Archive for category: Minister Message

Free Exercise

Many of us grow up hearing about the separation of church and state in the United States. And the idea seems relatively simple. Religion or religious bodies and the civil government should not be too intertwined. That’s the idea. But that idea, the separation of church and state, is really more of a paraphrase of some language by Thomas Jefferson. The real language keeping these two powerful forces apart comes from the First Amendment and the prohibitions against congress’s “establishment” of a religion or the prohibiting the “free exercise” of religion.

Now anyone who’s ever watched a courtroom drama or seen some law and order knows that there is a difference between the letter and the spirit of the law. There is just no way that a few letters, a few clauses, in an amendment to the Constitution could cover all of the scenarios it’s meant to cover. And so over centuries, capitals, schools, streets, parks, and a lot of other places have become places where the spirit of this part of the nation’s laws have been present. And in this area, history is as full as the local news with examples of how the spirit of the law is at work.

There is the famous case of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or known to its insiders lovingly as Pastafarianism.[1] This fun group and its members take small steps to exercise their religious freedom by doing things like wearing pasta strainers on their head in official government photos. But the kindness of their underlying reason for taking this act is to set precedents for all person of faith to be able freely to exercise their faith in ways that a state might try to intervene, most notably with headwear.

I know that yesterday I longed to be as separate from the state as I could be. Personally, I had no interest in speeches, counter-speeches or much else. I took some free exercise in a run around Diamond Head with a friend who just arrived back from working on a cheetah rescue and rehabilitation site in South Africa. We sat after the run in the cool grass, flicking the flies away. And one thing he mentioned after returning home was noticing here how much a one-time spirit of conversation and discourse among even his close friends has morphed recently into what are received as accusations of judgment and ensuing attack/counterattack.

When I think of my life, the liberties I so heartily love, and the happiness i doggedly pursue, more and more I am convinced that these have much less to do with the letter of any ideals I hold than they do the spirit in which I practice those ideals. Some use the letter of the law so they can wear strainers on their heads to protect those who might wear a hijab. Others follow the spirit of a faith all their own to heal the world’s fastest land animal. But however dissimilar these approaches seem, both are merely different voices in the unending, undying, uniting conversation of love.

And may it always be so.

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

[1] https://www.venganza.org/about/. It’s worth noting that as a church CFSM has made more than four million dollars in microloans throughout the world…so they’re pretty cool for other reasons, too.

I Got It

A friend of mine described himself once as someone who likes to be alone in a crowd. I remember where I was sitting when I heard that. And I remembered the crossword puzzles I’d worked on at tables for one in busy brunching bars. I remembered the books I’d read on benches in a park where so many clicked their Rollerblades across the brickwork and where bats cracked fly balls to the outfield for a weekend warrior softball player to nestle beneath and yell “I got it!” Yeah, being alone in a crowd was something I knew well.

So when I arrived last night into a crowd of neon green shirts emblazoned with #everybodycounts, all seeming like they knew one another, me seeming like I didn’t know anyone except the person who brought me, I had an old familiar feeling. I listened to the leader explain the importance of interviewing people experiencing houselessness. I began to understand how an evening walking the streets and speaking with people who live outdoors on his island might help the most vulnerable among us receive much needed aid and support. I got it.

The leader divided the obnoxiously green-clad crowd into geographic regions. And the plan was to cover every stretch of road, park, alley, parking lot, or other space in that region to complete the annual Point in Time count for the Office of Housing and Urban Development. The group my friend and I joined was made up of co-workers at a transitional housing service provider. So throughout the night this crowd made up of folks who all knew one another referred to us as “those two” or “you guys.” It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling.

Confidentiality and my own sense of the sacred prevent me from sharing here any personal details about the individuals I spoke with. But when we spoke with someone, we used one of two different colored sheets to record answers: white meant an individual and green meant family. All of the sheets my friend and I used were white. And the same had been true for our little group. But when we came upon a camp behind a Walgreens, I heard a little sound of delight rise up from a few of our friends bent over and chatting through the unzipped flap of a tent. They needed a green sheet.

Even after her interview, the woman who needed the green sheet told others in the group, and they were delighted, too. I didn’t ask about the delight. I had a feeling the box of completed interviews stacking steadily with solely white sheets told the tale. I got it. And as we distributed certificates for meals at fast food restaurants to people in the parks together, I told my friend who brought me how grateful I was to do this. But what I really meant was how grateful I was to be together in the crowd, even a crowd—especially a crowd—ablaze as we were with the brightest green I have ever seen.

