I feel like I’ve know of the Persian poet, Rumi, for just about forever, but it’s only recently that I’ve actually been reading his poetry in depth.

Here is a short poem, a call to worship and reflection:

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

and I’m not going to church.

I used to be a regular church-goer. Even as a teenager, I went to church, albeit on Sunday nights with pizza and movies.

I went regularly in college in Northampton and joined a group of other UUs in Middletown (no church there). I attended church after college in Santa Fe. And as a minister-to-be, I often went to church more than once a week. In short, I’ve been to a lot of church and that’s just church in the Unitarian Universalist church (I taught at a Catholic school and also went to a lot of Mass. I mean A LOT of Mass).

Although I liked the regularity of church attendance, the schedule, the musings by the minister, it wasn’t fun. It was an obligation and an opportunity to be judged. Sing off key and people notice. Laugh too often or at the wrong time (as I often do), and someone makes a mental note that you’re foolish or god-help-you silly. Abstain from the prayer because of theological issues with the language and people think you’re ridiculous.

I think divinity school and studying to be a minister actually killed church for me. It was seeing the services from the inside out. I knew too much about what went on behind the scenes: the minister worked half the night on his sermon, the hastily provided meditation, the music that wasn’t rehearsed, the song that started too high. There wasn’t any magic left.

And so, I left church and did what I wanted on Sundays and it was a relief. I could go to the farmer’s market or out to brunch or just sleep in. It was better than rising early and being judged.

What am I missing? I don’t miss the feuds and the busybodies; every church I attended had plenty of those folks. But I occasionally miss a religious community of like-minded people. A place to sing. A place to think. A place to meditate.

Instead, I, like many other of the currently unchurched, create these places, and occasionally wonder what I’m missing.

Here are a few scenery photos of our recent time in Southern Utah, land of erosive forces.

Bryce Canyon (above) isn’t exactly a canyon; it’s an amphitheater of rocks. The Claron Formation is carved by water (rain and frost-wedging) into hoodoos.

Cedar Breaks (above) is another amphitheater nearby. It is closed for the winter (although apparently not to us!) because it is over 10,000 feet in elevation.

Grand Staircase-Escalante (above) is a relatively new national monument. It is expansive geographically and emotionally.

Pamela K. Taylor, a religious leader in Islam called an Imam, describes what it was like to lead a grand mufti in prayer. A mufti is a religious authority and no woman had led them in prayer before. She describes the role of women’s leadership in Islam in this excerpt from Score One More for Women Imams

Women’s leadership as imams cuts at the root of so many evils currently plaguing Muslim societies. It challenges popular notions of sexuality that cast women as temptresses and men as weak and dominated by sexual urges. It belies the idea that women are emotional rather than intellectual, and in need of a firm male hand to keep them in balance. It shatters a social order in which men must go out to work and women must stay home to raise babies and care for the house. And it defies the convention that good women are silent, submissive and serene.

These are notions that underpin a host of social ills in the Muslim world–from bans on driving to extreme forms of segregation. They are used to justify rape, honor killings, female genital mutilation and domestic violence, to bolster arguments for separate but “equal” education and the denial of leadership positions to women.

I find it fascinating that these notions of women are actually ideas that permeate many religions, particularly Abrahamic ones, not just Islam.

What Do Muslims Believe?

I only got about half of the questions right, though I wanted to argue about the answers to a couple of them. You can see the correct answers with additional information at the end of the quiz.

It’s World Day of Prayer, a day organized by female Christians the world over. Countries take terms writing a short essay and choosing the theme (oh, imagine the committee work to write the essay, will you?). This year’s essay was written by the Women of South Africa about bearing witness (one of my favorite biblical themes, coincidentally). Excerpts from the essay are below:

In most South African families and communities the three-legged iron pot is the symbol of feeding, sharing and fellowship – of life in abundance. In terms of our theme, it serves as a symbolic sign of accepting God’s invitation to receive love and grace in our lives. Just as the pot is anchored by three legs, so are we anchored in and totally dependent on the Trinity. Having been nourished from this source, we respond by sharing the Good News of God’s provision in Christ with the world. To illustrate this South African symbol, you could place an iron or clay pot with scripture cards in the foyer and invite those attending to take one card as a symbolic sign of accepting God’s full provision in Christ.

World Day of Prayer

It’s hard to make a living as an actor (actress) in scary faceless Hollywood.

Sometimes you might just have to expose parts of your body that you’re not comfortable showing an entire crew.

And then sometimes people just want to do some sketch comedy with your vagina as a character.

From Craig’s List:

A new sketch comedy show for Showtime called “D. Underground” is looking for a few women who would be open to nudity in a sketch that will be shot in the month of March. The sketch requires getting a direct shot of a woman’s vagina. To be specific, the role would have a woman walk onto a stage and sit on a stool with her legs open. Her face would not be shown, the camera would only show from the waist down. THIS IS NOT PORN. THERE WOULD BE NO TOUCHING OF ANY KIND.

