Wednesday Around the UUWorld BBL

For the May 16 "Around the UUWorld" BBL (Brown-Bag Lunch)

The four short articles for May 16 chat-n-chew are:
1. "NASA Fellowship named for UU Astronomer"
2. "Wandering in the Wilderness"
3. "Nautilus"
4. "Community Minister Helps 'One Child at a Time'"

1.

The first article is about Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, b. 1925. She's a longtime member of the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation  in Bethesda, MD. She has been NASA's chief astronomer, and is known as "the mother of the Hubble telescope."

Nancy's minister said, "her recent honor from NASA seems like an honor for all of us. She has opened our eyes and our minds to the beauty and mystery of space and to the remarkable vitality and wisdom of a tiny-grey-hared woman who every day lives out her Unitarian Universalist values and faith."

What does it mean to you that this great astronomer is UU? (Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, was also Unitarian.) Do you, as her minister does, feel some pride in this UU astronomer's accomplishment? What, if anything, does it say about our faith -- or about astronomy -- that some great astronomers have been UU? Does it matter?

2.

The second article, "Wandering in the Wilderness" is about the experience of "wilderness" in our spiritual path. Author Leaf Seligman writes:

It helped immensely to view myself in relation to a larger story of ancient people wandering in an unfamiliar land not knowing why or what was to come.

How was it helpful to view himself in relation to that larger story?

Has your life included times of "wandering in the wilderness" -- and, if so, did you learn

"the usefulness of time in the wilderness,; the way it tests us, . . . so that we refasten ourselves to what matters, reconnect ourselves to what sustains us, and re-member ourselves to the universe that always holds us"?

3.

The third article is a note from the UU art world. "Nautilus" relates UU artist Nancy Norton's adventure with stained glass and, in particular, the work that depicts a seashell in a way that shows the mathematical ratios of the seashell spiral. The spiral winds outward through a series of "golden rectangles".

A "golden rectangle" is a rectangle with proportions such that, if you cut off a square, then the rectangle that remains has the same proportions as the original rectangle. In other words, if the short side of a rectangle is "a", and the long side is "a + b", then the rectangle is a "golden rectangle" if the ratio of "a" to "a + b" is equal to the ratio of "b" to "a". The "golden ratio" turns out to be, like pi, an irrational number. If the the short side is 1, then the long side of a golden rectangle is 1.618....

In "Nautilus" mathematics and nature and art are brought together. What does this do for you?

4.

The last article for this week profiles UU minister Rev. Donald Robinson, who founded Beacon house 20 years ago to help children.

Does Gainesville need a Beacon house? What would it take for us to create one?

Our Revolution Must Dance

The reading for the May "People So Bold" class is Robert Hardies, "Dancing in the Streets" in A People So Bold, pp. 57-62.

Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940), the great radical firebrand and anarchist, supposedly said, "If can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

It's not clear that she ever said that, exactly. She came close to saying it in her 1931 memoir, Living My Life:

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. (56)

Our movement, cause, and faith -- Unitarian Universalism -- also needs dance. Even as we work to bring about "the revolution," we must also take time to celebrate, to model here and now what the post-revolution world will be like.

There is, for us, the hard work of social change. But if we are always deadly serious about the world's injustice,  if we are joyless, we won't help the world move toward joy. Our revolution needs to dance!

David Hardies' chapter talks about the response of the D.C. All Souls congregation to the 1968 riots:

In response to that moment, the members of All Souls Church did an extraordinary thing. They led.They hired David Eaton to serve as their first African-American senior minister. Under David's leadership, All Souls grew into a truly multiracial congregation and became one of the few places in the entire city where black folks and white folks could come together to talk and begin rebuilding the community. The church became a center of peace and of opposition to the Vietnam War. . . . All Souls was one of the first developers on that ravaged strip, building four hundred units of affordable housing that stand to this day. The church responded to its moment in history and became a leader.

If you have a chance, take a look at Robert Hardies contribution to the Minns Lecture series (an excerpt was in the last issue of the UUWorld): click here.

There are an infinite number of ways to phrase questions. More important than the precise question is that we gather together to talk -- and maybe laugh or even dance -- about the Fellowship we love. Tonight we'll share our perspectives on Hardies' writing.

1. What is our dance at UUFG? What's the most celebratory time you've ever experienced at UUFG.
2. What is our "revolution"? When has your involvement with UUFG most felt like we were really doing "what is ours to do"?