Rev. Joy Atkinson: April 2012

Summary of Education and Work Experience

Education
Bachelor of Arts, Hunter College of the City University of New York, English Literature and Teacher Education, 1969

Master of Arts, Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York, English Literature and Teacher Education, 1970

Master of Divinity, Starr King School For the Ministry, 1974

Master of Science, Counseling, California State University at Hayward, 1988

Work Experience

Interim Minister, Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church, Hayward, CA August 2014 to present
Interim Minister, Berkeley Fellowship of UUs, August 2013-August 2014
Interim Minister, Humboldt UU Fellowship, Bayside CA, October 2012-June 2013
Interim Minister, UU Congregation of Northwest Tucson, Tucson, Arizona, August 2010-2012
Interim Minister, Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Fremont, CA September 2008-2010
Interim Minister, Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, August 2007-July 2008
Interim Minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula, August 2006-July 2007
Interim Minister, Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, August 2004-June, 2006
Interim Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin, August 2003-July 2004
Interim Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Stockton, California, August 2002-July 2003
Minister, Unitarian Universalists of San Mateo, California, October 1988-July 2002
Minister, Unitarian Church of Davis, California, January 1077-January, 198
Minister, First Unitarian Church of Duluth, Minnesota, January 1975-January 1977
Intern Minister and Minister, Humboldt Unitarian Fellowship, September 1973-June 1974 (Ordained by this Fellowship, June 1974

References

Diana Dickerson, President, Starr King UU Church, Hayward, daesworkgd@comcast.net, (510) 786-2922
Colleen Dino, past President, Starr King UU Church, Hayward, cdino@croark.com, (510) 213-3499
Tom McAninley, member of Transition Team and Sunday Services Committee, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 510-655-8851, tommcan@sbcglobal.net
Susan Singh, Board Member (alternate), member of Personnel and Nominating Committees, Pledge Drive Chair, Berkeley Fellowship of UUs, 510-222- 2567, travelingfreegranny@yahoo.com
David Harris, Board President, Humboldt UU Fellowship, harris2761@sbcglobal.net, (707)-725-9043
Wendy Rowan, Board member, Co Chair of Program and Worship Committee, Humboldt UU Fellowship, wndyrwn@gmail.com, (707) 822--8599
Conrad Paul, President, Mountain Vista UU Congregation, Northwest Tucson, AZ elgatoil@yahoo.com, (520) 743-0064
Christiane Heyde, Chair of Worship Associates and Pastoral Care, Mountain Vista UU Congregation, AZ, csheyde@msn.com, 520-393-9960
John Porter, Chair of Canvass Committee, former President, Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Fremont, CA (510) 744-1587 johndeeporter@sbcglobal.net
Nancy Edmundson, former Director of Administration, Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, CA (805) 965-4583

Recent Adult Education Classes and Workshops Taught

UU Theology for the 21^st Century: A Universe in Process

with Rev. Jay Atkinson, Pacific Southwest District Annual District Assembly, 2008

Welcoming As A Spiritual Practice: Hospitality Workshop

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, 2007, 2008

Building Your Own Theology

First Unitarian Church of Stockton, 2002, Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains, 2005, UU Society of Santa Barbara, 2008 Mission Peak UU Congregation, 2009, UU Congregation of Northwest Tucson, 2012, Starr King Church, Hayward starting May 17, 2016

Process Theology

UU Community of the Mountains, 2005

American Transcendentalism

Berkeley Fellowship of UUs, 2014, Humboldt UU Fellowship, 2013, First Unitarian Church of Stockton, 2003, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Monterey Peninsula, 2006, UU Society of Santa Barbara Mission Peak UU Congregation, 2009, UU Congregation of Northwest Tucson, 2011, April 2016

Credo Workshop for Coming of Age Youth

UU Church of the Monterey Peninsula, Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, Mission Peak UU Congregation

Leadership Training,

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, 2008, Mission Peak UU Congregation, 2010

Religions of the World

Mission Peak UU Congregation, 2010

Making Conflict Work For You

with members of the PCD Healthy Congregations Team, Pacific Central District Annual District Assembly, 2010

SERMONS

A Rock, A River, A Tree Rev. Joy Atkinson

Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Mateo, April 19, 1998

In the various Star Trek television programs that I and my son Ian so dearly love, one of the many alien humanoid races who are depicted is called the Ferengi, from the planet Ferenginar. The Ferengi are unscrupulous entrepreneurs, and the Ferengi's society is entirely based on the profit motive. Every young Ferengi is made to memorize the Ferengi Bible--called the Rules of Acquisition. I'd like to cite a few examples of these 285 rules for living and making profit from my son's little pocket edition of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition:
#10 Greed is eternal.
#13 Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

#41 Profit is its own reward.
#97 Enough...is never enough.
#144 There's nothing wrong with charity...as long as it winds up in your pocket.
#181 Not even dishonesty can tarnish the shrine of profit.
#162 Even in the worst of times, someone always turns a profit.
#261 A wealthy man can afford anything except a conscience.
#284 Deep down everyone's a Ferengi.

"Deep down, everyone's a Ferengi." Can that be true? Perhaps not, but surely there is a little Ferengi in all of us. What put it there? Acquiring and hoarding, I believe, are part of human nature. We acquire things for survival and a sense of security. But our current profit-oriented culture, which is clearly being lampooned by the Star Trek Ferengi characters, brings out this human tendency, and suppresses other aspects of our humanity: our social nature, our communal tendency, the impulse to share, the tendency to compassion and altruism. Corporations exploit and cultivate the Ferengi in us at the expense of these other qualities through advertising.

I sometimes find myself looking a bit covetously at ads, thinking: "this looks nice," "this is an interesting toy," "I wouldn't mind having one of these," "I want this gadget," and so on. Ever find yourself in one of these little acquisitive stupors? Fortunately I hear another voice faintly reminding me that I don't really need these things, and that more temperate voice usually prevails before I reach for my credit card.

Of course, the acquisitive stupor is carefully cultivated by ad agencies. They want us to want things. They drone on in print, on TV and radio about this jazzy little sports car, that cool pair of jeans, that indispensable vacation cruise. They would have us believe that the "pursuit of happiness" in our Declaration of Independence is the pursuit of more and still more stuff! Happiness as self-gratification. A bumper sticker I once saw ironically sums up the underlying motivation of our lives, as cultivated by our consumer-oriented culture: "The one who dies with the most toys, wins!"

