UUNITED Soccer Team Ends Fall Season

That's right, sports-fans - the UU juggernaut that is the UUNITED soccer team has finished it's 2007 Outdoor Season! True, we ended the season with only one win (the first game of the season!), but it was a fine season nonetheless.

We played hard and often above ourselves, earning draws with much more experienced teams and losing a number of games in the final bruising seconds as the clock ran out. No matter how you look at it, I think our team definately triumphed in the "Team Spirit" and "Having Fun" departments.

From 4-foot nothing Chanida Thongplengsri's tenacious, take-no-prisoners defense of players literally twice her size to Chiles Friedman's weekly impersonation of the Energizer Bunny to Elliott Davis' on-field "Pirate" persona, every game was challenging, fun and left me counting the days before we would play again.

Each week we would end our games by awarding the honorary Captaincy to another of our scrappy and eminently deserving teammates, who would then lead us in our weekly cheer, which was first chanted almost four years ago in Chicago by the first incarnation of UUNITED:

"1-2-3

U-UNITED

YAR!!!"

(the "Yar" pirate bit was added this year by Elliott)

I always get a little depressed at the end of a season. It's like the end of a theatre production or a class or any other project - some people stick around, other people drift off - no matter how you look at it, things will no longer be the same. Always leaves me a little bit blue. In fact, back in my theatre days, I used to do my best to avoid "take-down" after a show because I found it so depressing. I handle endings much better now (perhaps I have matured somewhat), but still...

Of course I feel much better looking ahead to the coming weeks. We are switching to a Tuesday night indoor league - which will be lots of fun - and a whole new challenge. For those of you who don't know, indoor soccer is radically different than outdoor soccer. It is really a hybrid of soccer and hockey! We play on an oval turf field about the size of an ice-hockey rink. The walls are made of curved plexiglass and you can play the ball off the walls!! It's really fun, and very fast-paced; non-stop sprinting instead of the more measured endurance required by outdoor soccer.

My lungs will not be happy for the first couple weeks...

Anyway, I just want to close by thanking all my teammates (and our patiently tolerant families and cheerleaders) for one of the most fun seasons I have had yet. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

See you on the pitch!

Aaron

My Cup Runneth Over

It feels funny not to have written in a while. I find myself inordinately looking forward to those stolen moments when I can add another post. This seems odd to me, since I write constantly, all the usual minister-stuff: prayers, sermons, meditations, wedding services and memorials – and yet I find myself on busy days hoping to find half-an-hour somewhere to work on my blog.

Interesting.

But today I want to begin writing about my recent Ordination into the Unitarian Universalist ministry. Although I was Ordained almost a month ago (Sept. 23, 2007), I have not been able to write about it. It’s just too big. In fact, next to my wedding, the births of my children and getting run over by a car – my ordination was probably the most powerful experience of my life.

And even now, a month later, I still don’t know how to write about it. Words fall so terribly short sometimes.

The feeling of being so supported and affirmed by so many wonderful people, the feeling of the church-walls shaking with song – the feeling of being profoundly connected to all who have come before me and to all who will follow – was simply incredible.

I remember looking out from the pulpit at everyone and seeing their faces, eyes, smiles, standing out in sharp relief. In that moment, I found myself utterly overwhelmed by a feeling of deep gratitude. I remember thinking, “Wow – so this is what Grace feels like…”

And that was all I could do for a time – just stand there, washed in the power and beauty of….everything.

I just stood there speechless (a rare occasion, for those of you who know me!). I think a funny sound of some sort tried to make its way out of my mouth – but that was all I could muster, despite the words clearly printed in front of me.

To some extent I remain speechless. Every part of it was perfect, every prayer, every song, every smile and tear. Perfect. I find myself buoyed just by thinking about it. In answer to my colleague Deborah Holder smilingly asked question, “How’s it feel to have your molecules re-arranged?” I say, “Whoa…..”

So rather than keep trying futilely to express the inexpressible, I will simply post two things that I will carry in my heart, draw upon and strive to live up to for the rest of my life.

The first is the Charge to the Minister and Right Hand of Fellowship, which was given to me by the Rev. David Bumbaugh. The second is the sermon the Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell preached. More than anyone else, it is to these two Ministers that I offer my thanks. Both of them in their different ways have not only inspired me to ministry – but have shown me, through their lives – how to do it.

