An Award-Winning Congregation!
Last Saturday, it was announced that UUFNW is the 2011 O. Eugene Pickett Award for congregational growth from the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. This award recognizes not only our numerical growth (from 99 to 141 adult members and from 20 to 78 children and youth since 2007), but also our involvement in the wider denomination and our service to our local community. It is an amazing honor.
It is also a challenge.
On Easter Sunday, I told a story of a caterpillar that did not make the leap to transform into a butterfly. It died. This story was meant to inspire personal transformation, to be sure, but also to sow the seeds for the institutional transformation that needs to happen. Our Fellowship has the choice of doing the hard work of changing our culture or undoing all of the gains that we have made in the last five or six years. We can create systems suitable for more than 150 members or we will find ourselves with 80 members again. The culture that we need to create is one in which members and friends are inspired and spiritually fed. It is one in which everyone steps up into participation and leadership as an expression of their commitment to our Fellowship–and also as an opportunity for personal and spiritual growth. Butterfly or dead caterpillar: this is our choice.
The Pickett Award for congregational growth is a clear sign that the Metro New York District and the UUA both see a bright, beautiful butterfly emerging here in Mount Kisco. To be sure, neither the District nor the Association are privy to our day-to-day challenges. They are, however, watching us. It is up to us whether we want to live up to the promise that is so clearly evident here.
I see a butterfly, too, but first we need to spend some time in a chrysalis, doing the hard work of transformation. I know we can do it–we’re an award winner, after all!
With love,
Rev. Michael
Princes and Frogs
This weekend, I decided to brave expressing my opinion about the upcoming Royal Wedding, which is that I don’t understand why anyone would care. I was told that I “just don’t get it,” that little girls grow up dreaming of marrying a prince and going from commoner to princess in one elegant ceremony. Who was I to squash the dreams of young women everywhere, who think that if Kate can be a princess, so might they?
I have to say, this made me more upset.
And so my message for the day is to everyone, of any gender (but especially girls and young women), who dreams of marrying a prince: You do not have to marry a prince to be beautiful, glamorous and fabulous. You just have to be the best possible you that you can be.
Despite the advances of women (and transgender people) towards equality, we still live in a society where young girls are taught that their hopes and dreams should include that a magical relationship will save them by giving them vast amounts of wealth and the adoration of a nation. We teach young women to look outside of themselves for validation, when we should be instilling self-worth and value.
There are so many better role models for girls and women than the British monarchy. Role models that don’t require important and powerful men to marry them. I would so rather our young women be like Lady Gaga, whose title is self-appointed and whose musical talent is clearly something she has worked on for years, than soon-to-be-Princess Kate. Or Aung San Suu Kyi, or Elizabeth Blackburn, or Toni Morrison, for crying out loud. The list could go on and on and on.
So sleep in on Friday, OK? And encourage all of the folks you know to do the same.
With love,
Rev. Michael
Posted in Uncategorized
Pulling Weeds
A meditation poem for the UUFNW Gardeners’ service, April 17, 2011.
by the Rev. Dr. Michael Tino
A sunny summer Saturday
and we are crouched at the edges of the garden
pulling weeds.
Our thighs and backs ache from the
unnatural positions
our bodies must assume
to reach those tiny sprouts
and yank them
carefully
slowly
oh so gently
and evenly
trying hard to get their roots intact.
Dandelions, blown in by the wind
prostrate spurge, sprouting in the cracks of our walkway
thousands of tiny rose-of-sharon plants, offspring of the tree next door
and everywhere, just everywhere, that awful bishop’s weed.
“I assume we’re getting rid of these violets,” he says
pointing to a clump of bright green, spade-shaped leaves.
I am aghast.
“No! They’re beautiful native flowers!” I shriek.
“They’re weeds,” he insists.
“Flowers,” I reply.
I am adamant.
“Ajuga are weeds,” I say, “and yet you and your mother
planted them everywhere.
See how they’re choking the irises?
Crowding the dianthus up against the hard, gray Belgium block?
Violets do nothing of the sort.”
“Ajuga have pretty purple leaves,” he says,
“and besides, I like them.”
I muster all of the gravitas I can as I strain to reach
a Norway maple seedling before it becomes a tree.
“I like violets.”
We agree to disagree.
In the meantime
both the violets and the ajuga
have their corners of the garden.
Here, a mass of dark, shiny leaves.
There, a cluster of tiny, bright flowers.
Every now and then, I dig up an ajuga.
From time to time, he removes a violet.
We agree to disagree
but secretly
we know we’re both right.
