariah among his fellow Unitarians. Channing was reluctant to call for the abolition of slavery until late in his career.
Parker, however, never would have taken the stands he did had it not been for the liberals of Channing's generation. Channing's generation's belief in the perfectibility of humans was in part what led Parker and his cohorts to attack slavery. If Parker was to approach God's likeness how could he not speak out against the evil of his times?
We are united with our 19th century ancestors not only by our feelings about human nature but by our understanding that personal experience is the starting point for theological reflection. In his essay "Self-Reliance" the Unitarian minister and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson admonished: "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world." By this Emerson means that it is our own experience of truth that is ultimately important. Each of us has had our own experiences and each of our experiences helps us to understand what is true.
My own truth has been tempered by a healthy dose of mysticism, a feeling that we can all connect to the infinite that surrounds us. This belief stems from early experiences like the one in Oregon where I felt a deep connection to everyone and everything around me.
The wonderful thing about Unitarian Universalism is that I can hold this belief, some of you can disagree with me and we can all be right. We are able to do so because we understand that our religious truths stem from our experiences. We have all had different experiences, which means we have all come to different religious truths. The absolute undergirding all of our experiences may be the same but our ways of understanding what is true will be different.
Covenants are a belief in at least the neutrality of human nature and a recognition that personal experience is the starting point for theological reflection. Taken together these three things form the core of Unitarian Universalism. Combined they form us into covenantal religious communities dedicated to truth, love and freedom. This is the core of our theological vision, our sense of absolute religion.
Having described our theological vision, we should turn our attention to the culture of liberal religion. We Unitarian Universalists are not of the sort to separate ourselves from the world. We have chosen to live in it. We are shaped by, and to a limited extent, shape the culture around us. Parker believed that culture should be the most transient part of religion. While the essence of our religion remains the same, culture should change with the times.
We can look at the culture of liberal religion on local or global levels. From a global perspective Unitarianism, Universalism and Unitarian Universalism are culturally rich. We can find our co-religionists in the Kashi hills of India, in Transylvania, the United States and the Philippines.
On the other hand, if we only look locally, if we examine the culture of our religion in the United States over the last four hundred years it appears culturally poor. David Bumbaugh touches on this in his sermon "Beyond the Seven Principles: The Core of Our Faith:"
"[I]f we ask, "Who is served by Unitarian Universalism" we come at the core of our faith from a very different angle. The answer to that question, whether we like it or not, is that historically Unitarian Universalism has served the emergent middle-class, (dare I say, mostly the Euro-American emergent middle class). This is not a fact we find ourselves able to embrace comfortably."
I am afraid that, in general, Bumbaugh's observation is correct. There are, of course, exceptions, and much of the best of Unitarian Universalism can be found within them. However, it is painfully true that in aggregate our congregations have primarily served the professional and business classes. In general, our communities are made up of teachers, public servants, college professors, mid-level business executives and others of similar educational background. Most of us are neither the people who own the means of production nor those who those who labor in the mills.
Unitarian Universalists are not only a middle-class people. Many of us are also deeply counter-cultural. We have come to Unitarian Universalism because we have rejected the dominant modes of religious thinking in our society. In earlier days we would have been called heretics. Often our understanding of religious truth calls upon us to question the actions of our government, the values of our materialist culture and why people in our world are not afforded to most basic of human rights. When we ask these questions, I believe the permanent in liberal religion, the part of our faith that calls us to extend ourselves beyond our comfortable shells, in peeking through.
Nonetheless, as a religious movement, we need to ask ourselves if the class composition of our congregations is part of the transient or the permanent of liberal religion. When our communities lack the full spectrum of human diversity we are all missing something. We learn by struggling to build community with those who are different from us. If we restrict ourselves to only a thin band of the world's peoples, then our community is the poorer for it.
The Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Morrison-Reed reminds us, "The central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all."
To fully unveil those bonds we need to widen our communities. This is not easy work as it requires us to carefully examine the cultural assumptions we make within our congregations. Often I have heard Unitarian Universalists say that our faith is best fitted for people with a certain level of education or background. If culture is part of the transient in liberal religion this need not be the case.