Nowadays we measure our progress as a society by citing statistics like the Gross National Product. We are oriented to a consumerist way of life which involves a getting and spending mentality. According to Dr. John Cobb, Professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology, we in Europe and North America are now in the third epoch of the last thousand years of Western culture. The first epoch he calls the epoch of Christianism, in which most peoples' identity was tied up with being Christian, and many were willing to fight and die for Christianity, traveling many miles to foreign lands if necessary to engage in crusades to convert non-believers. Cobb says that after the religious wars of the Seventeenth Century between Protestants and Catholics, during which a third of central Europe's population was killed, Christians were less motivated to fight for religious turf, and they turned power over to political leaders. The church became less powerful than the state, and the age of Nationalism began.

People in the Nationalist epoch identified themselves primarily as citizens of a particular country, for which they would fight and die as people once would for Christianity. The extremes of Nationalism became evident during World War II. And after that horror, nations bound themselves together to form the United Nations and to establish the World Bank and the International Money Fund. This ushered in the third epoch-- the epoch of Economism.

Although religion and national identity are still important, Cobb says that the focus of our concern today is our own economic well-being. Our decisions as individuals, as communities and as nations are now based on economic considerations. Although there are some benefits to this era of Economism, when compared with the extremes of Christianism and Nationalism, Cobb sees Economism overall as a recipe for disaster on a world scale. Small, and once self-sufficient countries have become dependent on the world market, free trade agreements allow corporations to move their plants wherever they can do business the most cheaply, exploiting labor and polluting the environment.

Economism also fosters an extreme individualism. In earlier eras, people were more communal, sacrificing their own interests for their tribal, religious, ethnic or national community. Now we try to maximize our own individual economic advantage, and many seem to believe that pushing their own economic interests to the limit will somehow work to the benefit of everyone else as well. This doesn't usually happen, and the gap widens.

You could certainly argue with the details of Cobb's broad characterizations of the three eras, but it seems to me that he got it right with respect to what motivates people in the U.S. today, especially in corporate world. As with the Ferengi, profits are the bottom line, at the expense of any other considerations. How else can the behavior of executives of the tobacco companies be explained: hiding their own scientific studies because they showed a clear connection between smoking and lung cancer, boosting the levels of nicotine so that people stay hooked, pitching their ad campaigns toward teens, to insure a future market? You've all heard the horror stories.

In the business world, the bottom line counts above human qualities of compassion and our social nature. Some years ago, I came across a newspaper column by John T. Molloy author of the Dress for Success books, which offer advice on proper dressing for upwardly mobile executives. In his column, Molloy was responding to an inquiry from a young woman executive who complained that she, at only 4' 11', has trouble establishing her authority over those under her on the corporate ladder, even though she dresses conservatively, as Molloy advises. She wanted to know what else she can do. Here is Molloy's advice:

Don't smile too much. Don't solicit verbal input from subordinates; insist on a written report and then critique that...Impose upon the people who work for you...Snoop through your subordinates' papers. Make them wait when they show up for an appointment. In everything you do, send the message: "Me chief, you Indian." Finally, stay distant. Don't talk personally and avoid socializing.

This advice sounds pretty Ferengi-like to me. This is the kind of ruggedly individualistic, anti-communal thinking that allows us to feel disconnected from our fellow human beings, and from the planet which sustains us. But it's a fiction. We are not separate.

From my window in Berkeley, I can see a lovely mountain that sits here on your side of the bay--San Bruno Mountain. From a distance it looks like a large, bare green or brown hump in the landscape (its color depending on the season). I remember Isabel Strong mentioning hiking up there one spring. She remarked on the exquisite beauty of the wildflowers there. So one year I went up the mountain, and discovered that it is indeed beautiful. I learned that there are several species of plants growing on the mountain that have been found no where else. (This is often true in small areas over the globe, which is just one reason why the rapid leveling of rainforests the world over is so distressing; literally thousands of species which took millennia to develop are wiped out in a couple of weeks of cutting and burning).

I went to the Berkeley ecology center this past week, and there I picked up the newsletter of an organization calling itself San Bruno Mountain Watch, which was founded in the 1960s to help preserve the natural environment on and around the mountain. This issue contained this brief account by Paul Goerke, former Mayor of Brisbane, of the time, back in 1965, when the whole mountain was in danger:

During 1965 we had a visit from Warren Cramner from Citibank in NewYork, owned by the Rockefellers, and he told the council that they had a little plan to give San Bruno Mountain a haircut. They called it a "haircut." They were gonna take 50 feet, they said, off part of the mountain...So it turns out they had a little plan--the largest earthmoving job since the China Wall. The Great Wall of China, you know, you can photograph it from the moon, you can see it. And this was just going to be a little thing they were doing. Gonna give the mountain a haircut. It turns out they were gonna take the mountain down and it was gonna be a giant flat area up to the antennas--that little part up there, Radio Ridge, was gonna be left...The plan was to take down the mountain, by conveyor belt, over the freeway and over the Sierra Point dump. This is why saving the bay was important to saving the mountain, and vice versa--it all fits together. The barges were gonna come in there and take away all that earth and and fill up 10,000 acres of San Francisco Bay--from Burlingame all the way down to Redwood City--10,000 acres of the bay. And just think what this project's effect would have on the weather. The whole ecosystem of the Bay Area would be totally different. And what was left of the mountain they were gonna put 10,000 people on that. There would have been nothing left. And all the fog from Daly City would roll right on over..."

"It all fits together," says the account. Take down part of a mountain, even a small one, and you not only demolish natural beauty and irreplaceable species, but you fill up the space with yet more urban sprawl and you change the very weather patterns of the whole area. The demolition of the rainforests worldwide has a detrimental effect on world rainfall, and the global warming we 've all been hearing about will result in major changes in the earth's climate, reducing overall agricultural production at a time when the earth's population is increasing at an alarming rate. It all does fit together--a rock, a river, a tree. Organic and inorganic matter on earth and in the atmosphere form a complex interdependent web, and we are dangerously pulling out strands of the web., one by one, weakening the structure. It is all driven by economics--a mountain left alone, a rainforest uncut, these do not generate profits, the bottom line.

But the real bottom line for all of us is not the corporate bottom line, not profits. It's the environment. Ultimately, the fragility of the planet is a democratizing force--everyone has to breathe same polluted air, even the corporate officials who want to dump pollutants into a river or disassemble a mountain! Everyone has to live with the consequences of over development--urban blight, pollution and the tragic loss of species.

Within today's environmental crisis, there are some signs of hope. We are slowly realizing, in little communities here and there, and even on a world scale, that we are ultimately, physically interdependent. Deep interconnections are becoming more obvious. The can of hair spray manufactured with chloroflourocarbons that I used 20 years ago has contributed to the hole in the protective ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere, and that in turn jeopardizes my survival, making me more vulnerable skin cancer (especially those of us who are fair-skinned). This interconnectedness was acknowledged at the 1992 earth summit in Rio. During that summit, nations actually agreed to the reduction and eventual elimination of the manufacture of the chloroflourocarbons which have damaged the ozone layer. Such an accord on a world scale would have seemed impossible to reach a decade earlier.

