Midsommar

It has been seven and a half weeks since I last blogged, seven and a half weeks of drawing conclusions and hoping for a significant change in my life. I'm happy to say that, in the past ten days, that I feel a new "centeredness," a new energy for my work, and a clearer space for relationships with family, friends, my congregation and its leaders, and my own future.

Some of this has been about money. I have been financially strapped since before moving to Michigan, and month by month have been catching up. Except for the surprising news that my mortgage company did not pay my winter taxes in February (?!?), I have gotten caught up with just about everything (and I'm writing that tax check to the city right now, and will call the company in the morning before I leave for UUA General Assembly).  

Much of this has been about the conflict in our church, a conflict which arose out of very bad interactions among several individuals and which is seen by most as a personality conflict. The notion "can't we all just get along" has led more than a few people to blame me for not "handling" the situation, hoping that I'd be the rescuer who would protect innocent victims from an abuser. The problem in the church is that different people feel victimized, and different people have been blamed as the abusers. And my reaction throughout has been to reject the rescuer role, to try to get (adult) people to interact directly with one another and to refer to our covenantal understandings to guide our interactions. This has made the process slow and long . . . but I finally feel that it has been exhausted.

As have I.

But that is a conclusion of sorts. And a combination of letters sent to members, conversations with many people, and a workshop with Rev. Barbara Child has brought us all to a new place.

Much of this has to do with my body. I put on even more weight during the conflict in January,February and March. I have been walking with the Crim Training Program (four miles yesterday) as a way of getting my body moving and getting my weight under control. My plan is to walk the ten-mile Crim in August, and the training program gives me some help along the way, along with another group of non-UU Flint residents with whom to relate. And it is motivating--even if dificult to participate in fully due to my Tuesday evening meetings and frequent time away from Flint in the summer.

Well, it is now clearly time to head off to church to finish up this morning's video display (more on this later). The tomatoes in the back yard are happy--I spoke to them a few minutes ago--and the Renaissance re-enacters on the church back lawn will soon be rising with the sun.

Birds chirping outside. Sky turning to a warmer blue.

Valborgsmässoafton

or Walpurgis Night.

If I were "home" in Rhode Island, I might be attending a Valborg celebration with my family at Little Rhody Vasa Park. (In truth, of course, I bet they'd celebrate not on April 30th but on the closest weekend!) We'd have some Swedish food (with some Italian specialties--I mean, it IS Rhode Island) and a folklorist would share a story and a song. We might build a bonfire (to ward of demonic spirits) and the children might enact running the Winter Witch out of the community. (Lots of layers here.) And there might be a little drinking. Just a little. (Right.)

Wikipedia says that Walpurgisnacht (German) is the time of the "Enclosure of the Fallen." Odin died to retrieve the special knowledge of the runes, and this night of his death is a time when, like on Hallowe'en and All Saints/All Souls, the boundary between the living and the dead is especially slim. It represents a night of chaos when the dead walk among us and might communicate with us. Bonfires contain (enclose?) the dead and protect us from confusion. All creation awaits the return of order with the coming of the sun on May Day, the beginning of summer. (Mid-summer is marked on June 21 with the summer equinox.)

April 30th marks the end of the academic year, and at universities, I'm told, students (and I bet a professor or two) spend the night with peers, singing and drinking and carrying on. Enormous bonfires are built in the weeks leading up to Valborg, perhaps mirrored in the countryside by people having spent weeks pruning trees and then building fires to burn out any mold that has accumulated with the spring's rain. I'm told people expect to sleep away the next morning.

Tonight at our church, we'll have another session in our series of meetings talking about reconciliation in our community. Tonight will be a conversation about shared leadership, shared ministry. I expect that the dozen or so of us who converse will find much agreement, even with differing emphases. I'll hope to post the results of our conversations, even as I try to create a ritual based on our thoughts. 

Reconciliation

Our Unitarian Universalist Church of Flint is a diverse community struggling with some growing pains. We embrace, in our words, a mission that says we are "growing in numbers, diversity and purpose," and at the same time, fear that by growing in numbers we will lose something of our intimate community. Our shared culture contains, like that of many churches, some behavior patterns that are from the small, family-sized church, some of the slightly larger pastoral church we have been for decades, and aspirations to be a larger, program church with an exciting program in lifespan learning, a diverse music ministry a campus ministry, etc.