How can anything purple be a weed?
Posted in Uncategorized
Being Dangerous
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend an event hosted by my alma mater, Cornell University, in New York City. It was a talk given by The Right Rev. Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire. Bishop Robinson is well-known as the first openly gay, non-celibate priest to be ordained as a bishop in the Episcopal Church. His election and subsequent consecration has caused fissures throughout the Anglican Communion as people wrestle with their own heterosexism and historic teachings about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The talk was entitled ”The Role of the Liberal Religious Voice in Advocacy of Gay Rights.”
The talk was fascinating in many ways, but the most interesting part of it to me came when Bishop Robinson exhorted all of us who believe in LGBT equality to take more risks and to be more dangerous. Those two things are separate, but related.
First, he talked about risk-taking and being willing to put ourselves out there for equality. This from someone whose calling has made him the target of death threats and assassination attempts before he ever preached a word as Bishop. He looked to the civil rights struggle for African-Americans as a source of inspiration in this regard. In the 1950s and 60s, Black people (and many people of other races as well) marched in the streets even though they knew that the sheriff’s dogs would be set loose on them, even though they knew the fire hoses would be aimed at them, even though they knew that they would become victims of violence at the hands of our racist society. They did this knowing that equality would not be won by sitting at home.
Bishop Robinson then wondered if LGBT Americans today would be willing to give up a Sunday brunch for our own equality. It’s a good question. What would it take for LGBT people, assisted by our allies throughout the liberal religious sphere, to demand equality and not back down until it is given to us? A very good question, indeed.
Of even more interest to me was his discussion of being dangerous. As an anti-racist activist and as someone who is keenly interested in how different systems of oppression–racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, etc.–intersect in our society, I listened with rapt attention when Bishop Robinson began to give this largely-white, very privileged (mostly Ivy League alumni) audience the anti-racism 101 primer. He did a great job of explaining power, prejudice and privilege in the brief time he could devote to the subject. And then he explained why those of us interested in LGBT equality needed to understand racism.
Once again looking back to the civil rights era, he reminded us that Dr. King was assassinated when he went to Memphis to stand up for the rights of garbage workers. Dr. King, you see, had connected racism and classism as linked oppressions in his analysis of our society. And that made him dangerous. Even more dangerously, Dr. King had linked these things to a culture of war and imperialism in his activism against the Vietnam War. Dr. King was too dangerous to live.
Bishop Robinson reminded us that one of the ways oppression works is by getting oppressed peoples to fight amongst ourselves, rather than understanding that a shared analysis of power, privilege and oppression would bind us together in solidarity. Dangerous solidarity.
What would it mean for us to be more dangerous as liberal religious people? What would it mean for us to boldly claim that we see and understand the intersections of oppression at work in our society? To stop fighting about whose pain is worse, whose oppression is greater, who has less privilege and instead see that such debate only plays into the hands of those eager to cling to their privilege?
Can we create a truly anti-oppressive liberal religious voice? One that stands on the side of love for all oppressed groups simultaneously? If so, we will be truly dangerous. It is something to which I aspire.
With love,
Rev. Michael
Change and Growth
Change is hard. It provokes anxiety and uneasiness as what is familiar to us disappears. Growth is hard, too. It makes us feel different—sometimes awkward as we adjust to a new way of being in the world. Change and growth are also necessary in our lives—without them, we would stagnate and die. This month, we’ll be exploring change and growth from a number of different points of view.
Nature provides us all of the examples we need about how to deal with growth and change. Whatever time of year it is, the world around us is not the same place from day to day. Last month, I wrote about the crocuses in my front yard heralding the arrival of spring. By the time you read this, those hundreds of tiny purple, yellow and white flowers will be only a memory. Other things will have started to bloom in their place, no less beautiful, but different. Soon to come will be the lushness of summer, and then, ultimately, the blaze of autumn and another winter (but not too soon, I hope).
As I’m writing this in mid-March, heavy rains have just left behind flood-swollen rivers and creeks all over our region. I know that some of us found those creeks as unwelcome visitors in our houses. As the waters recede, they leave a changed landscape to which the rest of nature will adapt. Beavers will rebuild their dams. Plants will move into newly-cleared out soil. We will devise better structures to keep the water out of our houses.
Growth in the garden requires a special kind of attention. This month, the soil that nurtured last year’s bounty of vegetables in my backyard will need to be replenished with fertile compost so that a new crop can grow in it. Seeds will be started indoors, placed in a warm sunny window, and watered with care.
