Terrors in the night

Posted on April 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

As a parent of young children, I have learned to cope with fairly interrupted sleep.  If it’s my daughter getting tangled up in her blankets or my son needing to go to the bathroom at 2 a.m., I’ve grown accustomed to moving from a deep sleep to wide awake in a matter of moments.  I’m not a great night-owl, though….when I’m up with my kids, my primary thought is “how can I settle this issue as quickly as possible to get back to sleep?”  My kids are pretty good sleepers in that once their issues are addressed, they generally go back to bed quickly and without a problem.

Until now.

My little Bryson has had a few nights now of what are generally known as “night terrors.”  They are not nightmares, where the kids may be upset but can be comforted one they wake.  During these events, the children aren’t actually awake, but screaming and crying in their sleep.  Apparently it happens to about 30% of children between the ages of 3 and 6.  They look and act “awake” – eyes open, crying and upset – but the brain is still functionally sleeping.

This has only happened to Bryson three times in the last year, so it is far from becoming a pattern – a reality I’m grateful for.  But when it has happened, it is dreadful….watching his little body toss and turn and cry without being able to comfort him.  We’ve tried virtually all tricks in the book to help him “wake up,”short of putting him in a cold shower (a case where it seems like the cure may be worse than the disease).   Words,  hugs and kisses don’t help – his beloved stuffed animals have no impact –  soft music, gentle touch or turning on the lights only agitate him more.

Last night, I climbed in bed with him as he cried and shrieked, eyes open but clearly not seeing.  I laid down with him quietly and stayed there without saying anything, my hand barely touching him.  Amazingly, after a few minutes, he started to quiet down and curled his little body up next to me.  As he cozied in, I whispered “It’s ok, honey.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, his whole body tensed up and we were off again! Finally he calmed down enough to curl up again, my hand just barely touching him, and he slept peacefully the rest of the night.

Our desire to “do something” so strong.  To do something, to say something, to offer something to someone who is having a hard time or is in pain.  Sometimes, those offers of help are just what people need and are, in fact, amazingly helpful.  But sometimes – every once and a while, as Bryson taught me last night – it is best to just be there.

Here’s to a better night tonight!

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Posted in Family, Kids

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Thoughts on Minns

Posted on April 12, 2011 | Leave a comment

I stayed in Boston this weekend to attend the Minns Lecture Series at the First Church in Boston.  The lectures are done by Unitarian Universalists and can be on a lot of topics based on the idea of “creative theological and religious advancement.”  This year was a series of lectures – 6 panalists in all – discussing the questions of where we are today and where we want to go in the future.

First of all, the lectures were AMAZING.  Can I just give a shout-out to my brilliant colleagues who can write and speak with such skill and vibrancy?  Let’s all say AMEN!  (Which a lot of us did.  It was good.)

Everyone spoke from a different perspective, and I’m not going to try to summerize all of their thoughts and ideas here.  But the theme that ran through all of the lectures and the discussion panels was something we’ve spoken a lot about here in Norton – spiritual depth.  It is the idea that churches can no longer be content to be community gathering spots, or rely on the idea that people will go to church out of habit.  Our churches must offer compelling spiritual depth for anyone who wants to attend.  Or to state it simply, we must have a spiritual reason for being.

I keep the book “A Purpose Driven Church” prominently placed next to my desk.  I don’t always read the book, and have actually found it less helpful than some other books about churches.  But I keep it there because I have to always, always, ALWAYS remember the title.  A church without a purpose should close its doors.  A church with purpose – with spiritual depth, with a reason for being, who knows and is not afraid of the great religious questions – that’s an exciting place to be!

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Posted in Church, First Unitarian of Norton, Ministry, Theology, Unitarian Universalism

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Generations

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 2 Comments

I recently took a survey on Facebook to learn how “Millennial” I am.  The top score you can have is 100, and I scored a 69 – right in there given that I am either a Gen X’er  or Millennial (depending on the source) with no tattoos and I maintain a landline.  (Our house is a dead cell zone.  Have you ever wondered if the phone companies planned that?)

I find the generational distinctions in our society fascinating.  I grew up with Boomer parents, and learned the songs of Cat Stevens and “Free to Be You and Me” before I was in kindergarden.  When I was in high school and college, there was a lot of talk about how my generation was “apathetic” and “without direction or drive.”  We didn’t have a civil rights movement or a cause to rally around.  Generation X was the first big divorce generation – huge numbers of us grew up with two houses,  step-families or single parents.

We were fragmented generations, and still are today.  Most of us have a very different sense of what “society” and “community” look like than our parents and grandparents did.  Some people argue that the structures of society (like churches and social clubs) are dying because Generations X and Millennial just don’t care.

