Spiritual Log

grieving

2009-11-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

I didn't really want to go to church yesterday because the topic was "Remembering Those Who've gone before" and it's been a cloudy and dark October and I just didn't want to get more depressed thinking about dead loved ones. But I went. And it was a very powerful service, because of what we shared and experienced together. I realized something important: I don't really know how to grieve. I have spent very little time doing it. I was raised to not feel sorry for myself and I automatically associate grieving with feeling sorry for myself. Jesus said "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." I'll be more open to the experience the next time it hits me, though I hope it doesn't come soon.

another atheism reflection

2009-08-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

We had another atheism service at church last week. This was a followup of the one we did a year and a half ago. Three of us, Tom, Sarah, and I, shared our thoughts on the subject. Someone commented on my previous reflection, so I thought I'd share this one, the newer version showing where I am now. I'd be interested to hear your comments, as long as they aren't mean. :)

Today I’m going to talk first about how I learned some of life’s lessons without the benefit of religion. Then how I am enjoying much more learning life’s lessons with the help of religion. And finally, how this leads me to want to spread the word and bring other heathens into our fold. Maybe our selling point can be: join us and you can still be heathens!

I have been an atheist for 28 years now. For the first 25 years, I was a typical atheist. I concluded there was no God; and I associated religion with a belief in God, authoritarianism and lack of free thought. I lumped “spirituality” in there too, whatever that was. When I threw off the cloak of religion, I threw out the good with the bad, though I didn’t realize it at the time. Fortunately, before I concluded I was an atheist I did study both eastern and American Indian philosophy which left an imprint on me. I developed an attitude of living in the moment and not the future. I didn’t choose my career based on what would give me a good job or money in the future, but on what I enjoyed doing. I figured I could always get a real job when this road ended. So that was a good start. But that’s about all the spiritual tools I had at my disposal for the next 25 years since I didn’t believe in spirituality. I focused on my career, because I was taught to work hard, and because I felt ready to be a contributor after spending the first 20 years of my life learning. However, the subject I was contributing to, which is astronomy, is pretty esoteric. While I think it’s important for society to support the arts and sciences, I also felt that something was missing in pursuing only this. Not only that, but the culture in academia, well, if you need spiritual sustenance and don’t know it, you probably won’t accidentally stumble upon it in academia. However, everyone’s experiences will vary. Especially during my postdoctoral years, I was in a more competitive than cooperative environment and was encouraged to take on what I consider to be more negative values, like selfishness, and being concerned about status. But I was as much to blame as others for playing along. The other difficulty for me with academia was that you couldn’t choose where you wanted to live. You are expected to move wherever the job takes you. I also developed a rather negative attitude at this time, and thought I was superior to most of those dopes who are tying up faculty jobs all over the world. I’m sorry to admit this.

Well, without knowing I was on a spiritual journey, I chucked it all and moved to Madison, in search of…I wasn’t sure what, but a more ‘full’ life. Plus my girlfriend lived in Madison! I could have forced her to follow me to some faculty job somewhere but I felt in the big picture, my career was not as important as her roots in Wisconsin. I went on a 4 year career journey that was very good for maturing me and giving me grounding and a sense of perspective. At the end of that, I found myself back in astronomy with enough funding for 5 years. I said to myself, okay, I’m going to enjoy the next five years and do astronomy the way I want to do it. I don’t care if that is the end of my career after that—at least I I will have 5 good years. For me, that meant sharing instead of advertising. I spent 3 years developing a computer code to interpret data from an upcoming infrared telescope. Then I published a few papers on it, and made all the codes publicly available for anyone to use. My elders said, ‘that will be the end of your career!’ Of course, it wasn’t. I got more people asking me to collaborate, more “citations” on my publications, and more invitations to give lectures than ever before because people were trying to learn how to use the codes I developed. I also got outstanding students who wanted to work with me. I also met lots of people who shared my attitudes about cooperation, and I realized there are lots of nice people in academia after all.

So in my journey without spirituality and community support, I managed to learn some perspective, some grounding, and that if you want to share and cooperate, go right ahead! I also started developing a more positive attitude about life. But I was still missing something: friends. My friends were scattered around the world, having followed their jobs of course.

I stumbled into James Reeb a few years ago after quizzing an atheist friend of mine about why he went to church. He was very enthusiastic about this small church called James Reeb. I didn’t expect to like it but I figured you never know until you try. Boy I was wrong. This turned out to be a perfect fit for me. The U-U religious principles and practice express everything I believe in. And James Reeb is a very special place to me.

So how is an atheist different from a believer in a supernatural being? To tell the truth, I think it matters much more how you live your life than what you believe. I feel I have more in common with some Mormons than I do with a lot of atheists. An Episcopalian friend of mine asked me, “If you are an atheist and you go to church, what do you worship?” I thought about it and replied “I worship ideas, the best qualities of humankind, and what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it. I worship the earth and plants and animals and the universe.” Another friend of mine says she believes in God because she wants something to thank for all the wonderful things we experience in life. I love that sentiment. All of us, whether we are looking for something to thank or worship, for a way to serve our community and to be in community with others in good times and bad, for spiritual sustenance, and/or to seek out the truths, we can find this through religion, at least the U-U religion. That is what makes us similar, this desire to journey with others, not our beliefs.

So now that I found religion, I’ve pursued my spiritual journey with relish. What has that consisted of? Well, here are five examples of things I’ve done: 1) read a bunch of books; 2) joined a chalice circle; 3) done community service in the church; 4) gone to services; 5) became a worship associate. I’ll describe them briefly.

1) I read some books about the U-U principles and practices. There are several great, short books on these in our library, which will someday re-exist. I learned how to win friends and influence people from Dale Carnegie. That is a misleading title for a wonderful little book written in 1936 about how to live your life. He says that sharing, smiling, and treating people with kindness and respect will make you successful; and by successful, he doesn’t mean rich, he means happy. I learned how to spread social viruses from Malcom Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point,” because it’s a good book and I want to spread the virus of love and happiness. I learned about mindfulness from thich nath han. I learned about “radical self acceptance” from a buddist teacher named tara brach.

2) my chalice circle. This is a group of 7 people who get together and share what is going on in our lives to each other. Over the last couple of years we’ve been interested in what a spiritual journey is and how to do it. We’ve developed our own spiritual practices and shared them with each other. The chalice circle is one of the most important activities of my life. I love my chalice circle friends and feel bonded to them.