Charge To The Minister:
By the Rev. David Bumbaugh

In his novel, A Cup of Gold, John Steinbeck tells the story of Henry Morgan. Young Henry grew up in Wales, and finding—as most of us do—the world of his childhood too narrow for his dreams and too confining for his hopes, decided to abandon it for the New World.

He shares his decision with an old bard named Merlin. Merlin responds to this news by telling Henry that he is like a child who wants the moon and he runs and leaps and grabs, and sometimes he catches a firefly. And Henry looks at old Merlin and asks, “Did you never want the moon?” Merlin says, “Oh yes, I wanted it, I wanted it above all things. I reached for it and then…then I grew up, I became a man and I knew that I could not have the moon and would not want it if I could. I grew up and so I caught no fireflies. I grew up and I became a failure.

But there is this about a failure, Henry," he said: "people know he has failed, and they are kind and sympathetic because they share with him the cloak of mediocrity. But those who have caught fireflies while reaching for the moon are doubly alone; for, as others praise them and set them aside because of their great accomplishments, only they know how great is the distance between the ambition and the achievement, between the dream and the reality.”I

In many ways, this conversation—as I remember it--captures an essential quality of ministry, as I have known it. Ministers are like children who never grow up, who spend their lives reaching for the moon. One of my colleagues once described ministers as “god-driven folk who cannot find god.” We want the moon. We want the light. We want to tease out the eternal meaning that lies all trammeled up in the ordinary and the commonplace. We run and we leap and -- sometimes -- we catch a firefly. And that firefly is the only thing we have to share with our people.

By the nature of our vocation, we are called to share it, to call aloud, "Come! See!" and let others make of it what they will. And sometimes they make very much of it.It is important, however, that we not deceive ourselves or allow others to cloud our understanding. No matter what truth we find, it is never the truth; no matter what gods we encounter, they are not god. And so, Aaron, as you enter upon this curious, demanding, frustrating and sometimes lonely vocation, as you run and leap and reach for the moon I would charge you to share whatever you capture, but always remember two things: First, the firefly you catch is not the moon; and, second the firefly you catch is the moon. In the space opened up by that paradox, ministry becomes possible.

The Right Hand of Fellowship

In this moment, Aaron, not only do you enter formally into your vocation, you also join a long and honored tradition--a tradition that extends back through the centuries--the living tradition of the Unitarian Universalist ministry.

This tradition includes those whose names we write in burning gold--Francis David, Joseph Priestley, John Murray, Hosea Ballou, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Joseph Jordan, Olympia Brown,l August Jane Chapin, Phoebe Hanniford. It includes many more whose names are lost to us, but whose courage and commitment have shaped our faith.

It includes all our colleagues who, in these times struggle to shape a world of justice and mercy, of peace and promise.It is my great pleasure to extend to you the right hand of fellowship and welcome you into the living tradition that is the Unitarian Universalist ministry.

I think I started weeping with joy the moment he extended his hand to me. All I could do in that moment was cling to him and cry. Quite out of character for me – except at births, my wedding and – it turns out – my ordination. Thank you, David.


Here is a link to Marilyn’s sermon, “Unitarian Universalism: the Promise and the Challenge.” Thank you, Marilyn.

http://secure.firstuniversalist.org/openrosters/DocDownload.asp?orgkey=1050&id=29356

I think an audio recording of the service was made, and when I find a copy, I will add it to this post, as well as some more photos and the words of other participants – all of which were simply wonderful.

Now, a month later - I still feel profoundly supported and blessed, and I still find myself shaking my head in wonder and thinking, "That's right - this is what Grace feels like."

My favorite writer wins Nobel Prize!

Doris Lessing has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Finally.

Here is a link to the NY Times story. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/world/11cnd-nobel.html


Doris Lessing has influenced my development more than any other writer, and more than most people, period. Her always clear, always brave critical eye never seems content with the surface of things, but must always dive, dive, dive into the deep waters where most of us fear to swim. Her commitment to the beauty and potential of conciousness, community and love - always balanced by an equally fierce commitment to freedom and individuality have inspired me since I was a teenager.

She has challenged generations of readers to strive to be "in the world, but not of the world" and to learn to look at ourselves and the world we live in with ever more lenses, sometimes as if through a prism - dizzying and incomprehensible as it may feel to do so. Lessing introduced me to Sufism, and to the many uses of Story.

