Katie's Running Commentary

Learning again

2009-02-03T11:13:00.004-08:00

I´m in Spanish school this week. For 4 hours each morning I sit with an instructor who tries to stuff vocabulary into my brain. and grammar.

It's a bit frustrating. I understand it all, having learned French previously. But the words are different, of course. I can certainly, with prompting, recite the various verbs in their conjugation. but just saying I work, you work, they work, we work, etc, etc. is boring. I need to add some interest to it. But suddenly I need to know how to add clauses, and need more vocabulary than I have.

The joys of learning something new all over again. It´s humbling, to say the least.

The most interesting bit today: I wore my denim shirt with the Canadian Unitarian Council logo sewn on it today. One of the other students at my Spanish school asked me if that was a chalice, am I UU? Yes, of course. So is he--he´s from Boston. I didn´t get time to ask him his name though. Maybe I'll see him tomorrow.

From the Ruins

2009-01-24T14:00:00.003-08:00

I´m in Copan Ruinas, Honduras, taking a break from all the hard work of concrete construction. We have hauled concrete blocks, both 6" and 8", laid block, with mortar mixed by hand, and then stuffed the cracks between. The sand for the mortar is sieved by throwing it on to a screen. Just when I think it´s all manual labour, I see the cement mixer for the big loads of concrete for filling block holes around the rebar, and for the foundation.

I´ll definitely be in shape for paddling this summer!

It´s all a bit of a blur--connecting with some old friends and meeting new ones. All in support of the local community organizing NGO that encourages their neighbors to farm with better practices, and facilitates better education for young and old.

It´s definitely a different world, and a bit surreal now that I sit in front of a computer, connecting with home just a little.

Arriving

2009-01-17T06:54:00.002-08:00

We flew in to San Pedro Sula last night late. The flight was totally uneventful, just like you want them to be. Today is the day to hang out and wait for others to arrive.

This first build is in memory of Jack Allen. It will be a high school computer room. See much more at http://knowwhereyoustand.blogspot.com/

Right now the challenge is to figure out this keyboard. Many keys have 3 characters, including the 2 with both " and the at symbol. So far, I have not figured out how to get this third character, including that at symbol. Try sending email or signing into blogspot without it. I had to get creative.

I'm off!

2009-01-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Off to Honduras THIS week!

I’m off to far and foreign lands this very week. Further than I’ve ever been before. Not only is it further south than I’ve ever been, I’ll be immersed in a culture that I’ve dabbled in only very briefly eons ago. A week kayak trip with only a couple of hours in the Loreto market hardly qualifies as encountering a culture. Sure, I paddled several hours a day on the Gulf of California, but we pretty much stayed with our University of Calgary-led group.

Now I’m off to Central America, and not to a tourist destination. My family is worried about my safety. “What are your emergency contact numbers?” they ask. “Be careful,” they warn. “What are the health considerations?” I wonder. I HATE needles unless they are in my hands, and not meant for me. How much cash should I carry? I understand Traveller’s Checks aren’t used much anymore.

Stepping off into the unknown heightens the anxiety level. My own, I confess, and those who care about me, too.

However, I’m not going alone. I’m going with a group who has done this before. So many times, they have a handbook. They have volunteers on the ground there, making hotel reservations and getting ready to pick us up at the airport. I won’t even be flying by myself—I’ll be with several others, one of whom I know I know. One I think I know. One will have stayed overnight with me the night before, so though I don’t know her now, I will by the time I fly.

So what’s my problem?

I need to remember to trust. Just like when I stepped off the high tower in the ropes course a year and a half ago, I need to focus not on my big step into the unknown, but on those helping me get there safely. Then I can relax—at least a little.

Packing to go

2009-01-04T14:04:00.002-08:00

I'm thinking of packing up for the trip. What do I need? There's a suggested list. I know the kind of things I usually take on trips. I have my usual bags.

It brings up the question "how much stuff do I really need?" I wonder if I can pack in one bag only. It's bigger than a carry-on, and has a day pack that zips off it. I also have a small carry-on bag--I could take that too.

What takes so much space, it seems, is shoes--I don't have tiny feet, by any stretch of the imagination! The suggested list says "two pairs of work shoes." Hmm... maybe, maybe not. I don't even own two such pairs of shoes. I don't have room for them at home either.

