Monthly Archives: July 2009

We had the time of our lives

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Last night I took my son Zack to see Green Day in Boston (Boston Globe review). Wow.  Green Day at the Boston Garden (come on, I’m 43, it’s the Boston Garden, none of this TD Banknorth whatever corporate blah, blah) was one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot, and I mean a lot of rock shows.   They weren’t Bruce Springsteen or U2, but then again who is?  Those two acts really are in a league of their own when it comes to live shows, no disrespect to Green Day because if everyone is playing for third place after Bruce and U2, well Green Day may have the bronze medal.  Yup, that good.

It’s hard to fill an arena, make it feel intimate, like a club. It’s difficult to sustain the energy for a couple of hours and have that energy match the rhythm and pace and flow of the music, song by song.  Green Day does it and does it well.  Thanks largely to lead singer/guitarist/frontman Billie Joe Armstrong.  He knows how to connect, and well.  It’s the little things such as accepting all the hugs from the multiple fans brought on stage to sing the verses of Longview, actually play the guitar on Jesus of Suburbia (nice job kid, whoever you were), or play the part of the person faux slain in the spirit during East Jesus Nowhere.   Armstrong made sure the crowd was ready to catch them as they dove into the pit as an exit.  He’s good enough that he can leave out the f— and the motherf——.  It gets old and it’s not necessary.  He and Green Day can pull off the attitude and the music (within which the language doesn’t bother me so much) without it.

A couple of things to note that are spelled out elsewhere (see reviews of the tour by Rolling Stone, SPIN, and another Father and Son account by my friend Eric at the blog Life is a Mystery), but worth mentioning again:

1. The intergenerational audience – We opted for the budget saving upper balcony 300 level seats (there really isn’t a bad seat in the house in the redone Garden).  All over our section, there were young people in attendance with parents.  The parents by and large were not chaperones, but wanted to be there.  The parents, like me, were also fans.

2. The use of multi-media -   From the lit up cityscape and explosions transitioning Song of the Century/21st Century Breakdown to the confetti blowers during the final encore of  Minority (so that the confetti floated around during  Macy’s Day Parade and Good Riddance) the multi media was fantastic.  The multi-televison screen backdrop during American Idiot recalled U2′s Zoo TV tour.

Green Day increasingly reminds me of the Clash.  Given the differences in time and country, they are more so than less politically aligned and although described as punk with its ethos of bank out your three chords, both bands are far beyond that musically. The Clash wrote and Green Day write pop songs with great hooks.  They are both far better musicians than three chord wonders. Musically, my favorite Green Day songs are the softer pieces – Wake Me Up When September Ends, Macy’s Day Parade, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Boulevard of Broken Dreams and lyrically the more politically charged pieces, which is much of their work, but especially American Idiot.  American Idiot  and Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising were the two works that I fell back on time and again to get through the Bush years.

Green Day on CBS Sunday Morning on May 24, 2009:

Green Day is a smart band. It’s why I like them so much and why I’m pleased my soon to be teenager is into them as opposed to other music he could be into that is lyrically less engaging, and yes, even musically less challenging than their punk-pop.

When I hear “I don’t want to live in the modern world” in American Eulogy, I think, or more accurately I over-think – right, I don’t want to live in the modern world either, we’ve moved into the post-modern world and if we remain in the modern world we’ll be stuck, less able to adapt, find new solutions to new problems and we will write an American Eulogy along the lines of the ones described in the song.  Don’t know if that’s what Armstrong was thinking, probably not, but that’s where I go when I hear that.  I’m not so out of it that I think my son is doing this deep, but I do know that he understands American Idiot and that he knows he’s spent most of his life watching  “everybody do the propaganda /And sing along to the age of paranoia.”

The setlist from last night’s show, July 20, 2009 in Boston:

Green Day Setlist TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, MA 2009, 21st Century Breakdown World Tour

A vacation from religion

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We took the bus to New York City this past weekend to visit friends. It wasn’t until the bus slowed and stopped in a traffic jam on I-95 North heading home that I realized how blissfully religion-free the last few weeks have been.  Sure, I have been keeping up my daily zen practice, walking labyrinths, studying and practicing reiki, reading books on theology and spirituality, but all this has been a mostly interior journey or a journey with a few select companions.  The outward presence of religion, especially contemporary American Evangelical Christianity has been absent from daily living.  It wasn’t until the bus ride home from New York that I realized how omnipresent the outward manifestation of other people’s religion is in my daily life in Texas.