I think we do care.  I think we care tremendously about connection and action, but I don’t know that we do community the way it was done 40 years ago.  Perhaps some of us do – after all, social clubs are not dead and gone – but stats show that large numbers of us find meaning and ways to connect in different ways than the old institutions.  

I’m fascinated to see what the future will bring!

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Posted in Community, Family, Society

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What is Unitarian Universalism – in 30 seconds?

Posted on March 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

When I meet with people who have heard of Norton Unitarian Church and are interested in what we are doing, inevitably the question comes up: “So what is Unitarian Universalism all about?  What is this church about?”

It is a complicated question that, realistically, takes a lifetime to answer.  It’s also one that requires an answer in under thirty seconds.  My answer is not terribly eloquent but it gets the point across.

“Unitarian Universalism is generally left-leaning.  We were the first people to ordain women to the ministry, and we accept all people, regardless of race, class, or sexual orientation.  That’s a core value of our faith.  At Norton Unitarian we believe we need to love all people and to think.  Doing both at the same time can be very difficult, but it is what we believe we are called to do.”

To love all people and to think.  That’s the heart of what has kept me in the UU faith for the last several years, and it is what has sustained my ministry.  It is why I keep coming back to this religion, and why I have faith in what we do – what Norton Unitarian Church is all about.

It’s not an easy thing to do, at least not for me.  One of my favorite articles on this subject was written by UU minister Meg Barnhouse and published not long after the terrible shooting in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Meg wrote about how she had met the shooter at a Unitarian Universalist summer camp several years before, and how she had struggled with his views at that time.  She wrote:

“We love to think of ourselves as open-minded, but it’s hard for us to be open-minded toward certain people and their views. Maybe it’s just me that has a hard time, but I think I’m not alone in this. I argued with him, too. I do affirm the worth and dignity of every person, but I never promised to affirm the worth and dignity of every idea. Some ideas are oppressive and not well thought out. They lead to violence and injustice and really bad behavior. I try to argue with respect and kindness, but it’s hard when the person you’re talking to acts like a jerk. If I were the Dalai Lama or a UU saint, I would be able to, and I hope that will come in the future, but I am sure not there yet.”

To love all people and to think.  To love the shooters who are terrorizing our churches and schools and grocery store parking lots, while knowing that what they are doing is completely and totally, gut-wrenching wrong.  It’s not easy to do both of these, at least not for me.  Sometimes I would much rather sit in judgement of another person than engage in the struggle of loving and thinking.

To me, a religion needs to be something that we strive to live up to.  It needs to be something that we can’t “complete” or “be without knowing it.”  It has to be something that guides us – something that helps us to live better lives and become the best people we can be.

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Posted in Church, First Unitarian of Norton, Spiritual life, Theology, Unitarian Universalism

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Anchored in Unitarian Universalism

Posted on March 18, 2011 | 6 Comments

When I was twenty-two years old, I tried to convert.

I was raised Unitarian Universalist.  Daughter and granddaughter of Unitarian Universalists, child of active church board members and a student at the local Montessori school, I was steeped in UU values and beliefs.  And like many people, I wanted to experiment – I wanted to engage with a different faith than that I’d known my whole life.

I had studied religion in college, and was fascinated by the way that people’s religious beliefs influenced their lives and their decisions.  I wanted to see what else was out there – perhaps a religion that could offer me more guidance, something that could give me the concrete answers on cosmological questions that Unitarian Universalism never had.

So I began to attend other churches, and even a synagogue.  I visited the Episcopalians, the Reform Jews and the UCC’s.  I shared coffee with Baptists and sang with the Methodists.  I was inspired by many of their stories and loved that they said the same thing every week.  As I dabbled, however (and really enjoyed the Baptists, I’ll be honest!), I found I was running into a significant hitch.  I didn’t believe what these churches were saying.

They said they had the answer.  Most of them repeated the Nicaean Creed, and they relied on the Bible and the Torah for guidance.  But when it came right down to it, it didn’t seem to me that they didn’t know any more about the meaning of the cosmos than my Unitarian Universalist communities. They had beliefs and hopes, but they didn’t have the answers in their theology.  Not answers I could believe.

So I came home.  I returned back to the wrestle-with-the-questions community I had been raised in and started to look again for answers.  For guidance on how to make the best decisions I could.  For a community that could sustain me as I faced living in a world that isn’t always pretty, but sometimes more beautiful than I can believe.  And here in this church, I found something that was amazing – I found Unitarian Universalist theology.  And with that, I found an anchor that helped me understand the questions; an anchor that helped – and helps! – me live my life.

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Posted in Church, Spiritual life, Theology, Unitarian Universalism

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The Progress of Women

Posted on March 8, 2011 | 3 Comments

Sexism looks different than it did 100 years ago.