When we remember that culture is transient, we remember, again in the words of Morrison-Reed, that "alone our vision is too narrow to see all that must be seen, and our strength too limited to do all that must be done." This act of remembrance is part of the permanence of liberal religion. This act of remembrance is what makes our communities worthwhile. It is what happens when we truly unite in a covenantal community to pursue truth, love and freedom. That it may be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.


text:
I I love this place. Small plates artfully presented. I always go with a few friends and we order many plates and enjoy a culinary trip around the world.
Unexpectedly had to be in Charlotte for Sunday. Went onto Trip Advisor to find a place for brunch. You did not let me down.
A real food delight. Sunday brunch is a buffet - but what a buffet. They take grits to a whole new plane with their Asiago Cheese Grits. Plenty for vegetarians - roasted vegetable, potato gratin, fresh...
Simply one of the best dining experiences in Charlotte. We have eaten here at least four times, and the last time was fantastic.
We began with the Jamon Iberico de Bellota and assorted cheeses and worked our way to the small plates: Pan Seared Gnocchi, Lavender Chicken, and Rack of Lamb. All were incredibly flavorful, especially the pumpkin bread substituted...
Boyfriend and I visited for brunch on a Sunday- we are always looking for places that stay open for breakfast late as we are lazy on weekend mornings. We didn't realize it would be about $20 per person for the brunch but I'm glad we tried it. Huge buffet area with everything from steamed veggies and rosemary potatoes to cheesy...
Attentive service with great food and wine suggestions. Menu changes periodically. Located in failing strip mall but don't be deterred by this.
My other half and myself came here for brunch and it was AMAZING!! It's buffet style which is great, but the CHOCOLATE waffles, French toast, and eggs & bacon are made to order!!! I cannot wait to come back to eat there again!! On a scale 1 - 10, they for sure get an 11!!
We sampled 3 small plates and one entree at this amazing restaurant and all were fabulous. Brie brûlée, crunchy avocado & asparagus, lavender chicken and Swedish meatballs were all superb - All were more than ample portions and beautifully prepared an presented. We'd recommend this place to anyone - service, ambiance and most of all, the food were all awesome!
I went here for restaurant week and i can't wait to come back! This isn't the dinner spot for anyone looking to leave full, this is more of a food experience than anything. I had the mussels with saffron creme and leeks, very nice. The meat is cooked perfectly and not overly salted, and my fiance had the salmon which...
My boyfriend and I visited for Charlotte Restaurant week. We frequented other restaurants in the area but never went here for whatever reason. I'll break things down as best I can.
Food: I opted for the farm lettuce salad (1st course), the trio tapenade (2nd course), the saffron risotto (3rd course), and the flourless chocolate cake (4th course). The salad...
We liked EVERYTHING about this place. Trendy yes, Crowded, yes, but awesome incredible food from the appetizers to the dessert. We happened in (unplanned) during restaurant week and the menu surely did not disappoint. GRETA selections and AWESOME value.
Nice but not extensive wine list, it suits the place.
The restaurant is a little gem, on the end unit of...
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Porters and Stouts have common grounds. Guinness used to be called a porter in the past. I would class this as a Session Stout in the UK but I know in the US beers are taken and messed with and forced into styles.
Any way, it's a good'un, It's a nice clean basic Stout that even my Mum likes.
I like it. My mates love it and SWMBO is drinking it. I think it is the fact I have the colour from the chocolate malt rather than a black malt that is giving it a well balanced taste rather than the astringent bitterness a black can give.
I think this is a beer that I'll have difficulty in keeping to myself.
It's one of the easiest beers I've ever brewed and I can do it in under 3.5 hours. I'm drinking it in just over 3 week of brewing (shhh, don't tell any one. I force carbed it). It's dark so no clarity problems.
I'm serving it on CO2 at higher pressure than normal and I'm getting the Surge thing going on that you get with Guinness and I have to do the two part pour. When it's in the glass it looks fantastic.
