A Can of Soup, a Mug of Beer, and Jimmy

I opened a can of soup for a late lunch today—and it sent me back thirty years.  Because I can’t open a can of soup alone in my apartment without thinking of Jimmy.

Jimmy was a small, frail man with a constant three-day growth of gray whiskers and the distended liver of a chronic alcoholic.  I was bartending at a neighborhood dive in Lubbock, Texas, where my own party-daze wanderings had landed me for a while.  Every day around one o’clock Jimmy would amble in, and I would take down his personal beer mug that hung above the bar and fill it with Budweiser.  (If you bought a personal mug for a few bucks you got 16 oz. draft beers for the price of 12 oz. in perpetuity.  In this joint the ceiling was covered with them.)

Come about five o’clock, one of the bartenders, often me, would assume our unofficial duty of escorting Jimmy across the street to his humble apartment.  And depending on how drunk he was, he or I would open a can of Campbell’s soup, which was probably his main, maybe his only, meal of the day.  Sometimes I’d sit a few minutes while the soup heated.

One time, and only once, Jimmy started talking about the war.  It wasn’t much of a talk.  As usual he was barely coherent, and he mumbled for maybe a minute about the Pacific Theatre and the horrors he endured there before his emotions stopped him from continuing.

I don’t recall what I did then.  Maybe turned down the soup and told him I’d see him tomorrow.  Certainly in my youthful ignorance and whacked-out frame of reference about drinking it didn’t dawn on me that he might need help.  Nor did I know that such help even existed.  AA was far more underground back then, and “recovery” wasn’t yet part of the cultural conversation.

But I did see the tears on Jimmy’s cheeks before I left, and have remembered them from time to time over the years.  And I think of the uncounted costs of war (and how I never had to serve).  And how fortunate I’ve been to have the resources and support I’ve had.  And I’m grateful that I am able to eat more than soup.  And most grateful that I’m not alone.

And if you are a part of Neighborhood Church, you’re not alone either.  Because if you or someone you know is in need of some meals, a ride or escort somewhere, a sympathetic ear, visits at home for you or a family member, or many other forms of support, an experienced Pastoral Care team is ready and eager to assist you.  These caring folks can also provide confidential referrals to community resources that can help with issues of addiction, mental/emotional/physical health, family well-being, crisis intervention services, and more.  Simply contact the church office to leave a message for  Lyn Munro, our Pastoral Care Ministry Coordinator.  Or of course, be in touch in touch with our ministers, Rev. Dr. Jim Nelson or Rev. Hannah Petrie.

I wish I’d had the presence of mind to try to help Jimmy back then.  I sometimes wonder who he was before the scars of war and mugs of Bud combined to undo him.  While no doubt he’s long gone, he lives on in my desire to help as I can now—and in meals of canned soup as evening approaches.

Peter Farriday, Ministerial Intern

Church as a Blessing

Mr. Berk, one of the long-term teachers at Cleveland Elementary, showed up for Big Saturday, vacuum cleaner in hand, to work alongside other volunteers to give his classroom a deep cleaning.  “Neighborhood Church has been a blessing to this school,” he said at the end of the day.  “Between the reading volunteers and Big Saturday projects, the church has made a tremendous difference in the quality of our education and days spent at Cleveland.  Without your help, teachers would have to spend a week alone in July cleaning floors and behind shelves, giving the rooms a washing the PUSD can no longer afford to provide.  And now for the first time, my room will be really clean at Back-To-School night for parents to see.”

The church’s Big Saturday event at Cleveland Elementary brought in a remarkable 160 volunteers who spruced up the campus with paint, cleaned classrooms and restrooms and planted a huge school garden.  This was our 4^th year joining in with Cleveland teachers and staff, students, and their families and assorted community members to help keep the school a vibrant and cheerful place to learn.  The garden has been divided into plots for classrooms which the students will tend while their teachers incorporate the how and why of gardening into the math and science curriculum.  As an added perk for their toils, the edible food from the garden will be shared among the students to take home to their families.

Besides Big Saturday, a baker’s dozen of church volunteers are in our 5^th year of weekly school-year visits to the Cleveland classrooms, helping individual students improve reading skills through various reading programs.  While the students and teachers welcome the added attention, it is the volunteers who consistently report back on the joys of befriending and assisting lively kids who appear eager for their time and conversations.

