Live as if how you do this matters

The road from Jericho leads to Jerusalem for Jesus. After several successful years as a charismatic healer, teacher and social revolutionary he is headed for a triumphal entry into a pinnacle experience of his faith - passover in the Holy land. Jericho is large city. A hub - think NY, LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston. It is a place where people from many different places and walks of life gather. Known as the city of palms it is the first place the Israelite find themselves after Egyptian captivity and 40 years of wandering (Joshua fit the battle of ...) It is a cosmopolitan place where news fly's through merchants and soldiers, politicians and shop keepers, and even to the outcast.

On this final trek to Jerusalem - just leaving the city you can almost taste the anticipation for the disciples and all who followed Jesus - this was the walk. This was their messiah. This was someone who had answers, someone who lived what they preached, this was someone to follow and know. And in the midst of this excitment, outside the walls of the city a begger, an outcast, an undesirable shouts - and Jesus stops. Really - come on - Jesus stops.

They called him a teacher this amazing man from Galilee. Jesus taught with and of and through his life.

I have known a lot of different kinds of teachers in my life, haven't you? I remember my sister as an early teacher - trying to tell me the double meaning of Get Smart - this was a TV show on about a not so great secret agent (who could talk into his shoe thank you very much) and was not the brightest light in the chandellier. We sat on the floor of our kitchen - I was probably 3 my sister 6 and she just kept on saying you know Get Smart - at 6 she was not able to pull through the subtleties of languge to her younger less imaginative sibling.
Who here was "taught" by someone in your family?

I remember a teacher in high school that made english sing for me - a hard trick if anyone knows how I struggle still with grammer. But he talked and taught in a way that made me want to learn. Who here had a teacher that made them fall in love with something they never expected?

I remember a teacher who just devistated me by laughing at a project I had turned in. A paper machee volcano with red streams painted on the side sitting next to a volcano 5 times as big that actually exploded every 5 min as the student and their parent mixed the right concoction together. To be fair this "teacher" was not a paid but was a fellow student - still I got the lesson loud and clear. I also remember the teacher who came by after that and praised my work as one of the only projects done solely by a student. A kind and generous person she had seen the interaction, my devastation and my now uncomfortable parents and had found that thing that was good, was true, was real. A teacher is someone who can listen and offers wisdom for this moment. She was a teacher in that true sense. she wasn't only paid she was a teacher who lived in a way that allowed her to see a situation and respond to it with gentile wisdom and kindness.

They called him teacher - Jesus, this person who reached out in kindness. I am so grateful for all the teachers in my life including Jesus.

Actually these teachers we remember they are doing something that is more than a job, right? A teacher embodies something larger than knowledge and answers. Disregarding the current passion of looking for KPI - key performance indicators through testing - a teacher is someone who is able to help people learn, to affirm when they have done just that and can inspire someone to learn more. Ask any teacher you know, whether they are currently working at that career or not, they will tell you stories about their work. They will talk about their students both good and bad. Those they are still trying to reach those that left them in awe of how smart people can be. They will regale you with times that they worked and worked and worked to get a point across with no effect and they will tell you about the time that someone turned with a shine in their eyes knowing something that a moment before had baffled them. A teacher is a role - much like a minister or a priest - that demands more of you than your work, it demands your life.

Ah they called him teacher and so he calls us. A teacher - someone who lives in a way that imparts wisdom, that tries beyond odds, that celebrates when we get it right.

The blind man called out teacher, teacher let me see again.
We also teach ourselves in this life. We teach ourselves that we can change and throw off what others think we should be. Here this Blind man, this outcast ignores every social norm and the voices telling him he is not enough and demands what he needs. Those things that we repeat and affirm (good or bad) teach us and others about how we see the world and who we see ourselves as, perhaps even how we expect to be treated. Scientist say that if you repeat an action for 20 days in a row that action will become a behavior. 10,000 hours and you will be an expert. Thou these external manifestations may be best sustained by internal work to understand why we made different choices to begin with - ie don't give up your therapy sessions - behaviors can also be changed but this gives hope to someone who wants to become something different. We can teach ourselves how to be in the world through how we dress and stand and talk and walk and engage.

They called him teacher - this person who spoke in parables and actions and asked us to follow him.
We are also all still teaching our world who we are. Stop thinking that the way that you have lived is the only way that life will ever be. That English teacher introduced me to literature that opened up my world. Stop believing that those you rejected before are not worthy of your time or our resources. That small home made volcano was a prize winner for the teacher who gave me an A. Stop listening to the voices saying no you should be quiet and live your lot in life - the world around you can still be taught who you are. Jesus gave the blind man the best gift a teacher can give - affirmation of what you already know and the entreat to go. Go and do or be more of what brought you to this place already. Go and live a life that teaches others.