I think next time I may look at adding something to help with the head retention. It's not keeping that fantastic head that you get at the pour.Brown Porter
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Volume: 30.50 L Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
3.85 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 83.5 %
0.50 kg Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 10.8 %
0.26 kg Chocolate Malt (456.9 SRM) Grain 5.6 %
55.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (60 min) Hops 28.2 IBU
15.00 gm Fuggles [4.50%] (15 min) Hops 3.8 IBU
1 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)
1 Pkgs NottinghamBeer Profile
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.047 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Color: 24.2 SRM
Bitterness: 32.1 IBU
Estimated ABV: 4.6 % Mash Profile Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Mash Grain Weight: 4.61 kg Mash PH: 5.4 PH
Sparge Temperature: 75.6 C
Sparge Water: 26.08 L
Mash In Add 12.03 L of water at 76.9 C 68.0 C 45 min Notes
The Aim for this brew is to make a simple tasty brew with minimal ingredients, time and effort.
I use flaked barley in my stout for head. I hear ya though, keeping it simple is key to a good stout. If it gets too complex, I call it a porter . I like how you left it up to the chocolate for the color, I'd like to try that. Here's mine, it's reaaaaaallll creamy, just how I like my stouts:
6lb 2 row
1lb flaked barley
1lb carapils
.75lb roasted
.5 chocolate
1oz east kent golding 60min
I have a simlar recipe - but it was created as an English dark mild. Its clearing now and will be ready to bottle next week. I'm anticipating it, like your recipe, will be a better session beer then either my porter or stout recipes.
My Stout has 2# of flaked barley - creamy and head retention is awesome


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Registration will open shortly for the 14th Annual Legal Malpractice & Risk Management Conference which will be held February 25–27, 2015. The LMRM Conference will again offer interactive panels led by leaders in their fields, who are professional liability practitioners, law firm general counsel and insurance professionals. Each panel will provide a comprehensive examination of current developments with an emphasis on recent legal decisions.
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Weekly Light Hunters Feature #46:iconvenatoreslucis:
Race by Northstar76nomoldu by shitpitcher
Old shoes by AbandonedZone
Running in Circles by Matthias-Haker
My Brush With FIRE by H0LL0W25...hm... by golpista
● Staff of #Venato
Weekly Light Hunters Feature #33:iconvenatoreslucis:
Modista v.3 by bwaworga
Anatomy of a Gentleman by NunoCanha
ql by lwc71
Antique by lightnoize
Last hurrah by mpdman
46 11 875N - 1 17 4900W by SylveryFox
Light Hunters Feature #79Enjoy some of the recent additions to our gallery
Shelter From the Storm by Queen-Kitty
Chile - Torres del Paine by lux69aeterna
The spot by bribesdemoi
Scarlet 2 by Grooveinjector
Strong enough by thefirebomb
VenatoresLucis Sta
Macro Spotlight Vol. 96MarcosRodriguez's
Spotlight Vol. 96
The Spotlight
.take me where the sun never sets.
by GrotesqueDarling13
by lindahabiba
Cotton Candy
by SheilaBrinson
by Bibire
Plop Drop
by relhom
by MohannadQassab
by Sudlice
Erythraeidae? larva feeding on
Weekly Light Hunters Feature #59:iconvenatoreslucis:
La Tour Eiffel, I've not seen her, just some trees by ateist-kleranty
Solo by Dosshaus
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Weekly Light Hunters Feature #48
Join #VenatoresLucis and enjoy more of these works!
Underground by Tomoji-ized
Reach Out by helios-spada
TO READ READ READ by blueanto
Staff of #VenatoresLucis
Weekly Light Hunters Feature #56:iconvenatoreslucis:
Briseadh-Latha by Alex37
Hungarian skies pt.CXXXVIII. by realityDream
Kristina by warhammerphoto
Majestic Light by Creative--Dragon:
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Weekly Light Hunters Feature #27:iconVenatoresLucis:
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The Dark Lake by MaximeCourty
Staff of VenatoresLucis
:iconBrunilde: :iconMarinaCoric: :iconMarcosRodriguez: :iconLula939:
Conceptual Spotlight Vol. 22JamminJo's
Spotlight Vol. 22
The Spotlight
Timeless by beyondimpression
Don't Forget by ONE-Photographie
Platform 9 3/4 -keep it traditional- by TheBizarreBirdcage
I not hurt you by tasiy
Sun walk by GDALLIS
Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain by PicturePuttonen
And Then Time Froze by Nelleke
Pandora by juliannecrea
paranoia by SpellboundMisfits
Revelation by lukysta
Lost Soul by Nitrok
See a piece that should be featured?
