What’s “worship” for?

I learned last month during my first Pilates classes that many of my muscles have atrophied.

There was nothing in my daily habits that prepared me for Pilates’ demands.  I have loading wheelchair muscles, carrying groceries muscles, and walking the dog muscles. But Pilates showed me that I don’t have a uniformly strong core–the muscles that I will need for the next 40 years of my life.

This morning I listened to the New Epiphany Revival from this past weekend’s UUA General Assembly, and a lightbulb went on about the purpose of this thing we most often call “worship.”

Worship is like Pilates.  It challenges the parts of us left unused by our daily habits.  It strengthens our core, so that we can fulfill our life’s purpose with energy and vitality.

Some of us spend most of our week reading and thinking, and we need lively worship, full of music and dancing, opportunities to use our heart rather than our minds.  Others of us haven’t had much quiet time, or much thinking time, and we come to worship with those needs.

A congregation’s worship services need balance.  As much as possible, worship planners consider the diverse needs of those who might attend, and create services that shift smoothly between various states of mind, body and heart.

This way of thinking about “worship” makes me realize again how much the word “worship” doesn’t work for me.  Even the etymological gymnastics of following its meaning to its root, “weorthscipe,” (ascribing worth) leaves me cold.

When I go to the Anchorage UU Fellowship on Sunday morning, I’m not there to ascribe worth to anyone or anything (though we may do that).  I’m there to stretch and strain and expand into the full range of human experience and expression.  I’m there to think and sing, to dance and mourn, to rage and lament, to celebrate, laugh and rejoice.

After Pilates class, for the rest of the day I have what I call “jelly belly.”  Any action that calls on my atrophied abdominal muscles gives me signals that those muscles are still there, and coming back to life.

What if, every Sunday afternoon, our souls felt like jelly?  What if, for days afterward, we felt signals that parts of ourselves were coming back to life?  And what good work might we do in the world, with all those resurrected soul muscles?

 

Thoughts about greener grass

Six years ago I gathered up  my courage, put my foot on the bottom rail of the fence, and leapt over into the greener pasture of Unitarian Universalism.  It was heaven.  I wanted to lay down in the grass and roll around, savoring its lush greenness.  So I did.

After a while, I discovered it wasn’t all spring green abundance.  There were bare patches. Once in a while I stepped in it, if you know what I mean.

I am still very, very glad to be in the UU pasture.  My heart still dances, energized by the vitality of its people.

But my joy is tempered by awareness of its imperfection.  By acknowledgment that pastures I’ve abandoned provide nourishment to others–and sometimes even to me.  By recognizing that there are pastures I have yet to explore.

In the past few months I’ve met people in the UU pasture who look with longing at the Christian pasture I’ve left behind.  Some know that Christianity is no heaven, but others see only green, only growth, only vitality.

I want to warn them:  ”Don’t eat the greener grass!  The fertilizer they use–it’s toxic!”

But that’s not (always) true, either.  There are petrochemical-free Christian pastures.

And so I breathe in, breathe out, plan and write blog posts like this one, and let it be.

I will lie down in UU green pastures, and beside UU waters I will restore my soul.

Some day, maybe, all the fences will come down, and it will all be one pasture, open to all.

Until that day, may all who seek find pastures that feed their hunger, and waters that quench their thirst.

A hat tip to Iris DeMent

You ever had a bit of lag time on a life lesson?

This past Sunday I spoke at the Anchorage UU Fellowship’s 9 a.m. Forum.  I was talking generally about non-theistic spirituality, and the title of my talk was “Reason and Reverence, Meaning and Mystery.”

A few weeks back at our other service, a folk-singing member sang a song called, “Let the Mystery Be.”  It was light, a little bit funny, and sounded to me like a great intro to my Forum presentation.

And it was.  Three other musical members of the fellowship did a wonderful job, people laughed, and enjoyed the live music (which doesn’t usually happen at the Forum).

As the applause died down and I was resuming my seat on the daïs, John B. (another member) called out that the songwriter was Iris DeMent.