They called him a teacher - and he lived that role. As a healer he reached out to people on the margins and would not stop doing that simply because he was now going to Jerusalem. His healing was miraculous and revolutionary not just because he healed people but because of who he healed. In seeing the unseen and touching the untouchable through Jesus teaches us what is important and how we should see the world. In this story as a social revolutionary he stopped. He stopped and talked to an outcast. Stopped so that the blind man could find him in the crowd.  And when the blind man asked Jesus answered Go: Your faith has made you well -

He said this to a blind man who lived outside the city walls. Can we imagine for a minute what that felt like. Suddenly this outcast was heard, he was seen, he was recognized. If we each teach the world around us about who we are and how we see the world. What does your life say about who you are?

Jesus ripped through the social norms of his day to heal and teach. He ignored and argued against rules and laws when they did not serve the whole community. We will pick grain on the sabbath when it is time for us to eat. I will heal when ever I have the opportunity. I will ask judgment to come for an adulterous woman only when compassion is present as well. As a teacher Jesus moved to find and affirm people who were living in faith, instead of those who lived by rules that conformed their society to an earlier age. (I might wonder how Jesus would view his church today? When are we paying more attention to the brass and less to the work of our hearts. When are we listening to the voices of fear instead of voting for the possibility of hope?) Jesus this God who calls us, who asks us to follow, who entreats us to a table, who loves. Jesus spoke from a place of deep knowledge but he also lived from his heart.

Our teaching, our being teachers, our following Jesus demands that we not only change ourselves through belief but that we live lives as if the world was changed as well - Gandhi once said - you must be the change you wish to see in the world. Stop believing that the way the world is now is the only way it can ever be. Stop listening to the voices that preach lack and hate and fear, listen instead to the voice that teaches you about the possibility of change, the voice of hope, the voice of love. Live as if what you want for the world is possible and then and only then it might just be. Live as if your life as a teacher matters to the world and stop wondering what could I do and start asking what can I do today?
+ Talk to a neighbor you don't like so well
+ Recycle that paper plate instead of throwing it away
+ Calling friends to get them to go out and vote
+ Give money to ceasefire and help stop gang violence in Chicago
+ Plan to go on a working volunteer vacation to New Orleans or Japan or Africa
+ Start an organization to get clean water to the untouchables in India
I do not know what you are called to "teach" this world through your living - but I know that the world will change by what you do and who you are within it.
Certainly Jesus taught in more traditional ways like talking, preaching, telling stories, arguing with scholars. But Jesus taught in the way of a true teacher as well - he lived what he believed.

They called him teacher - and I wonder how we follow this example.
No matter where you are, job hunting, celebrating, wondering No matter if you are making a choice about where to go for dinner or who to vote for in this next election. What are you teaching - yourself and the world? By what you do - by who you are - by why you live and move and have your being. What are you teaching us about hope and about what you value. I have but one question to leave you all with when your life speak and it will, they always do - what do you dream your life will say?

The Song of the Good Daughter - Wisenberg / Edwalds

What happened to us in the 1950's? The Song of the Good Daughter explores the anger found in expectations that may never be met by real, normal, whole and holy human beings. Women some pure and simple, some prim and proper, some looking for the alien threat. All of us together make up the tapestry of this world. SL Wisenbergs poem is read by Artemis Singers (as arranged by L. Edwalds).

Church of the Larger Fellowship - Come Come Whoever You Are

A presentation pulled together for the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship

This is a favorite Unitarian Universalist hymn by Rev. Lynn Ungar written to the words of a Rumi poem.



These photos are of people from the CLF and their chalices. As worship begins on Sundays a remote group of people share together in cyberspace an experience.

For everyone everywhere who has ever felt alone - Come yet again Come.

I AM

I Am - reclaiming our history, professing our presence and celebrating our future.  Imago Dei we are each the face of God if we have been created in God's image how could we be sin personified? I am, it is that simple.

I wrote this song almost 15 years ago as a bit of a rant.  Really I am here - queer - different - the same - fragile - fragmented and strong and tired of trying to be something someone else will find acceptable. Ah well - here it goes I AM. 

I hope you are too.


 This song was meant to be more explicitly queer identified. (I use that word with some trepidation as I understand that it can mean different things to different people - I use it here in the context of queer being a sometimes used umbrella term for those whose sexual identity is outside perceived norms.) 

The thought around naming some folks and leaving others nameless was to indeed to give names of more famous people identified as queer by a number of different sources. All of these images are from public domain sources. The images at the end of the clip are people who submitted images for this project specifically I did not receive permissions to use names there so did not include them.