Don't hesitate to note me with the thumb! I'll do my best to get it in the next feature.
Undiscovered Talent
Give love. Write comments. Collect Favorites. Watch Artists. Make Art.
Conceptual Gallery
Street DDs January 2014:iconNunoCanhaReloaded:
Memory gaps 7 by PatriceChesse
The Leader by Y4why
* by stringoiu
Dsc 7372 by doerkid
Personal Nirvana by MARX77
# 7504 by RadioFreeDeath
Untitled #1 by mangawhio
PE:"So you think you can Street" ContestSpring is here!
For many of us, street shooters, it's the best season to go out and shoot "street".
And then come back and show what we got.
And maybe enter a neat little contest
"So, you think you can street?"
It is my great pleasure to announce
the first Official deviantArt "So you think you can street" Photography Spring Contest
which will be held from May 1st till June 15th in deviantArt site.
Everyone is welcome to enter !
Contest Guidelines
1. Your entry must be a STREET photograph. If it isn't, it will be removed from the contest and you can replace it with one that it is.
2. Your entry must be submitted in a special deviantArt category which will be open from the 1st of May till the 15th of June and can be found following thi
Street contest - THE WINNERSIt is our great pleasure to announce the WINNERS of
the first Official deviantArt "So you think you can street" Photography Spring Contest
which was held from May 1st till June 15th in deviantArt site.
After 15 days of hard negotiations, cweeks, myraincheck and StamatisGR
decided and happily announce:
1st Winner
by :iconarslanalp:
1 year premium subscription + 3200 points*
A competition between a peacock displaying its beautiful feathers and a gorgeous girl posing for the cameras. In its simplicity and elegant framing the image holds the imagery of beauty and vanity. The white feathers/white dress and the similar pose of girl and peacock are nice additions to the impact of the image.
2nd Winner
by :iconhbapt:
6 months premium subscription + 2400 points*
A classy street photo where an ever
-Softness Art- Vol.VIIJoin Us! :iconsoftness-art:
Peony 2 by skogsanda Chucko by Serdar-T
Gatos ao sol by siddpires
Behind Bars by TigresSinai Tulip by tomsumartin
Lazy by eat-ride-listen
Last poppy by tomsumartin Vita Brevis by MarsiaMS
7277 by darktoys2012
Gentle Light XXIII by JoannaRzeznikowska Window by Yvonnne92
Butterfly in black and white by EmiliaLingvald
The Camera by Holunder
Softness-art: Weekly feature XVI:iconsoftness-art:
Relax! by whiteeyedhusky
Golden morning by vanillapearlTrain... by monikha
Sunflower by photofisken
alternative by all17on the fire by porbital
Freedom by gyaban
Through fire by MaaykeKlaverorange autumn by mechtaniyaFly Away by alexgphoto
Give me a title.............. by BetuwefotograafMagda by qczman
You don't love me by Wan-Mei
The Founder's Favourites - 1st Edition:iconsmallwaveplz:Hello deviants and art lovers!
This will be a regular feature, published on my (Egil21) Journal and submitted to TheFavouriteShowcase's Journals Folder http://thefavouriteshowcase.deviantart.com/gallery/34209706 as well.
These works are my Favourites from my +devwatch of :icongroupsplz::iconthefavouriteshowcase:.
This is a group for all, where a great team of Contributors tries to expose your work in various ways and where you can certainly find some favourites too.
Please take a moment to see this collection and enjoy
The Colours
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones (...).
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)
The Detail
Trees were so rare in that country, and they ha
March Member FeatureHello everyone
Once again it's the end of the month, and as a result we are once again featuring all of our new members since last month. We think this is a nice thing, so that you members can see the new artists who've joined and are among you in the group. Just like last month, we have gotten so many very talented members. We are delighted to see this, and as always we are delighted to have you among us
Members who join after this feature, will receive a feature the 30th of April.
