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2021-02-25
Religious Education: February 26, 2021
Minister's Post, Fri Feb 26
These are our times.
We are one month into the new presidency, and we’re seeing the political landscape take on what might be its enduring shape. There was no great repudiation of the former guy on November 3, nor by January 6 when his supporters stormed the capitol, and not on February 13 when the Senate voted to acquit him of the charges for which he was impeached. The 7 Senators of the former guy’s party who voted for conviction are facing strong backlash from within their party.
Our close-to-evenly, and very divided, politics has no evident end in sight. As the percentage of whites in the electorate declines, the proportion of minority voters ready to vote more conservatively increases. On one side is a coalition of anxious whites and secure minorities; on the other side is a coalition of anxious minorities and secure whites -- and these opposing coalitions appear to be roughly evenly balanced for now and into the foreseeable future.
The former guy is out of the White House. This week, a prominent conservative radio personality died. But the kind of thinking of which they were the mouthpieces is not going away, or even perceptibly diminishing. Thus, the work of compassion and kindness must be ongoing. The work of justice and peace will not take care of itself. Vigilance, my friends. Our world needs our voices, our hearts. Compassion, and vigilance.
Covid Watch
In the US, for the week of Feb 15-21 there were fewer new cases than in any 7-day period since Oct 18-24 -- and the number of new cases that week (Feb 15-21) was down to just a little more than a quarter (27%) of the Jan 5-11 seven-day peak. For the next three days since Feb 21, however, the seven-day average of new cases per day has begun to creep upward again. It's a very slight rise, but its continuation for three days now is concerning.
Covid deaths have been on the rise for four days now. We got down below 2,000 (seven-day average of deaths per day) for the week ending Sat Feb 20, but have been back over 2,000/day for the last three days.
Let's do our part to make these increases temporary. A third surge is very possible -- but not inevitable. Be careful!
Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith
Practice of the Week
Slogans work, as advertisers know – so let's put them to a positive use!
Using slogans to guide and remind you of how you want to be brings more peace and more joy into your life. Maybe you could use a little more peace and joy. This winter’s series of “Slogans That Help” has included:This week's slogan: ENJOY HUMILITY.
Humility doesn’t mean low self-esteem, or that you’re a doormat, or second-class. Nor does being humble mean tolerating mistreatment. Speak up and do what you can. Knowing that you are prepared to be assertive makes it easier to relax into the unguardedness of humility. Humility just means that you're stepping out of the rat race of self-glorification. You're not preoccupied with yourself. What a relief!
Humility is like an open hand, empty of the weapons of superiority, scorn, or self-importance. People around you will feel less likely to be criticized, and will be less likely to get defensive or competitive with you. The less you focus on being appreciated, the more appreciation you'll get.
At the end of it all, we're each reduced to dust. Humility helps you be at peace with these facts. To enjoy humility is to enjoy how humility makes your day simpler, keeps you out of conflicts with others, and brings you peace. For Rick Hanson’s tips on how to cultivate – and enjoy – humility, see the post: ENJOY HUMILITY.
See also our SPIRITUAL PRACTICE DIRECTORY
2021-02-24
Music: Sun Feb 21
Music for ending the pursuit of happiness calls to mind the
popular metaphor of the butterfly, which eludes capture only to settle on the
shoulders on those who would respect its freedom. The music of Franz Schubert
seems to invert the usual major=happy/minor=sad dichotomy of tonality. In his
works---heard in this morning’s Gathering Music and Interlude—episodes in major
keys seem to belong to the terrain of unbidden dreams and mirages, while
sections in minor keys represent the anguish of wakeful consciousness.
In his first Canción y danza
(Song and Dance), Federico Mompou calls to mind the ambiguities of chasing
after love as a vehicle for happiness. The composer quotes a popular Catalan
folk tune (“La filla del Carmesi”), the refrain of which cautions, “Those who lack
love crave it, while those who have it spurn it.”
The works of Debussy performed in the Musical Meditation and Parting Music are
both based on the pentatonic (5-note) scale, often associated with Asiatic and other
indigenous musics. The scale—which can be recreated by playing the black keys
of a piano---contains both major and minor triads, and seems to vacillate between
both modes, resisting easy classification and requiring “acceptance” of the ambiguity.
What does striving in music sound like? Listen to young CUUC
member and my piano student Wesley Miller in Liszt’s “Sonnetto del Petrarca 123”
in this morning’s Opening Music, and consider the words of Petrarch’s poetry,
read by Rev. Meredith, which inspired the work.
Read on for programming details, and stay tuned for spoken introductions.
Gathering Music: Adam Kent, piano
Sonata in Bb Major, Op. Posth.
I. Molto moderato
Franz Schubert
Centering Music:
Canción y danza No. 1
Federico Mompou
Opening Music: Wesley Miller, piano
Sonetto del Petrarca 123
Franz Liszt
Musical Meditation:
Bruyères (Heather)
from Préludes, Book II
Claude Debussy
Interlude:
Moment Musical in F Minor, Op. 94, No. 3
Schubert
Parting Music:
La fille aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) from Préludes,
Book I
Debussy
2021-02-19
Religious Education: February 19, 2021
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Minister's Post, Fri Feb 19
Covid Watch
In the US, for the week of Feb 12-18 there were fewer new cases than in any 7-day period since Oct 21-27. Indeed, the number of new cases during Feb 12-18 was less than a third (29%) as many new cases as there were during the peak week, Jan 5-11.