You can tell that there will be missteps and hurt feeling when the community represents such a clash of cultures. It can't be helped! I know that I disappoint people every day, act (and act out?) in ways that are inconsistent with people's expectations of me. When I can, I say a heartfelt "I'm sorry" and hope that it will be accepted and we can go forward. But other times, it is the inevitable conflict of expectations that exists in a complex system that puts me in a difficult place--and puts our volunteers in difficult places, too. And it feels as if there is no way out.

One "way" ("iter" in Latin, right??) that we are trying is an iterative dialogue that has been held on two occasions, facilitated by Bob Brown, Associate Director of University-Community Partnerships of Michigan State University. Our first conversation of reconciliation looked at what I consider an essential for accomplishing shared ministry, the notion of co-creation. I was pleased that the following words were created by the first group of conversants--although I'm not sure any of the others expected that I might use them in a liturgical setting for our whole church. But I did!

The resulting Sunday service, yesterday, moved many of the participants. It affirmed my thought that, if we are to be about establishing the "new norms" that will let our church grow in numbers to be more effective in Genesee county, more dialogue like this needs to undertaken. More liturgies need to be created. Fuller celebration of the ideas of shared responsibility and opportunity needs to be experienced by our community, starting, I think, with me. (You may say that it needs to start with you!)

Reading of Reconciliation
Leaders: To co-create is to be collaborative, to be mutually beneficial to all and our church.
People: It is about the well-being of the whole, about the best interest of our church.
It is about intentionally planning change together, finding common direction.
It is about teamwork, inclusion and respect.
It is about achieving more together than can be achieved alone.

Leaders: To co-create is to seek diversity in voices and ideas.
People: It is about honoring differences in viewpoints and ideas.
It is about finding space for the expression of those differences.
It is about reconnecting with those who feel left out, alienated, overlooked.

Leaders: To co-create is to share power; it is the exercise of shared power.
People: It is about shared leadership, empowering individuals & committees to act.
It is about building our collective capacity to act.
It is about accountability to the whole.
It is about understanding that we as individuals will not always agree with the whole.

Leaders: To co-create is to move from what is, to what can be.
People: It is about being open to change, to new ideas.
It is about unlimited possibilities and realizing potential.
It is about not being restrained by what is.

Leaders: To co-create is to be responsive to each other’s and the church’s needs.
People: It is about all of us being sensitive to one another’s feelings and beliefs.
It is about everyone feeling safe and free to express points of view.

Leaders: To co-create is to check our egos at the door.
People: It is about inter-subjectivity.
It is about “I-Thou” relating, instead of “I-It.”

Leaders: To co-create is to build on all of our strengths.
People: It is about accepting that our entire community is in the process of co-creating.
It is about respect for each other in all interactions.

Leaders: To co-create is to work together in an understood and agreed upon process.
People: It is about deciding collectively how we work together.
It is about the ongoing dissemination of our working-together processes.
It is about evolving our processes together if needed.

Meditation

Words of Encouragement
Leaders: How do we know when we are not co-creating successfully? We are not co-creating:
People: When we are not listening or communicating.
When goals are not mutually agreed upon.
When goals are not being met.
When things go bad.
When nothing new is being made.
When challenges to authority are stifled.

Leaders: How do we know when we are co-creating successfully? We are co-creating:
People: When mutually agreed upon goals are being met and they are good for our church.
When we hear the collective, “Wow!”
When grievances are resolved.
When diversity is apparent.
When it feels that things are going right—we’re “in the flow.”
When we are interconnected and not in silos.
When we honor multiple ways of making meaning.
When we are communicating and connecting in a positive way.
When our traditions and history are being honored.
When we check the relevance of our history and traditions.
When we feel safe to voice any opinion.
When we hear laughter.

Promises to Keep

I slept in the day after Easter, rather wiped out, and then rushed around a bit yesterday. So finally I am up and about . . . and thinking about this profession, this full-time, called and settled ministry that sometimes unsettles me.

I have been thinking about the ordination promises I made years ago. Standing before the church that raised me, the Committee on Church and Ministry that held me "in care" during seminary, and with colleagues in the United Church of Christ and other traditions, I was asked these questions, and I gave these responses:

David Carl Olson, before God and this congregation, we ask you:

Are you persuaded that God has called you to be an ordained minister of the church of Jesus Christ, and are you ready with the help of God to enter this ministry and to serve faithfully in it?

(I am.)

Do you, with the church throughout the world, hear the word of God in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and do you accept the word of God as the rule of Christian faith and practice?