There it was, towering above the interstate, as if you could reach out and touch it – a castle-like enormity of an Assembly of God church with a huge cross, calling out to people to join them.  Then I remembered that shortly before leaving for New York, I had seen a display window sized poster in the Christian Life Center (housed in what used to be the Leominster YMCA building) proclaiming “Nothing is too difficult for God.”  These two experiences, one on the highway in New York and one while on foot in downtown Leominster, MA stand out so vividly because they are anomalies of my daily experience for the last few weeks.  Other people’s churches and other people’s religions, and other people’s beliefs do not intrude into your field of vision, into your conversation, into your mailbox, onto your television screen while you’re trying to find the station for the Red Sox game the way they do in Texas.

I sat on that bus, stuck in traffic yesterday and thought about just how ubiquitous the presence of American Jesus is in my life in Texas. You can’t drive to the Post Office without passing a megachurch, you can’t pick up your daily mail without picking up an invitation to get saved at one of the dozens of local houses of worship, you can’t open a newspaper or read one online without reading about religion (usually Christianity, not always) or seeing ads about churches.

There I was – a minister sitting on a bus stuck in traffic – giving thanks, prayerfully giving thanks, for a vacation from religion.  How about that?

Shadeless Summer

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This week I have been taking my Reiki Master class with and received my Reiki Master attunement from a very dear friend Kathleen,  a massage therapist and Reiki Master.  Kathleen grew up in and lives in the Burncoat neighborhood of the city of Worcester, MA.  during breaks in our work, we take walks in the neighborhood.  I’ve known Kathleen since we were in college together. I’ve been to and through this neighborhood many, many times.

I took me a while to figure out what felt so strange about the walk we were talking. then I figured it out… I should recognize these streets and I don’t.  These streets lead from Route 12 up into the Burncoat neighborhood, across to Burncoat Street and then from Burncoat Street over towards the area of Housatonic Street where Kathleen grew up.  As we walked up and down Burncoat Street, and I looked left and right, I realized I recognized some of the street names we used to travel to get from Route 12 over to Kath’s family’s old home, but none of the streets. They all looked different, out of place, wrong.  There were no trees.

I remember going to visit Kathleen and her family when we were in college. I remember going through this neighborhood.  It was dense with trees.  In full summer, on a couple of the streets, it seemed you couldn’t see the sky if you looked up. Now,  I looked out, down long streets and across to … I didn’t know what, parts of Worcester you could never see from this spot before because that street had a thick canopy of hardwood trees. Almost every single one of them now gone.  The place reminded me, strangely, of where I know live in Texas where there are just fewer trees.

This is the devastation caused by the Asian Longhorned Beetle.  This is what happens when species get introduced, one way or another, into ecosystems where they don’t belong.  And although it is not directly a devastation caused by human neglect or abuse, it is part of the larger story of humanity’s inattention to the fact that everything we do has serious repercussions on the environment in which we live.  It is another reminder that we really don’t want to create a world a without trees.  It reminded me that people grieve for the earth the way we grieve for other loved ones who are hurt, in pain, or dying.  Indeed, Kathleen told me of how she said good-bye to the tree in her backyard, ritualized its passing, cried over it and misses it still.

I did some research this morning on the Asian Longhorned Beetle.   I found a  Longhorned Beetles information sheet as well as portrait of the little guy:

Asian Longhorned Beetle

The Worcester Telegram and Gazette has run some interesting pieces and has an online memory book where people can post photos of trees they’ve lost along with written memories. It’s reminiscent of what funeral homes do for families with online guestbooks.

I also found this editorial by Rosalie Tirella from the May 5th InCityTimes, a free weekly in Worcester.  Tirella takes the Worcester City Council to task for bending to the concerns of Burncoat and Greendale neighborhood voters and for being overly concerned about the trees:

“Wouldn’t it have been nice if Worcesterites  and our politicians would get  upset  over  issues like hunger, poverty and homelessness in our city? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if during a city council  meeting a person  got up and said: Let’s stop the hunger! Every time a kid goes hungry, we  stunt his growth, his mind, dim  his chances of future success. In other words, CUT DOWN his life.