3) Community service is to me, by far, the most important aspect of a spiritual journey. I just think you can’t receive anything without giving. I don’t know why it works this way, but it is part of our nature to want to give and it produces a very fulfilling result. We are naturally cooperative people, despite what we’ve been taught (to justify capitalism in my opinion). And it is so easy to get involved in Community Service here at James Reeb. Perhaps this is the time to advertise next Saturday’s work day? 9a-1p.

4) Sunday services. I know that I will always get something out of a service: sometimes it’s the moment of silence that I enjoy the most—which is not to say the rest of the service is lacking, just that I sometimes really enjoy the moment of silence. Between the opening words, hymns, joys and concerns, pastoral thought, reflection, and socializing afterwards, I have no trouble finding joy in one or more aspects of service.

5) worship associate. The best thing about being worship associate, for me, is reading poetry, which I do when looking for opening or closing words. I’m a complete poetry novice, and I don’t understand most of them. But every once in a while I get one, and it’s fun. I also enjoy the reading and writing I do in preparation for a service. I’m the first to admit that the results don’t usually reflect the preparation that went into it, haha. One thing I did for this service was I listened to a bunch of sermons from the FUS website while I was driving to and from Toledo last week. There was a section from one sermon by Michael Schuler that I found very relevant to this discussion: Robert Solomon, a philosophy professor, said that spirituality is about the grand thoughts and passions in life. By passions, he means: love, reverence, and trust. The enemies to spirituality are not skepticism, doubt or disbelief; rather, they are envy, resentment, vengefulness, self-righteousness, and exclusivity; these are the negative passions, which are prevalent and even commended in our culture. Schuler says, “Therefore, to be spiritual in this day and age is to be radically counter-cultural.” I love this. Maybe that explains why I have this strange desire to become a hippie.

So where am I going with this spiritual religious atheistic journey and reflection? Well, I think my spiritual journey has two parts or goals. The first part is internal, learning to live a good life, and doing what makes sense to me, not what society tells me to do. Over the 25 years when I was a spiritually challenged atheist, I learned some important lessons through hard experience. I think I could have learned them much more easily if I’d been a member of a place like James Reeb. So that leads me to my second goal: I would like to reach out to other spiritually challenged people out there, and spread the social virus of love and happiness. I would like James Reeb to grow, not for the sake of growing and getting more pledges, but because I think so many people in this neighborhood and throughout Madison, need James Reeb and don’t know it. I think people are tired of being depressed and cynical, and using consumerism as a substitute for happiness. So I suggest that we be radically counter-cultural, like Jesus was, and share our love, reverence and trust with everyone we meet.

republican or democrat?

2009-08-02T20:22:00.001-07:00

I'm beginning to think those labels-republican and democrat- are false categories. I was at "Laura Ingalls Wilder" days at Heritage Hill State Park in DePere Wisconsin this weekend (for family reasons). One of the videos we watched talked about how the author and her farmer husband believed in values of hard work, independence, individuality and taking responsibility for yourself. I realized, those are probably traditional republican values. I thought, oh, is that why so many farmers are republicans? But times have changed and now farmers get subsidies and payments to not plant or plant special crops, and they can barely afford to be farmers and they have all these debts from their equipment purchases. So much for independence and individuality and taking responsibility for yourself--not that it's their fault, it's the system. I also realized, I believe in those values and live my life this way. So maybe I'm a traditional republican. But I believe in single-payer health care and social security, and I don't believe in capitalism and government meddling in my sexual preferences. I don't like what either the republican or democrat politicians have become. I don't like the spinelessness of the democrats and the religious meddling of the republicans. I could go on and on about what I don't like about them but that wouldn't solve anything. I'm mainly just commenting that the labels are becoming meaningless to me.

atheism I

2009-05-24T19:19:00.001-07:00

Someone asked me if I'm an atheist who goes to church, what do I worship? My quick response was:

I worship ideas, the best qualities of humankind, and what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it, to name a few things. I worship the earth and plants and animals and the universe.

I wrote a reflection for an atheism service at our church last year. Here's the text of that. Maybe that explains it a little more. This summer we are going to do another service I think to report on where we've gone since last year.

How an Atheist became Religious

Thomas has described how he went from a religious path to atheism, and I’ll tell you how an atheist found religion. (I’m still an atheist).

I first became an atheist after I took a religion course in college called “Atheism”! Now this sort of thing is what makes parents fear a liberal education, but I assure you I was the only one in my class who became an atheist, if that helps at all. I was already heading in this direction before taking the class, and as it turned out, the pro-atheism readings convinced me more than the pro-God arguments.

Just to clarify my definition of atheist. I realize I can’t be 100% sure there is no God, just as many believers aren’t 100% sure there is a God. I just find a worldview without God to be the most plausible. I attribute the beauty of nature and the universe to nature and the universe rather than God. I attribute the goodness of humans to humans, which I find more uplifting and inspiring than attributing it to God. Of course, we are responsible for our evils also. This worldview puts my focus on life on earth rather than an afterlife. Life is precious and short and we should get out as much as we can. Also, the earth is the only place we have to live on, as there is no heaven, so we’d better take care of it. And I don’t feel we humans have a special place in the world compared to other life forms, and so for me that means we should respect them as we do ourselves. Regarding the immense suffering in the world, now I don’t wonder how an all-powerful God wouldn’t want to do something about it, and I realize that we are the only ones who can do something about it, and we should. So to me this is an uplifting view of the world. And to prove atheists have morals: I have morals, I’m an atheist, therefore atheists can have morals.

After college, I felt my life philosophy was reasonably well-established and it was time to be a productive member of society rather than to keep asking questions…if you call being an astronomer a productive member of society... I relished life and tried to make the most of it but I didn’t really continue to ask the big questions after I became an atheist, maybe because I thought I had it all figured out. I had a largely negative view of organized religion, as I think a lot of people do, even those who believe in a diety of some sort. I object to religions telling people what to think and not allowing their doctrine to be questioned, even when it conflicts with science or advancement of cultural norms. For example, religions should be at the forefront of civil rights advancements, but sadly they are usually the last. And that brings up the more emotional reason I disliked organized religion which is the oft-heard view of homosexuality as a sin. And then there are all the wars fought in the name of religion.