I do know I'm not going to be in high class places, where they expect a different set of clothes each day. I imagine I'll go for "keep it simple" and only what I can carry easily, by myself, in one trip.

Thanks

2008-12-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

Raising funds for the Honduras school building projects has been an education for me in more than one way. It is true, I have learned something about the conditions rural Hondurans face in attending school. I have learned something about how they construct buildings there. I expect that I will learn much more once I get there. But I have also learned a lot more about generosity. Both other people’s and my own.

Over the past several months, I have invited folks both from Beacon and others to contribute toward the cost of construction of two school buildings. One is a computer lab for a high school in memory of an old friend; one is a simple rural kindergarten. Many of you have responded with so much generosity, I am humbled. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this opportunity to stretch my horizons while helping others to improve their lives.

This experience of raising money has made me more generous, I think. I am much more aware of need around me, and I care more about it. For some years now, I have severely limited gift giving at Christmas. It seemed a bit pointless to give stuff to people who already have more than they need—and I didn’t know what they wanted anyway. This year, I have made a few small gifts to give. They say that I am thinking about them at least. Gifts are about both need and connection. I was seeing gifts as only filling needs; now I recognize that both giving and receiving gifts re-affirms the ties of affection and family.

My gift of time to World Accord and Programa de Reconstrucción Rural (PRR) in Honduras will also address both needs and connections. Building schools will allow students to gain an education; being there will allow me to connect with folks and a situation I would never have known otherwise.

Thank you.

Off to Honduras

2008-10-27T13:56:00.004-07:00

An Invitation
to make a difference

Some people lay the blocks, some help pay for the blocks.
Together we lay a foundation

I invite you to participate in the education of rural Honduran children. I will be joining the Canadian not-for-profit, non-governmental development organization World Accord (www.worldaccord.org) this winter to help build schools. It works with a partner organization in Honduras to build very basic buildings for remote rural villages. The government will provide a teacher only if there is a school building. World Accord also builds kindergartens—so the older girls can continue their education instead of being tied to child care duties.

The folks there provide local knowledge and expertise and labour. We provide the funds for the construction materials and some labour. Together we build both a school and better connections between individual Canadians and Hondurans.

Each construction build costs a volunteer like me $3000. We are expected to raise funds to cover as much as possible. It breaks down like this:
$900 – Building materials
$900 – In-country expenses (room, board, transportation)
$1,100 – Airfare
$100 – Promotion
$3,000 The total for two builds is $4900

Fundraising is an education for me, as well as my family and my friends. I want to be able to tell you the stories about the struggle some people face to obtain a basic education, something we can take for granted. Education is the means to a better life, anywhere. I’m involved with two builds—a 4 room computer room for an already established high school, and a basic school as shown in the photos.

If you would like to say yes to this invitation, please make out your cheque—whatever amount you are called to give—to “World Accord” and mail it to me.
Katie Stein Sather
11395 205 Street
Maple Ridge, BC V2X 1S3

Thank you for whatever help you can send my way,
whether dollars or moral support or prayers.
Katie

A Latin American said to a North American seminarian,
“If you are here to save me, go home. If you are here to help me,
go home. If you are here because you know your salvation is tied to my pain, then we can work together.”

Spiritual or Religious

2004-09-15T18:06:00.001-07:00

My sermon from last week

Reading
Spirituality is a tricky word, quite fashionable, and often wrongly - in my opinion - contrasted and set against religion. To many people religion has become a dirty word, associated with what they imagine to be oppressive, conservative and dead or dying institutions whereas "spirituality" is often equated with a highly individualistic "pick-n-mix" attitude to the full treasury of global religious philosophy and practice. My definition of spirituality is this; "spirituality is an individual's hunger for truth and her willingness to step forward in faith". This personal quest can be informed by a variety of things but principally by (1) the individual's conscience, (2) our response to the natural world and (3) the wisdom traditions or revelation.
Celtic Spirituality: A Unitarian and Druidic Perspective
Address to the Scottish Unitarian Association
by Alistair Bate
http://www.druidry.org/obod/druid-path/unitarian.html

Sermon: Do you consider yourself religious, or spiritual?
Have you ever heard someone say, like Monica Lewinsky did in her interview with Barbara Walters, "I’m not really religious, I consider myself spiritual"? I’ve heard it, and read it, any number of times. In one case I remember well, it reflected distaste for orthodox, traditional religion as it was practiced in St. John’s. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church there had not dealt with individuals—both Christian Brothers at an orphanage, and priests in the parish-- perpetuating sexual abuse on children in any kind of decent way, so common response to "religion" became tainted. Many people wanted nothing to do with any kind of organized religion, no matter what stripe. Mainline churches across Canada and North America are losing members faster than they can cope with.