I know that 100 years ago, sexism was blatant and appalling, and involve the kinds of atrocities that we thankfully rarely see any more….or if we do see them, we have the decency as a society to be horrified by them.  Sexism used to involve sexual harassment and brutality and no representation in Congress.  It used to mean being barred from professions and no right to reproductive choice.

Today, sexism looks different.  It’s less blatent.  It’s often under the carpet.  It’s harder to define and harder to prove.  In my experience of sexism today (which I once naively believed I would never have), it is still prevalent.  It is unquestionably better than is used to be – without a doubt!  We have much to be proud of in society today compared to 100 years ago.

In my life I’m blessed to not often be subject to “old school” sexism.  I still get the average amount of irritating catcalls when I’m walking down the street in the summertime and the kids are home with my husband.  There is one convenience store near our house that I won’t shop at because of the demeaning way they treat me, and apparently all women who enter their shop.  But that’s about it.

What I notice far more prevalently, however, are the comments.  The comments people make to me, and sometimes to my friends.  The comments like “You plan to keep working, even though you have small children?  Who will take care of them?” “You know you can’t expect that kind of pay, why are you asking for so much from them?”  ”I really don’t think you capable of that that”  and (my personal favorite) “Ssshhhh”

We’ve won a place at the table, but the table isn’t a place of equals.  And sometimes, “sssshhhh” can be hard to fight.  Because sometimes they are right and you do need to sshhh.  But then you ask yourself……how much do the men need to ssshhh?  Not so much, it turns out.  And how many men are “capable” of the things women are not “capable” of?  Quite a few, as it turns out.  And let’s not even get started on the pay and who’s taking care of the children…….

When I graduated from college at twenty-two years old, I really did not think I would experience much sexism in my life.  I felt sure that my mother and grandmother’s generations had taken care of that, and it was hard to learn that I was wrong.  However, we have achieved so much in the last 100 years.  Let’s make the next 100 even better!

Happy 100th International Women’s Day!

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Posted in Current Events, Spiritual life

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On the Bus to Heaven

Posted on March 2, 2011 | 1 Comment

One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce.  I don’t agree with all of Lewis’ theology, and am certainly not a fan of his distinctly modernist understandings of good and evil.  But I *love* the ideas presented in The Great Divorce, specifically the imagery he puts forth for Heaven and Hell.

The basic premise of the book is fairly simple.  Hell, or Purgatory, is a place that a lot of people live in.  It is a grey, dismal town with no sense of community and a lot of fish and chips shops.  Everyone who wants to is free to board the bus, a vehicle “blazing with golden light” that will take people to Heaven.   Once in Heaven, the newcomers have to face radical adjustments due to the astonishing beauty that is around them.  The newcomers are guided by angels, who both support them and assure them that with time, the beauty and joy of Heaven will become natural to them.  But as the story continues, we watch nearly all of the newcomers re-board the bus and go back to Hell….because they would rather be in a place they know and have some false sense of control, than in a place of beauty where they have to work to accept a new and better life.

Sometimes, we would so much rather live a known Hell than work to be part of a new Heaven.  The pull to live in the known rather than the unknown is astonishingly strong, even when then known is grey, dreary, and stretches on in loneliness forever.  Lewis makes no bare bones in The Great Divorce that becoming acclimated to beauty is painful at first.  He talks about how it is hard for the newcomers to walk on the grass because it is so sharp, and to see all of the beauty because it is so bright.

What I love about this book is not the pictures painted of Heaven and Hell – though I do think there is something fabulous about a grey Hell that smells like old fish – but the fact that through this allegory, Lewis acknowledges how hard change is.  In this story, people are voluntarily LEAVING HEAVEN to go back to Hell….simply because it is a place they know, and one that does not require them to change.

Change is hard.  Seriously, change is hard.  Hard and scary and sometimes feels impossible.  But I love Lewis’ challenge – shall we live in a known Hell or a brave new Heaven?  Can we bear to face the joy that can be ours?  In our lives, in our churches, in our communities and our own souls?

What does your Heaven look like?

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Posted in Community, Spiritual life, Theology

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Time’s a-tickin’

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

Somehow, the last two weeks have gotten away from me.  My “smart” cell phone blew up (in the software sense, not an actual explosion…..though it felt that way), family came to visit and I had a birthday.  We held our second gathering of the first Small Group at Norton Unitarian Church last night, our second Small Group is almost full and will likely start meeting in a week or two.  I’m now speaking to people about joining the churches third Small Group, interviewing childcare providers (because children are not puppies) and putting final touches on the website mock-up.

Suddenly, there is momentum beyond me in the church!