I made a flip comment, an easy joke about growing up in a fundamentalist bubble and knowing nothing about music, and moved on.  People laughed, of course, because joking about fundamentalists is a too-easy target in a largely humanist UU setting.

After the service John B. came up to me, and with an earnestness I noticed but didn’t understand, spoke to me again about Iris DeMent.  ”You were careful to credit everyone you quoted in your talk,” he said.

I was a little brain fried.  Happens when introverts play extroverts in public.  I didn’t get it.

But the intensity of his tone stayed with me, and when my brain-cramp relaxed, I began to think about what he said.

Yes, I did grow up in a fundamentalist bubble.  Yes, that does contribute to my musical ignorance.

But I don’t need to nurture that ignorance, and protect that bias.  Part of honoring the worth and dignity of every person is giving credit to musicians as much as ministers and theologians.

It took me a while, but consider the lesson learned.  Thank you, John.

Swarm, Part 1

Several months ago, I began searching for Buddhist resources, both locally and online.  I was looking on behalf of someone else, I thought.

But a funny thing happened as I explored blogs and podcasts, talked to friends and bought books at our local used bookstore.

I discovered that I was the one standing in the need of mindfulness.

The pieces fell into place.  I decided I could make time in the morning to practice yoga for 20 minutes, and then sit for 10 minutes.   I believe in starting small.

Neither yoga nor meditation come easily for me.  Meditation is particularly difficult, since my mind is very active.

A few days ago I was thinking while I was meditating–yes, thinking.  I was thinking about what my mind felt like, and I imagined a swarm of bees.  I thought (yes, more thinking), well, that’s interesting.  And I thought about it a while more before I remembered to come back to my breath.

I wondered what to do about the swarm.  I thought, “I need to find the queen bee.”  And, “I wonder why bees swarm.”

Later that day I discovered that swarming is how bees reproduce.  When conditions in the hive get crowded, the queen takes about 60% of the hive with her, and they head off to find a new home.  A new queen emerges to lead the original hive.

Fascinating.

I wondered what that meant for me.  The energy within me–in my mind, in my body–does feel crowded, pent-up, without outlet.  I need to find my internal leader, my core self, and take some of that energy in search of a new home.

Yoga.  Meditation.  Good first steps.

But also freewriting.  More regular blogging.  Playtime with the acrylic paints Liesl bought for my birthday.

Real-world connections with friends.   Committee work at the fellowship.

Teaching myself how to make sourdough bread.  Washing the dishes while washing the dishes.

And the MFC reading list, of course.

Off we go, bees.  Let’s see what we can find.

A must-read blog for ministers

On January 8, 2011, a blogger named Ashleigh Burrows was shot in Tucson, Arizona.  She had brought her neighbor and friend, nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, to meet their congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords.

The tragedy outed “AB,” and now we know that Ashleigh Burrows is Suzi Hileman.

The day after the shooting, “Little Cuter” (the blog name of AB’s daughter) posted about her mom; regular readers of the blog had intuitively known that the woman with Christina was AB, and were concerned.  About a week later, AB wrote a post, titled, “What I Know.”

All of us wonder sometimes how people find their way through unspeakable tragedies.  Ministers have a vocational interest in this question, because the people they care for ask, “How can I make it through this?”

AB, aka Suzi Hileman, is doing the hard work of answering that question, not in broad generalities, but in the ordinariness of daily life.

In today’s post she writes about how she wants to stay on the couch, completely covered by a quilt, a gift from a well-wisher.  But her husband’s smile lures one arm out from under the quilt to answer a phone call, to accept an invitation that leads to A Perfect Afternoon.

I imagine that Suzi will write a book about her experience.  She writes well, and her story is extremely compelling.  But in the meantime, the writing she’s doing on her blog is an incredible resource, a soul-touching gift.

If your calling is to care for people, if helping people walk through tough times is part of your vocation, then I invite you to walk with AB.  Because of her shattered hip, she uses a walker and is building up some amazing muscles.  So slow to her pace, and build up some muscles of your own.