Many local projects offer hope as well: Over thirty years ago, when citizens realized that by taking down San Bruno Mountain and filling up the bay shore with the soil, they would be losing a beautiful natural habitat and changing the bay's ecosystem, they worked together to stop this massive project. Thankfully, today I can see the mountain from my window, and we can walk its paths and enjoy its beauty, although efforts to preserve it continue, because there are still smaller scale projects to develop parts of the mountain. (There are ongoing efforts to protect a 5000-year-old Native American village on the mountain, the oldest and largest undestroyed Native American village site in bay area, as well as efforts to protect several rare species of manzanita. and some rare butterflies.) As the poet May Sarton has said: "Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world. In fact it is the only thing that ever has."

We humans have evolved over millions of years into unique, self-aware beings who can contemplate the meaning of existence, who are aware of our own mortality, who can love or hate, who can be filled with awe or apathy, who can make choices about how to behave toward others, and who are now beginning to understand how what we do to the delicate strands of the interdependent web can affect the whole. A great and complex chain of events led to us being here, and being what we are, in all our brutality and nobility. Who can say what role we humans may play in the future of the planet? Perhaps now, as small groups, as larger communities, and as nations, we will begin to reverse the trends, to save and protect what is left, and in the process, save ourselves. It is not too late!

Closing words: Excerpts from the poem by Maya Angelou which she wrote for President Clinton's Inauguration:

A Rock, A River, A Tree

Lift up your eyes

Upon this day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream...

Here, on the pulse of this fine day

You may have the courage

To look up and out and upon me.

The Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

Here on the pulse of this new day

You may have the grace to look up and out

And into your sister's eyes,

And into your brother's face,

Your country,

And say simply

Very simply

With hope--

Good Morning.

When Darkness Longs to Sing by Joy Atkinson

Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Mateo, February 18, 1996

Readings Before the Sermon:

You darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them! powers and people--

and it is possible a great energy is moving near me.

I have faith in nights. -Reiner Maria Rilke

To Cry With Another

The little girl was late coming home and explained to concerned parents that she ha encountered her friend who had broken her favorite doll on the sidewalk. “And you stopped to help her pick up the pieces” her father asked. “Oh no. I stopped and helped her cry.”

When we experience brokenness, we must cry. But it is not easy to stop and cry. At those times, we could use the help of a friend. Un small, sad snatches of time we sit with one another comforting the pain into tears. And in so doing, learn that the tears are healing waters

Let us not turn away from the pain we know. Let us not turn inward toward the pain we know. Let us not turn inward toward the pain with isolating fear. Lt us not sop up the tears in drowning pools. Rather, let yourself be one that can cry with another.

It will not be to end the pain, but to bring comfort within the pain. It will not be to repair the broken pieces, but to mourn them, to recognize their loss.

This will require of us the courage of our compassion and the conviction o our caring. To cry with another is to stand before the hurt and recognize it for what it is and to acknowledge its place within our being.

May we have the courage, the conviction and the capacity to cry with one another. -Elizabeth Strong

When Darkness Longs To Sing

There is a story from the Buddhist tradition that speaks to the issue of human suffering. In this tale, a distraught young mother brings her dead child to the Buddha, and pleads with him to restore her child to health. The Buddha says: "First, you must bring me a mustard seed from a home in which there has been no sorrow. So the woman goes to one household, and asks the family members if they have been visited by sorrow. "Oh yes," the householder replies. "Our father died last spring." The mother then goes to the next home, and asks: "Has there been sorrow in your home?" The reply was "Yes, our daughter has been afflicted with blindness." At the next home, the young mother discovers that an illness has stricken several family members, some of whom have died. And so it goes, from household to household. She could find no home that had not been visited by sorrow.

The point of the story is clear. No one completely escapes sorrow and suffering. It is woven into the very fabric of our existence. As one modern Buddhist I met put it "the reality is that life is a bumpy road"--a homey way of stating the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, that life is full of suffering.

That of course is only part of the picture. Life is also a glorious and wonderful gift. But sometimes we must dwell for a time in the dark side. Sometimes we lay awake at night, mulling over the things that worry and trouble us. Sometimes a tragedy strikes, and it invades our minds, our whole being, with pain that won't quit.

As the words of the hymn we just sang together say, sometimes, even when we are gathered with others to celebrate, there is a dark cloud that sits above our heads. We may feel depressed, or be grieving some loss, or worrying over finances or health issues or relationship troubles, or feeling pain because of the state of things in the world at large, or just in a gloomy mood, experiencing the angst of living described by existentialists--the feeling of boredom, meaninglessness and vacuousness that descends upon just about everyone at one time or another. At such times, it may not matter much that we are gathered to celebrate with others, or that a friend is around who offers support, or that a therapist is there to help. We just feel crummy, and that is that! (Although sometimes crummy loves company.)

The fact that we can be struck by tragedy and despair is part of what makes us human. We are self-aware beings, and this is a wonderful human characteristic, but our blessing is also in a sense our curse: we are also aware of our own mortality, and of the impermanence of those things we love and cherish. So we are subject to experience tragedy, sorrow and despair.

There are people who attempt to hide from the reality of pain and tragedy, who blindly expect their lives to be painless and smooth, for whom just a little bit of pain or disappointment came as a shock. For these delicate souls, who expect too much, the bumps of life when they inevitably come can be devastating. The poet John Chiardi spoke of these unfortunate folks in one of his poems:

At the next vacancy for God

(if I am elected)

I shall forgive last

the delicately wounded

Who, having been slugged

no harder

than anyone else,

Never got up again,

neither to fight back,

Nor to finger their jaws

in painful admiration.

The "delicately wounded" who expect life to be painless, may never recover from the shock of their first disappointment or sorrow.

At the other extreme there are those gloomy souls who expect and practically invite sorrow and darkness into their lives. They persistently engage in various Form of self-destructive behavior, or they may be so busy counting up and reciting their troubles that there is little room in their lives for experiencing the other reality of life--joy, love, beauty, pleasure. We have all known those for whom the glass is half empty, who expect to fail or be abused and bruised by life, and whose usual mode of communication is complaint.

Most of us live somewhere in the middle of this continuum- aware that there will be some bumps, but not consumed with focusing on and expecting calamities or troubles. Still, when the bumps and potholes come, when someone close to us dies, when tragedy strikes, when an unexpected malaise descends, it can take us by surprise, and for a time, it can knock the stuffing out of us.

