Boots and Blessings

In articles and Facebook posts, I have read a plea for "unity." They reference the Black Lives Matter movement and recent shootings of police officers and say, "Enough is enough. We are one country. All lives matter. We need unity." I am not wholly cynical. I believe that in amongst the crass political attempts to spin the narrative, there are individuals who seek a vision of peace in which all people get along in tranquility. But as I have read before, many people will sacrifice integrity for tranquility. This call to "Unity" seems to me to be a siren call to abandon the difficult work that must be done, to stop exposing the truth, so that the privileged may sleep better at night, and so that the monster that is white supremacy can reign unfettered, fat with destroyed lives and broken dreams, happy with keeping things the way they have always been. As a mentor reminded me recently, we hate discomfort. We will do almost anything to avoid it. Beca

It is an old joke, in many organizations, and certainly over(used) in Unitarian Universalist churches, that working with a designated group of people is "like herding cats." So ... what if we didn't? What if we encouraged congregation members to run free and wild, like the creative people they are, bent on loving the hell out of the world? I've written before about a collective disdain for members with " pet projects ." There are those feral cats again. Running in a hundred directions, each one on fire for something different. How awesome . I don't want to corral that energy, I want to stoke it. They say if you feed them, you'll never get rid of them. That sounds pretty good, too. Let's figure out how to feed them, so they keep coming back for the sustenance that will keep them going. And let's, all of us, find our own wild side. We can still be good upstanding responsible citizens, paying our taxes, bringing a casserole to th

We had just lifted up his mother's 95th birthday in church. I didn't know if he had heard the news, so I just sent a vague-ish email: Where in Nepal did his mother live? Kathmandu, he replied. But before the news broke worldwide, breaking the phone system, he had heard from his brother. The immediate family was okay. His mother was okay. They were sleeping in a car out in an open field to avoid aftershocks. It is devastating. All rubble. They don't know about other family members. My son is safe at college, just three hours away from me. But another young man, exactly his age, is also at college. We have sponsored his education since he was 12, exchanging letters and photos twice a year. He is studying engineering and is growing into a fine man. In Nepal. We are following the status updates that Answer-Nepal is putting out, scanning the list for Alish's name, multiple times a day. I have sent an email to the last email address I had for him. I just checked again

There is real news today The Supreme Court of the land hearing arguments About whether all who love, may legally marry And a real couple watch: can they make plans? Set a date? There is real news today Baltimore is burning With rage, with despair, with anguish And 2 real persons watch from their respective windows Is it safe to go to work today? Will his blue security uniform mean attack? Will his black skin mean death? There is real news today Nepali people dig in the rubble for loved ones Landslides, avalanche, no way to get supplies And 2 real family members, a world away, listen Hoping for a phone call that mama is okay The ping of an email that the student has been located. Turn off the analysis The posturing The replaying over and over To elicit the emotional reaction That means you'll keep watching And paying for them to do it all again Tomorrow There is real news today With real people.

Monday is my Sabbath and this past Monday was an exceptionally beautiful day. Like an eager puppy, my soul nipped around my heels, clamoring to go for a walk. “Okay, okay,” I said, pulling on comfortable walking shoes, some sunblock, and my hat. I went down to the water, as I like to do, and walked along the bank. It was such a beautiful day – in just one week, the brown and brittle cold had given way to warm, lush green bursting forth. I walked along through all the greenness, peering into the water here and there, pausing to savor a delicious breeze, to look up at the trees which were shedding their winter brown as young, bratty green leaves nagged for their time to hang out over the water. I found myself wanting to clutch the day fiercely, to hoard it, because I know that what is coming means heat and bugs. Summer in Texas is often like the photo negative of a Boston winter – they hibernate from the snow and frigid cold; we move sluggishly from air-conditioned home to air

First Published on The Lively Tradition, http://www.tomschade.com/2014/09/go-forth-and-serve.html Sept. 11, 2014 When did “pet project” become an insult in UU churches? A person has a charity or a cause that they’re passionate about. They devote time and money to it. They talk about it at their church or – horrors! – ask for support.  “Oh, that’s just their pet project,” says someone. We don’t want pet projects. We want Church Programs. We’re fine with making the world a better place, but it needs to be done here, through the proper channels, something we all feel the same amount of passion for. Which may be virtually nil, but at least we all feel nil about it. We’re not spending the church’s energy on someone’s pet project. I used to buy into that. But not anymore. I knew someone who had a passion for a particular issue. At her workplace, she mobilized others. She wound up with 200 people helping her “pet project.”  Her church did something similar and wound