And what if the politicians went wild and agreed and vowed to do everything possible to prevent this beautiful young life from being chopped down?
What kind of movie would that make?”

Yes, BUT….

This situation in the Burncoat and Greendale neighborhoods of Worcester is a prelude to what a world looks like without trees.  There are parts of the world where poor people currently live surrounded by trees and those trees disappear football fields at a time and still not enough people care because the people who live in relationship with those trees aren’t rich, power and well connected.  What about a world where nobody lives with trees?  It won’t be a world where many people live very long or very well.

It is not politics or issues of class that hit you the hardest in Burncoat. It is the spiritual and emotional connection to the earth that hits you the hardest when you walk through the Burncoat area of Worcester.  I walked mostly in a mild shock, my friend Kathleen, who had the gift of more time to process and live with the deforestation of her neighborhood was able to put her grief into words, kept commenting on it, street by street.

I know I will return to a suburban congregation in Texas, where I will also return to work on the issue of homelessness, the inequalities of sexual orientation, race and class in Texas, and  I know that environmental justice is also economic justice and environmental issues disproportionately impact people who are poor and people of color. I also know that before fixing the social, cultural and political environmental problem, the environment must become a matter of the heart, a matter of the spirit, not just another cause for many more people.  It must be okay to grieve the loss of your tree, then we have a chance of stopping silent springs from become shadeless summers – not just for those who have the privilege of taking summer vacations, but especially for those who do not.

I'm An Idealist

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, tell you something that you don’t know.  Rev. Tony is an idealist – old news.  I’m not talking about being that type of an idealist.  I’m talking about being a participant/user of Idealist.org, a website of Action Without Borders. Here is their Vision and Mission:

Our Vison

We would like to live in a world where:

All people can lead free and dignified lives.
Every person who wants to help another has the ability to do so.
No opportunities for action or collaboration are missed or wasted.

Our Mission

Action Without Borders connects people, organizations, and resources to help build a world where all people can live free and dignified lives.

AWB is independent of any government, political ideology, or religious creed. Our work is guided by the common desire of our members and supporters to find practical solutions to social and environmental problems, in a spirit of generosity and mutual respect.

JOBS! – With A Conscience!

The biggest practical use I made of Idealist.org was their job listing database.  When I left my job as a Catholic High School teacher in 2003, I worked for the Little Sisters of the Assumption for a year running Family Lifeline Volunteers, and then I needed another job.  But what to do? Be a public high school teacher? Something else?  I ended up doing some substitute teaching and then pursuing the Unitarian Universalist ministry, but I also needed a paying job while I did that.  Enter Idealist.org where I found full time jobs working for MassEquality on the equal marriage campaign in Massachusetts and then another as a hospice chaplain.  I also applied for dozens of other jobs and had about a half dozen quality interviews. I was offered a  job I declined and wasn’t offered others.

Idealist.org has a wonderful history and is a fantastic resource in the present climate for the many people affected by the economic downturn and the reality of job loss, job transition, and job uncertainty.  For Unitarian Universalists and other people of faith, people of spirit and people with a social conscience and similar values, I recommend it as a powerful and positive resource. Unlike something such as Monster.com, I’ve found my experience with Idealist.org to be positive in that there were many jobs to be found in my field(s), employers responded frequently and rather rapidly (even if the response was “no thank you”) and Idealist.org has a nice added bonus of sending you a custom, made to order email alert of new postings in your areas of choice.

My only regret is that I wish I had remembered Idealist.org sooner.  Like many other congregations, my congregations started a program for people in transition, but I only remembered Idealist.org when I logged in to a long dormant email address (full of thousands of old emails and spam) while on vacation and began clearing it out.  I renewed and updated my Idealist.org account to reflect my new Texas address and even listed myself as a resource in their speakers bureau in the areas of interest reflected in this blog.

Journey to the Center of Myself

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It had been a long time since I walked a labyrinth, probably ten years or more. There was a span of a few years when I was a Catholic high school theology teacher that I had the opportunity to walk labyrinths at retreat centers, churches, during professional developments days and did so about once a year for a few years in row, then a decade passed.