Thank you to the many of you who worked diligently for Big Saturday and who show up weekly at Cleveland Elementary with smiles and reading books.  It is all of you who create the blessing between the lives we share in community and with each other.

Beth Colcord, Social Justice Coordinator

Regional Assembly Report: Big Faith, No Borders

This past weekend I attended the Pacific Western Regional Assembly in San Jose. It was a delightful road trip up to northern California with Sara LaWall, Peter Farriday, and Grady Goddard. This assembly gathered together four districts which spanned from the Rocky Mountains to Hawaii, including 199 UU congregations. Over six hundred UUs attended to worship together, go to programming and workshops, and share in fellowship. It was inspiring and renewing!

The theme of Regional Assembly was “Big Faith, No Borders.” We heard about an expanded theology of covenant with Unitarian Universalists beyond borders and even beyond congregations. We were encouraged to consider the diverse ways that we express our faith in actions and commitments, within congregations and in our outside communities. During the weekend, we learned about the project Beloved Café, “a spiritual exploration center and venue for multicultural community life….physically centered around a coffee shop.” We also heard about innovative uses of technology, social justice projects and movements, and nurturing spiritual practices which are being pioneered by UU congregations all over the region.

One area of Regional Assembly that really touched me was the use of music. We used the song, “I am willing,” by Holly Near, as an anthem, singing it several times during different worships and workshops. The song reads:

I am open and I am willing

To be hopeless would seem so strange

It dishonors those who go before us

So lift me up to the light of change

Like the song states, we need to be open and willing to the challenges and sorrows of the world, and willing to be open to change within ourselves in order to meet these challenges. I think that a lot of people came to Regional Assembly with a mixture of emotions—both passionate about the successes and the future potential of our faith, as well as a need for hope and encouragement for our current struggles. Each congregation faces issues such as how to meet intergenerational and multicultural needs, how to remain spiritually uplifted in the face of suffering in our world, and, of course, finances and the budget. It’s nice to know that UUs from San Francisco to small border towns in Arizona, from the forests of Washington to the mountains Colorado, share similar challenges, and share common hopes and visions. The goal of Regional Assembly is to share resources and ideas, in order to work together in proclaiming our Unitarian Universalist faith. I think it accomplished this goal for me, and I am feeling hopeful and energetic about what we can do together.

I left San Jose thinking about what Unitarian Universalism means to me, in my work, my spiritual life, my participation at Neighborhood, and in my community. How do I, and how do you, live your faith? And what can we do together, if we are open and willing to the light of change?

-Christina Shu, Ministerial Intern

A Welcoming Society

One of the things Neighborhood can be proud of is being a Welcoming Congregation.  By this we affirm that LGBTQ persons are welcome here, and that we are dedicated to equality regardless of affectional or sexual orientation. It is heartwarming to see the tide turning in our nation, and with more states affirming the right of marriage equality, one of the remaining prejudices in our country is diminishing.  There is still a long ways to go, but the trend is a good one.

This got a boost this week with the eloquent and moving piece in Sports Illustrated by Jason Collins, the NBA player, coming out as gay.  In the New York Times, Frank Bruni has a good editorial about Collins’ coming out that is worth reading, but Collins’ article is a must read.  It is intelligent and moving, honest and mature.  He says he hopes that he is starting a conversation with his coming out, the first male athlete in a major sport in the US to do so. He went to Harvard-Westlake.

Our faith history, like our nation’s history, has been one of expanding rights, of breaking down the barriers of exclusion, of confronting fears.  A hundred years ago, women could not vote; fifty years ago, racist laws were common; homophobia is still common.  Just witness the many anti marriage equality statutes around the country, the bullying of LGBTQ teens and youth, or the awful comments by several sports figures about gay athletes.

Collins is seven feet tall, a fact more remarkable than that he is gay or that he is black.  And all three – tall, black, gay – are just givens for him, no one element defines him; they are elements among many, just like for everyone.  I am a six foot (well, a bit less) sixty six year old liberal minister. I am white. I am  straight.  But I am much more than those characteristics, just as Collins is.  Hopefully we are coming to a time when we are all seen for who we are, not just for one aspect of our self.  Maybe some of the deep homophobia will lessen now.  That would be a good thing.  Maybe some of the overly macho sense of professional sports will decrease; that would be a good thing too.