So what is a spiritual journey for an atheist? Is there one? This is the question I started asking myself a couple of years ago. To help answer these questions, I thought I would update my knowledge and read a few recent books on the topic. One is “The God Delusion” written by world-renowned evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins. He’s a very...outspoken. The other book I read is “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris. Neither addressed my question. Dawkin’s book ended when he was done proving the arguments against God and trashing religion. I did find some of the new evolutionary arguments to be interesting. He even suggests that there is an evolutionary instinct for religion. Harris’ book argued that what you believe matters and that some religions are more dangerous than others, and inspire suicide bombers for example. He argued that Islam is most dangerous and Christianity is not too far behind and therefore we need to do away with all organized religion. I was looking forward to seeing what alternatives he offered for organized religion but there were none. I mean, if you are going to take away something from a few billion people, shouldn’t you offer an alternative? And if Dawkins is right that the desire for religion is an instinct, you are now fighting instinct as well as not suggesting an alternative. Good luck with that!

What I finally realized after thinking about this for a few months (I’m a slow thinker), is that Harris and Dawkins are objecting to irrational beliefs, but that is not necessarily the same as religion. As I learned during my time here at James Reeb, religion means community. You could conceive of a religion that doesn’t force you to believe crazy stuff without question, that.."affirms and promotes a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." Hmmmm.

Neither of these books addressed a positive aspect of human nature that attracts a lot of people to go to church: that is the sense of community, the acceptance, and the opportunity to do good works. Now I didn’t realize this either until a few years ago. I always thought the reason people went to church was, 1) eternal salvation, or 2) for appearances, or 3) because their parents make them. (you can guess which one applied to me). But finally, some evidence creeped into my brain that made me realize that it’s about something more, thanks to some people I got to know.

The first is my partner’s sister Cheryl. She and her husband are very involved in their church and help out a lot. For a long time I got the impression that this was just the church taking advantage of them. But after many years I realized that this is, second to her family, this is what gives Cheryl meaning in life and she really enjoys it. I suddenly understood the good side of religion for the first time in my life. This, by the way, is an example of how anyone (i.e., me) can have their judgment clouded by pre-conceived notions, not just those who believe in their religious doctrine.

The other person who influenced me is the nice little old lady who lives next door, named Louise. An example of her generosity occurred when a public announcement was made that a convicted sex offender was moving into our neighborhood. It was the talk of the neighborhood, and some of us felt noble for concluding that he has a right to live here. But Louise baked some chocolate chip cookies, brought them to his door and said “I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.” She is very religious and attends a traditional church, but has similar political leanings as me, even on those hot-button issues like gay-marriage.

Since then I’ve had conversations with people I knew who went to church and I discovered that most of them take their doctrine with a grain of salt. I do agree with Harris that organized religions can be dangerous and corrupt when they are not democratic and their followers don’t question what they’re told. So we just need a religion that, say..."affirms and promotes the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large." ahhh.

So, how did I become a church-going atheist? At first, I decided I wanted to start giving back to the community after a life of great opportunities. I did a bit of volunteering for a political campaign, and tried to do a little bit in the biking community but I really didn’t do much at all and was kind of going nowhere with this plan. I happened to be chatting with John Mathis about this, and he started telling me about this church he’s really excited about called James Reeb. “But I’m not proselytizing!” he said. He said he feels he can do more as part of a larger community, which is the UU church. I knew nothing about UU besides the jokes I heard on Prairie Home Companion, but I was curious to see what John was so excited about. So I showed up the next Sunday and have to admit I was pretty freaked out about being in church. Besides funerals and weddings, I hadn’t voluntarily gone to church in 25 years. The singing was fun. But when Darrel started talking about the central “sacrament”, the sharing of joys and concerns, I thought, oh man, this is communion! which was just an old catholic sacrament in new garb. eek. Then after Joys and Concerns was over, I thought, oh, that was very nice; and then I relaxed a little. And there was more singing which was fun. Then came Darrel’s reflection. Was that ever perfect timing for that reflection. I was tired of being negative and down about politics and the world. I was tired of hearing people blame all our problems on a certain politician. That’s a great way to take no responsibility of your own and do nothing about it. and I wanted to do something positive and start feeling positive. And Darrel was talking about just that. So that’s how I became a UU even though I didn’t know anything about UU. I started out because I wanted to do community service, but I’ve been really surprised to find out that I have gotten out so much more than I contributed. I probably was longing for community as well as community service. And now I realize it is the Beloved Community that was my gift.

After I joined James Reeb, I decided I should probably learn something about the UU “doctrine” if there is one and make sure I agree with it, so I read a couple of books about it both of which were great. One was this little book of essays on the 7 principles and purposes of UU that are printed on the back of your order of service. I recommend it if you are looking for insights for your spiritual journey. I realized after reading this that the principles fit in perfectly with my world view—the focus on the here and now rather than an afterlife—to “create a Heaven on earth” as Eugene Pickett said, which also connotes action, such as promoting peace and justice.

So what is my spiritual path? Community service is a central component. Right now, that mostly occurs within our church, but I can already see ways to move beyond that. I also want to make personal choices that minimize the exploitation of resources, people, and animals. What I’ve done so far in this area has been very rewarding spiritually, but I have much more I can do. In addition to giving, my spiritual path also includes receiving: in the form of the Beloved Community, spiritual growth, and nurturing. I get this from our thought provoking church services, my chalic circle and my yoga practice, to name a few things.

I’m curious to know how my current spiritual goals differ from a Christian, jew, muslim, or buddists or hindus or pagans? I realize there is a spectrum of spiritual goals in all of these religions. I’d be interested to find out from several of you with different beliefs how our spiritual journeys differ. And since you probably didn’t ignore yours for 25 years, I bet you have some useful advice to offer me, which I welcome.

today's pastoral thought

2009-05-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

I was "worship associate" at church today. The topic of the service was "The Theology of Ascension." I gave a 3-minute 'pastoral thought." Here's what I said. It seems more serious on paper. I'm not as serious when I talk. Thanks to Reverend Susan Snook for providing most of the material, ha:

As a “nonbeliever,” I had to do a little research on the topic of this service, which is the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven, after his death and Resurrection. Fortunately I joined Facebook a few months ago and got re-acquainted with a college classmate who is now an Episcopalian minister. So I asked her what the ascension story means to her. She said for her the basic meaning is that God has been united with humanity, and humanity is in turn united with God. An important piece of this is that Jesus is resurrected in a physical human body, so he carries our human-ness with him, including all our wounds and disabilities, straight to the heart of God. She said “If you focus on this, you begin to realize that we are blessed in all our human-ness: our bodies, our emotions, our environment are all present in the heart of God and are therefore holy and sacred.” God’s purpose for this is for all creation to be renewed, healed and restored. The second piece of the story is where the angel sends the disciples on their way and is basically saying “Don’t stand around staring up into the clouds. There is work to do here on earth.” The message to Christians is, don’t focus too much on your salvation. Let’s be God’s partners in bringing peace and love into this world.