Without further ado, I represent our member feature!
February Feature by deadlulu
:thumb288913304: :thumb261036441: Frozen by majdear Cupcake pops by kupenska :thumb290122460: Femme by mandyleft Finally Christmas by awesomeness :thu
February Member FeatureHello everyone
We have now been up and running as a group for ~2 weeks. We are delighted to see so many talented people among us, with so many wonderful deviations. To celebrate having gotten started, and to warmly welcome you all to the group, the staff has decided to feature 1 piece per member. Furthermore we have decided to make a member feature every month. This does not mean that you members, who get featured here, will get featured next time. It means, that we will feature new members who joined since this February feature.
Without further ado, I represent our member feature!
February Feature by Azzeria
cinnamon by blondepassion Just A Kiss by i-am-JENius Ariadne by Alosa A Cold Winter's Night by Mysterykids Fallen Wish by ChisSweetArt :
April Member FeatureHello everyone
My deepest apologizes that the monthly member feature is late. I'm having a guest from Italy visiting, so my time at the pc has been very limited.
We do these monthly member features as we think its a nice thing, so that you members can see the new artists who've joined and are among you in the group. Just like last month, we have gotten so many very talented members. We are delighted to see this, and as always we are delighted to have you among us
Members who join after this feature, will receive a feature the 31st of May.
Without further ado, I represent our member feature!
April Feature by secrets-of-the-pen
I want by AlexRestr :thumb287130888: :thumb285713213
My 3th Feature 2012:iconspreadmoreloveplz: Hello all my friends and watchers :iconspreadmoreloveplz:
It's time to say thank you for all the nice comments, and :icondevwatch2: in the last month
and also a big welcome to all my new watchers.
shi7 by Sophie-Y Panda by Celairen
Be My Light by Corvinerium Chick by AngeliaArt :thumb287970345:
Magic night by ArtbyValerie :thumb288169720: Tales In The Cemetery by maiarcita
Sonata al mar by Marazul45 The season of sorrow by Sophie-Y :thumb288135435:
Time Traveler by Dani-Owergoor Steampunk Room by SilverCurlyART :thumb268608243:
My city is my music by Sylwia77 After Dark by Art-by-Nise Dream a Little Girl by x-Cubbu-x
Catwoman by DarkVisionsDreams The Sound of Silence by Dark-Angel669 The Attic by DeniseGarbis
Lady Spring by Nataly1st Mongolian Girl by LewiARTs Au Revoir Mon Amour by SweediesArt
Hunted by JennLaa :thumb285326011: Terra Incognita by KirstenLane
City Lights by EnchantedWhispersArt Fairy Manga by CaryAndFrankArts :thumb287875619:
Tremble for you love by cylonka :thumb28767131
Photography Weekly: Edition ElevenPhotography Weekly Header created by TouchedD
"I can't tell you how many pictures I've missed, ignored, trampled, or otherwise lost just 'cause I've been so hell bent on getting the shot I think I want."
-Joe McNally-
I recently blogged about Joe McNally and his book The Moment It Clicks. I've not yet read it but it's on my Birthday list for April. However I have read some of the quotes from inside the book - one in particular is the 'pause for thought' for this article this week. As some of you might know I'm taking part in the 365 day Photography Challenge and I would thoroughly recommend it to anybody who wishes to think outside the box and get more creative with their photography. How many times do we ignore, trample or loose the real one in a million shot bec
BEST OF: dA-Supporters group - 27BEST OF: dA-Supporters group - 27
Hello everyone!
Here's the feature of my deviantARTSupporters group.
But not that ordinary feature...
I decided to show you only BEST works.
Which means: technically perfect, interesting or just original.