Personal growth and change require vigilance, adaptation and care, too. We must hold on to what is good even as we become something better. We must deal with disappointment and failure, and learn to do better. We must tend to ourselves, nourishing our spirits and replenishing our souls. And for all of these things, our Fellowship exists.
With love,
Rev. Michael
Invisibility, Power and Justice
One hundred years ago today, 146 garment workers at the Triangle Waist Company lost their lives in a fire (you can read about the event and its history in New York Times coverage here). The events happened in just 30 minutes, made worse by the abysmal conditions in the factory. Most of the workers who died were young immigrant women. These women were invisible to the society they lived in, despite toiling long hours to make the shirtwaists that were so popular to wear. Their tragic deaths made their working conditions visible, and one of the legacies of the fire was to spur meaningful changes in labor laws, including the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, both passed in the 1930s.
Unfortunately, stories of people made invisible by others in the pursuit of power and profit did not end in 1911. Fortunately, we can all do something about this. It shouldn’t take mass casualties to call us to that action.
Today, I’m in Fort Myers, Florida, at the UU Allies for Racial Equity (ARE) conference. As the President of ARE, I’m helping this national organization of white UU anti-racist allies to understand what it means to work in accountable relationship to those in our present-day society who are made invisible by racism. This weekend, we’re spending extra time looking at the ways in which our society makes invisible immigrant communities. Tonight, we heard about farmworkers in Immokalee, who have organized to gain justice for migrant workers in the tomato fields here. They are made invisible by a society that demands cheap tomatoes–and the corporations who demand higher profits on the tomatoes they sell. Any of us who buy tomatoes in the supermarket or who order sandwiches with slices of tomatoes on them are complicit in the system that makes these workers–and the inhumane conditions they toil in–invisible. Ironically, migrant farmworkers (who work here with valid visas) are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act.
What can we do? We can demand change. The Campaign for Fair Food has been successful in getting many purchasers of tomatoes to sign on to their campaign, which asks buyers to pay a fair wage for their tomatoes (1 cent a pound more than they are currently paying) and to buy only from farms that have implemented a code of conduct, complaint resolution systems, and other important reforms (thanks to a recent agreement, now 90% of tomato farms in Florida). Only one supermarket has signed on to date, though: Whole Foods. Trader Joe’s has refused. Stop and Shop’s parent company has refused. They’re two of the chains currently being asked to sign on. We can and should support this change. It’s well worth an extra penny a pound.
With love,
Rev. Michael
A Drink of Love
Today in worship, we honored the ancient Persian celebration of Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, which happens on the first day of spring. It is one of the many celebrations that are part of the cultures from which our Fellowship community comes. I look forward to honoring the cultural traditions of other families in our Fellowship in the future.
As part of this celebration, we thought about how we can renew our lives and the relationships in them, how we can forgive ourselves and others, and how we can commit to doing better to keep resentment, hatred, bitterness and evil out of our lives in the year ahead. We thought about family relationships (chosen and not) that have become distant and need to be brought closer.
One Iranian tradition on this day is the reading of poetry by Hafiz, the 14th century Persian poet. The poem below was our opening reading, and it has been going through my mind all day. ”I know the way you can get when you have not had a drink of Love,” writes Hafiz. And indeed, we all know how we get when we have not been imbibing large enough quantities of love.
It strikes me that one of the very best ways we can commit to reducing the evil in our world–to reducing hatred, resentment, bitterness and brokenness–is to make our love flow like an endless fountain, quenching the thirst of all who seek it. This is my wish for all of us in the coming year: May our love reach all who need to drink deeply from it.
With love,
Rev. Michael
I Know The Way You Can Get
by HafizFrom: ‘I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz’ Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one’s self.O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love’s
Hands.That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so playful
And wanting,
Just wanting to help.That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!All a sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!
Universalism Matters
Long before I was ever a Unitarian Universalist, I had decided that there could not possibly be a hell. Long before I had theological language for it, I knew that a God who loved all of creation could not also be a God who burned most of Creation in eternal damnation. I was a (small-u) universalist long before I was a (big-U) Universalist. And that theology helped save my life.
Growing up gay, unrooted in a particular religion (I call my family Third Generation Lapsed Catholic), and not traditionally Christian (I was a unitarian before I was a Unitarian, too, but that’s for another day), I was acutely sensitive to the many messages out there about who is supposedly going to hell. And I was doomed on all three fronts by many people whose voices make up the vast majority of the public arena about religion. I couldn’t change who I was. I wouldn’t abandon a belief system rooted in reason. I was certain to be damned.