Thursday I walked the labyrinth at the Center at West Woods in Westwoood, MA (http://www.centeratwestwoods.com/ – their website is still under construction).   Labyrinths haven’t changed since I last walked one, but I have.  In the time since I last walked a labyrinth I have developed a formal zen meditation practice and become reiki practitioner.  Both of these things had a major impact on today’s walk.

Labyrinth

The labyrinth at West Woods is a bit larger than any I’ve previously walked.  Constructed outside and formed from furrows dug into an open field, it is a half-mile to the center (so a mile to complete the journey).  The perimeter is bordered by a series of Tibetan prayer wheels.  My previous experiences with labyrinths were all in Christian contexts, this was going to be a zen experience.  Indeed, my experience reminded me of a mirror image of going to the sangha for a sitting in that it was two half-hour periods of kinhin broken up by short period of sitting in the center of the labyrinth.

My previous experiences with labyrinths were situations where I encountered the labyrinth as part of a group, but there was no coordinated effort to experience the labyrinth and I sought it out and walked alone.  Today, I went to the labyrinth as part of a group attending the Inspiration House workshop Lessons from a Labyrinth, yet after an introduction to labyrinths and the day’s program, we walked the labyrinth together.  We walked silently.  What Parker Palmer would call “being along together.”

The workshop leaders suggested that one approach we could take is to hold a question or something we are trying to discern in our hearts while we walk.  I did.  I held in my heart a personal matter about which I am trying to make a difficult decision.  I learned that a mile of kinhin takes a long time.  And it seems even longer to the young people who watch you.  I moved much slower on the walk in to the center.  I was the last person to enter the labyrinth and I felt the the uneven, hurried energy from my companions calling me to keep at my meditative pace.

Crystal

Upon reaching the center, I felt very drawn to the crystal sitting upon the tall granite block.  I’ve never been much into crystals. I am more so now.  I practice reiki and felt a slight tingling in my hands and placed them on the crystal. Vibrations moved through my hands.  They became stronger if I held my hands just off the surface of the crystal. I felt the energy go through my body and out my feet.  The only feeling I can compare it to for those of you who have experienced it, is having a reiki attunement. Then I sat and counted my breath for a few minutes and began the walk back out.

I walked more quickly on the walk out.  My pace was still meditative, but discernably faster than on the way in.  I was more at ease, less measured.  The energy in the labyrinth felt less anxious, less jumbled, as there were only a few of my companions now left on the path.

I was perhaps half way on the path out when it occured to me that issue I held in my heart for discernment did not need to be decided right away. Perhaps I have decided too many things too quickly and have not sat long enough with enough decisions – a labyrinth walk is a long journey to the center of one’s self. A mile is a long way to walk kinhin when you’re only used to five minutes.

The second part of our day was a lesson in drawing mandalas.  I’m not sure about mine. I think I drew a crest or shield and not a mandala.  Visual art is not one of my primary modes of creative expression, but I did what was in my heart.

My mandala:

My mandala

Going for a Walk

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Tomorrow I am going to walk a labyrinth with other folks attending Lessons from a Labyrinth,  a program sponsored by Inspiration House in Weston, MA.  I’ve walked labyrinths before and I’m looking forward to it.

That labyrinth is a pilgrim journey taken in one location.  It is also a pilgrimage to the deep center of ourselves.  The winding path of the labyrinth seems to take you to the center, but it detours along the way. And yet, it is not a maze.  There are no dead ends.  The labyrinth is a metaphor for life in that life teaches you what you need to know when you need to know it and the path to where you’re going is not always a direct route or straight line.  It is an exercise in centering , yet when you arrive at the center, you are only half-way there, you need to walk back out.  When we learn to enter the center of ourselves, we must also re-enter the world, and take what we’ve learned back out into our lives.  This is the age-old balancing act between the active and the contemplative in the spiritual life.

Encountering the labyrinth reminds me of my favorite saying of Jesus, which comes from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

- Gospel of Thomas, saying 70

Each walk of the labyrinth is different.  Every day of our journey is different.  I don’t know what tomorrow will hold (I hope the weather will cooperate), but I know it will leave me with much material for reflection.   Here’s a good introductory video to the labyrinth I found for those of you who may be less familiar with them:

Claiming my Cardinal

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I’m becoming increasingly interested in spirit guides, animal guides and totems.  If one can claim an animal spirit guide or totem, I think I’m ready to claim mine, or at least accept that mine has claimed me. This has a lot of back story.  When my great-grandmother used to sit in her rocking chair, brought over from Sao Miguel in the Azores, and looked out over Uncle Manny’s magnificent garden at Tia Lilly’s house she would tell people she wanted to come back as a cardinal when she died because it was her favorite bird.