One hard lesson in dealing with the dark times is that sometimes it is necessary to just stay there in the dark for a while. When there is no magic cure for the uncomfortable feelings of dwelling on the dark side, when there is no way out of the soul's night journey, then the only way around it is to go through it.

A dear friend of mine, a very bouncy and cheerful soul, discovered last September that she has a somewhat advanced cancer. This longtime friend is five years younger than I, and she has two young children. To be stricken with a life-threatening illness at this time in her life was like being struck down by a bolt of lightening. For the past several months, she has been undergoing the agony of surgery and chemotherapy, and several complications have arisen in the course of her treatment. Many times, when I speak with her, she is upbeat and positive, and tells me of how she keeps the doctors and nurses entertained with her humor. But there are of course other times when she feels down and anxious about her uncertain future, and angry at having to endure all this, and make all these dizzying medical choices.

I recently asked my friend what she has learned as a result of her illness, and she was thoughtful and eloquent in her response. She said, for one thing, that her ordeal has put her in touch with the stillness inside her, a kind of peace resting at the center of her being. She is an emphatically non-religious person, yet this answer struck me, and her, as deeply spiritual. She also said that she has learned about the healing power of love, which she said sounds trite but is undeniably true. The many people around her who have expressed their love in a variety of ways has inspired her and helped to give her strength. She has also learned about empowerment--that she can take the reins in her life and in her medical care, that she doesn't have to be a passive recipient. Her illness has given her a chance to learn some things about Chinese medicine, which she has always been interested in, and she has pursued both conventional western and alternative treatments. Finally, she has learned what her true priorities in life are--what is, deep down, most important to her, and what is just superficial and trivial--the small stuff.

I would say that the darkness that has come into my friend's life has been a good teacher, bringing many unexpected gifts, although she of course would not want to learn these lessons and receive these gifts in this drastic way, if she had a choice. But she has made creative use of her pain.

I'm sure most of us have known people who, like my friend, have made good use of their misfortunes--people like Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman, who recently fell from a horse and became a quadriplegic. Stories about him tell of his remarkable positive spirit, after this tragedy, and his advocacy for the disabled. People like Candy Lightener, who lost her daughter to a drunk driver, and out of this tragedy founded "Mothers Against Drunk Drivers." People like Dr. Victor Frankl, who, during his time in a Nazi concentration camp, discovered that those who survived were more likely to have kept a sense of meaning in their lives, despite the depravity of their situation. Frankl later developed a whole system of psychotherapy out of his death camp experience--Logotherapy or Meaning therapy. People like Norman Cousins, who, when he was diagnosed as terminal, began to surround himself with the positive and hopeful, especially in the form of humor. He literally laughed himself back to health, wrote about his experience and became an expert on what he called "the biology of hope." Helen Keller, no stranger to pain herself, once said: "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but we often look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." The people I mentioned, Christopher Reeve, Candy Lightener, Victor Frankl, Norman Cousins, and my friend, all stopped staring at the closed door, and instead looked for one that was open.

A descent into the darkness does not automatically lead to learning and growth. It can also leave a person beaten, discouraged and embittered. Some people learn from their experiences of suffering and tragedy, others never recover from them. But, if we allow it to, an episode of darkness can teach us, can reveal to us its lessons, its own kind of terrible beauty. It can help to shape and deepen out character. It can make us more sensitive to the pain of others, and therefore more compassionate. It can even completely transform our lives. The poet Theodore Roethke put it simply and well when he said "In the dark times, the eyes begin to see." But we have to be open to what there is to learn, and willing to stay with the darkness rather than try to escape it by jumping into alcohol, drugs, other relationships, other distractions, looking for quick fixes.

When I was going through a rough patch myself some years ago, dealing with a relationship problem, one of the lessons I learned was patience. I wanted the pain and confusion to go away right now! A caring therapist suggested that I needed to live in what we were calling "limbo land" for a while, accepting the fact that I couldn't know or necessarily control the outcome of things. So I stopped trying to force solutions on the situation, and lived in the dark tunnel for a while, allowing myself to feel the uncomfortable feelings rather than trying to short-circuit them. It was no picnic, as I'm sure many of you know from your own experiences. But it was necessary, and it was valuable. As Joshua Loth Liebman wrote:

We should learn not to grow impatient with the slow healing process of time, We should discipline ourselves to recognize that there are many steps to be taken along the highway leading from sorrow to renewed serenity....We should anticipate these stages in our emotional convalescence: unbearable pain, poignant grief, empty days, resistance to consolation, disinterestedness in life, gradually giving way...to the new weaving of a pattern of action and the acceptance of the irresistible challenge of life.

As I dwelt in the land of darkness, in "limbo land," an amazing thing happened. The very darkness that I was so afraid of began to sing. It taught me that there is within me a solid core of strength, a spark of vitality that can assert itself even in the midst of pain, and I believe that this core exists in most if not all people. I've seen it emerge in peoples' lives even when the impact of tragedy and pain is so great that it seems unbearable. You don't necessarily get in touch with this core of strength until you are faced with pain. But it is there, and it is remarkable.

As the philosopher Albert Camus once put it: "In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there is within me an invincible summer." Just as our rainy California winter is giving way to spring and summer, and the once tight little buds are beginning to unfold, so the winter season in our souls, the darkness, opens out into the spring of personal renewal and the light of hope, if we give it time. And while we dwell in the land of darkness, we need to keep our hearts open and our ears clear, and listen, listen hard in the dark, in the stillness, for the faint sound of singing.

GROWING IN SPIRIT Delivered by Joy Atkinson at Mission Peak Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Association Sunday - October 12, 2008 

Reading The sources of our inspiration, from the Bylaws of the Unitarian Universalist Association:

The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;

Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;

Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;

Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.

Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual trust and support.

Sermon: Growing In Spirit

In a sermon I gave here a couple of weeks ago, I quoted the Rev, William Sloan Coffin, the late Presbyterian minister and well-known peace activist, who characterized us Unitarian Universalists by saying that we are thick on ethics, an aspect of us he certainly admired, but we're a bit thin on theology.

It is true that in the larger world, we are known for being committed social activists, working in various visible ways for justice, peace and equality. And we are sometimes also known out there as those rationalistic folks who have given up on religion or theological study and reflection, but who just can't seem to break the habit of going to church. As one old wag put it: "Unitarian Universalism is a methadone program for people coming down off religion."

Our radical freedom as a religious movement, our well-known "creedlessness," confuses some people. You may have had this experience when trying to explain our faith to someone outside of it. People sometimes conclude that because we have no creed that holds us together, we believe in nothing, or that beliefs are just not that important to us.