Maybe, like Neighborhood Church, we can be a welcoming society.  That would be a great thing.

Rainbow Connections

Here is an article that will appear in the May newsletter of Interweave, a UU affiliate national organization that keeps track of congregational happenings in the area of LGBTQ programs and progress.

Back in March of 2011 I delivered a sermon, “The Uneven Progress of Gay Pride.”  I spoke about how, incrementally, gay folk have gained legal status, painstakingly bit by bit, law by law, state by state.  On the other hand, the previous fall saw a rash of teen suicides, kids who had been bullied relentlessly for being gay.  In researching my sermon, I discovered another alarming stat:  fully one third of homeless teens identify as LGBTQ.  Many get kicked out of their homes once they come out.  Many of these gravitate toward Los Angeles and Hollywood, where they have vague hopes of finding sustenance and affirmation in show business.  Most end up on the streets, homeless, perhaps on drugs, prostituting.  Thankfully, the LA Gay Lesbian Center, the largest non-profit of its kind in the world, helps these kids with an array of amazing programs.

But my church is not near Hollywood – we are northeast of LA.  I knew there was no Gay and Lesbian Center of Pasadena, and there still isn’t.  What could my church do that could help these kids?  Homeless LGBTQ kids were likely couch-surfing near the Community College.  How could we reach them?  If we can’t reach them (we haven’t found an effective way to yet), could we still do something to help non-homeless LGBTQ youth, questioning, and their allies, ages 12 – 18?  Could a program offering prevent teen suicides?

After my sermon, the LGBTQ Youth Task Force was immediately formed, and we have met monthly ever since.  We began with a feasibility study.  We researched resources for the homeless in the San Gabriel Valley area, we asked the LA Gay and Lesbian Center for guidance, which they ably provided, along with encouragement and enthusiasm.  They told us to go for it, create a program.

We found terrific and experienced facilitators who identified LGBTQ (currently, we have two “T”s, one “B”, and one “Q” who switch off as lead facilitator).  Long story short, one year later, we offered our first monthly safe space program, Rainbow Connections, in March of 2012.  Six kids showed up.  Andrew Montejo, the staff member of the LA Gay and Lesbian Center who offers a similar program in Hollywood, said that was a huge success.  “Six kids is amazing!” he cheered.

The program meets in the most comfortable setting of the church, known as the Living Room.  We offer great snacks, pizza, beverages, and most importantly, a well-facilitated program that varies.  Sometimes it’s games with prizes, or discussion, other times a movie.  Adult volunteers who help with the hospitality end of things are not in the same room with the kids and facilitator(s).  We just hear their raucous laughter and know they are having a good time.  It’s a place for LGBTQ kids, questioning, and their allies to meet, share resources such as good LGBTQ pride models in media (books, movies, music) and be affirmed by one another’s presence.  To find kids, we outreach to area GSAs, at pride events, PFlag, word of mouth, and make use of social media such as Facebook.

We observed our one year anniversary of running Rainbow Connections this past March, 2013.  We have had as few as one kid show up, and as many as 12.  You might say that is varying success, but as a UU minister, I’ve never related to the story of Jesus saving that one sheep better.  Several times, we have helped just one or two kids not feel so alone navigating their newfound LGBTQ identity.  We do suspect we are saving lives, one kid at a time.

We have recently created an additional program offering – we are able to be e-pals to kids who cannot make the meetings.  One of the most important partners we have is P-Flag, who just happened to already be meeting at our church monthly, for years.  Through them, we heard by email from a teenage girl who was at the end of her rope.  She had come out to her parents as a lesbian, but they did not approve.  She was immediately connected with one of our “regulars” of Rainbow Connections, and an e-pal relationship commenced for which the girl is grateful.  We offer our e-pal program on our Facebook page now.

The LBGTQ Task Force is happy to consult with other UU churches if you’d like to get your own Rainbow Connections off the ground.  Even in a place like the Los Angeles area, there is need for this program, and UU churches are well-suited to take this on.  It is both rewarding and fun to ‘own’ this project.  A few times, a Latino boy was driven all the way up from South Central LA by his Catholic mother and grandmother.  “There is nowhere else for him to go,” they said.