Soon after her death, as the family legend has it, cardinals appeared with regularity in my grandmother’s yard across town.  I included this piece of family folklore in a song I wrote about the old family homestead, “Mattapoisett”:

When I was a child, summers by the sea

Lazy beach, hazy days, a cardinal in the garden.


I wrote this song while I was still in high school. And then… then…

Cardinal

Over the years the cardinal kept showing up.  There it was at Divinity School graduation, in the backyard of my house in Massachusetts, and when I bought a house in Texas, there’s a cardinal on the bush in the front yard.  I’d  be driving in the car, having an argument with my wife on the phone and a cardinal flies across the car, right in front of the windshield.  Last week in Salt Lake City for General Assembly, I went for a morning walk the first day in town and as soon as I turned off the main street, a cardinal flies across my path.  Saturday, just after we had finished Colonel John Ray’s memorial service, I was standing on the lawn facing out looking at the ocean and cardinal flies across the lawn and alights on a tree across the lawn, looking right at me.  Coincidences?  Perhaps. Yet, I’ve grown accustomed to these types of encounters with cardinals over the years.  I now expect them to happen.  Maybe I notice them more often because I now look for them. Maybe there’s a bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc going on, but…

Maybe the mystic is about seeing the meaning beyond the coincidence.  I’m ready to claim my cardinal.   I’ve begun researching the symbolism and meaning behind the cardinal as a spirit guide and totem and it fits well enough,  even though there seems to be a bit of  horoscope syndrome to some of it. I’ve looked at some of the other bird totems and they don’t describe me at all (not at all).

Cardinal Wisdom Includes (http://www.birdclan.org/cardinal.htm):

* Courtship
* Fatherhood.
* Understanding the power of the wind.
* Finding your soul song.
* Renewed Vitality through Recognizing Self-Importance.
* Cycle of Power: Year-Round (often with rythm of 12-hours, days, months, and years).

from the book Animal Speak by Ted Andrews:

“These birds are named for the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, with their bright red robes. If it is your totem, it may reflect past-life connections with the church, or even a reviving of more traditional religious beliefs, regardless of denomination.

Cardinals brighten the environment. They catch the eye and add color to our lives.”

I’ve found the following in a lot of places, but can’t seem to find the original source. Again, the horoscope syndrome may be at play, but I think all this is spot on as it relates to my life, whereas  other animal guides or totems certainly do not correspond to me and my life.  Ah, the life of the mystical…

The Cardinal

The cardinal is a power packed bird that transforms and awakens us.  Its color and its voice are its two strongest characteristics.  It is a member of the finch family and is often recognized by its brilliant red color.

The eggs laid by the female hatch in about twelve days.  This, along with the cardinal being a year round resident, reflects the rhythm of the number twelve.  The number twelve often has important significance for those with this totem.  It can indicate a turn of events or a life changing situation.  When the cardinal flies into your life expect a change to occur within 12 days, 12 weeks, 12 months or at the hour of 12.  Because this bird is a year round resident its medicine is available at all times and should be used by those with this totem whenever a need arises.

Cardinals have a loud whistle,  Whistles penetrate the air with sharp distinct tones.  They demand our attention urging us to hear what is carried through the air.  Both male and female cardinals join in the whistling.  This reflects the need to integrate our male and female characteristics into our day to day life.  Feminine energy is linked to intuition.  Male energy is linked to perseverance.  If both are operating within our life our intuitive knowledge has the perseverance and strength necessary to manifest our goals and dreams.

Cardinals eat many decaying weeds and injurious insects.  When a cardinal appears in your life it is telling you to pay attention to your eating habits.  Are you eating things that might be injurious to your health?  Is your diet nutritionally balanced?  Extra care should be given to the blood and circulatory system.  Past life ties to overindulgence or the consumption of poisonous substances is often linked to cardinal medicine people.

The bright red color of the cardinal is very symbolic.  Red represents the blood or life force of the Mystic Christ.  In yoga circles this vital force is known as the kundalini.  The kundalini lies dormant within us until activated by a disciplined spiritual practice.  Once activated spiritual power can be attained.  The cardinal offers safe passage into the world of personal power for those who ask for its help.