May Nothing Evil Cross This Door (KEM) - Why Church (PMR)

A beautiful Unitarian Universalist hymn - #1 in the older of the two current UU hymnals "Singing the Living Tradition"

A beautiful sentiment that Pam and I have engaged as we look to a place in the world where the walls that define a church or a congregation may not only be the long entrusted familiar ones. What if church looks beyond the beautiful edifices of stained glass - what if church is also the local coffee house where poets and refugees sit together? What if church is that place - where ever it might be - that allows us to change, that demands us to be transformed, and that requires us to be our best?

 What if church today is found in that place? 

Why Church?
To remember…
That our bones are grown up from the dirt of this earth
That our breath is the gift of life breathing us into existence
That our hearts beat with the pulse and rhythm of an eternity we only vaguely recognize
That our voices make audible the songs of the universe

Why Church?
To remember…
That I am a unique and precious expression of the universe
That this reality in which I live and breathe both distracts and reveals
That my deep and truest self is the only thing worth searching out and finding
That in the offering of self I come most fully alive

Why Church?
To remember…
That one is not a whole number
That community gives us roots and wings
That strength comes from relationship and mutuality
That we know life in and through one another

Why Church?
To remember…
Spirit
Breath
Life
Love  Why church?
To remember...
- pmr

May nothing evil cross between you and those wall that support your journey.

words by Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977) music by Robert N Quaile (1867-?)

Rwanda - A look at modern genocide 1994

Where you there? - Genocide visited in a far away African nation.

In 2011 I took one of my final classes for seminary with Dr Sharon Welch and the Rev. Dr Susan Thistlethwaite on Peace and Justice.

We were to read a book about modern day horrors by Samantha Powers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Problem_from_Hell) and I was transfixed by the story of Rwanda. Probably because I remember the talk about this small country and I remember being confused by the odd accounts, small snippets, random thoughts I was recieving about what attrocities were going on. I remember being frustrated that the US was not engaged. Frustrated that my government - my liberal progressive government - was failing me. I had no idea the magnitude.  I went on with my life as if everything was alright. As if I was safe (which I was), as if all was normal (which it was not), as if my life would not be impacted (which was true and not true).

This thing happened in our world in the days just before the internet exploded. Rwanda occurred in the time before CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews and their 24 hour coverage on what ever tragedy was occurring. The odd thing is that the internet and the news channels may bringing fear closer to my door step but they do not stop the senselessness of violence that erupts. I would like to believe that the US is are more engaged now because there are powerful knowledgeable watchful people who would decry this sort of thing going without our intervention. Indeed in this time after the fall of the Egyptian and Libyan governments I would like to believe that the solution is as easy as stopping one side from killing another.

But peace takes more than letting go of a particular instance of violence.

Why we did not act is still a part of our make-up.
How we support people to further justice through education, conversation, healthcare, rights... is still a complicated problem.
My voice in the wilderness cries out - at least let the story be remembered.

Where you there? I was...


In 1994 Rwanda erupted with ethnic violence that was finally understood as genocide. What is our responsibility to ensure this does not happen again? What is our understanding of our role, of our response, of our concern? We can talk after the fact about how we might act to stop atrocities, but really will we look hard enough to see the next place that violence claims lives lost far away from our comfortable living rooms? What of Libya and her people? Have we learned our lessons from the past?

Facts and Quotes taken from:
Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell” America and the age of genocide, (New York-London-Toronto-Sydney: Harper Perennial, 2002)

Economics: an issue of Justice

This piece was developed for a convocation at Meadville Lombard for use with a talk given by Dr. Sharon Welch and Lyssa Jenkens in the winter of 2012.

The images are meant to evoke the questions of changing perspective on economics as an issue of justice. What do we see when we look - what changes our perspective - how do we engage in a provocative and transforming conversation about this issue.


Changing how we engage one another around economic justice can we find common ground to create conversations that will move us forward?

Obama at Nobel - a chant

A chant to some of Obama's words of acceptance. What might the world look like if we chanted peace into it in the form of hope?

Ministry in the Midst of Change

Unitarian Universalist questions of ministerial formation. Pam Rumancik and Karen Mooney engage the question of how UU ministers find their identity and what it means that identity schools seem to be struggling with holding on financially.

10-2012 VoteLOVE

Vote out of love not out of fear. Vote as if your vote is relevant. Vote because it will change you and then you can change the world. Many thanks to the people of UU Chattanooga and Second Unitarian Chicago and all m Chicago friends. (You are AWESOME.)