Perhaps most of all, Doris Lessing has inspired me by personal example. She did not finish high school, but reading and living voraciously - educated herself - as I did. She struggled (and continues to struggle) to live authentically in a world that often seems opposed to authenticity. Lessing has made terribly hard choices in order to live her calling - as I have. Thanks to Doris Lessing, in part, I never felt alone in my own struggles. I have always looked to her as a guide, and knew that if she could walk that path, then I could too. She embodies integrity for me.

I know she would likely purse her lips at the paragraphs above, but that's okay. I trust I have never been slavish or embarrassingly derivative in my appreciation and gratitude.

I will always remember the first time I encountered her. I was about seventeen years old and was marking time browsing the spines of 10-cent used paperbacks at a St. Vincent DePaul's resale shop in rural Wisconsin while my mother was shopping.

That turned out to be a big day in my literary life. My eyes stopped over two titles that day: the first was "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller (which I still reread now and then) and the other was "Briefing for a Descent Into Hell" by Doris Lessing.I thought, "I think the title alone is worth 10 cents!", so I bought it without even taking a look inside. And that was the beginning of a literary relationship that has continued ever since, across the whole of my adult life, and spanning (and intertwining) the worlds of art, politics, sociology, history, spirituality and much more. It has spanned from inner space to outer space and even to some of the places where both of those poles are one.

I won't even try to introduce her work in this blog - there are already volumes upon volumes of those. If you are curious, I think this is the best DL site out there: http://www.dorislessing.org/index.html

I know myself better because of Doris Lessing. I feel more empowered to be myself because of Doris Lessing. My curiosity and search for truth and meaning has been whetted by Doris Lessing. The universe, reality - all-that-is - feels more immediate and open to relationship, scrutiny and interaction because of Doris Lessing.


My life, like so many other lives, has been immeasurably enriched by her life and work, and I cannot think of a better person (just the 11th woman to do so) to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Congratulations, Doris Lessing - and thank you.

Bread and Roses in Denver

I spent this morning at a big hotel in Denver, face to face with all the reasons I am happy that I don’t have to sit at bargaining tables anymore, but also all the reasons I miss my life in the labor movement.

I was part of an interfaith clergy delegation that the housekeepers at the hotel asked to come support them as they demanded more respect, better treatment and safer working conditions from their employer. Our delegation was made up of three Protestant Christian Ministers, a Muslim Imam, and me, a Unitarian Universalist (wearing a clerical collar for the first time!! What a weird feeling that was...).

We got to the bargaining room early and had a good time meeting the housekeepers and listening to their stories. They are amazing women from all over the world: Somalia, Ethiopia, Russia, Turkey and many places in Central and South America. Although several different languages filled the air at any given time, the workers clearly understood one another in all the ways that matter most, and the air of solidarity was palpable.

Then the management bargaining team came in, their expensive suits and manicured hands striking a vivid contrast against the bright red union t-shirts and easy smiles of the housekeepers. Each member of our clergy delegation was introduced to the managers and asked to say a few words about why we were there.

It was wonderful to hear my sisters and brothers in ministry speaking from their own faith traditions in ways that were so compatible with my own. Whatever doctrinal or theological differences we may have, it feels great to know that we are united in our commitment to justice for all people.

It is not at all clear how these negotiations will play out. These housekeepers are expected to do an enormous amount of work in an amazingly short amount of time. Although the industry norm is for housekeepers to clean about 13-16 rooms per day, this hotel requires the workers to clean up to 30 rooms per day!!! This breaks down to the expectation that a single housekeeper should be able to “deep clean” (make pristine) a room in about 20-30 minutes after guests have checked out. If guests are staying there for more than one night, and the housekeepers have to clean around them, the expectation is an absurd 8-15 minutes per room!!!

They have to make their daily quotas before they go home, and if it takes longer than eight hours, they simply have to keep working until they are done – and then their hours are cut for the rest of the week so they will not have to be paid overtime. So folks routinely work through their breaks and lunch hours; only to find that even so, they still have trouble finishing their work on time.

I would love to see the corporate brains who sit around designing these quota systems in some remote cubicle somewhere have to clean rooms for a week – for a day even – under their own systems! They wouldn’t make it to lunch time.

