From the Minister, Thu Nov 23

I grew up Unitarian Universalist. I grew up in the Southeast: in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia. In adulthood, I lived in Atlanta, Georgia; Waco, Texas; Charlottesville, Virginia; Nashville, Tennessee; Rochester, Minnesota. That was all before I became a minister. However strange a new town might feel, however adrift in unfamiliar streets and customs I might be, I would look up the local Unitarian Universalist congregation in the Yellow Pages. (Anybody remember Yellow Pages? It’s what us old timers used to use before there was the internet.) I would show up on Sunday morning and there I would be among my people. I would be home.

Yet even I, born and raised Unitarian Universalist, would occasionally have a certain experience. It must be even more common among the many people who do not come to Unitarian Universalism until adulthood. I’m talking about those times of looking around the room – around the sanctuary on a Sunday morning, or at a committee meeting, or a potluck dinner – and thinking: Who ARE these people? They’re a little bit weird, and a little bit perfectly ordinary. Who are they really?

Unitarian Universalists today are the inheritors of a long and a deep and a rich tradition of free and thoughtful people making together religious community. To know who UUs are -- to know who you are, if you're a UU -- it helps to know about that tradition. The better we know our tradition, the better we know who we are.

Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith

• The November issue of On the Journey explores Mindfulness. Get it at CUUC or HERE.
• Check out the two Common Reads for 2017-18: HERE

Let's Chat

On Tuesdays, 3-5pm, I'm going to be at an area coffee shop for anyone who might find that a convenient way to get together with their minister.

• November: Barnes & Noble Cafe, City Center, 230 Main St, White Plains
• Dec 12 & 19 (I'll be out of town on Dec 5 & 26): Starbucks in Vernon Hills Shopping Center, 684 White Plains Rd, Scarsdale

Drop by if you can! You can also make an appointment to see me at CUUC, or invite me to visit your home. Call Pam at the church office (914-946-1660) to schedule either.

This Week on The Liberal Pulpit

This week: the conclusion of the "The Mindfulness Fad," some truths about Thanksgiving (adapted and expanded from the Sun Nov 19 Dialog presented with George Stonefish), and the first part of "Income Inequality" (the Nov 12 sermon)

• The Truth Behind the Fad: Part 3 of "The Mindfulness Fad"
• Truths About Thanksgiving
• Modern Life Made Tougher: Part 1 of "Income Inequality"

Index, with links, of past sermons: HERE.
Index, with links, of other reflections: HERE.

Practice of the Week

Own Your Nobility. It is a rare and precious thing to be a human being. That's why we send money overseas in times of disaster, why we know it is wrong to take a human life. The heritage, the legacy, of being human is to manifest wisdom, compassion, and lovingkindness, to be fully worthy of our lives, worthy of admiration and celebration. This is your nature, my nature, the... READ MORE

Your Moment of Zen

Enlightenment. You have fires of passion and desire. Spiritual growth is not about putting out your fire. It's about building a fire ring, and maybe a bank of earth to protect your fire from too much wind. Containment doesn't put your fire out, but sustains it, protects it from burning out of control and burning itself out. The moon of enlightenment is at the center of everything about you.

Aitken's Case (Zen Master Raven)

One day when they were sitting around having a snack, Woodpecker asked Raven, "What is enlightenment?"
Raven said, "I won't deny it."
Woodpecker asked, "What will you affirm?"
Raven said, "Containment."
Woodpecker said, "What kind of containment?"
Raven asked, "What about you?"
Woodpecker hesitated.
Raven said, "The moon is not on the fringes."

Hotetsu's Verse

The boundless inhabits, accepts bounds --
Seeps out, becomes boundless.
Love takes to the containment of a heart
So as to beat out its uncontainability.
Thus the thingness of things arrives already gone.

Previous Moment of Zen
Saturday Zen Practice at CUUC: HERE

Other News for Sun Nov 26
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From Ministerial Intern
This week's e-Communitarian

From the Minister, Thu Oct 19

From the Minister

Black lives matter because all lives matter. Yet black lives are treated as mattering less than white lives. One of the ways we see black lives counting for less is environmental racism. Examples:

In 1979, state and federal authorities selected Warren County, NC as the site for a landfill to deposit PCB-contaminated soil. The site was chosen even though a shallow water table, with the drinking water only 5–10 feet below the surface, meant a significant risk of drinking water contamination. Warren County was 54.5% African-American (1980 census), and per capita income was 0.75 the statewide per capita income.