I thought, wow, this is actually similar to issues I’ve been exploring in my own personal life. I’ve been listening to a set of recordings called “Radical Self Acceptance” by Tara Brach. These are from a Buddhist meditation point of view and I’ve found that to be very enjoyable. I think a lot of the messages are very similar to the idea of humanity uniting with God—of our human-ness becoming sacred. Instead of feeling bad about so much of what makes us human, and trying to stamp out the imperfections, we can take Zenmaster Dogen’s advice “To be in harmony with the oneness of things is to be without anxiety about imperfection.” Self-acceptance leads to acceptance of others. It occurred to me that since self-acceptance can be so difficult, it might be easier to go from the other direction, by practicing love and acceptance of others, and eventually learning to apply that to ourselves.

The second message about focusing more on your life on earth is one that resonates well with U-Us. I’ve spent most of my life staring up beyond the clouds as an astronomer, and flying into them as an airplane pilot. But this started to get a little lonely after a while. Through the U-U religion, and James Reeb in particular, I have found an opportunity to partner with my fellow humans in bringing peace and love into this world.

I like preparing for these services because it makes me think. It also makes me look around at various poems for opening and closing words which is fun too. Here's what I chose for opening words. Just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I don't like a good story:

As far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!
And God reached out and took the light in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and the stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God sad: That’s good!

James Weldon Johnson

This is what I chose for closing words:

So if someone tells you that she or he knows pain, loneliness, loss, fear, and dismay, but does not know the feeling of being sustained by a love that is wider, deeper, and infinitely vaster than the sorrows, hear those words as a commission. Hear your commission to love, to create community, and to heal. One at a time in personal relationships, ten at at time in covenant groups, hundreds at a time in our congregations, hundreds of thousands at a time in our religious movement, millions at a time as we take our commission deeper and deeper into humanity’s heart as a justice-loving people who will transform the world. This is the Good News of our faith.

--Thandeka, minister

It was a good service I think. Rev. Darrel had lots of good stuff to say about emphasizing the common ground we have with other religions rather than the differences.

My sister sticks up for gay people

2009-05-02T17:10:00.000-07:00

caution: contains several swear words (well this is a spiritual blog, so you might not be expecting it).

I thought this story was so funny: My sister, Susan, was outside the grocery store unloading her groceries, as were 2 women next to her. A guy drove by, stopped, and yelled at the women "Fuck you, you goddam dykes!" Susan yelled "Get out of hear before I call someone to kick your ass, you Toyota driving dipshit!" His jaw dropped, and she said "Go on!" and he left. Susan apologized to the women and said she didn't know what got into her, but she was having a bad day. One of the women said, "Wow, no one has ever stuck up for me like that before."

One thing I think was very funny was that Susan had time to notice that he was driving a Toyota. Relevant note: Her husband works for Ford and has been layed off a lot lately. Actually they got bad news from Ford that day which contributed to her bad mood (as did her grocery bill). She said she felt bad about losing her temper and I said, those women will probably remember this fondly for the rest of their lives. Normally I wouldn't praise losing your temper and swearing, but this is an exception for me. I like that my sister sticks up for gay people.

Why I quit Flying

2009-04-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

When I tell people I used to own and fly airplanes, they usually think that’s cool and want to know more about it. They usually want to know how I got interested in it. What I find more interesting is why I left. I started flying at the age of 35, in 1995. I realized that exclusive focus on my career was not healthy becayse then my happiness was dependent on how my career was going and that didn’t seem quite right. Well, flying was definitely a great distraction from the career. It was exhilarating! I always felt wonderful after a flight. This was in part because I didn’t die, to put it simply. I think flying gave me meaning in life.

After about 10 years of flying, earning several certificates and ratings (Private Pilot, instrument rating, Commercial, Certified Flight Instructor), and owning a plane for 5 years, travelling around the country, and then crashing my plane, I started to lose interest. Actually, on the day of my crash, as I rode my bike to the airport, a thought surfaced from my subconscious “I wonder if I should quit flying.” I say it was from my subconscious because I was surprised by it. Then I proceeded to crash the plane and wished I’d heeded the thought. I wasn’t injured, just had a malfunctioning tailwheel locking mechanism. Here’s a description of it from my website.
Okay, getting back to my point, after flying for about 8 years I started feeling like I was missing something. My hangar partner retired and moved to California. Flying became a lonely experience. And the expense was getting to me. Could I be doing something more useful with my time and money? Something more useful to society? And the environmental impact was starting to bother me. I’m doing this purely for fun. There are plenty of fun hobbies out there that don’t contribute to global warming and use oil. I was very depressed at Christmas-time in 2006 I think it was, thinking about the death and environmental destruction in Iraq, caused by our country’s desire to secure their oil resources. I felt that directly related to my flying hobby. Also, I didn’t really feel like I belonged to the piloting community. It’s full of nice people, yet I didn’t always feel comfortable, in part because of fears I wouldn’t be accepted because most have more conservative views than I. And I didn’t have any buddies to help me fix my plane or go flying with. I started finding other communities I felt I belonged to (yoga, church, vegan, healthy eating), started finding meaning in life through other means, and as a consequence, I started to lose interest in flying. That’s why that thought entered my mind on the day of the crash. The crash sealed the deal because it instilled more fear in me than I had before.

heroes

2009-04-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

One of the sermons at the U-U district assembly meeting last weekend was on heroes. The service was put together mostly by young adult--what impressive people they were! They described their heroes. Three of the four described African-American people, which made me realize how ignorant I am about African-American history. Fortunately one of my friends promises to help enlighten me on this subject.