Many blessings of togetherness to you all.

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

To So Love The World

This morning I was part of something kind of extraordinary.I took part in a call with Mary Evelyn Tucker, one of the foremost writers and educators in the intersections between religion and ecology. The call was sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan group that encourages dialog and learning across difference in furtherance of better understanding among voices from all corners of the world. In substance, the call was a presentation about where there is hope to be found in a field where many fear even to dream of change. But the call was more than that.

The list of people on the call ranged from leaders of the Zoroastrian community to the Roman Catholic Church, from parish ministers in wealthy areas to ministers serving communities in some of the most vulnerable places on earth, from community educators to tenured faculty at some of the world’s most recognizable institutions. After Professor Tucker’s presentation, there followed a range of insightful questions from others on the call. Professor Tucker fielded all the questions with the depth and clarity for which she is so well known and respected. And she told a lot of stories.

Throughout her presentation she told stories about children. She spoke of events to which she has borne witness—testimony by children before the United Nations and the ongoing lawsuit by children against the United States for failing to address the effects of climate change. And she also told the story of being in a car with her husband and hearing from a child young enough to be strapped safely into car seats yet aware enough to ask them, “Are you worried about global warming?”

And it was that image that stuck with me the most. I like to imagine it was one of those car seats that actually face backward. And Professor Tucker and her husband pile into the car, riding with a colleague and their colleague’s children through town, when seemingly out of nowhere, “Are you worried about global warming?” And on my call with religious people, people steeped in the telling and the believing of miracles, of voices divine ringing from on high or crashing in electric thunder upon a mountaintop, a truth teller in our midst shared what she knew of the questions coming for us all. And a tiny nation, united by electronic means, unbordered, open, and yearning for change, listened and heard.

I should disclose that Professor Tucker taught two courses I took. And I grew to admire, trust, and value her a great deal. She and her husband did not have children, but she often expressed, like she did on this call, that her students are her children. And I remembered then, driving up a tree lined street in the crisp, leaf-swept fall, when I spotted Professor Tucker and her husband walking hand-in-hand on the sidewalk. I rolled down my window without hesitation and yelled, “It’s me, T. J. I love you both.” And they hardly hesitated in calling back, “We love you, too.”

It is good at times to know that some so love the world that they treat every child as their own. And may it always be so.

Many blessings,
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

What Relationship Asks

Friends, we are coming to a very important time at our church. As many of you know, among some of the most important work this church does happens at the monthly meeting of A.D.O.R.E., a Dialog on Race and Ethnicity. And at this month’s meeting on December 9th, your facilitators will lead a discussion of the New York Times best seller, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo.

Dr. DiAngelo’s book is important in a number of ways. It is hailed as a beautiful book that succeeds where many other books that seek to address racism fail. The deep understanding and deep humor Dr. DiAngelo offers are both wonderful, and the text of the book could be taken just as it is. But this book actually represents more to Unitarian Universalists than only what’s in its pages.

The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) published this book. Beacon Press, wholly owned by the UUA, makes its mission to give voice to messages that other publishers might be afraid to bring to the public. But this mission, time and time again, has led to publishing some of the profoundly prophetic voices of past generations. The opportunity to read a best seller and also support a cutting-edge publishing house owned by the UUA is reason enough to get into this book. But there are other reasons. In fact, there are likely as many reasons to read this book as there are paragraphs in it. But the most important reason for each of us to read this book, even if we can’t make the December 9th presentation, is that other members of our church have asked us to read it.

There are times that we feel comfortable taking advice from doctors, from professors, or from other professionals about their chosen fields. This book is about relationships. And we each have chosen to be in relationship with one another, so it is our chosen field as well. We are all part of a community built from and upon interwoven, intersecting, and most importantly, interdependent relationships. So when someone with whom we are in relationship strongly urges us to read a book, if we can do it, it makes sense to try. It’s not a long book, and the long-term rewards it offers vastly outpace the short time it will take to read it.

When else can you support a UU institution, add to the growing list of women who grace the New York Times best-sellers list, equip yourself with life-altering skills and perspectives, and say yes to a request from a friend? So even before you thank your friends for the recommendation, let me be the first to say…”You’re welcome.”

