Grailville

I returned from a retreat at Grailville last evening after a drive from Loveland, Ohio to Detroit, Michigan and then Detroit to Springfield Heights. I drove with my colleague Rev. Karen McFarland to Detroit, and then my colleague Rev. Leonetta Bugliesi to her Springfield Heights home. It was a crazy combination of ride sharing, both to Grailville and than back home, which gave me a chance to spend good hours in building collegial relations coming and going.

Grailville is the leading center of The Grail in the United States. The Grail is a women's movement based in Christian spirituality that seeks to promote interreligious relationships, community and power. Started in the Netherlands in the 1920s, it is an international community of women. 

I concluded my stay in Grailville with some private time before breakfast, walking the path beyond the barn-turned-chapel Oratory to the back pasture where the telephone pole installation "Poles" stands. Robert Wilson created "Poles" with the help of many volunteers in 1967, transforming the pasture into a performance space. Three arches--like a stage's proscenium--form a gateway to the open field. A collection of poles stands like the rows of seating in a theater facing a smaller portion of the open space, edged by the graves of members of the Grail and the Grailville community.

I read that "Poles" was restored in 2001; but since I began visiting Grailville in the fall of 2005, the monumental collection has again become overgrown with trees and vines. I am neither disheartened nor pleased by this development. I am, instead, led to wonder. I wonder what it looks like in the spring and summer, when the grass is coming back to life not coated with the heavy dew of autumn. I wonder what performances have happened on the site, and how the site is used in these days of a sober spirituality about sustainability. I wonder if anyone imagined what a star Robert Wilson became, and wonder how he came to know the Grailville community, and vice versa. And does he have a connection to them now?

For me, the quiet of the rock covered graves, the names of the sisters of the Grail and their companion brothers and sisters, the simple plantings and variously decorated gravestones . . . and the notion I feel that the Poles give witness to a performance that continues beyond their deaths . . . all these move me to find a moment, each year, to be alone with the Poles, to be alone with the weather (yesterday a cool drizzle) and to be lost in my monkey mind thoughts.

I am happy to be in the Heartland, to be among colleagues, to be on this human and Unitarian Universalist journey, and especially to be able to take a little time away from my routine.    

Hillary stumping for Barack

I was ever-so-pleased to be asked by the Genesee County Barack Obama campaign to give the opening Invocation tonight at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's appearance in Flint. The gymnasium at Carman-Ainsworth High School was packed, and Senator Clinton was at the top of her game--sharp, funny, passionate, clear. The crowd loved her and loved her message.

After the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem, I asked that everyone hold someone's hand. "We're all in this together," I said.

Here's my prayer . . .

"O Thou whom no person at any time hath seen,

And yet who, in all the ages and places of the human story,

hath revealed yourself

in the hope of parents for their children

in the faith of all who care for our elders, for the infirm,

for the dispossessed and the abandoned,

and in the love that we know and we strive to share with others,

reveal yourself again to us.

"Be with us, divine presence, in our hearts, in our minds and in our actions

as we come together, a people in a blessed nation,

called to be each other's keepers,

and called to accept the challenge of democracy as our own.

"Let us believe in each other and in the common good.

Let us live into the promises of our nation

of equality, freedom and shared prosperity.

Let us consider wisely our selection of leaders

and the expectations we place upon them.

"O holy One, known in each house of worship, in all holy words,

in deeds of righteousness and mercy,

and in the beauty of this created world;

be with us and our nation in the weeks and days before us

  and even in this very moment.

Bless us and our nation that we might be a blessing to this word.

"By every holy name we pray, Amen."

10 Years, and counting

My church marked the 10th Anniversary of my ordination a couple of weeks ago. I was especially pleased that we invited Dean Stevens to come from Boston to present a concert. Dean invited two young musicians, Chloe and Chris, from Milan, Michigan to share in the concert. And then Dean stayed over to perform at our Sunday morning service.

The weekend of his visit was one of the rainiest we've had, and Dean made the choice not to drive to Grand Rapids and Indiana to visit family and friends, but rather to stay at my home, to practice and read and stare out the window.

One great gift Dean gave me was the observation that I live in a beautiful home. He shared that he could see the rooms where work was still being done, the rooms where work hasn't even started, and the mismatched furniture. Still, what a grand yard! What a relaxing library! What joy to have a pretty good piano in the living room! What a place to put your feet up and enjoy a book!

Of course, what he says is true. I don't look at my place and see its charm. Rather I'm weighed down by its expense, I'm sometimes immobilized by the thought of its declining value, and I so wish that the _____ (kitchen, living room, bathroom, you fill in the blank) could be finished. Cheaply. Soon.

I purchased a beautiful glass mezuzah when I was in Fort Lauderdale for UUA General Assembly in June. I finally got it up on the doorpost. I know that I'm appropriating someone else's culture, but I think it is the resident culture of the home I am only beginning to be owned by, and I mean it to honor the Golden family, not to dishonor Judaism. It has two scrolls in it, one traditional Hebrew scroll and another with the UU principles. It pleases me.

  

My friend Jack came to visit, and gave me a hand in putting up new curtains in the living room and sun room. They're somewhat sheer linens with a simple silkscreened pattern that is very Scandinavian. I need to get some more attractive rods, and raised them 10 inches or so . . . but they make it feel, more and more, like it is my house.

My dear friend Elissa showed up this weekend and spent a day helping me get my recyclables to the recycling center. We put up another coat of faux Venetian plaster, in a less red color, and I am so pleased. With just a little more of a skim coat, a good dry, cure and burnishing, the kitchen will be ready to be declared "done," at least for my living. (For selling, some day, it will need to be neutered, beiged, toned down!) But I'm close, I'm close.

The furniture has largely been rearranged. I have a new bed (from IKEA) that I enjoy. I need to figure out the dining room. But hey, it is a beautiful house, a great place to relax, a wonderful place to live, a supportive place to be. 

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.