Unless, that is, nobody was going to be damned.
My mother famously tells a story of leaving the Roman Catholic Church as a teenager because her priest insisted that her mother would go to hell if she did not come to church more often. Mom couldn’t believe in a religion that would send my grandmother–a warm, generous, hard-working, loving, caring person–to damnation for failure to participate in religious rituals. If the God she was being asked to believe in was that capricious, Mom reasoned, it wasn’t a God she could worship.
Never say I didn’t listen to my mother growing up.
Luckily, I found a faith that has been preaching Universalism in this land for some two-hundred-and-forty years. Universalism is a theology that believes that all people are saved–just by virtue of being. None of our sins, however egregious, are too great to be forgiven by a God whose love and power we as humans cannot fathom. We are forgiven by something we cannot comprehend–the endless love in our Universe. Universalism saved my life, and it matters as a theology in today’s world as well.
Universalism asks us to reject any belief system that separates humanity. It asks us to reject racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression as human-made values that deny God’s equal love for all people. It asks us to work for the radical equality of all people now by proclaiming our radical equality in the eyes of God. Universalism is the basis for the first principle that Unitarian Universalist congregations covenant to affirm and promote: the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
Universalism matters in a world where discrimination, hatred and violence rule. It asks us to stand on the side of Love. God’s love. Our love. One love. Blessed be.
With love,
Rev. Michael
Posted in Uncategorized
Dreaming of Multiculturalism
Today, UUFNW is the host for a day-long consultation on building multicultural communities. We happen to be mid-way between the two congregations involved in the consultation–in Cambridge, MA and Germantown, PA. As I type, the ministers and leaders from these two congregations are discussing how their congregations can better mirror the diversity found in the communities they serve. And so, I am dreaming of how UUFNW might engage in this work as well.
First, I think we need to celebrate the diversity we already have. Our people come from different backgrounds and cultures, and this should be made visible (audible and tangible, too) in our worship, in our congregational life, and in our actions as a community. I’d like to celebrate all of our cultures here–to make it clear that where you come from is a beautiful part of the intricate tapestry of our community. Every person who is a part of UUFNW should know that they are celebrated, that they are whole and that they are welcome to bring every part of themselves here.
Next, we should undertake to know our community better. Certainly, our involvement with Neighbors Link has connected us to the Latino/a immigrant community in Mount Kisco. But that’s not the only cultural group represented in our community. This afternoon, Irish culture will be celebrated at the Northern Westchester St. Patrick’s Day parade. Next week, our Coming of Age class will visit Temple Shaaray Tefila to learn more about Jewish worship and culture. What are the other cultural groups present in large numbers in our community?
But what comes next? I believe that the more we make visible our beautiful diversity, the more diverse our congregation will become. And then, we will reflect the fullness of the human rainbow and come closer to the dream of an undivided, multicultural human family. May it be so.
With love,
Rev. Michael
Just Right
“It’s a hard sell,” someone said to me after last Sunday’s service, and it’s true. Asking Unitarian Universalists to embrace a theology of “just right” is not easy. We’re used to looking at the world and seeing all the things that have to change–injustice, violence, oppression, exploitation. And we’re used to looking at our lives and seeing things that need improvement, sending us on endless searches for what is better.
Let me be clear: I don’t believe our world is just right. I also don’t believe that anyone should wallow in unhappiness if that’s what surrounds them. I do, however, believe that most of our lives would improve by spending more time appreciating what we have and less time wanting what we don’t. I do believe that our culture of consumerism has conditioned us to be constantly disappointed with what we have, constantly craving the Next Big Thing. We are taught to want constant stimulation and entertainment. This culture of craving extends to religion as well, and makes people treat congregational life as one more thing to consume.
Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “…it is very important to look into the nature of your deepest desire, namely volition. The Buddha said that craving will lead you to a lot of suffering, whether there is craving for wealth, sex, power, or fame. But if you have a healthy desire; like the desire to protect life, to protect the environment or to help people to live a simple life with time to take care of yourself, to love and to take care of your beloved ones, that is the kind of desire that will bring you to happiness. But if you are pushed by the craving for fame, for wealth, for power, you will have to suffer a lot.” (http://www.dharmagates.com/embracing_anger.html)
Religious communities should be about helping people reduce suffering in their lives. Religious communities should be about helping us look deeply at our desires, and to separate out the ones that are based in crass consumerism from the healthy desires to affirm our connections to other beings. And so, I attempt the tough sell. And I’ll attempt it again and again.
With love,
Rev. Michael