Many blessings to you all,

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

To a New Land

Well, here it comes—the Bermuda Triangle of holidays. We are gathered on this vessel together, navigating that course through a time of year that holds a lot for people. For some there are memories of past holidays that are fond, warming, and dear. For others there are memories of those same holidays marked with cooler feelings—feelings of disappointment, or worse. And for many, there isn’t even time to dawdle along memory lane. We’re too busy making these holidays happen for those we love. Cooking, shopping, planning for weeks are then all capped off by staying up until midnight, just when we probably need our rest the most.

Of course, like so, so many experiences I’ve known in the past, even the experience of the Thanksgiving–Christmas–New Year weeks is different here on this island. Somehow the advertising and commercial exploitation of these holidays I’d experience when I lived in New York City, with all of the sheer intensity of holiday promotions being akin to a rock band following you around the streets blaring its message at you, has faded blessedly into more of an experience of hearing slack key guitar you could almost miss if you weren’t listening for it.

And I’m left with wondering why this is. I think some about the relatively new experience on the island of these holidays, compared to their celebrations in other cultures around the world that have been going on for centuries. I wonder at the beautiful richness of the cultures that are here together and also that many of those cultures don’t even recognize some of these holidays. And maybe most painfully, I imagine the many families and genealogies rooted in this land and the way these holidays hold a feeling more of incursion and exploitation than of gratitude, miracles, or new beginnings.

I do not write this message in any way to depress any readers or otherwise to detract from the joy and fulfillment that comes for many with this season. I only want to share that it’s OK not to feel all we are told we should. Like some of the discussions we’ve had around church in the past few weeks, my hope is that at this time of year we can make space in our own lives to feel more than one feeling at a time—joy and pain; gratitude and longing—and honor both or all of those feelings fully.

And maybe even more important than giving ourselves the permission to feel more than one feeling at a time is having the openness to understand the complex history and emotional life associated with these holidays for those around us, for this very land, for the very paths we walk here. For truly this land is the inverse experience of the Bermuda Triangle, where people go and are lost. In this place many discover something in the world, in themselves, in one another, that they could not ever have imagined was there.

Many blessings to all for a season of fond memories, of safe journeys, and always of new discoveries.

In gratitude, in joy, and in hope,
Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

This Little Light

It’s always a bit of a surprise. A pumpkin in a window. A string of electric lights with little plastic jack-o-lanterns illuminated all in a row. It’s going to be Halloween in a few days, but it’s a surprise to me. The holidays I’d known so well on the mainland, the celebrations that seemed monthly to mark the progress of a year don’t have nearly the same prominence as they once did. And it’s remarkable that so much of this trick is accomplished by the treat of the seasons in our lives.

This is the fifty-second “Weekly Message from T. J.” Though it hasn’t been a calendar year since we began communicating in this way—vacation and study leave meant some weeks were missed—we now have a year’s worth of weeks where we have looked together at life. We have been through all of the seasons that we know so well that mark the turning of the year. And many of us have also been through seasons in our own lives—seasons of renewal, seasons of mourning, seasons of all kinds. But the turning of the Earth spinning round the sun we share with all life works differently here.

One of the great metaphors for Unitarian Universalism comes from Forrest Church, the past minister of my home congregation, All Souls in NYC. He calls our faith the Cathedral of the World. And in the cathedral there are many windows, colored splendidly and beautifully. If we look at the cathedral, we can see all the splendor of the many places we can choose to stand. We can bask in different lights and see different views depending where we are. But all through the cathedral, no matter how splendid and intricate the light might be streaming through the windows, all the light comes from the same place. All the light comes from one sun.

Over the course of a year, the sun will shine and shine here in our midst. Through every pane, through every shard of glass, the rich luminous light, day after beautiful day, casts a rainbow of ways we see the world, a prism of belief, perhaps more than many other places on earth. But here in the harvest holidays we know so well, a different light comes again. Not a light cast bright and bold from the heavens through the old windows.

Instead, the more I am used to the bright abundance of the sun, it is rather a warm flicker I feel more and more, like something lighting a smile grinning slyly from a porch as the world’s children stroll by. It feels at times like a gentle hand placed that inside which shows every neighbor every line and shape of the way we peer out at the world. A light far from eternal, yet still a tiny cathedral lit wholly with a single flame, the light of a life that knows a harvest must come…and yet smiles all the more.

And may it ever be so.