Deaths are following suit: during Feb 12-18, an average of 2,075 died of Covid per day in the US. That's down from a daily average of 3,449 deaths per day during Jan 20-26.
Despite 5.5 weeks now of steeply declining numbers of new cases, a third surge is still very possible. Be careful!
Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith
Practice of the Week
Slogans work, as advertisers know – so let's put them to a positive use!
Using slogans to guide and remind you of how you want to be brings more peace and more joy into your life. Maybe you could use a little more peace and joy. This winter’s series of “Slogans That Help” has included, “Stay Close to your Resentment,” “Get Excited,” “Find Strength,” and “Smile.”mThis week’s slogan is one word: “Patience.”
In life, there’s the first arrow, then the second arrow. Delays, difficulties, and temporary discomforts happen. That’s the first arrow. There’s no avoiding the first arrow. It’s often a tiny prick. But if we get upset – irritated, angry, annoyed – with these things, then we are striking ourselves with a second arrow that goes much deeper and hurts a lot more.
Impatience interprets circumstances as you being hindered or mistreated. When you can change things, you do. Impatience arises when you can’t change them so you stew and seethe in your misery. Impatience combines all three ingredients of toxic stress: unpleasant experiences, pressure or urgency, and lack of control.
Patience senses a fundamental all-right-ness, the doorway to contentment. Impatience narrows down onto what's "wrong," while patience keeps you wide open to the big picture. Impatience can't stand unpleasant feelings; patience helps you tolerate physical and emotional discomfort. Impatience wants rewards now; patience helps you tolerate delayed gratification, which fosters increased success and sense of worth.
Please see these two posts on this blog site (cucmatters.org):
2021-02-17
Music: Sun Feb 28
Music as the “language of the heart” is a popular trope, although it’s useful to remember that the art form’s capacity to embody human emotion was not always viewed as its primary virtue. With the development of opera at the turn of the 17th century, the composer Claudio Monteverdi wrote about a “seconda prattica” (a second—or “new”—practice) in music, in which the dictates of harmony and voice leading would take a back seat to textual expression. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, composers developed increasingly stylized ways to signal emotional “affects”—the outward manifestations of feelings, like grief, heroism, joy, jealousy, and others. At first, music was said to have become subservient to language, but, in time, composers realized that music’s ability to convey meaning and drama enabled it to function independently of words; hence, the evolution of purely instrumental musical forms during the same time period. This morning’s musical selections date from the time period in question; each work would have been understood to embody a singular state of the soul. Read on for programming details, and stay tuned for introductory comments.
Centering Music: Adam Kent, piano
La Visionaire
François Couperin (1668-1733)
Opening Music:
Sonata in D Major, Hob. XVI:37
I. Allegro
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Musical Meditation:
Adagio in F Minor
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739-1799)
Interlude:
Sonata in C# Minor, Hob. XVI:36
I. Moderato
Haydn
Parting Music:
Sonata in D Major, Hob. XVI:37
III. Presto
Haydn
2021-02-11
From the Minister, Fri Feb 12
U.S. and World: The 7-day average of new cases per day has been steadily declining for a month now -- ever since Jan 11. In the U.S. the new cases per day have fallen from 255,000 to 106,000. New cases per week are back down to a level not seen since the first week of November.
Worldwide, new cases per day have fallen from 746,000 per day (7-day average for Jan 5-11) to 424,000 per day (7-day average for Feb 4-10).
Deaths appear to inching downward, albeit more slowly. Deaths in the US have fallen below 3,000 a day (7-day average) for the first time since Jan 7. But we're still losing more than 2,800 people a day.
The new variants are scary -- and they might cause these trends to turn back upward -- but for now, the trends are in a good direction.
Yours in the faith we share,
Meredith
Practice of the Week
Our spiritual practice this week is: Congregational Polity. Polity means a particular form or system of government.
Episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglicans and Lutherans are governed by Episcopal polity.
Methodists are governed by what they call connectional polity. The primary decision-making bodies are conferences of representatives of various levels of church hierarchy.
In Presbyterian polity authority rests with assemblies of presbyters, or elders. It is strongly associated with French, Dutch, Swiss and Scottish Reformation movements, and the Reformed and Presbyterian churches.
But Unitarian Universalists follow a system of governance called Congregational Polity. The Quakers, the Baptists, and the United Church of Christ also have Congregational Polity – as do most Jewish synagogues, many Sikh Gurdwaras, and most Islamic mosques in the US. Each congregation is autonomous – independent, self-supporting, and governed by its members. Our congregations are joined together in an Association of Congregations – the UUA -- and our UUA does have significant influence, but its formal power is quite small.
Each congregation raises its own funds, makes its own budget, adopts its own bylaws, purchases, owns and maintains its own land and building, hires its own staff and calls its own minister. The power to ordain a minister also rests with each congregation and only with a congregation.
On Sun Feb 14, the members of Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation have the chance to exercise Congregational Polity at a congregational meeting after the service.
Why is this a spiritual practice? Because ours is a faith that isn’t about believing – it’s about doing. eeds, not creeds. And what our faith calls us to do is build beloved community – which starts by modeling and practicing democracy and the arts of self-governance among ourselves – where all members get a vote, and every voice has a chance to be respectfully and even lovingly heard. We practice and strengthen our commitment to being a community of diversity through the way we govern ourselves – where the expression of a viewpoint with which you disagree is nevertheless received with respect, with appreciation, with, indeed, a swelling gladness of heart.
See this post for more on Congregational Polity.
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