The bottom line is this: these women are honest, hard working people – and they are being worked into the ground so that some shareholders somewhere can earn ever so slightly more at the end of the fiscal year. The work these women are doing is not sustainable, it is not healthy and it is not just. I do not know if my support will make a bit of difference, but I will continue to answer every time they call. I feel honored to know them, and my thoughts, my prayers and my actions will be with them throughout their struggle.

And I guarantee that I am going to tip a heck of a lot better every time I stay in a hotel from now on!!!

Most Offensive Editorial Ever?

This morning in the Denver Post, blogger David Sirota prompted me to click on this link by declaring that this is the most offensive economics article he has ever read. Ever.

Now that's saying something! It was hard for me to believe that anything could top some of the economic tripe I've read throught the years, with the gentle sound of blood boiling in my ears. I had to check it out.

While I encourage you, dear reader, to go ahead and read this whole column (you might want to take some saftey precautions first, like stowing away any breakables you might feel compelled to throw across the room in a spasm of helpless outrage), let me whet your appetites by sharing a little quotation first. The column is structured around a list of lessons Wall Street pundit Michael Lewis has learned about poor people over the past few months as he watches his personal fortune stumble a bit because of the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry. The following is a real gem of wisdom that never seems to get old:

"4) Our society is really, really hostile to success. At the same time it's shockingly indulgent of poor people.

A Republican president now wants to bail them out! I have a different solution. Debtors' prison is obviously a little too retro, and besides that it would just use more taxpayers' money. But the poor could work off their debts. All over Greenwich I see lawns to be mowed, houses to be painted, sports cars to be tuned up. Some of these poor people must have skills. The ones that don't could be trained to do some of the less skilled labor -- say, working as clowns at rich kids' birthday parties. They could even have an act: put them in clown suits and see how many can be stuffed into a Maybach. It'd be like the circus, only better.

Transporting entire neighborhoods of poor people to upper Manhattan and lower Connecticut might seem impractical. It's not: Mexico does this sort of thing routinely. And in the long run it might be for the good of poor people. If the consequences were more serious, maybe they wouldn't stay poor. "

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a5lhZkEauCu8&refer=columnist_lewis

Cute, huh? While I would like to believe this column in really just a particularly dark bit of satire, I do not think it is, although I would love to stand corrected. While many of Lewis' columns are less...evil...than this one, he does appear to have a healthy disdain for poor people and for people who (in his opinion) foolishly feel empathize with the millions of Americans who are being chucked out of their homes and onto the streets as we speak.

Blaming the poor for their own poverty is one of the oldest lines in the playbook - but blaming the poor for the investment losses of rich people takes a special sort of gall. It is such an audacious claim that it renders me almost speechless. Oh, how my heart swells with compassion for the noble rich, who are dragged down by the poor ungrateful masses!

As I sit here trying to find an appropriate way to express how I feel about this, only one word comes to mind - one of my grandmother's favourites (although I cannot deliver it with anything like the flair she can...) - POPPYCOCK!

That's right - I'm talking to you, Michael Lewis (unless I am wrong and this really is a brilliant satire; in which case, bravo to you)!

But, when all is said and done, I am still not sure that this article rises to the level of "Most Offensive Ever." There are an awful lot of horses in that race!

For example, here is one of my recent favorites - which I also suspected of being a satire. Which it wasn't, as far as I can tell.

This delightful bit of poppycock (how did I ever forget what a wonderful word "poppycock" is?!) is entitled "The Theory of the Leisure Class: An economic mystery: Why do the poor seem to have more free time than the rich?" This one was in Slate. http://slate.com/id/2161309/

The article argues that poor people have more "leisure" time than those unfortunate people who (nobly, industriously, selflessly) make money by the bucketful - a state of affairs writer Steven Landsberg sees as patently unfair. Interestingly, some of his suggested remedies seem eerily similar to those of Michael Lewis. Must be all those years of drinking the cool-aid.

That, and probably never having met a single poor person, or at least not any who weren't washing their cars or mowing their lawns.

This reminds me of a passage from "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens. Maybe these gentlemen should read it.

"For the first time in her life, Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first time in her life she was face to face with anything like individuality in conexion with them. She knew of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them would produce in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinately more of the ways of topiling insects than of these toiling men and women.

Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into component drops."

The Flying Chalices: UUs Ride for Seniors in the Moonlight Classic

Last Saturday, August 18th, over forty Unitarian Universalists from First Universalist and First Unitarian rode together through the dark streets of Denver as part of the Moonlight Classic bike ride.