(I do.)

Do you promised to be diligent in your private prayers and in reading the scriptures, as well as in the public duties of your office?

(I do, relying on God's grace.)

Will you be zealous in maintaining both truth of the gospel and the peace of the church, speaking the truth in love?

(I will, relying on God's grace.)

Will you be faithful in preaching and teaching the gospel, in administering the sacraments and rites of the church, and in exercising pastoral care and leadership?

(I will, relying on God's grace.)

Will you keep silent all confidences shared with you?

(I will, relying on God's grace.)

Will you regard all people with equal love and concern and undertake to minister impartially to needs of all?

(I will, relying on God's grace.)

Do you accept the faith and order of the United Church of Christ and will you, as an ordained minister in this communion, ecumenically reach out to all who are in Christ and show Christian love to people of other faiths and people of no faith?

(I do and I will, relying on God's grace.)

These promises I call to mind virtually every day. I think that's part of being called to ministry. I may need to interpret them through my own skeptical, liberal, modern lenses, yet still, I hold to them, use them to bind me to a people and to a purpose.

Rev. Alma Faith Crawford preached at my service of ordination, and Rev. Raymond Bradley, Jr. prayed. My Dad presented me with a stole, and my sister Donna a robe that she designed and sewed, and for which the whole family found a variety of buttons. When I robe, when I put on my stole, when I preach, when I pray, all of them are present to me in a vital way; and I think of my promises.

Happy that Easter has come, and that spring will find Flint very soon.

Good afternoon.

Close to Home, Close to Tears

I performed a Memorial Service last night in Byron, Michigan followed by a reception at the Eagles Aerie in Durand. On the drive home to Flint, I burst into tears and realized that I have been living into what I asked for when I moved to Flint. It feels so hard.

Unitarian Universalism, in my experience, is clearly localized in upper middle class and suburban culture. We joke sometime about an "M.A." as the price of admission to membership in our churches. We say we expect a learned ministry (although we really don't have much of one, anymore, but rather a professionally prepared clergy), and yet are satisfied that our members are often smarter than our ministers.

When it was clear to me that it was time for me to leave Community Church of Boston, I met with a leading colleague in Boston who looked with me at the list of congregations that were in search. He read a list of eight wealthy suburban congregations in eastern Massachusetts, and said he thought I could use my public position as President of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and frequent supportive spokesperson of the janitors union in their struggles as a way to become minister of one of these powerful pulpits. I rejected that notion outright. Not that I don't want to have a meaningful ministry among people with resources; but there are plenty of well-prepared ministers who can serve in those locations.

I come from a working-class family, my Dad a maintenance man in a vinyl factory and later a sheet-metal rolling mill, my mom working in the home until all the kids were in school, and then working restaurant and clerical jobs often on a part-time basis. I was the first person in my family among all my cousins to go to college, and even now I am in a minority among my cousins.

Still, this upper middle class liberal religion has been lifesaving for me. In Unitarian Universalism I have found a place to be the free-thinker that I am; to live openly my homosexuality and radical politics; to find friends who care deeply for the earth and for the people who live closest to the earth, those who, because of their economic resources, have fewer options than the wealthy to move to other places, to avoid the poisoning of the earth and the commodification of our food and our lives.

I came to Flint to pursue a multi-class and multi-cultural Unitarian Universalism. I came to be in a place where there might be the possibility of leading a racially-diverse community. I came here to be able to sit with working-class families in their joy and grief, to accompany them in their experience of injustice, to offer them a broad and liberal way out of circumstances and thinking that might have been straitened by the relentless attacks of our economic system on working people, families and communities.

Here I was, after sitting in the simple home of a grieving man who had lost his partner of 25 years and who wanted, in his grief, not to be bombarded with anti-gay messages; here I was with his sister who had watched her brother struggle for many years and finally to die only weeks after his 50th birthday; here I was trying to speak a truth about the tremendous value of worthy lives that might be considered less significant than those lives of the wealthy, educated, powerful.

I asked for this ministry, and here it is. And yet the truth that I don't experience in my everyday life is that a working class life is a familied life, a communal life; to find myself without a family here, without much of a community beyond my employment here, is difficult, lonely.

And so a drive last night with many tears.

The morning is bright, snow is steady and beautiful, just at freezing and pretty "even." I'm leaving later this morning to see the first showing of "Semi Pro" in Flint at noon. Looking forward to THAT! (And yet, I'll be doing this alone. Hmm.)