I started thinking about who my heroes are. And I realized something that a lot of other people have said so it’s nothing new, but it still struck me and was kind of sad: I have not had that many heroes in my life. There are famous people that I know are heroes like Martin Luther King. I think my state senator, Russ Feingold is a hero. Howard Zinn. Amy Goodman. But I don’t know any of these people personally. Are there any heroes I know personally? I have met some in the last 3 years. One is an astronomy professor I’ve known for years but I didn’t know he was a hero until recently. He donates half his income to charity. He was audited once because he tried to pay too much for taxes. This was a guy who raised 5 children on a single income. He was upper middle class, but not rich. I don’t recall that many heroes from my youth. This is the fault of me more than anything: I chose to focus exclusively on my career for about 20 years. The values I learned there were to work hard, to not share my tools of the trade, to get ahead, to put my career above all else, to toot my horn and criticize others or else be ignored and fall into obscurity. Aside: I started ignoring that advice about 10 years ago and my career success increased after I made my computer codes publicly available.

I now realize I’m surrounded by heroes I never saw before throughout my community. Better late than never!

"District Assembly"

2009-04-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

I had a great weekend at the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Central Midwest District (CMWD) meeting in Waukesha, WI, about 80 miles east of here. That’s a mouthful. It was a 2-day conference (Fri. even through Sun morning). The topic of the meeting was “leadership in times of profound change." I attended 3 inspiring services with wonderful music from people of all ages. The keynote speaker, Sharon Daloz Parks, gave an outstanding lecture on leadership. After deciding last week to stop buying books and start using the public library, I bought 5 books (oops…two on leadership, one on sustainability, one on “worship that works” and one on the 7 principles of U-U). I got a bunch of free CDs with advice and success stories for congregations and lay leaders. We also had a forum with the two candidates for president of the UUA. That was very interesting, and I definitely left with a preference for one of them (Laurel Hallman). I roomed with someone I’d never met before who attends another church in my city and we had fun getting to know each other. Hopefully we'll be seeing each other again.

After being anti-religion from the age of 20 to 46, now at the age of 49, I love the U-U religion. I love the positive spirit, the encouragement to question and grow, and the commitment to equal rights and social justice. I look forward to working more on the social justice projects in my church.

another talk

2009-03-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

I went to another great talk a few nights ago, again, part of the UW Distinguished Lecture Series. It's such a privilege to be able to go to these talks! This was by Daniel Dennett. He is a philosopher and he was talking about the importance and implications of Darwin's evolution theory. It was very interesting to follow and I definitely had to pay attention. He summarized how evolution works and gave counter-arguments to intelligent design. He noted that we are the intelligent designers. Some insects can build intricate engineering marvels but it's not because they thought it through--evolution made it an automatic response that they do because it propagates the species. He had a quote about how evolution works but I forgot it--something about the randomness and stupidity of it all and how that creates the magnificence of the world. The early critics used this as an argument against evolution and he says, yes, that's exactly how it works. Only humans actually think through and design things and build a culture that is passed on, thanks to language. It made me wonder, how do animals think without language. That's also where we were introduced to memes. These are like genes only they are...cultural or something, they are information we pass on through language. I am probably getting it wrong. I have his book, "Darwin's Dangerous Idea". I'll have to read it. He also recommended Darwin's "Origin of Species". He said it's a good read. I have that too. I also happen to be taking a course at my church on religious humanism and naturalism. And I read an article in the U-U magazine the other day on the topic. That made me realize for the first time why Intelligent Design is becoming so popular. I guess I never thought through how much a threat evolutionary theory is to the traditional world view in most religions. But if you seriously believe evolution, and then think about God, well, the God in the bible doesn't make quite as much sense. A lot of people are fine with this and still believe in a God, but they don't take the bible literally and don't believe in heaven and hell in the traditional way. But if you want to take the bible literally, it's harder to believe in evolution. You can believe God put it all in motion, but again, that is not the traditional view. My parents believe in the bible literally, so I guess that explains why they also believe in Intelligent Design.

journal

2009-02-20T06:32:00.000-08:00

yea, today I wrote in my journal. I refined my meditations or affirmations, whatever they are called. It was fun. It is not really a meditation yet as I am not ready to sit still for 10 minutes and think about nothing. But I'm ready to sit still and remind myself about the three topics I came up with. First I think about my health and body, going from top down and how healthy everything is and how grateful I am for that. Then pause. Then think about my partner and things I appreciate and how to treat her today, and come up with examples. Then pause. Then think about the rest of the world, who I will meet today, including strangers (for example, Mike if visiting today, I'm going to the hardware store later, and the chalice circle is coming over tonight), and what do they need and what story I will extract from them. hee hee.

What makes me believe in the power of positive thinking was the example of my dad. At about the age of 45 he retired from the air force and became a salesman (financial planner). He was quiet and shy (partly due to his upbringing in a very isolated area) and did not have the natural salesman personality. He listened to Zig Zigler tapes. His personality actually changed. He became much more personable and it was real. Maybe it was fake at first but it did change him. He became a good salesman and a much more interesting person. My dad put a lot of work into this. I'm not sure what 10 minutes of thinking about it every morning will do, but that's the point of the experiment is to find out.

meditation idea

2009-02-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

I was on a long airplane flight yesterday and after I ran out of things to work on and read I thought, hey, I'll try to meditate. I had a short meditation on my ipod so listened to that. I have heard of the benefits of meditation but just do not have the discipline to do it much. One thing that I've always thought was strange is repeating mantras in a foreign language. The people who originated those mantras were speaking their native languages and the words meant something. It seems to me we should use mantras in our native language. So I decided to make up my own mantras. I made up mantras on three topics. One is on healthy eating, a hobby of mine. The second is on how I should treat my partner. The third is how I should treat other people. Each has about 5-10 very short elements (short phrases). I can change them however I want. I like this idea and think I would be much more willing to sit down on the floor and go through these mantras, repeating them outloud; then thinking about them or whatever else pops into my head; and then moving on to the next. I don't care if that's not how you are supposed to meditate. The guys who invented these things did what worked for them. I'm going to do what works for me. Plus telling myself positive messages has got to be a good thing. As I learned from this book I'm reading, little things can have a big influence.