:iconpinkflowerplz: :iconpinkflowerplz:
:iconlovesplz: TRADITIONAL ART :iconlovesplz:
.continued. by Lettelira
:thumb277782674:Whoopy by Vitadog...:::PaSt:::... by RoUgEmIeGirl with flower by dh6art
Rico by 22Zitty22A Faery's Child by BriannaAngelakisOld News by Busbi:thumb278
Speed painting videoAdding two newest videos to this journal, I hope you enjoy and who doesn't - feel free to note me your suggestions. Video's were taken with my small digital camera Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ6, therefore the quality isn't groundbreaking, but people who are interested in painting development should get a decent idea about my working process.
Summer, speed painting
Traveler, speed painting
I managed to make my second speed painting video, woohoo! This time about colorful watercolor portraiture. I payed much more attention to the process than the first time but editing process (due to my pc low capability of handling editing of larger videos) took me very long and cost me lot of nerves and tears. I hope you enjoy (:
|Sta.sh Submit


text: Another happy NY accident! We got off the subway and wanted a cup of coffee so we stopped in here. Along with the coffee we had a piece of red velvet cheesecake which was to die for!! Th guys at the counter are delightfully funny and the food we saw being delivered to other tables looked fantastic. We ended up... More


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StingSteve Borden
- Birthdate: 03/20/1955 (age 59)
- Height: 6'2"
- Weight: 250 Ib
Sting is best known for his tenure in World Cha...
Read More »-- Hector Garza turns 43 years old today.
-- Jerry Lynn turns 49 years old today.
-- There are no pro wrestling shows listed for ESPN Classic tonight.
-- We will have a correspondent who will be LIVE in the arena and calling into WZR Radio tonight. The show airs from 8-10EST. Look for the live links to be posted here on this website (main newsboard) around 7EST! We hope to see you later tonight!
-- Here is the video for Sting's TNA Hall of Fame induction…


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WWE has quietly released Judas Devlin, a developmental wrestler who was supposed to have been called up to the main roster to join Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in the Wyatt Family stable. He has been removed from the official roster page for WWE NXT.
After being beaten severely by the group during the final hour of Monday Night Raw, Daniel Bryan finally succumbed and agreed to join Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, thus teasing a heel turn that could be a temporary thing.
Daniel Bryan was unable to overcome the odds, as the former WWE Champion was defeated by Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan in a handicap match at TLC. Wyatt got the pin fall victory after nailing his Sister Abigail finishing move.
There is a Beard of the Year category at the Slammy Awards at Monday Night Raw, and the nominees are Daniel Bryan, the Wyatt Family, Damien Sandow and Zeb Colter.
In order to give him a little bit of momentum heading into the Survivor Series, Alberto Del Rio was given a victory over Santino Marella on WWE Main Event this week.


text:
Latest industry Trends Watch:
Spader Online Services
the NER
Spring 2012
Theft Advisory.
Advertise with NAEDA > >
The North American Equipment Dealers Association (NAEDA) and its affiliated associations are committed to helping dealers succeed.
A New York City mandate to blend 2% biodiesel into heating oil known as Bioheat takes effect Monday, Oct. 1. "All heating oil sold within the city of New York must contain 2% biodiesel, regardless of the fuel's grade or the building's application," John Maniscalco, CEO of the New York Oil Heating Association, told Telvent DTN.
He noted the mandate is for all five New York City boroughs.
Read more.
Source: DTN / Progressive Farmer
In the Oct. 13 issue of AEM's Advisor News, Charlie O'Brien, AEM senior vice president and ag sector lead, discussed "10 reasons not to panic about the current drop in farm equipment sales." While I do agree with many of his observations and reasons, I feel a need to respond from the dealer's point of view.
Free Webinar to Watch on How to Achieve Greater Success in Hiring National Guard Members and Other Veterans


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unfortunately only a few came out good. some very underexposed.This photo was shot on film. Taken by tiano with a Lomography Sprocket Rocket (available in our Online Shop) loaded with Fuji Provia film in Around the place, Colombia. These tags describe this photo: vacation, travel, sprocket, holes, pano, panorama, panoramic, city, clouds, sky, beach, double, multiple, and doppelbelichtung. This photo can also be found in the album Colombia XV : The sprockets.
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Meantformommyhood's Mom Answers Activity
Meantformommyhood is a star in these topics:
Pregnancy > Inside Your Womb (3 helpful answers)
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How can I afford to stay home with my baby?