Good morning.

Black History, Children's Books

Last night, Prof. Rose Casement, a member of our congregation, gave a passionate presentation on her brilliant, inspirational and comprehensive book, Black History in the Pages of Children's Literature (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008). I spent much of the presentation in tears.

This is not a book review. The book is described by its publisher thusly:

"In spite of the month of February being designated as Black History Month, few students, regardless of race, leave school with an understanding of the depth and breadth of Black experience in America. Black History in the Pages of Children's Literature presents Black history contextualized in chapters that provide both an introduction to historical periods and an annotated bibliography of outstanding children's literature that can be used to introduce and teach the history of each period. These children's books provide stories and information that can help students develop deeper understandings of the distinct history of African Americans within the encompassing history of America.

"Author Rose Casement provides a complete historical timeframe from pre-colonization to the present, with chapters specifically covering the colonization of North America, the years of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the role African Americans played in westward expansion, the Jim Crow years, and contemporary stories that depict the present. Accompanying each chapter's bibliography are notations as to the recommended grade levels for the books presented. A glossary of terms and an index are also provided for clarification and easy access to specific areas of study. Teachers, parents, librarians, and administrators who want to gain a greater understanding of Black history will find this book to be a good resource."

In her presentation, in which she cited about twenty books which she had at hand, Prof. Casement asked us to be attentive to providing some guidance to our children as they read this literature. "Is it historically true?" is only one of the questions we must consider. "Does it tell the story in a way that children can understand?" is a great consideration. Kids know about whether things are fair, they can understand when events are right and wrong. Children can write their own experiences and feelings into the narrative of other people's lives.

"Does it romanticize history?" is a great question, one which asks us to confront the reduction of certain Black leaders from the truth of their brilliance and courage. Last night Prof. Casement read a quotation from a Lewis and Clark picture book a page where York, the enslaved companion of Clark, looks into the northern lights and, just for a moment, forgets that he has been enslaved. Such romanticism needs to be undone, talked through with children, given a context that they can understand.

I'll leave reading the book to you (and I hope you will). But I will share that Casement brings a sense of the resourcefulness of teachers, parents, librarians and others who help form our children. Her presentation showed her trust that we want to do the right thing for our kids--Black kids and white kids and all kids--but that we, like they, need better tools to do the right thing. And she tries to provide these tools. She quotes from each of the books she would have us read, and trusts that her quotations will make us want to read the books cited. She groups the books by historical topic, and then gives us indications of age appropriateness. She gives us a glossary.

I was struck by her appeal for literacy reparations. It is a passionate, political and very Unitarian Universalist appeal. She looks at a historical truth--that illiteracy was one of the legal shackles imposed on the Africans and African Americans held in slavery and that those who talk Black folk to read and write could be severely punished--and its lack of remedy--the interruption/abandonment of Reconstruction and the restoration of economic slavery--and then the current state we find--low literacy rates, insufficient libraries and failing schools in urban centers like Flint--and asks that we find ways to do literacy reparation on a massive scale in our inner city schools and communities, providing the best books, the best teachers, the most modern equipment, the most complete hi-tech capacities, etc. The kids still need meaningful employment on the far side of education, of course, and they need hope; but they need tools and teachers, and Casement's book hopes to be one in the service of the other.

Conflict and the Too-Busy Life

Life has been too-full of late, including a weekend in Des Moines, Iowa filling the pulpit of a colleague on sabbatical, and a weekend in Cincinnati for the Heartland UU District Board of Trustees, on which I am a Member At-Large.

This doesn't mean I haven't been writing, but it does mean that until my laptop got fixed (It is now, hurrah!), I haven't had the capacity easily to post. I'll post a few thoughts in the next couple of days, but for now I want to share my latest newsletter column from The Flint Unitarian Universalist.

=====

Dear congregation, our members and friends,

You may know that I have a somewhat split personality when it comes to matters of faith. I’ve told you that my working faith understanding is one of humanism, an understanding that the natural world contains all that is, and that we don’t need the supernatural to reliably live with one another—and the earth—morally and ethically, joyously and aesthetically. Still, the religion of my upbringing ties me to the stories of Jesus, teacher, brother and friend, organizer and rabblerouser, and—mystically, impossibly—the savior and redeemer of all that is.