Yet, look at the religion & spirituality section at the book store. It’s huge, and getting bigger. Chapters doesn’t try to sell books that languish on their shelves. Spirituality seems to be a hot topic—out of church.

What’s going on?

I remember attending my first CUC conference, in 1984. One of the workshops I attended was on spirituality. It left me bewildered. I didn’t have any better idea of what spirituality was after than before. The workshop leader had us walk around outdoors—this was in Banff, at the Banff Springs Hotel, looking for items from nature that spoke to us. We would have broken the law if we picked anything, Banff being a National Park, so we picked up, but didn’t pick. I don’t actually remember what she had us do with these tokens. Perhaps we said something about why they spoke to us. I had no idea why I picked up whatever I did. It didn’t make sense to me.

This was 1984, when spirituality was a concept re-emerging in the Unitarian world. That world was a very heavily humanist one then; any kind of mystical or Christian or theist service, or even mention in a service, would, in many parts of North America, have been hard to find. But, as UU scholar David Robinson wrote, "Unitarian Universalists, like many other [North] Americans, are looking for a greater sense of spirituality in their lives (and churches). In Robinson's words, this spirituality is a "feeling or hunger for a deeper inner life and a more profound experience of the world that we share. We're haunted by the spectre of our own superficiality, the uneasy feeling that life is sliding by and leaving no deep mark on us, that we're being cheated of some version of real experience that would add marrow to the dry bones of our daily routine. We've found ways of dealing with this hunger, of masking it, but we've found it has a curious persistence."

Upon reading my topic for today in the newsletter, John Slattery kindly and immediately, provided me with a talking paper he had prepared for a Philosopher’s Cafe he ran a while back. It is exactly on our topic today. He very helpfully begins with some definitions of the terms "religious" and "spiritual." He told me that although they read like dictionary definitions, they are his own take on the difference, reflecting a certain consensus he hears around him. Let’s examine John’s definitions.

Religious is that which pertains to:

the beliefs, principles and value systems to which members of a church, synagogue, mosque or temple officially subscribe as a condition or sign of membership, or
2. the prayers, music and other elements of ritual that typically characterize a worship service; in a broader sense, the liturgy of a denomination or sect, or
3. the organizational structure of a congregation – its leadership, its service and committee structures, etc.; in a larger sense, the organizational structure of the denomination as a whole, or
4. authority - divinely inspired and revealed through sacred texts as interpreted by religious leaders, or
5. the people who believe such tenets, and follow such ritual and authority.
These definitions certainly follow what I consider to be "religious." Following a set of values and beliefs is perhaps a primary definition. I think those values would usually assumed to be a given, perhaps even divinely inspired and revealed. Unitarianism is an exception here. Our set of values as in the Principles and Purposes—found on the page prior to the hymn #1, was written by a very broad consensus building process, then word smithed and voted on by delegates at the UUA’s General Assembly. The Canadian Unitarian Council, now the only denominational body to which we belong, is in the process of re-examining these. How would we Canadians articulate our values? We don’t even attempt to state our beliefs, as we know that, as individuals, we are over much of the map theologically!

Thinking about our ritual now, what we do on Sunday morning... Should you have the opportunity of attending other Unitarian churches, you’ll find that mostly, we all use the Protestant hymn sandwich. Songs or hymns surround the sermon, with meditation or prayer in there somewhere. The content of the hymns and the sermon, or homily, or address does differ from the traditional Protestant Christian ritual. Rather than one particular divinely revealed authority, like the Christian Scriptures, or the Tanakh, or the Koran, we have access to the whole library as inspiration. Whether we consider any text divinely inspired is an individual decision. Because we have no one text considered THE authority, preachers in the Unitarian tradition refer to texts, plural, and to reasonableness. I have to persuade you that my idea is one worth considering; no one assumes that my authority is such that just because I say so, you must think this way, or do that way.