On the contrary, one could say that personal beliefs are so important to each of us that we don't want any institution to decide for us what is true - not even our own. Among us, there is a great array of beliefs and spiritual paths. Historically, our religious forebears have been very thoughtful about theology. In fact, the very words of our denomination - Unitarian and Universalist - originally referred to two specific and well-considered theological positions: Unitarian referring to those during the Protestant Reformation who rejected the traditional Christian doctrine of the trinity in favor of a unified concept of God - God as one being without the three distinct "persons" of father, son and holy spirit, and Universalist being a word used to describe another so-called religious heresy - the perhaps even more radical belief that all people, even the most depraved and immoral of sinners, will ultimately be saved by a supremely loving God. As the early Universalists would say of their theology, they believed that even the last, worst sinner would be dragged, kicking and cursing, into heaven.

As our two religious traditions continued to evolve, separately and together, they both adopted a free and open approach - one that did not require subscription to any creed or belief - not even the ones they began with. In the 20th century, a wave of secular humanism swept through intellectual circles in America and deeply affected Unitarianism and Universalism, and for some in our fold this meant moving away from theological speculation, and rejecting notions of God, spirit or soul, belief of an afterlife and the like. But we sometimes forget that even the humanism that swept through Unitarian Universalism in the last century and is still held to by many Unitarian Universalists - this humanism is a theological stance, a belief system, often well thought out by those who subscribe to this world-view. Personally, I find the theological diversity among us - the fact that on Sunday mornings our seats are filled with humanists, theists, liberal Christians and Jews, those who practice Zen Buddhism or a Hindu form of meditation, who celebrate pagan festivals or study the Tao Te Ching - I find this diversity enriching and exciting. This is what the "sources" statement from the Unitarian Universalist Association's bylaws, that Cat and I read earlier, is about. As Unitarian Universalists we are each free to draw upon many and varied sources, both sacred and secular, for our inspiration.

I would like to recount, briefly, the story of the adoption of this sources statement, along with the adoption of our Seven Principles. I remember it as if it were yesterday, although this process began over 25 years ago. It began in the late 1970s, when a group of UU feminists looked over the old principles statement, which was crafted around 1961 during the merger of the Universalist Church of America with the American Unitarian Association. These women looking over the bylaws statement found that it still contained sexist language and what they felt were sexist assumptions, even though there had been some changes voted in by delegates at an earlier General Assembly. The changes had updated archaic language, such as changing words like "mankind" to the more inclusive "humankind." The women's objections to some of the still-intact language eventually led to a five-year process that set about the task of completely revising the statement.

There were many discussions about a new purposes and principles statement in congregations, at district meetings, among ministers and other religious leaders, and at General Assemblies. A flurry of sermons issued forth and position papers were passed around at conferences. For a time, the discussions about what should or shouldn't be included in such a statement defining who we are became somewhat heated. Some of the UU Christians expressed concern that if the bylaws contained no reference to the God of the Jewish and Christian traditions, they would not feel themselves to be included. Some of them even hinted that the Christian wing of our movement night be better off leaving the UUA to form its own denomination. Some with a Jewish background had objected to the original wording, which referred to the "Judeo-Christian" God, saying that the traditional Jewish God is not the same as the Christians' conception, and therefore it misrepresents Judaism and shouldn't be in the new statement. Some humanists were concerned that keeping a reference to God in the statement excluded their perspective, some feminists worried that reference to a traditional God was too patriarchal, and so on. Finally, after hearing from so many points of view, a committee crafted the present wording of the "sources" section, along with the present wording of the "principles" section. The genius of this wording about the sources of our inspiration, as I see it, is that it came out as a descriptive, not a prescriptive, statement of the many sources that inspire us, and it was very inclusive, although later another source was added: the sixth one, concerning earth-based traditions.

The upshot of all the years of give and take and all the revisions was that at the General Assembly in 1984, the statement was passed as presented, and then in 1985, it was officially adopted by the General Assembly delegates. I remember that General Assembly in 1985, when the time for the final vote on the current statement came. After so much debate and concern about who would be left in or out, the vote of the thousands of Unitarian Universalists present was unanimous! Many of us present leapt to our feet and participated in a long standing ovation. We were relieved. A process that could have led to a schism among us turned into one that in the end united us in our diverse theologies!

But we Unitarian Universalists are a restless lot after all. As mandated in our bylaws, we are now looking again at the section of the bylaws containing our principles and sources. The UUA's Commission of Appraisal has a proposed revised statement available online until October 16th to collect opinions about this new revision.

What our current sources statement says - and I personally hope that whatever new statement we come up with preserves the expansiveness of the existing one - is that we Unitarian Universalists clearly do not believe in nothing. On the contrary, we believe, in a sense, in everything - that is, all sources of wisdom from many cultures and times, have something to teach us.

So we don't believe in nothing. But I would say that there is something to the milder charge that collectively, we Unitarian Universalists have been, as the Rev. William Sloan Coffin said, a bit thin on theology. Many of us have become, you might say, "spiritually lazy," unreflective about our theology. We may take for granted our religious eclecticism, without really going deeply into any of the traditions or sources we say we derive inspiration from. And we especially neglect to take the time to plumb the depths of our own personal religious lives, or to pursue a religious or spiritual discipline. We are, all of us, ministers and laity alike, very busy conducting our lives, working in the world on issues of social justice, and keeping our UU institutions alive and thriving. But because we spend relatively little time on our theologies, we are subject to the charge of sometimes being "a mile wide and an inch deep."

Many people, including us sometimes, carry around the assumption that basically all religions at their core are saying the same thing, although with different cultural clothing placed upon these supposed universal truths (the "many paths to one mountaintop" idea). There certainly are some important points of resonance among the major religious traditions, such as the Golden Rule that we heard in the children's story and the choir's song today. But it is too facile, too simplistic and reductionistic to say that all religions are, at bottom, one. They are not - not when you look more closely. And the differences can be as interesting, and as important, as the similarities.

Years ago, UU minister the Rev. Christopher Raible lampooned our tendency to make this easy, unreflective assumption, in a fractured hymn to the tune of our Forward Through the Ages, the words of which are in turn set to the tune of the old traditional hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers. I simply can't resist singing you one verse and the chorus of this fractured hymn:

Forward through the pages, never read a line;

Honor all the scriptures, think them all just fine.

Books of differing sizes, spread across our shelves;

We will never study them, we think for ourselves.

Chorus:

Forward through the pages,

Never read a line;

Honor all the scriptures,

Think them all just fine.