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I am a stay at home mom of an amazing 2 year old boy. I found a wonderful company that continues to help reach my goals of financial free...posted by KeithsWife20
25 weeks and feeling less movement
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I'm so glad that I am not the only one who is having this go on! My baby girl was active as all get out last week and then since Satu...posted by bdavidson716
Why am i showing at 7+5 weeks?
Most recent answer (04/18/2011):
I too showed extremely early. By the time I was 8 weeks, I looked like I did at 18 weeks my first pregnancy. By the time I was 18 weeks...posted by Meantformommyhood
Hemorrhage without bleeding... yet. Higher risk for miscarraige?
posted by a BabyCenter Member 12/21/2010


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A new diary and notebook stationery pack that makes an ideal gift, whether separately or together. Both items are in handy, pocket-sized format. The diary is week ...
Rob Ryan reveals how he put together his stunning paper-cut and screen-printed illustrations to create his latest book, The Kingdom Revealed.
Andrew Wilson, author of Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West, highlights the issues that matter about the Kiev Uprising and Russia's response.
Author Catherine Hall reveals the surprising history of Brighton Pavilion and its Indian guests during World War I.


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Originally published Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Movie review
Shadowy 'London Boulevard' echoes earlier films
"London Boulevard," written and directed by William Monahan ("The Departed") and starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley, is a shadowy crime thriller about a man trying to escape his past. Though the film felt familiar in its echoes of earlier works (particularly its almost-namesake, "Sunset Boulevard"), Seattle Times film critic Moira Macdonald found it stylish and assured, with Farrell's performance particularly compelling.
Seattle Times movie critic
'London Boulevard,' with Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Ben Chaplin, Ray Winstone, David Thewlis, Anna Friel. Written and directed by William Monahan, based on the novel by Ken Bruen. 104 minutes. Not rated; for mature audiences (contains violence and strong language). SIFF Cinema at the Uptown.
Mitchel (Colin Farrell) strolls the wet streets of London at night, looking like someone accustomed to danger. Fresh from a three-year prison sentence, he walks lightly but warily, as if somebody just might be watching him; he doesn't exactly look over his shoulder, but you sense he's checking all the shadows.
Somebody usually is watching Mitchel in William Monahan's moody crime thriller "London Boulevard," a stylish if familiar tale of a man hopelessly entangled in his past. Wanting a fresh start after his release, Mitchel hears about a job as a handyman to a reclusive, beautiful young actress named Charlotte (Keira Knightley), whose iconic photograph seems to hang over every bus and street corner in London like an elegant ghost. (Yes, there's a hint of "Sunset Boulevard" here, as the title indicates.) Somebody's always watching her, too — vaguely threatening paparazzi populate the sidewalk in front of her mansion — and the two find a connection, helped along by Mitchel's weakness for damaged, vulnerable women. (He's forever trying to take care of his party-girl, train-wreck sister, played with skittery appeal by Anna Friel.) Los Angeles, floating somewhere in the distance, seems like a mecca for them ... if only Mitchel can avoid falling into the darkness.
Watching "London Boulevard," you sense that you've seen this movie before, and you have; handsome gangsters hoping to leave the life behind are a dime a dozen. But Monahan shows assurance in his directing debut (he won an Oscar for writing another crime thriller, "The Departed"), and Farrell, always a welcome sight, gives his dark character nuance and appealing flashes of humanity. At one point, Mitchel quotes the poet Rilke, thinking perhaps both of his sister and Charlotte: "Everything terrible is something who needs our love."
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World's largest car pileups
Two crashes involving up to 100 cars shut down the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It's scary, but small when compared to the world's largest car accidents.
Around The Watercooler
- Stray dog follows racers through Amazon
- Man finds his lost dog for sale on Craigslist
- Drunk man frees horses from Ore. stable
- This bus runs on human waste
- Town nixes naming park for Pooh due to gender
- Super sad bicyclist just wanted some Taco Bell
- Man stung more than 100 times by swarm of bees
- Strangers lift car to save woman's life
- Tenn. man hit with $3,000 Comcast bill