When a person with cardinal medicine steps onto a spiritual path there will be no turning back.  Everything else in their life will seem insignificant.  Extra care must be taken here to insure personal happiness, particularly in the area of one to one relationships.  Balancing spiritual ideals and physical pleasure will need to be instated in ones life so harmony on all levels is known.

Cardinals are named for the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church with their bright red robes.  A great love or a strong dislike for religion and churches is common amongst cardinal medicine people and can indicate a past life connection with one or both.

The cardinals voice is strong and clear and reflects an air of importance.  This power packed bird can teach you how to express your truth, develop confidence and walk you talk.  If you respect its teachings it will lead you home.

It was an honor, Sir.

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This year at General Assembly one of the reasons the Peacemaking Statement of Conscience was referred back to the Commission on Social Witness for another year of further study was the ambiguous line it seemed to walk in some people’s mind’s when it came to our UU’s serving in the armed forces and those who have served in the armed forces.

There are a lot of Unitarian Universalists with an uncomfortable attitude towards the military. Some even express sentiments such as “how can you support the military and be a UU!”  I find this sad.  Unitarian Universalists don’t always agree politically, socially or culturally.  Unitarian Universalists have, do and will serve proudly in the armed forces.

I wish I could have invited all those concerned to Colonel John Ray’s memorial service today.  Someone who had met the Ray family while her own family was serving with the Rays in Burma said of them that they are an unlikely military family. She said they, inspired by the Colonel, immersed themselves in the local culture.

There was music and poetry and art. There was reverence and a crisp folding and presentation of the flag by grandchildren. There was a playing of taps and the only one in uniform was a representative of West Point who brought along with him the Colonel’s West Point yearbook photograph.

One of The Colonel’s nephews showed me an article from the July 5, 1999 issue of U.S. News and World Report titled The Warrior Class, a spotlight on the 60th reunion of John Ray’s West Point graduating class.

Colonel John Ray was featured in both the story and the photographs (sadly, the photos are no longer available online):

Among the ’39-ers, there are countless tales of derring-do, but few match those of John Ray. He was a young major working for Gen. Omar Bradley in North Africa when he was captured by the Germans–the first time. He was put to work carrying stretchers loaded with German wounded. “My friends,” Ray notes, “were now shooting at me.” He escaped but was recaptured and placed in solitary confinement. But fortune soon smiled on him. Two hours later, the camp commander summoned Ray and said he intended to turn over the camp and the prisoners to Ray in a few hours. “Why not now?” Ray asked. At which, Ray recalls, the German handed over his pistol, “and I put him in solitary.”

Fraternal connections. Ray rejoined General Bradley and accompanied him to England to begin planning the invasion of Normandy. On June 7, 1944, Ray landed on the beach, right alongside Bradley.

During the Battle of the Bulge, Ray, by then a lieutenant colonel, was captured again. He had been instructed to travel the American front lines, warning the widely dispersed American units of the German breakthrough. On Dec. 17, 1944, as he was setting out, Ray met his kid brother, Roger, West Point ’43, a lieutenant in the infantry, and gave him his West Point Class of ’39 ring for safekeeping. Not long after, Ray came under German fire. He took a round in the helmet and suffered a grazing wound to his head. Once again, he was a POW of the Germans. This time, he was put to work filling captured American vehicles with gasoline. A German soldier ordered Ray and the other prisoners to walk away from the fuel dump and wait. He planned to shoot them in the back. Ray balked. “If you shoot an American,” he said, “you are going to shoot him in the face.” The German relented. Sent to a POW camp at Hammelburg, Ray soon went to work boosting prisoner morale.

Relief soon arrived in the form of an American task force commanded by Capt. Abraham Baum. After marching 1 mile away from camp, the prisoners were given three choices. If they were well enough to fight, they could join Captain Baum and fight their way back to the American lines. If not, they could try to make it back on their own. Or they could simply return to the German-occupied camp. Ray and most of the others opted to stay, and it was a good thing for them. On its way back, Task Force Baum got shot to pieces. Of 307 men who began the mission, 15 managed to get back with a few POWs. Nine were killed, 16 were missing, 32 were wounded. The rest all ended up as POWs themselves.