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

I Can See Clearly Now

I have spoken before about the fun we can have when visitors are here and we get to play tour guide. We dip our toes in waters we haven’t in a while, we ascend the heights of hikes we miss, we eat at our favorite spots. It’s a mutual relationship grounded in admiration of this miraculous place. And my newest stint as tour guide took me to Electric Beach, a place I have snorkeled many times…but today was entirely different. This was the first time I could really, really see.

In the morning preparing for the snorkel adventure I decided that for the first time I would try wearing my contacts when snorkeling. My vision is pretty good, so until today I snorkeled with no corrective lenses—big mistake. I only realized today with my contacts safely in and working all I really had been missing. The turtles I could watch skim across the sea floor, the detail on the shimmering skin of the sea life all around me, and the glinting sunrays streaming past us all in the ocean leapt for the first time in a new, a radiant brilliance I had never known before.

It was such a gift to share this with my visiting friend and his partner. See, my visiting friend and I have a funny thing in common. We both grew up with a friend so close that our group of friends almost never mentioned the two of us separately. For me, my friend Pete and I were sometimes accidentally referred to as Tete (teet) and P. J. And in the decade I have known the friend visiting this week, this was the first time I ever spent time with him without his own childhood friend who was also a close friend of mine. They were always a package deal.

A few years ago now, our friend ended his own life. For me, this was painful and tragic. But for my visiting friend, he lost a part of himself that day. And in the way that only grief can unravel itself across the space of our lives, I know the ways his life since then has been marked not only by their old memories now somehow halved or lost but also by the marring of new memories that could never know the vitality of being shared, experienced together.

But it was over brunch when I noticed something I had never noticed before about my friend. I was hearing so much about what he felt, what he had done. I had the singular sense of a person in my life whom I realized I’d never had the chance to know in this way, as so much of himself. And here across this tiny paradise island a world away, out over the hills and cutting through the churning waters, I see this new man gather and hold new memories to share with his partner, with me. It is a blessing beyond measure that I couldn’t see coming.

…and still, we miss you, our brother. Wish you were here.

Many blessings to you all,

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org

Manifest

Have you seen them? Have you seen the signs? Swirling, driving, building, the signs are springing forth in all corners of these islands. They are bubbling up once more to reveal the truth that we all know: the swirling, driving, and building up are telling us something, something deep and something old, and something evident everywhere we look.

Swirling around the checkout lines of enormous, bulk-rate, huge-box supermarkets, we are corralled directly into the path of the oncoming impulse to stock up on what we might need. Driving to the gas pump, we move and jostle our cars through tight lanes and spaces to be sure they are fed their necessary fuel. And with the flurry of screen captures of the anticipated storm path, the sharing of information, the regular interruptions in radio and television broadcasts, the anticipation and the anxiety are building up in us once more. The time is coming. The manifestation of Lono approaches once more.

Lono, the god of good crops and rainfall, is described in the ancient writings of the Hawaiian faith in the phrase, “Akua po’o huna i ke ao lewa.” This means “the god whose head is hidden in the dark clouds.” Lono’s presence is associated with weather events that are visible. Swirling winds, waterspouts, dark clouds, thunder, and partial rainbows are the ways we can experience and see the presence of Lono in our lives. But Lono is known for something else. Lono presides over the time of Makahiki, the time of peace on these islands when crops are gathered and warring ceases for a time.

Lono is not the only god in the pantheon of history’s divine manifestations to be associated both with violent natural phenomenon and with peace among humans. Yahweh, one of the names of the ancient Hebrew people for their deity, is regularly associated with storms and clouds in the Hebrew Scriptures, as well as with peace among people. In fact this kind of manifestation of the divine is so prevalent, and crosses enough boundaries of time, distance, and culture, that it makes me wonder as much about what might be swirling in the human brain as what might be swirling in the atmosphere.

There are many teachings about increasing our peace of mind that remind us we are ultimately powerless. We are ultimately powerless over other people. We are powerless over the outcomes of things happening in the news around us. But the powerlessness we feel in the face of gargantuan displays of nature’s power is special. At least for me, the swirl of stocking up, the drive of fueling up, and the build toward this shared experience reminds me that we are in this together—not only in this storm together, but in this life together. For there is nothing more human than heeding signs that remind us that we are not a god. And at least as far as Lono is concerned, we are reminded of precisely whose po’o huna i ke ao lewa. I’ll give us a hint…it’s not our po’o.

Many prayers of safety and care in these coming days.

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org