Even though he hasn’t been back in a while, perhaps because they realized UUism has a very different take on Jesus, I know we made a difference in that teenager’s life.  He knows there are and will be places for him to be himself, as soon as he’s able to get there.

Rev. Hannah Petrie

Solace…and Solution

In the company of about 65 other men, I attended the UU Men’s Fellowship annual Spring Renewal at Camp de Benneville Pines last weekend.  The UUMF was founded in the 1980s by Rev. Tom Owen-Towle and a group of interested men at First UU Church San Diego, and remains affiliated with that congregation.  It has spawned similar groups at other California UU churches, and the Spring Renewal enables the men involved (and friends) to gather as a larger brotherhood.  (Click HERE for more info.)

The weekend included a mix of exploration and sharing in large and small groups, workshops and activities, and ritual/worship.  One way these came together for me was in the sweat lodge ceremony I did with five other men on Saturday afternoon.  In this dark, sacred circle we shared hopes and prayers, chanted in English and Sanskrit, and felt the steam open both our pores and spirits as we took turns ladling water onto the heated rocks piled in the center pit.  This was all terrific.  But it was an occurrence outside the lodge that touched me the most.

As has been the case for years, several men had assembled the sweat lodge that morning using a wooden frame and fabric coverings that one guy stores in his garage and hauls up in his truck.  The finished structure was pretty tight, but as the mountain winds picked up a couple of chill drafts found their way through seams.  “Sam,” the facilitator of the sweat, noticed these and called the locations outside the lodge to “Bob” (I’m using pseudonyms because confidentiality is one watchword of the Renewal)—and in moments tarps covered the gaps and made the space more airtight.  And I was filled with gratitude.

Sam and Bob are two pillars of the UU Men’s Fellowship.  Their love for this ministry is plain as day—and they wanted this particular experience to be right for the participants.  And in that moment of quick responsiveness, Bob embodied for me the spirit of fatherly support that so often takes a back seat to competition.  There was no manly rivalry here.  No drive to plug the gaps better than someone else.  No performing to please a superior.  Just unconditional loving-care.

And the fact that Bob was outside the circle made his action extra special to me.  He didn’t benefit directly.  Rather he was willing to stand at the perimeter and be watchful, aware, alert to the needs of those inside.  Guardian… custodian… elder in the most dignified sense of the term.

Sometimes love takes the form of solace.  Here it took the form of solution.  I think it often tends to in men.  And for this I am thankful.

-Peter Farriday, Ministerial Intern

Cowardice and Heroism

I imagine that for most of us, the bombing in Boston on Monday provoked a wide range of thoughts and feelings.  For me, near the top was a deep and profound sadness.  How is it that someone would deliberately seek to harm innocent people, people standing in a street, waiting for family members and friends to finish a road race?  If the bombs were timed, why target runners near the end, the runners for whom this was probably a triumph just to finish, the regular people, people with their own courage and hopes. An eight year old boy died, waiting to see his father finish.

How can this be? What is it about us that lets such hatred or anger grow in us that we believe it is acceptable to sow such harm and terror, such evil?  What brings this about?  Why are humans capable of such gratuitous violence, such meaningless acts?  What is possibly accomplished by these kinds of things? Such sorrow for those lost and those harmed, but sorrow, too, that this is who we are.

I can only think that it begins when we think we are better than others, or that others are less than we are.  When we think only we are right, when belief gets in the way of tolerance.  It begins when principles or ideas become more important than real people.  It begins when we think rights matter more than responsibilities. There is too much violence around – the violence at the heart of guns, the violence at the heart of homophobia, the violence that would deny women ownership of their own body, the violence bred in patriarchy, the violence towards immigrants, the violence towards the poor, the violence in entertainment, the violence in professional sports (especially football!) the violence that dogma breeds, the violence of our language.

The best and the worst of us happened in Boston: cowardice in setting the bombs, heroism in those who responded to the injured. Which side am I on; which are you?

Boston is our UU city; it is our holy city, and so this carries a particular sorrow. It somehow seems so close to home. I have no answer other than what we affirm: the worth and dignity of every person, the rights of conscience, justice, equity and compassion, acceptance, respect.  The more they are practiced, the less violence there will be. And that would be a good thing.