Edited a few days later: I think maybe these are more affirmations than mantras. Yesterday my substitute yoga instructor went through a meditation where we went from our head to our toes sensing each part. I can see where that is more of a meditation as it gets your mind off other things. Well, both are good and worth trying out, meditations and affirmations.

spreading the word

2009-02-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

I'm reading a book called "The Tipping Point" by Malcom Gladwell. It's about social viruses and how they get transmitted. Like many others readers of this book I'm sure, I would like to start some social viruses. He says there are 3 rules for starting epidemics: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The first relies on amazing personalities, salesmen who have a zillion contacts. The second allows the message to stick, i.e., people pay attention. The third is that people behave differently depending on the situation they are in, and seemingly minor differences in the situation can have a big effect. I don't think I have the right personality to use rule #1, but I could find someone else who does and influence them. Getting the message to stick--I'm willing to experiment with that. And the last rule, that is the one that fascinates me the most, how the little things can affect people's behavior.

What virus do I want to start. 1) I want people to learn how dramatically healthy eating can improve their health and happiness. People have no idea how dramatic the effect is and if they did know, I think would change their behavior. But stickiness (#2) is a big hurdle. and I am not a good salesman, though I'm giving it a try with my blog (#1). So I'd like to investigate the Power of Context, little things that can change people's behavior. 2) I want joy, love and hope to spread through the population. I think it already has started and that is how Obama won the election. In fact, he is a big reason. He is rule #1, a charismatic personality. Stickiness (#2) is probably not such a big hurdle for this message. And context, well, I think people were ready for it. We went into a depression (not economic) over the last several years. I think we got tired of being depressed and cynical and using consumerism as a substitute for happiness. We were ready for a new message.

I'd like to think of ideas for how to start the viruses. For healthy eating, right now I have the blog. For love and joy, you can do a lot on a one-to-one basis so I'll start there. More on this later, I need to go to sleep soon.

another great talk

2009-02-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw another great lecture, by Neil deGrasse Tyson. It is written up in this Capital times article. I think it was the best lecture I've ever heard and one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. He ran over for maybe an hour, and then spend another 30 minutes answering questions. We got there early to get a good seat, so I sat in that seat for 3 hours, from 7-10 pm. I was spellbound and could have sat there for another 3 hours if he had kept talking. He talked about the need for scientific literacy and why we need to inspire people to go into science, and why science is worth pursuing. (Now I'm feeling guilty for jokingly referring to various gods and goddesses on my daily bike ride). He talked about a lot of other things too. He made the periodic table of elements interesting. He is the most talented speaker I have ever heard. And he seemed to so want to be there with us. He didn't want to stop talking and he didn't want to stop answering questions. I will have to buy his books and see if they are as anywhere as good--I'm hopeful they are. And I'll have to start watching his programs, like NOVA ScienceNow.

Tyson is an astrophysicist, as am I (but I call myself an astronomer because it has a long history I like to associate myself with). I sat with some other astronomers and non-scientists. I think the non-scientists liked it better than the professional scientists but I'm not sure. Some of the astronomers said it was entertaining but they didn't seem as excited. I'm sure part of why I enjoyed it was that it was a celebration of what I do. That's a nice feeling to know you work on something that inspires and excites other people. I also enjoyed learning from a great performer. I could never give his talk or be like him. It just reinforces that I can only give a talk that comes from me. So it reinforces that I don't want to copy what others do and copy their material, but speak from my own heart, like he did.

During the introduction, a physics professor (Peter Timbe) recited a quote by Carl Sagan which was wonderful. It was an exerpt from his book "Pale Blue Dot", inspired by an image taken by Voyager 1 of the earth as it was leaving our solar system in 1990. Here is the quote and here is a video with Sagan speaking it.

I almost didn't go to this talk because I was too busy with work. I'm glad I shirked my duties.

I wonder if this counts as a peak experience, entertainment, and/or spiritual. I think it was some of all three.

housemate's spiritual practices

2009-02-01T18:12:00.000-08:00

In our conversation yesterday, we came up with housemate's spiritual practices:

1) yard work, including gardening and weeding. I recall so many times when she is out working in the yard for hours, is totally dirty and exhausted and walks in the door and I'm feeling guilty about doing nothing and expecting to get scolded and she says "I can't imagine having any more fun than I just had."

2) travel. She feels the same way about the Grand Canyon trip we took last spring. I mentioned this in my first post.

3) daily walks (she needs a blog, haha).

4) reading

what is a spiritual practice?

2009-02-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

When housemate was helping me with my Pastoral thought yesterday, she asked me what makes something a spiritual practice? Some things we came up with:

1) Defining something as a spiritual practice goes a long way to making it one.

2) Once you define it, being mindful of it. That is, being in the experience as you are doing it. In practice, this doesn't always happen. Sometimes, the worries of life invade.

3) not all spiritual practices are daily, but some are and that's part of it, I'm not sure why.

ummm, I'll keep working on this. We're still a bit confused about it. What's the difference between a spiritual practice and a hobby? We know there's a difference but aren't sure what it is. For example, watching movies, golfing, bowling we would consider hobbies. It's more entertainment and we don't take it seriously. Housemate loves watching and following sports on tv, but doesn't consider that spiritual. But I have a friend for whom golf is a spiritual practice. He waxes poetic about it. So it's not so much the activity but how you view it and what part it plays in your life.

My 3 minute speech

2009-02-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

Today was the service at my Congregation on "Our Spiritual Traditions" where I was the Worship Associate and gave a 3 minute "pastoral thought." It went well. I shared my favorite spiritual practice, riding my bike to my exercise class, as described on this blog. I've worked on it on and off over the last few weeks and it wrote itself pretty easily. It really helped yesterday reading it to housemate and getting her comments and having her ask what makes it a spiritual practice, which led to an interesting conversation and improved the speech. But then last night I reviewed my notes from talking to Darrel (the minister) about the service and realized he wanted me to talk about my spiritual quest, and I wasn't really doing that. So this morning I woke up and rewrote my speech. It only took about 15 minutes. So now I had two speeches, one describing my spiritual journey the last 4 years, and the other describing my favorite spiritual practice. I chatted with Darrel again, and got the feeling I should focus on my spiritual journey more than a practice. But he didn't see the essays, and I think this was a case where one was a lot better than the other. I saw my friend Colleen and asked her to read them and tell me which she liked better, and she said definitely the biking one. So I went with that and it went well. I think the other would have fallen flat. It's hard to tell your whole story in 3 minutes. The biking essay was more of a vignette, more entertaining, kind of different, and well suited to a 3 minute speech.

I had trouble last night coming up with opening and closing words. I just don't have much material, having not spent much of my adult life reading poetry and spiritual works. It took me hours to come up with something, reading through some poetry books. The opening words were serious but I liked them, I don't know if anyone else did. The closing was a lighthearted prayer to a leisure god. That went over well.