The comparative religions scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith says that we live in a world of cultural and religious pluralism, and what we need to do is to accept the diversity and live in creative tension with it, learning and growing as our understanding of other faiths deepens, sharpening and refining our own ideas by bringing them into dialogue with different ideas and beliefs. The world of religions is more like a rich, spicy stew than a mushy melting pot, so that when people of different viewpoints reach out across those differences, their dialogues with one another can be all the more meaningful because they are conducted in the context of real diversity. That is the hope of a religiously pluralistic world, and it requires of all of us that we understand, more than superficially, what other religious perspectives are about, as well as what we personally believe and how it both resonates with, and diverges from, those of other beliefs. We especially, we Unitarian Universalists who claim that we are inspired by and draw from the great wealth of the world's religious, philosophical and cultural traditions, we are in a unique position to affirm human unity beneath the colorful and rich religious diversity of humankind. This is what we, at our best, have been doing, at least among ourselves, for centuries. But truly understanding other traditions takes effort, openness, and a willing to learn, and to deepen both our theological knowledge and our religious self-understanding.

This year's appeal for funds on this Association Sunday is one effort to help us "thicken up" our theology, deepen our thoughts and understanding about things of the spirit. Last year's appeal, on the first Association Sunday, was aimed largely at outreach - letting people know who we are. This year's is for theological education - for our seminary students, for our lay members, and for the continuing education of our ministers. I believe that this effort to deepen our theology will greatly enrich our free faith. Please be as generous as you can. There is an insert and envelope in the Order of Service for you to use to make your contribution today.

As for our legendary eclecticism, I for one am an unapologetic eclectic myself. I do have a particular theological stance and worldview, as we all do, but I find much resonance for my personal theology within many other traditions of the world, and I derive much that nurtures my mind, spirit and psyche when I study and learn more about other traditions - their resonating similarities AND their fascinating differences.

When I was the minister in San Mateo, I proposed a sermon series, and called it "The You in UU." In this series, I asked people to volunteer to share the pulpit with me, to speak from their individual faith perspectives, while I supplied the context - how these traditions fit historically into Unitarian Universalism. I had several takers for that series, who spoke from various points of view - liberal Christian, Jewish, pagan, existentialist, agnostic. When it came around to offering my own perspective, I titled my sermon "Reflections of a Mystical, Humanistically-Inclined Agnostic Theist with Pagan Tendencies and a Love for Jesus."

What about you? What would you title a talk about your own beliefs or spirituality? What is the you in your UU? Where do you find yourself on the theological spectrum? If you would like a chance to share the pulpit with me some Sunday to speak about your own beliefs, let me know.

I close my remarks this morning with another little UU joke: A Unitarian Universalist died, and to his surprise discovered that there was indeed an afterlife. The angel in charge of these things told him, "Because you were an unbeliever and a doubter and a skeptic, you will be sent to Hell for all eternity - which, in your case, consists of a place where no one will disagree with you ever again!

Benediction: by Timothy Ferris, Astronomer

"Hell would be a small universe that we could explore thoroughly and fully comprehend."

From Mozart to Motown, Bach to Blues by Joy Atkinson Delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Marin, March 14, 2004

Plato once said” Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul…giving soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaity and life to everything.” In the article in the Unitarian Universalist World that Jerene and I read from as our call to worship, Tom Stites speaks of Jazz as a metaphor for Unitarian Universalism, because it is democratic, inclusive and relies on improvisation. As Stites says, “Playing in a jazz group involves both responsibility and freedom; freedom consists of understanding your responsibility well enough to act independently and still make the needed contribution to the group. As such, a jazz performance is a working model of democracy.” Martha Meyer, music director of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Bridgeport in Stratford, Connecticut, “In a jazz ensemble,” she says, “there is a Unitarian [Universalist] freedom of spirit, a willingness to enter into new territory.”

Today, we entered new territory in offering this jazz service, focusing on music in general, and jazz and its derivatives in particular. I want to especially thank our musicians: Lorraine, Scott, Jerry, Larry, and Hal, and our Director of Music Phil and the choir for putting this special service together.

I’d like to engage you all in a little thought experiment: I’m going to ask you to play some music right now, in your head. Think of something you like—anything from Mozart to Motown, Bach to the blues, Beethovan to the Beatles, Shostakovich to Sinatra, Cole to Coltraine. Play half a minute of a favorite piece of music in your head.

Can you hear it? Clearly, we carry music around with us. It gets deep inside of us, delights us, moves us, stirs both our souls and our bodies, sometimes even irritates us, like that song or commercial jingle you can't get out of your head. Advertisers certainly understand the power of music.

Cultures the world over have known the power of music: the power to motivate, to keep up morale, the power to inspire, the power to heal, even the power to create the world. In Greek mythology, the muses, from whom we get the word music, are goddesses who invent the seven tone musical scale—the scale which was seen as a reflection of the music of the celestial spheres. So, to the ancient Greeks, the very structure of the universe is music, and those who imitate the celestial music by playing a lyre are said to have entered the sacred realm. In Hopi mythology, the world was born when Spider Woman molded two creatures out of earth and sang a creation song over them. In African mythology, the world comes into being with the beating of a drum. Ethiopian folklore speaks of the early times when the first humans sang rather than spoke, although humans eventually forgot the melodies and we now have to use ordinary speech. In India, the universe is built upon the primal chant, "OM.” All existence, all that happens, depends on that sound.

Music has the power to heal. In Hindu mythology, the gods gave mortals music to alleviate human suffering. In the Hebrew scriptures, David cures King Saul by playing his harp. In ancient Egypt and Greece, priests and priestesses chanted over the sick. Among Native Americans, shamans sing songs, beat drums and shake rattles to heal the sick. Many of us instinctively turn to music for therapy—to relieve pain, or sometimes to allow ourselves to feel more deeply—to experience grief, pain, love and joy more fully. We may sing when we're afraid, when we’re feeling blue, even when we’re angry. Once, when I needed healing, I went to a seminar at Esalen Institute, titled "singing Gestalt." We sang our hearts out—not to sound good, just to get all those feeling out. It was a powerful experience.

Throughout the centuries, songs arose from the world's wars, from tragedies, economic depressions, from ghettos and concentration camps, out of poverty and plenitude alike. Rabbi Sydney Greenberg has said, “A people that lives, sings; a people that sings, lives.” Out of the deep suffering of blacks under the yoke of slavery there arose a type of song, a type of music which in turn gave rise to new musical forms, jazz and blues, gospel and soul, the Motown sound, even rock and roll. In today's jazz service, we offer you some of the fruits, the descendants, of the American black musical experience. Many of us here today have been deeply appreciative of this distinctive type of music. Personally, although jazz itself has never been a musical focus for me, some of its next of kin, especially blues, rock, soul, gospel and Motown, speak to me a way that nothing else can.