In 2014, Michigan state authorities, to save money, switched the water supply of Flint, MI, from Lake Huron to the Flint River, known for its pollution. Lead content in the drinking and bathing water in Flint shot so high it met the EPA’s definition of "toxic waste." Flint is almost 57% African American.

Altgeld Gardens, a housing community Chicago, was built on an abandoned landfill and is surrounded by 53 toxic facilities and 90% of Chicago’s landfills. Mercury, ammonia gas, lead, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and xylene, are among the known toxins and pollutants affecting the area, and residents suffer excessive rates of prostate, bladder, and lung cancer; children born with brain tumors; fetal brains developing outside the skull; asthma, ringworm, and other ailments. The population of Altgeld Gardens in 90% African-American and 65% below the poverty level.

Chester, PA, has five large waste facilities (including a trash incinerator, a medical waste incinerator, and a sewage treatment plant) with a total permitted capacity of 2 million tons of waste per year – compared to merely 1,400 tons allowed in all the rest of Delaware County, PA. Chester residents suffer a cancer rate 2.5 times higher than anywhere else in Pennsylvania and a mortality rate 40% higher than the rest of Delaware county. Chester is 65% African American.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, institutionalized practices had segregated minority members into the most vulnerable low-lying areas. Moreover, evacuation plans relied heavily on the use of cars, though 100,000 city residents, disproportionately minority, had no car. Hundreds who could not evacuate died. After the hurricane, the federal response, according to many black leaders, was slow and incomplete. At the time of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was 60.5% African American.

In 1989, the Louisiana Energy Services (LES) sought to build a privately-owned uranium enrichment plant just outside Homer, LA, straddling a road connecting two African American communities, Forest Grove and Center Springs. Residents sued, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board found that racial bias did play a role in the site selection process.

Diamond, LA, a small, African-American neighborhood, was sandwiched between two large Shell Oil plants. For years, residents lived with an inescapable acrid, metallic odor and a chemical fog that seeped into their houses. They experienced headaches, stinging eyes, allergies, asthma, and other respiratory problems, skin disorders, and cancers. Periodic industrial explosions damaged their houses and killed some of their neighbors. Eventually, protests led Shell to agree to relocate the residents.

Repeatedly, minority communities are treated as more disposable than white communities. The lackluster response to Hurricane Maria’s devastation of Puerto Rico – compared to the response to Harvey in Houston and Irma in Florida – is the most prominent current example of a horrible pattern.

Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith

Let's Chat

On Tuesdays, 3-5pm, I'm going to be at an area coffee shop for anyone who might find that a convenient way to get together with their minister.

• October: I'll be at the Starbucks in Rye: 51 Purchase St.
• November: I'll be at the Barnes & Noble Cafe, City Center, 230 Main St, White Plains.

Drop by if you can! You can also make an appointment to see me at CUUC, or invite me to visit your home. Call Pam at the church office (914-946-1660) to schedule either.

This Week on The Liberal Pulpit

The Oct 15 sermon, "What Other People Think of Us," is now posted in three parts:

Part 1: We All Care What Other People Think of Us
Part 2: The Self and Its Worldview
Part 3: Biases and Anxiety

List of, and links to, past sermons: HERE.
List of, and links to, other reflections: HERE.

Practice of the Week

Stick With It. Little by little our way of seeing the world and being in it can shift. With effort, the mind can be trained. So choose your spiritual practice, and stick with it. Support your path with daily journaling, study, and meditation. Add further supporting practices such as mealtime grace, keeping sabbath, and getting enough sleep. New pathways in the brain are built through long familiarization. READ MORE

Your Moment of Zen

Buddhist Terms. Does mastering concepts sometimes get in the way? How much cognitive learning is helpful for spiritual deepening? "Not by your will is the house carried through the night." (Wendell Berry)

Aitken's Case (Zen Master Raven)

After zazen one evening Woodpecker asked, "I'd like to understand basic Buddhist terms, but I'm not sure that would help my practice. What do you think?"
Raven said, "They help us sort out our vows."
Woodpecker asked, "Then they're a kind of appropriate means?"
Raven said, "Like the rain."

Hotetsu's Verse

Save every being, end every delusion.
Do this twice every morning before breakfast, and after.
Gain wisdom from every sensation, embody the entire Buddha way.
Like the rain, like the rain, like the rain.

Previous Moment of Zen
Saturday Zen Practice at CUUC: HERE.

Other News for Sun Oct 22
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This week's e-Communitarian