The Moonlight classic is an annual charity bike ride that raises money for Seniors, Inc., a non-profit that helps seniors live more healthy and independent lives. Our team raised almost $1500. We joined over five thousand other riders on a perfect night for a ride.

Our team was a diverse one, with riders as young as eight and as old as eighty-five, with all levels of bike riding experience. We knew we would easily lose one another in the sea of riders, so we all wore bright white armbands that had been decorated by the children of First Universalist with neon fabric paint. The designs were all various creative takes on the “Flying Chalice” name of our team.

But that wasn’t all – many of us made ourselves even more visible by wearing plastic martini-glasses on our helmets with bright glow-stick inside like flames! So we rode through the night together with flaming chalices bobbing over our heads.

I want to thank all the people who helped make this happen, and look forward to an even bigger, better ride next year!!! If you have a Moonlight Classic story you would like to share, please email Aaron McEmrys at aaron@firstuniversalist.org. I am eager to hear about your experience!

UUNITED Soccer Team: Stylish Even in Victory!

UU Sportswire, Denver. A rag-tag team of Unitarian Universalists emerged victorious after their first match of the season, a well-played game against plucky, “Just for Fun.”

The team, UUNITED, has a vibrant roster stacked with women and men from both the First Universalist and First Unitarian churches. Players range widely in age and experience, but all share the same UU-spirit. Their uniforms are navy blue, with a flaming chalice emblazoned on the chest with a soccer ball rising up from the flames. Very stylish indeed!

In the first half it seemed there were blue jerseys everywhere, with crisp passing, sturdy defending and creative offense on display. Most striking, however, was the playful sense of teamwork, a theme that really sums up this new team.

The final score was 2-0, and the team celebrated with fresh orange slices on the sidelines, and enjoyed the sun. As we were getting ready to leave, a young player from one of the other teams came up and asked, “Are you guys Unitarians?” “Yep”, I answered. “That’s awesome,” he replied, with a smile. Evangelism on the soccer pitch; who woulda thunk it!?

What I found most rewarding about the whole thing is the warm and playful spirit of togetherness that has characterized our time together, whether in practice, in "real" games and in all those moments in between: sitting under the shade of the big trees next to the field, sharing our well-deserved orange slices, or tossing a sun-warmed water bottle to someone who needs it.

The air of goodwill and genuine support of one another is pretty rare, in my experience - especially in the all-too-often testosterone and ego-driven world of sports. As one teammate put it to me after our first game, "It's great to be a part of a team that respects everyone else no matter the skill level. Keeping with that, I look forward to making some finely squeezed juice out of them juicy fruits (the name of the next team we play)!"

I also relish the kind of relationships that develop between us as we play. Running around together kicking and chasing bouncing balls over a big green field encourages a very different way of being together, of relating, than most of us experience in our day to day lives. There isn't a lot of opportunity (or spare oxygen) for deep conversation, but that doesn't mean the relationships are not genuine and deep. The laughter, the high fives, and the pats-on-the-backs are a language of their own, spoken without words - but nonetheless sincere and oddly intimate. After all, where else in our lives to we touch relative strangers so freely?

There are ex-teammates of mine in Chicago who I still feel very close to. This seems somewhat inexplicable, since in some cases I knew them for over a year before I even knew what they did for a living or where they lived! An odd kind of intimacy.

The split-second glances between myself and a team-mate who is streaking down the field is hard to describe - but in that frozen flash in time, we both know exactly what I am going to (try) to do with the ball, and what the receiver needs to do to make ready. Then, when the ball spins off my foot to my teammate's foot, it feels like much more than a ball has covered that distance. In a very real way, something of ourselves has passed between us in that instant. There is a kind of attunement there that I suspect requires embodiment - attunement that requires a more integrated kind of mind, body and spirit relationship than we ordinarily experience in our day to day relationships.

This is not to say that team sports is the end-all-be-all or anything, just that playing soccer now, with these people, at this time in my life - reminds me of how much more there is of me, and how much more I am capable of when I remember to be more fully embodied.

When, the fans ask, is the next game? Glad you asked – UUNITED’s next game will be on September 8th at 11:10am, when we will take on the intimidatingly named, “Juicy Fruits.” The game will be played on Grass Field #2 at Dick’s Sporting Good’s Park (where the Colorado Rapids play). So come on out and cheer your new (and did I mention, stylish?) team on!