Music is in our bodies, in the pulsing in our hearts. It is in the rhythm and songs of the natural world. Music is a primary experience, an experience of depth beyond words and concepts; music reaches down deep, dropping a plumb-line into our very being, creating a connecting link between our finite selves and the eternal. Music sacralizes existence. Theologian Gerardus Van Der Leeuw said, "Music creates heaven on earth; [It] is at root a mimicry of heaven." To me, Mozart is the sound of God humming. I can be so transfixed by a Mozart symphony or concerto that I lose myself; I melt into the timeless moment created by the music until there is no me any more -- there is just the music. Perhaps you have experienced this self-transcendence through music as well. I can also be spiritually moved, though in a different way, by the deep, soulful, gospel-like song Aretha Franklin, calling out for little R-E-S-P-E-C-T. And I can likewise be lifted onto a higher at wider vision of justice and equality than mere words can produce when I sing with a community of like-minded folks, as we do here each Sunday, singing songs of freedom and yeaning, love and celebration. There is something in the music itself, not just in the words, that brings people together, that unites people in a common quest.

Kahlil Grbran, the Persian mystic known as The Prophet, has written this little incantation to music, and I close my words with it: O music, In your depths w deposit our hearts and souls Thou hast taught us to see with our ears And hear with our heart.

The Gifts of Christmas by Rev. Joy Atkinson

Delivered at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, December, 23, 2007

Reading before the sermon

The Singing of Angels by Howard Thurman

There must be always remaining in every [one's] life some place for the singing of angels -- some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and by an inherent prerogative, throwing all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness -- something that gathers up in itself all the freshets of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright light of penetrating beauty and meaning -- then passes. The commonplace is shot through with new glory -- old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.

The Gifts of Christmas

Although it has its dark side, Christmas is a bright and joyful holiday. Christmas comes bearing gifts, if we are but open to them.

As the Christmas story goes, the Magi—the wise men from the East—came bearing gifts. They were Zoroastrian priests, scholars believe. These kings, as they were called, knelt down on straw before a dirt-poor child in a humble animal stable. They knelt with rich and luxurious gifts in hand—gold, frankincense and myrrh. William Carlos Williams, in the poem that I read for this morning’s meditation, The Gift, wonders about this: “What could a baby know/ of gold ornaments/ or frankincense and myrrh/ of priestly robes/ and devout genuflections?...The rich gifts/ so unsuitable for a child/ though devoutly proffered,/ stood for all that love could bring.” A comedienne I heard recently put it a little more practically: “Here come these three wise men to Jesus' baby shower,” she said, “and what do they bring? Gold, frankincense and MYRRH? What is myrrh? Mary was polite, of course: ‘Oh, myrrh. How nice. One can never have too much…uh, myrrh.’"

What are the gifts of Christmas? Not the ones that come wrapped in bright packages, but the gifts of the heart?

One of these gifts is the gift of peaceful silence. This may seem paradoxical. It's become almost a cliché to say that we're all too busy rushing around at this time of the year, that there is no peace, and with crowds and muzac carols blaring throughout the stores and malls, there is precious little silence. But there are quiet, gracious moments that come to us unbidden at this time of the year. In late afternoon or evening, when it's dark and chilly out, and we experience a special coziness indoors, in front of a fire, or we stand in silence enjoying the tree we have just decorated, or the candles we have kindled. There is the sacred quiet of late Christmas Eve, when the shoppers have gone home and the air is crisp and still, or the quiet in community during a Christmas Eve candlelight service, when the candlelight is passed from person to person, and we momentarily catch the glow from the faces of our friends as the light is passed. It is a silent night, a holy night, which we share with friends and family.

A peaceful silence is one of the gifts of Christmas.

Another gift is the recovery of a delightful and renewing childlikeness. Whether we have children or not, something childlike in ourselves comes out to play, or at least tries to, at Christmas time. A child's excitement in anticipation of Christmas day recalls for many of us our own childhood experiences of anticipation and delight, before the adult world-weariness we carry about set in. We need the chance, periodically, to be able to see the world once again through the eyes of a child, to perhaps enjoy our children or grandchildren's delight, and to remember and cherish the child who still lives inside us.

Christmas brings the gift of blessed childlikeness to each of us.

The central mythic event of Christmas is the story of the birth of Jesus, a redeemer, a bringer of light and hope. The story offers us a spiritual gift, in reminding us of the ever-present possibility of re-birth in our aging selves. Jesus' birth is our birth. Through the remembering and the re-telling of this ancient story each year, we can become open to our own inner rebirth. Christmas also may kindle a desire within us to become a little more like Jesus, a little more like the Buddha, or like Mother Theresa or Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King-- that is, healers, envisioners of hope, redeemers, in our own small way, to a tired and needy world.

The Christmas story brings the gift of rebirth and the renewal of hope.

Christmas also brings a softening, an opening of the heart and hand. Our furrowed brows give way to the softness of a smile. It's perhaps harder to hate at this time of year, and it's easier to give. This is a time when our natural generosity flowers. However much we may complain that Christmas has become too commercial, we can take consolation from the fact that even behind the commercialism there stands the human impulse to generosity. We love to give gifts, and at this time of year we are reminded to be as charitable as we can, not just to those we know and love, but to the many who are in need.

Christmas brings the gift of the opening of hearts and hands; it brings the opportunity to express love and generosity.

In addition to the gifts of peaceful silence, childlikeness, a mythic story of hope and rebirth, and the opening of our hearts and hands, Christmas presents a multiplicity of gifts to our senses: the scent of pine and goodies baking, the sight of twinkling decorations and colored lights, the warmth of a Yuletide fire and friendly hugs, the sound of familiar carols and old stories retold. Many gifts, with no need for a box.

Yes, Christmas does come thundering along much too soon to the department stores, driven by the profit motive, appearing on the shelves nowadays even before the Halloween stuff is gone. And yes, Christmas does bring with it a mixture of feelings, some of them even sad or uncomfortable, perhaps. But Christmas also comes bearing the gifts of the human spirit, if we are open to receiving them. When the Magi come to the stable of your rebirth, when they come bearing gifts for you, will you be ready to receive them? Will you open your heart to their gifts? What do you think will be inside?

BENEDICTION

For Christmas, I wish for you:

a hug, a song, a candle, the scent of pine,

a flurry of cards and messages,
the taste of something sweet,

and a gift, one given, one received

both wrapped in the brightness of love.

Columns

Interim Minister’s Column Words of Joy “When To Call the Minister”

Column for UU Church of the Monterey Peninsula, September 2007

As I explained during my first service on August 20^th, I am here for the next ten months to accomplish with you some interim tasks and to help you navigate the transition to a new settled minister. But I do want you to know that I am also here to carry out the usual duties of a parish minister, which includes responding to a variety of expressed needs. For instance, you can call on me when:

--You are experiencing a crisis or emergency

--You are considering joining the church, or resigning from it

--You would like to explore issues in your personal life

--You would like help in planning a ceremony, such as a child dedication, wedding, memorial service, house blessing, etc.