Back to Asia. The prisoners who stayed behind with Ray were shipped by rail to Munich. On May 5, 1945, the German commander surrendered the camp with tens of thousands of POWs to Col. Paul R. (Pop) Goode, West Point Class of ’17 . During a meeting of his senior officers afterward, Goode was interrupted by a major with a message. He read it aloud: “To: Col. Paul R. Goode. Please release Lt. Col. John Ray to 1st Army Headquarters.” The order came from Supreme Headquarters. Ray left the camp with the major. In June 1945, Ray boarded a ship headed home to America. Aboard was his brother Roger, who gave back Ray’s class of ’39 ring. The troop transport was part of a convoy that included the destroyer-escort USS Martin H. Ray. The ship was named for their brother, a Naval Academy graduate who was killed at the Battle of Midway.

Today was a special day of ministry for me, remembering a special life of a Unitarian Universalist with a special family. I hope and pray that all UU military families have the love and support from each other and from our faith that was evident today.
I led the memorial service with my colleague Rev. Tom Wintle and we received a lot of thanks from the Colonel’s family and friends, but as is the case so often, what you give is returned to you a hundredfold.   Such was my encounter with Colonel John Ray, who insisted, as many recounted that there were no officers at the family home in Gloucester, just John.  Be that as it may..

It was an honor, Sir.


"Hey! Do you know about the USA?"

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Happy 4th of July. I thought I’d celebrate by taking a look at the old Schoolhouse Rock video clips from when I was growing up in the 1970s.

These videos are  still interesting teaching tools, both for what they include and what they leave out. History/Herstory is always an exercise in what is left out, as much as a piece of music is created by the notes that aren’t played, so our story is events not told, lives left off the chart, and voices not heard as much as what made it into the official record and what’s on the history test.

Many of us are wise to this now. We seek alternate voices and his/herstory from the underside. Titles such as A People’s History of the United States 1492-Present by Howard Zinn and Lies My Teacher Told Me:Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen are practically required reading now. The Schoolhouse Rock series lost some perspective and voices on its titles such as Elbow Room when it championed manifest destiny (for an alternative reading see 1491: New Revalations of the Americas before Columbus, among others), but tried its best on diversity on Melting Pot and supported the ERA it seems with Sufferin’ till Suffrage.  There’s a line in the Melting Pot video that says “so any kid can be the President” and thirty years later it’s actually true. That’s pretty amazing.  There’s a lot we can still  do to improve this experiment, but it’s amazing it happened and is still going.

For all the ifs, ands and buts… that watching these videos from thirty years ago with a critical eye can generate, the videos also capture a wholesomeness and a hope that I think we all want America to have.  They capture an ideal that is the promise of the founding documents.  This spirit doesn’t make everything that’s imperfect with America go away, nor should it make us turn a blind eye to the work we still need to do, but I think the people who created these videos didn’t create them in some conspiracy to conceal or hide America’s ugliness from itself. Rather I think they were operating out of what came to be called when related to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, a “hope-based missional narrative” and they applied it, perhaps a bit naively at times to the civic religion and national story.  This video was how I, like many people of my generation memorized the preamble of the Constitution and I still think the Constitution is a good thing (a bit forgotten at times in recent years, in need of some amendments again, but a good thing).

Speaking up on the Side of Love

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The Fourth of July weekend is an occaission to reflect on what it means to be an American.  I think our history is best described as a long struggle to live up to our ideals – that everyone is created equal; that We the People actually means everyone.

Events of the past week both close to home (back in Texas) and nationally remind us that we always have work to do and that we are at the same time making progress.

I encourage everyone to contact the Fort Worth City Government, through Equality Texas’ action campaign – phone if you can – it’s the type of contact given the most weight by public officials – and register your concern over the Rainbow Lounge incident.

I also encourage everyone to contact their Federal Representatives and ask them to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Military.com Legislative Center has an action up that helps you send a letter to your senators and representatives.

The need for this action is all the more evident after a military hearing Tuesday recommended discharging Lt. Dan Choi for violating this policy.  dailyKos ran a nice diary including video from Keith Olbermann about this.

Taking action is a patriotic way to kick off the 4th of July weekend.  It’s how we live out Unitarian Universalism and Stand on the Side of Love.