The task of resolving the conflicts among these understandings is mine. That’s what I believe, and that’s what our liberal religion promotes. Each of us uses this religious community to help us on our spiritual growth, letting us create provisional answers for life’s large questions. We seek universal answers even as we expect that we must remain wide open to the unexpected, to the challenging, to the diverse.

We say we want to behave with one another in ways that allow for a multiplicity of provisional answers to our many questions. We say that we want to welcome the stranger, to encourage each other, to allow for difference. Still, we get into trouble with each other because—well, because we are human. Our human differences, the differences of our experiences, the differences of our self-assessments and our assessments of other people’s capacity (or incapacity!), our brokenness and alienation often leave us in bad behavior and conflict.

Conflict is not a bad thing. Understood and addressed, it can be a motor for improvement, evolution. When those of us who are in conflict bring, face-to-face, our differences; when we listen as well as speak; when our interaction causes us to better refine our own positions, we may learn better who we, ourselves, are and what the specific contribution is that we might make to our common life.

Conflict that is avoided can cause us to look at the world around us not as it really is. Conflict that is avoided can send up that marvelous river “Denial,” and leave us adrift. Conflict avoided can harm us.

By the same token, conflict that escalates—and conflict can escalate quickly!—can be very harmful and hurtful. Conflict escalates when, rather than bringing a question or problem to the person who can help resolve the question, it is spread around through rumor and gossiping and further avoiding the real problems and personalities.

Speed Leas of the Alban Institute identifies five levels of conflict in congregations:
I is “A Problem to Solve”;
II is “A Disagreement”;
III is “A Contest among Parties”;
IV is “Fight or Flight”; and
V is “Intractable Conflict.”

When we have confusion or disagreement about something, we can resolve it in the first two conflict levels and decide how to act together. (Sometimes we vote. Sometimes we figure out who is supposed to be responsible.)

When we get into that difficult place where the conflict is not about the “issues” but about the people or personalities with whom we disagree, or when we begin to threaten to leave, or when we know that the only way out is the annihilation of the opposing party, then we are stuck in a place that requires some outside help to work things through and find a resolution—one where, usually, not all parties will be happy!

Our interactions with one another reveal plenty of places where we there is lack of clarity about process, and some confusion about responsibility for programs and decisions. Some places we find that we don’t all agree with the decisions we’ve made with one another. This is normal. We keep talking, trying to listen more completely and speak more precisely. Sometimes we learn just to be quiet and listen to the sound of our own hearts.

We have times set aside this month. An “after church conversation” on Mar. 2. The “Open” service on Mar. 30. Additional times which will be set for small group interaction in a more relaxed setting.

When the conflict we face is larger, (Level IV? Level V!) we may need to ask someone outside to help us talk through our differences. We may need to look at other congregational “right relations” policies to address challenges that we have. We might need to ask a consultant to help us express a radical honesty about our differences. We might have to unearth our fears about the church, its direction and future.

Maybe it is here that I’m happiest that I have this “Jesus loving” side. On the Christian side of my split personality, I know that there is a God—and it is not I!—and that there is a resurrection hope beyond the pain of change and conflict. I know that there is, somehow, a way that everything can be saved, redeemed.

My practice each spring in the weeks leading to Easter is to set aside time daily to be quiet, to study and meditate, even to pray. I’ve been blessed to do this, since Paczki Day (thanks for the Polish pastries!), in ways that make sense to my spiritual quest: watching a video class on great ideas in philosophy, reading the biblical prophets, listening to devotional music, leading interfaith chanting among colleagues . . . and keeping you in my heart.

“Morning by morning new mercies I see,” says the old evangelical hymn, and my quest for mercy has you at its center. I long for ways for us to more fully embody our liberal religion with each other, to be the community of right relations which honors our faith. To embrace conflict well. To change. To grow.

Happy (Humanistic) Easter, one and all.

Love, just love,

(Rev.) David Carl Olson
minister

P.S. Please join members of the Greater Flint Interfaith Community on Tuesday, March 18 at the Life Enrichment Center for a Peace Service on the evening before the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. This non-partisan service is an expression of our deep desire to end not only this war but all war, and asks us to call on our spiritual resources to imagine ways out of this war and all war. The Peace Prayer Service is sponsored by the Genesee County Committee for Community Peace, and members of the Life Enrichment Center will lead the service itself. Leaders of the congregations of Temple Beth El, Woodside Church, Lou’Helen Baha’i Center and the Al-Saddiq Institute & Mosque have indicated interest in attending. I hope you can be there, too, at the corner of Lennon and Dye.