--You or someone you know is in the hospital, in a convalescent home or in prison, and could use a visit.

--You would like to discuss some aspect of church life

--You have an idea for a Sunday service

--You would like to explore further an idea or subject area that you heard in a sermon

--You would like to discuss your personal spiritual journey

--You simply want us to get better acquainted

--You heard a great joke that you’d like to pass along!

And, if you can’t decide whether or not it is appropriate to call me, CALL ME! I wish to be as available to you as I can be.

My regular office hours will be Tuesdays from 1-5PM, Wednesdays from 1-5PM and Thursdays from 10AM to 2PM. However, I will be in the office at other times as well, and you can always call to make an appointment at some other mutually convenient time.

I will soon be changing my cell phone number to a local exchange. I will post that number as soon as I have it. Please feel free to call it as well if you need to get in touch with me.

I am looking forward to a productive, and enjoyable, interim year among you!

Joy

Words of Joy Season of Laughter

Column for the Unitaian Society of Santa Barbara, April 2008

I refuse to be intimidated by reality anymore. After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin' but a collective hunch. My space chums think reality was once a primitive method of crowd control. I made some studies, and reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it. I can take it in small doses, but as a lifestyle I find it too confining.

--Trudy the Bag Lady, played by Lily Tomlin in The Search For Intelligent Life in the Universe, by Jane Wagner

How often has someone really had you going on some disturbing piece of news, only to end it with a shout of “April Fool’s!” April Fool's Day is a day dedicated to humor, usually in the form of these little pranks. Its specific origins go back to the initial confusion among French peasants when, in 1582, the Pope changed the calendar year. Up until then, the New Year was April 1^st, a few days after the Spring Equinox. The Pope changed it to January 1^st, a few days after the Winter Solstice. But that first year, in the absence of mass media, some peasants hadn't heard of the change, so they continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1st. Those who did so were the target of pranks, and were called April fools, or April fish, poisson d'Avril, after the young fish that appear in France in early April—fish that are easily caught.

The custom of tricks on April 1st spread to the British Isles, where people were sent to buy left-handed hammers (I could use one of those!) or pints of pigeon's milk, and the tradition was brought here by British settlers. Today we still are subject to, or plotters of, little loving acts of deceit.

With April Fool's Day, we enter a month whose name may come from the Latin "aperire," to open. Whether or not that is its etymology, April is a month of opening up: buds and bulbs tightly closed against winter burst open to reveal their color and scent, and the earth “laughs in flowers,” as St. Ralph Waldo Emerson so aptly put it. This month, we can finally throw open our doors and windows to let in the warmed air. Our very lives seem to open up toward spring, and we have a hard time sitting still at our indoor desks. May we all be touched with the comic festival that is spring, and may each of you fully enjoy the season of playfulness, and at least at times, may you abandon all reason and the heaviness of too much reality, and become a frolicking April Fool.

Interim Minister’s Column Words of Joy

Column for UU Community of the Mountains, April 2006

Much is happening this spring at UUCM. The annual canvass takes place on Saturday night, April 22, with a festive dinner prepared by the van der Veens, as well as entertainment and a little information about the budget this fine congregation’s leadership hopes to fund with your generous pledges, which will be solicited that night. This is a not-to-be-missed event!

And then, at the end of this month, on April 30^th, comes the moment you have been waiting for—the presentation by the Ministerial Search Committee the ministerial candidate. The minister will speak on April 30^th and May 7^th, and be available during the intervening week to meet with groups and committees. Following the second service that the candidate gives, a congregational meeting will convene to discuss and vote on whether or not to call the candidate as your first settled minister.

This process of calling a minister is a vital and participatory one in the life of a UU congregation. Unlike some other religious traditions, Unitarian Universalism operates through congregational polity. Only the congregation has the power to call and to ordain ministers; ministers are not ordained by or appointed to congregations via the authority of a denominational body. The congregation is the authorized body. So it is especially important for all voting members to participate in this process—to listen to and meet the candidate, to be part of the discussion at the congregational meeting, and to vote. This is a very exciting time in the life of a UU congregation!

By the way, an interim minister’s role in the ministerial candidating process is very clear; I will make myself scarce! I will not be available during candidating week, except in the case of an emergency. I will also be out of town from April 17 through April 20^th, attending the annual interim seminar, where we interim ministers will learn about the opportunities for service to other congregations in transition for the next church year.

Spring is a time for new beginnings, and this spring in particular, a new era is dawning at the Unitarian Universalist Community of the Mountains. May this season, so welcome after a cold and snowy winter, also bring freshness and renewal to the ongoing journey that is your life! Joy

Words of Joy

Column for UU Congregation of Marin, January, 2004

Six people were ceremonially welcomed into membership at UUCM during our 11:00 service this past Sunday, January 18th. They come with their unique gifts and talents, and their joining enriches us all. Membership in a Unitarian Universalist congregation is a choice, a conscious commitment to become part of the collective journey of faith that we Unitarian Universalists are embarked upon. It is not a journey to one specific destination, but a multifaceted path with fellow travelers, that is a joyous end in itself—the journey is the destination.

We Unitarian Universalists uphold individual freedom of religious belief, and yet we form a community. This sometimes perplexes those outside the fold: “How can you be a religion, a faith community,” they may ask, “when you all believe different things?” But we would not have it any other way; we have affirmed and celebrated our religious diversity throughout our long history.

I have heard that over 80% of the residents of Marin County are “unchurched”—many are spiritual individualists with no desire to be part of a religious community. But perhaps some of them would be pleasantly surprised to learn that there is a religious community which does not require of them uniformity of belief, or does not assume a shared basis of faith. Maybe you know some of these religious individualists. If you do, you might consider inviting them to UUCM some Sunday. Over the years, I’ve heard many of our newer Unitarian Universalists come to our doors asking, “Where have you been all my life?” Such folks would have benefited from a community like ours much sooner in their lives, if they had only known about us. Let’s not be such a well-kept secret!

As the 19^th century philosopher William James said, “Without the spark of the individual, the community stagnates; without the support of the community, the individual withers.” When we welcome new members to UUCM, we are adding the spark of their individuality and uniqueness to our special community, and we are in turn offering them the gift of our support as they join the journey with us. If you have been considering becoming a member, please speak with me or with a member of our membership committee. We would be very pleased to welcome you. Fondly, Joy

Animal Blessing service Grass Valley, California

Coming of Age Ceremony, Tucson, Arizona

Rev. Joy Atkinson

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Rev. Joy Atkinson's packet