MOUNT
MANSFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST FELLOWSHIP
REflections
January 2010
And now let us welcome the New Year
Full of things that have never been.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Change as Opportunity
About a year ago, I told the RE committee that, because of my transitioning into a career as a spiritual director, this would be my 10th and final year as senior religious educator (SRE) of MMUUF. Since that time, we have been working together to make that transition as seamless as possible. Part of that work involved meeting with district RE consultant Sparrow Alden on December 11th to become informed about RE options that would fit us well as a small, lay-led, child rich UU fellowship. This visioning session was a wonderful experience, and left me with a sense of appreciation for all that we have accomplished, and excitement for what we can make our future.
Sparrow helped us to see our fellowship with new eyes. Apparently, the fact that we have about 30% more children than adults is extraordinary, and speaks volumes about how much we cherish our young people. The fact that we are a family friendly congregation has always been an integral part of who we are, and this will continue to shape our priorities.
Our paid teacher RE model is also unusual. In most UU congregations, the DRE's role is to administer and coordinate the RE program, which is taught by teams of volunteers. Our changing circumstances will give us an opportunity to look at our needs with fresh eyes and intentionally decide where we wish to go from here.
On Sunday, January
31st, the RE committee invites all MMUUF members and friends to
attend a meeting at 9:30 am at the Barn in which we will have a chance to sit
together and plan the future of our RE program. Please come!
Your Friend,
SRE of MMUUF
For last year's words
belong to last year's language
And next year's
words await another voice.
And to make an end is to
make a beginning.
~T.S.
Eliot, "Little Gidding"
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee's annual fundraiser has come to an end, so now it's time to count up the change in your Guest at Your Table box. Simply write out a check for that amount and mail it off to the address on the box. Your generous act will make a big difference to those in need. Thank you!
BEST
BIRTHDAY WISHES GO OUT TO:
Brody
1-25-05 Jonathan
1-6-98
Bryan
1-1-02
Julia B 1-25-01
Casey
1-15-99 Nora
1-7-97
Rita 1-19-04
May I introduce, with great pleasure, my friend Marcia RudeÉTess
Have you seen the movie, Avatar? Our family watched it last weekend, and found every minute of it utterly mesmerizing, vivid, and just plain fun. Not until I had gotten home, did I begin to play with its themes and story lines. In the world of the movie, the planet Pandora is occupied by spiritually in-tune beings, who are incredibly strong, at home in nature, and in harmony and balance with all the fellow creatures of the planet and itÕs great spirit. Greedy Earthlings, having destroyed their own planet, have come to plunder and search for PandoraÕs rare rich ore, ÒUnobtainiumÓ. Mining deep holes in the land, they send avatars in to infiltrate and influence the natives, who live in a beautiful forest of great trees, where even the ground lights up with vivid turquoise and lavender and pink, with each footfall.
Balance and spiritual harmony in both stories must face imbalance and plunder, and I began to wonder, later, if the Avatar story could also be a metaphor for our own inner battles with self. A state of presence and joy is challenged when a negative force invades, be it obsession, overwork, passions, bitterness, or regret, to name a few...and balance gives way to imbalance and descent into chaos. Earlier this year, I had re-read two of C.S. LewisÕs books from his space Trilogy, Out Of The Silent Planet and Perelandra, where, like in Avatar, misguided men from Earth invade a spiritually harmonious, beautiful, content, and innocent world. Both of these works made me ask questions about lust and unquenchable desire. Where does that need and desire come from and what is behind the desperate search for some material ore? What goes wrong when we enjoy worldly pleasures, canÕt stop ourselves, canÕt get enough, or always crave more pleasures through our five senses? What causes things to get out of control, and take on a life of their own?
There is a passage in LewisÕs book, Perelandra, where the key character Ransom, comes upon a mysterious globe of fruit hanging from a tree while walking through the vivid forest of this Edenic world. He punctures the rind of the fruit and drinks the cold liquid from within, and his senses are almost shocked with such deep sensual satisfaction, Òso different from every other taste...like a totally new genus of pleasuresÓ, not even words could describe it, such as Òsharp or sweet, savory or voluptuous, creamy or piercingÓ. He was about to take another, and stopped, realizing Òperhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity—like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day.Ó The idea of taking another Òappeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment. This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwardsÉwas it possibly the root of all evil? No: of course the love of money was called that. But money itself—perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defense against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film.Ó Lewis explores the desire to HOLD ON, to want more, and to never be satisfied.
This passage was so instructive to me, and in the book, C.S. Lewis further explores these ideas of ÒenoughÓ, desire, and holding on versus letting go. Lewis writes, ÒAs he stood pondering over this and wondering how often in his life on earth he had reiterated pleasures not through desire, but in the teeth of desire...Ó He explores this theme through meetings with Eve, who is intelligent, yet utterly innocent and uncorrupted by ideas such as possession of material things, or even the idea of seeing an image of her self in a mirror. He depicts the education of an Eve who had never before seen her own face, or thought of herself as entity. She was at first unable to even comprehend the need to carry any object with her after first seeing or using it and she had never experienced ÒwantÓ. There was no concept of possession or ownership, no idea of segmented or divided time. The story caused me to rethink all of my own imbalances all the way back to their origins through choices made. Working against the back drop of another planet, and a pre-fallen Eden, Lewis takes the reader back to all of the materialistic tugs in our own physical world that cause us to part from spirit.
I left Avatar having enjoyed the movie, and had fun with the themes, but found the deeper satisfaction and spiritual instruction through the stories of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. Both story lines involved the battle between rampant desires, the need to control and the losing of control, between harmony and disharmony, balance lost and regained and the conflicts that such mixes create. We have so much, and at this time of year with all the excesses available to us, our world is filled with such enticing distractions. The stories reminded me of the never ending need to work on our learning to open up our aperture for seeing the riches surrounding us at all times in the present moment. It involves learning to shut off the constant call to go on automatic, and it involves learning to wake up to being totally in the present, and being with what is.
Ever since I was a child, I have been sustained and enriched by time spent alone with nature. As my friend Marcia so eloquently put it, it gives a chance Òto open up our aperture for seeing the riches surrounding us at all times in the present moment.Ó These poems allow me to share those transcendent moments with you.
A SECRET GLIMPSE
The river in winter has a hidden
inner life.
I walk alongside her
and she presents to me
a snow-white geisha mask of
stillness,
sparkling and shy.
And yet, as I journey on,
I become aware of a liquid throaty
chuckle in my ear.
I turn and gaze down
into a long black crevice on her
surface,
its glassy edges starred with
frost.
She reveals her dark and lively
face,
sings deep songs of secret
journeys.
She laughs as she tickles the
underside of the ice,
and I smile at her mischief.
This glimpse into her wise and
playful heart
lifts me into the realm of joy,
and I walk home with a jaunty
step.
-Tess Starecheski