It is so wonderful to talk to so many people interested and excited about the church I’m hoping Norton Unitarian will become.  I’ll be honest – I’m not trying to build something that looks like our “traditional” Unitarian Universalist church.  I want to be part of a religious community that speaks to a different need – a need that doesn’t seem to be being met by many of our current options.  A need that is about connection and vibrancy and faith.

By throwing the doors open to the church and presenting new ideas, new cultures are starting to emerge.  We are at the very beginning yet…..the very beginning….but the goal of the church is to be a place of meaning and joy. A place where we don’t have to always worry about what has been, but where we can look at where we are today and say “What works?  What makes sense?  What do we want in our lives?  What makes us grow spiritually and become better people in the world?”

This church is about faith today.

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Posted in Church, Church Administration, First Unitarian of Norton, Ministry

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Dispensable Children

Posted on February 9, 2011 | Leave a comment

When we brought home our puppy Kayla, some five years ago,  a lot of people talked to us about how having her was going to be just like having a new baby.  “It’s so much work” they said earnestly, “You have to watch her and be there for her and take her outside all the time to go to the bathroom.”  I still remember the potty-training process for Kayla, mostly because we bought her in December and there was a lot of time spent in the snow and ice.   But here’s the thing, my friends.

YOU CAN’T PUT KIDS IN A KENNEL.

A darling doggie waiting happily for their owner to come home

There are a lot of differences between Kayla and my kids (to state the enormously obvious).  But one of the most important ones to know as a parent – be it for a puppy or child – is that you can leave dogs home alone and you CAN’T DO THAT WITH KIDS.  Once kids are born, they need pretty much 24/7  supervision for at least the first ten years of their lives.  There is the time when they are sleeping that you’re available (in your home) and most of us have at least some kind of support structure to help us watch our kids, be that daycare, friends or relatives. But they are yours…..your responsibility, your joy and your headache.  And at no time are you free to blithely plan your day, week or life without thinking of them.

I feel like we all know this on an intellectual level, but somehow that doesn’t translate into the reality of daily life.  I have experienced so many stories lately, from my friends and in my own life, where we are asked to simply tuck the realities of our children away.  One friend recently told me a story about being asked to serve on a committee at her church.  My friend explained to the woman asking her that she had children (ages 2 and 5), and that though she would be happy to serve, finding childcare in their small town was sometimes challenging.  The church woman said “I’m sure they would be fine of you just put them somewhere while you are here.”  My friend said to me later “It was clear that she was trying to be helpful.  And I appreciated that.  But where would I just “put” them in the church?  It’s not like I can just stick them in a room and tell them to stay there until I’m done with a meeting.  And even if I could – if they could handle it – why would I want to do that?”

Kids aren’t puppies.  And we can’t leave them home when we go to the grocery store, dinner or church.  Their needs don’t go away because the parents want to be part of something.  If we want to live as an integrated society – or as integrated churches – we need to meet the needs of both the parents and children.

Not a picture of my kids.....but aren't they cute?

I get at least two referrals on all people who watch my kids.  I’m a freak about making sure my kids are safe and well cared for, and that the time they spend with anyone is quality – that they are learning and growing and being cared for physically, mentally and emotionally.  It’s a lot, but really……how can we do anything less?

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Posted in Church, Community, Family, Kids

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So How Do You Re-start a Church?

Posted on February 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

I get this question a lot.

It would be great if there was a one-sentence answer.

There isn’t.

I’m not sure I know how to re-start a church.  But I do know how to listen.  And that’s been the most important part of what I’ve been doing for the past several months.  I’ve been meeting with enormous numbers of people, and I’ve been listening to what they want and need.  I’ve been listening to why they don’t go to church, in what ways they feel disconnected, and what they are looking for in a spiritual community.   I’ve been meeting people where they are, in their coffee shops and homes and offices.

I’ve also been listening to myself.  At the beginning of this process, I put one bottom line in place, which is written on a post-it note and stuck right next to my computer screen.  It says:

“The purpose of this church is to help people grow spiritually and to make the world a better place.”  This isn’t a congregational mission statement or faith statement or any other kind of institutional reflection.  It’s just my bottom line.  It is why I’m doing this, why I get up every morning and work on building a congregation….to fill a building standing ready, waiting to be filled with mission and vision and purpose.

From listening to people, I’ve found that I’m not the only person who is looking for a church that helps me grow spiritually and makes the world a better place.  There’s a lot of us out there, looking for something deeper to connect to.  We are thinking about death and happiness and forgiveness, and want to participate in the world in a more active way than voting on American Idol.

And as we all come together, something magic is starting to happen. Something that is precious and extraordinary and simple and common.

We are building a church.

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Posted in Church, Community, First Unitarian of Norton, Ministry, Spiritual life

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