Darrel had a lot of good thoughts in his sermon. He suggests that a spiritual journey can two components, a solitary one and a communal one. The solitary ones are the practices you do on your own, and the journey that you are on. The communal one is helped by being a part of our congregation and sharing in a spiritual journey together and getting sustenance from each other. He also described his favorite practice which is to light a candle in the morning and tell himself that he is not going to live a fear-based life but a loving-based one. I'm paraphrasing and probably mis-quoting several hours later. He said when he does this, it really affects how he views the events of the day. I really like that. Another thing he talked about was peak experiences and how those aren't really spiritual practices. An example might be the megachurch experiences which are often more entertainment than spiritual. That's an interesting thought. I still think my grand canyon experience was spiritual though it was probably also a peak experience.

spiritual practices I need to do

2009-01-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

In my first post, I wrote about spiritual practices I do; or things I do that I decided to call spiritual practices. Here's a few things I've identified that I need to do or do more of:

1) Write my memoir. This is item #9 in the first post but I've been neglecting it. See that post for a description. It's not something I would write for others to read, but as therapy for me.

2) Write a letter to my parents, even if I don't send it. Someone in my chalice circle gave me this idea.

3) Think of a spiritual practice that celebrates loving someone because they are gay; not tolerating them, or loving them in spite of it, but loving their gayness.

atheist or agnostic?

2009-01-27T18:17:00.000-08:00

I was having a conversation with someone yesterday at this lecture we went to (part of the UW distinguished lecture series), and we were talking about an upcoming lecture by Daniel Dennett. He is described among other things as a "Noted atheist and advocate of the Brights movement." I said to Kevin, "I don't like the term 'Brights'. It sounds arrogant and obnoxious to me. It implies that people who are atheist are bright and people who are believers are dumb. I don't think that's true, and I'm speaking as an atheist." And Kevin said, "Oh, you identify as an atheist? I think atheists are as religious as believers. I'm an agnostic because we can't really know." I know a lot of agnostics who feel this way. I don't really agree with this. I agree, that I can't be 100% sure there is no God. But I am not 100% sure of most things in life. I can't be 100% sure that there isn't an alien race living on the other side of the moon that is purposely keeping their presence hidden from us. But I'm going to go ahead and say I don't believe there is an alien race living on the other side of the moon. I feel the same way about God. I think the God in the bible is kind of a jerk, for example, when he tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. And I don't like a God who, if he really takes a personal interest in our lives and wants us to pray to him and is all-powerful, how can he let so much suffering take place? He just doesn't give any hints to me that he's out there. The scientific explanations of our world make more sense to me. But I respect the views of many believers. I know I can't be 100% sure. And I also respect where many of them are coming from--from a place of awe and wonder at the beautiful world we live in. I can understand wanting to attribute that to something equally or more wondrous who created it all. Then there are the people who think they will go to heaven when they die. This is harder for me to swallow. But some people I love dearly feel this way, so I don't want to disrespect them either. Anyway, I've rambled a lot, but my main point is just that I think even though I can't be 100% sure there is no God, I think it's reasonable to identify as an atheist, in the same way I don't think there's an alien race living on the other side of the moon even though I can't be 100% certain.

good religious/spiritual traditions

2009-01-26T20:28:00.000-08:00

I need to work more on this and I'm rushed because it's bedtime and I really need to try to get more sleep. In a previous post I said I need to think of some good religious traditions. I came up with a couple that seem okay.

1) Lent in the Catholic faith. That seems okay. maybe? Experience missing something you like. Gives you empathy for others?

2) Fasting in several faiths (Muslim? Mormon). It's healthy anyway. See Dr. Fuhrman's Fasting and Eating for Health.

3) I wish I could say Christmas. Some of my favorite people in the world love Christmas. I want to learn to see the good side of Christmas. I can rattle off lots of negative things--like the pressure to prop up the economy by buying useless presents for everyone; traveling during the holidays along with everyone else. This year I decided to abandon families and spend it by myself and start traditions that I like. I participated in a fun pageant at my Congregation. I did have a lovely Christmas. But it's partly because I didn't really celebrate it.

4) Easter grosses me out. Jesus was crucified and then... rose from the dead? And people eat chocolate bunnies.

So I'm not off to a great start. But I'll keep thinking.

lecture

2009-01-26T20:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, tonight I went to a lecture by Amira Hanania, a journalist from the Palestinian territory. Wow. First we saw a documentary, "Live from Bethlehem" about the independent Ma'an News Agency. The documentary was done by two UW journalism students. It is 1/2 hour long and worth watching. Then Amira spoke and answered questions. Wow. A woman journalist in Palestine, married and raising twins. She described what it's like to be a woman journalist, and Palestinian and her views on the conflict and on the war, and how she got started. The latter was very entertaining: she was listening to a terrible radio call-in show and a few days later walked into the station and said she could do better and they hired her. She was 18 years old. Then she became popular, and when she went to journalism school, people asked her if she's related to the well-known radio show host. It was really interesting to hear her stories and her views. She seemed reasonable. I bet most regular Palestinian and Israeli people are reasonable. I wonder if most of them think there should be two states and that they should recognize and respect each other. That is her view. It's the politicians and generals who keep the fighting and killing going. It's terrible. In this last set of attacks, over 1400 Palestinians were killed compared to less than 10 Israelis. How can the Israelis, and the US who backs them, justify this?

What are my spiritual practices?

2009-01-24T05:40:00.001-08:00

[edited this post again on Jan. 27. I'm going to keep adding to it as I think of other things.]

I've been thinking about this lately, motivated because I have to give a "pastoral thought" at my congregation next week, for which the topic is "Our Spiritual Traditions." My first attempt at writing something produced a very negative couple of paragraphs for personal reasons I won't go into here. Let's just say I react negatively to the word "traditions". Spiritual Traditions remind me of religions which reminds me of institutional mean-ness towards oppressed groups. I should be more positive, shouldn't I? I mean there must be good connotations to spiritual/religious traditions, right? There must be lots of good spiritual traditions that lots of people in traditional religions practice---okay, that would be a good exercise to come up with a list. I will do that.