Oh good. No touching. That definitely makes it all right. I’m not even going to comment on the fact that the poster doesn’t mean “vagina” unless this is some sort of shot with a speculum involved.

Trust me, you can’t pray, meditate, exercise, or talk your way into this being a good idea.

When I left for work at 5:15 a.m., I had to use an alarm clock and it was pretty unpleasant even though it was a chiming one. Now I just don’t use one. I seem to wake up around the same time anyway.

In Don’t Be Alarmed, Sarvananda Bluestone explores how alarm clocks begin our days with a little dose of violence. She explains how it is only in the west that people have trouble remembering our dreams because we create a jolt between sleep and wake time, enough to forget what we may have dreamt about.

Dear Ms. Theologian,

Signed,

Trickle Down Theory of Economics

Dear Trickle:

You’ll recall that in the 1980s Trickle Down Economics was the belief that if the government gave corporations tax breaks, corporations would create more jobs and make the government look successful. Then these benevolent corporations will raise salaries of their millions of hard-working employees just to spread around those profits.

Did this work?

Oh my, no, it didn’t work at all.

No, no, it failed miserably. The government gave corporations incredible tax breaks, and they laid off millions of people and cut salaries of most of the workers but expected them to do the work of the laidoff workers (the exceptions, of course, were the executives, god bless ‘em, who seem to have received enormous raises and do whatever they did before).

We have today sort of a distorted version of Trickle Down economics, one that could make me wish that Ronald Reagan were president again because at least there was Keynesian theory behind his politics as opposed to simply money. Ahem.

So this trickle down idea is kind of a bogus metaphor, so make sure you deliver a lecture on the faults of Keynesian economics to your manager next time he/she uses trickle down in that sense. Just kidding. Sort of.

In any case, it sounds like there is active-team building going on in your workplace. That means that you are building a community or at least operating in one that already exists. People seem to want to bond over food (one of the least threatening forms of bonding, with the exception of spaghetti). It is unfortunate that it always has to be about someone paying for someone else.

Here are some ideas to pick and choose from:

Set up one day a month when you all go out for lunch or order in as a team. Everyone pays for her own share. This might address the need of your worker to socialize.

Be extremely clear with your worker that she should only pay for herself, not you, because it’s important that everyone contribute an equal portion to the bill. Take her aside beforehand to emphasize this rather than doing it in front of the group, which you may have to do anyway.

If it was clear that everyone really wanted to pay for your lunch (and we are talking about $10 here, right? It’s not a champagne and caviar type of thang, I hope), you might gracefully acquiesce, as you say, but it sounds like this is only the one worker.

Let’s return to my seemingly unnecessary mini-lecture on Trickle Down Economics. The basic point is that Trickle Down policies don’t really help the little guy. They never did because nothing much trickles down. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try though by buying lunch for folks every once in a while. Just know that what really helps, what really makes people’s work lives better is a stable and positive work environment and salary increases, not a free lunch (because we all know that saying about free lunches, no?)

Peace out, woman,

-Ms. Theologian

Some people like to share. Some people don’t.

I’m not a big sharer and I probably could have gone my entire life without knowing that most people think about sex when they meditate. (And now I’m reminded of why I don’t go to silent co-ed retreats.) In hopes that this is useful, normalizing information for you, here is an excerpt from Confessions of a Meditating Mind:

Maybe you assume that carnal thoughts are the furthest thing from the good meditator’s mind, a tranquil antiseptic white space inhabited only by feelings of loving-kindness and compassion. Well, my informal surveys of fellow sitters suggest otherwise. Beneath many of those impressively calm exteriors in the shrine room lie the churning minds of high school horn dogs.

And for more wisdom from Ted Rose, check out Awareness in Every Sip about Buddhism and alcohol.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a penitential season for Christians. Lent lasts until Easter. Today, the first day of lent, is often a day of fasting.

If you are Christian and attend services today, you will receive ashes (sometimes in the shape of a cross, sometimes just a smudge) on your forehead. Ashes symbolize that we are all ashes, that we came from ash, and will return to ash.

Very often as children, Christians are encouraged to give up an item of food for the six and a half weeks until Easter. Chocolate, soda, or even sugar in general are often encouraged. As adults, we often fall into the same habits of abstaining from a pleasurable food.

I’m not sure that giving up certain foods is childish, but it seems to me that it is more desirable to better yourself during lent. Give up criticism or nit-picking. Take up deep breathing before work. Take up speaking positively of your coworkers for six and half weeks. That’s long enough to make the positive habit stick.

You may have noted that I haven’t posted much since Friday. I was on vacation and am now just catching up. Hopefully, later I’ll have some photos from our trip to southern Utah to post.

In the meantime, let’s just say that I’ve had all the iceberg lettuce salads that I can handle.