In the meantime, I realized that over the last 4 years during whatever this transition is I've gone through, I have embraced new spiritual practices like a very thirsty person finding water, having neglected that part of my life for the previous 25 years (I shouldn't discount that too much however because I was and am doing fun and fulfilling work). I just never thought of them as spiritual practices. So now I will attempt to categorize some of my activities into spiritual practices. This will evolve over time and I think I will actively try to think of new ones. Here we go:

1) My daily morning bike ride: It is a time for just me and my thoughts. It's a repetitive practice (that seems to be a part of spiritual practices and I'm not sure why): I ride a similar route at a similar time every day. Yet it varies: the weather, the seasons, the road conditions, the animals, people, trains, cars; and the time I leave or the place I go occasionally varies. The time I return home varies a lot more. And I love it and it makes me happy.

2) My yoga classes (I have to go to class to get the spiritual benefit partly because I'm not disciplined on my own, and I like the community and the teacher and the whole experience). My goal is to go 3 times a week. I have been going 1-2 times because I get too tired to do that and my exercise classes. So I should maybe cut back on the other, because yoga provides more than just physical. It forces me to stop ingesting constant noise or work or radio or tv (or all at the same time) into my brain. It makes me relax in a pretty profound way. In fact, I wonder if this is the trigger that changed my life over the last 4 years. I started yoga in December 2004. I think it was Dec. 22. Then I became vegetarian in May 2005, vegan in July 2005, became obsessed with learning to cook vegan food, lost my interest in flying airplanes, started going to church in Apr. 2006, even though I'm an atheist---I now realize those two things are compatible. I feel that yoga changed my mind set. Emptying my thoughts during those classes allowed new ways of thinking to enter my mind.

3) Cooking. I could cook all day. It's not as meditative as it could be because this is when I listen to my news and other programs (e.g., Democracy Now.) on the ipod. Or I listen to music. This is typical me, trying to squeeze in too many things at once. I love preparing food. I love shopping at my local co-op and buying nothing in a can or box--only produce and bulk items. Then coming home and turning it into meals. Often, the simpler it is, the better.

4) Working jigsaw puzzles. I did this a lot when I was a kid. I have not done it since then, until a month ago, because it is a totally useless activity and I should only be doing useful activities, right? But last Christmas my sister was working one and I joined her and it was fun and I started one this Christmas at home. The uselessness of it is part of the attraction. It's kind of meditative right?

5) My chalice circle. Last night I did not want to remove myself from my warm house and get into my cold car on a cold dark night and go to my chalice circle. But as always, it was a very worthwhile experience. We talked about spiritual practices and I was thinking about it this morning in bed and for fun, decided to start this blog, because I want to refine my thoughts more. Why do it in public? Why not in my journal. Well, it's not like anyone is going to read this, ha. Plus, I'm finding rationality and modesty really gets in the way of progress of any kind (work, spiritual, anything). Of course it makes no sense and it's vain and self-centered to do this. So what? Why do you always have to have a good reason to do something in your fun time? You don't. Fun time is about doing silly things you want to do for no reason at all! And I'm a terrible journaler. I want to journal, and I just don't. So yeah, some part of me must want other people to read this. Maybe I want a conversation.

6) Congregational services at my Congregation. I'm trying not to use the word church, since that is apparently a Christian term and my "church" welcomes non-Christians. But it's so much easier to say "church". Anyway, I almost always get something out of my church service (oops, congregational service). Between the thoughtful sermons by the minister, pastoral thoughts by the worship associate, Joys and Concerns shared by many people, the moment of silence, the hymns, the choir, the message for all ages, the conversations before and afterwards, and perhaps most important of all, the hour where I'm not "doing" something (my tendency to fill the day with things I think I need to do), there's plenty of opportunity to get something useful spiritually out of attending.

7) Blogging? heh heh. well, anything that gets me to write about nothing important is I think very useful spiritually. :)

8) Community Service. Okay, this should be higher on the list. This isn't in order. The reason I started going to church (see, congregation doesn't work the greatest here) was because after a lifetime of getting a good education, and getting a salary from your tax payer dollars to study the universe (thanks!), I decided it was time to start giving back to my community. I've been doing that mostly in my Congregation so far, but have done a little bit outside, for example, cooking breakfasts at the men's shelter. Right now I'm super busy with the Congregation because we have a remodeling project going on. After that's over, I think I will expand my scope being the Congregation. I'd like to volunteer at WORT or the Willy Street Co-op.

9) Writing my memoir! haha. no really. I was inspired by now President Barak Obama's book, Dreams from my Father. At least two things inspired me: 1) sharing what it's like to be a black youth in the US. I had no idea that there are so many negative messages to black youth. I'm glad he shared that with us white people who think we aren't racist but are pretty clueless about what it's really like to be black. That also made me realize that I had to overcome negative messages in two areas (female, lesbian--oops, I hope my parents don't read this). And it made me realize the things I overcame are real too, not just silly little things. And in fact I haven't overcome them all and that's why I need to write the memoir, to revisit these issues and come to terms with them. 2) His community service. As someone who wants to do more of this, it was inspiring to read about it, and to see how difficult it is and how you just plug away at it, and all the wonderful and important things you learn from the people around you. I started my memoir on Christmas day. I need to get back to it and write some more. It was fun to get started and remember stories from growing up.

10) My religious education classes at my Congregation. I taught one last Fall on Vegan cooking. I took one on Dying, mainly about legal issues. It was awful. Okay, it was a good class, and I'm grateful I took it. But it was like taking medicine--I didn't enjoy thinking about death and dying. But I learned something that I was able to pass on to a friend whose dog was dying, and that was that at the end of your life when your body is shutting down, starvation is a peaceful and painless way to go. It's a good thing to lose your appetite and stop eating and just drink as you need it, and then things shut down. You don't waste away. You die before that happens. My friend was worried she was not doing enough for her dog and I reassured her that doing nothing but letting him eat snow (his desire) was probably the right thing.

11) My monthly massage. :) I only started this one a few months ago.

12) Listening to U-U sermons on my ipod. I listen FUS from the near-west side of Madison--one of these days, I will go to a service, maybe in the summer when the weather is nice for a bike ride. There's a couple of others I download too, one from Boston and one from Texas or Tennessee I forget. I don't listen to them as much but I plan to eventually.

13) Travel. When we hiked down the Grand Canyon and were at Bright Angel Campground, that was an awesome experience looking around from inside the canyon. It wasn't my idea to do this hike and my feeling was, we can see it better from up top and it's a lot less trouble. Well, I changed my mind as I sat in that campground. I'll never forget how I felt. Awesome.