I was most startled once during my chaplaincy internship in the hospital. I was chatting with a man in the cardiac intensive care ward. His wife was unhappy in her job. I think I wondered aloud about the possibility of her finding a different one. His response indicated that he heard that as a directive; one that must be followed. He’d only just met me! how did he know I had good advice? Because of my position as chaplain, that’s how! I was unnerved. I’m not accustomed to my word being taken so seriously and literally.

Our value system is an ethical one; the Principles are not only about us, but about how to live in the world with justice and compassion. Part of religion is to pay attention to ethics.
We certainly have a religious organization. Some folks among us carefully distinguish us as an association, rather than a denomination. It’s true, each congregation is its own registered society; we are not only one organization. I’m not sure that matters in this conversation.
Let’s turn to John’s definitions of spirituality. He says

Spiritual is that which pertains to:
the experience of being inwardly and directly connected to something "other" and typically "larger" than oneself. This something Other may be called ‘God’, ‘the life force’, or ‘the universe’, etc., or
a sense of deep inner peace and harmony that makes no reference to anything outside of the self; a sense of ‘self-less-ness’, or
the ways in which a person establishes such connections or inner peace (prayer, meditation, communing with nature, etc.), or
authority – individual experience often reinforced by others in his or her group and by printed works from a variety of sources, or
the people who seek these experiences of connectedness, peace and harmony,
We are back to our first reading. Bate said his definition of spirituality is "an individual's hunger for truth and her willingness to step forward in faith."
Spirituality seems to be the individual’s quest for meaning in their life. Their definition, and their search for it.

An Oxford University Press article on this same subject, Religious or Spiritual" reminds us that prior to the 20th century, the terms were synonyms. Author Robert Fuller reports that 19% of Americans define themselves as "spiritual but not religious." The survey he refers to found that the "spiritual, but not religious" group was
less likely to evaluate religiousness positively, less likely to engage in traditional forms of worship such as church attendance and prayer, less likely to engage in group experiences related to spiritual growth, more likely to be agnostic, more likely to characterize religiousness and spirituality as different and non-overlapping concepts, more likely to hold nontraditional beliefs, and more likely to have had mystical experiences
(http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10958_1.html )

It seems to me that you can be both spiritual and religious. I believe that we as Unitarians are religious, even if some other religionists might disagree. We don’t have a creed for instance, that declares our set of common beliefs. We do not declare a belief in God, even if we know that many of us do believe. Yes, we do have our own way of being religious. Searching for the right words to articulate your particular beliefs, indeed, discerning your beliefs, is an ongoing process for many of us, a spiritual discipline. We do have a unifying set of values, articulated for us, yet open to change and individual interpretation.

We certainly have a set of prayers and readings and hymns that we usually sing. The hymn book is a unifying document; it represents that which we commonly say and sing. Of course, we also sing other songs, and say other words not printed there.

It’s in that authority item that we perhaps differ most from more traditional religion. Few of us grant anyone or anything divine authority, even if we would grant that a minister or the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures would be worthy of paying attention to, again with our faculties of reason well engaged.

Another BeliefNet article on this question was a dialog of letters between noted religion author Huston Smith and a listener of his lectures. He stated: "The heart of religion is not altered states but altered traits of character." His listener Elizabeth Lesser responded to him ‘This simple line has been a touchstone for me, helping me to gauge my own spiritual progress. I know that religions aim to help people do more than just follow rules. I know that they offer proven technologies for "altered traits of character." But I am afraid that many of the flock are merely following the rules out of habit or fear, and therefore their characters have not really been altered; they and their societies may have the veneer of righteousness, but scratch the surface and you will quickly find unresolved feelings, anxieties, and prejudices that have always kept humanity from growing up and waking up."

"On the other hand, Ms Lesser continues, a spirituality that does not find its grounding in religious discipline often suffers from shallowness, narcissism, and loneliness. I value that criticism and for that reason have included religious tradition in my spiritual brew. Adding up all the twists and turns of my spiritual path, I conclude that it is not just religion that taught me how to walk with love and light through my life. Religion, mythology, psychology, science, bodywork, and the rough and tumble of everyday life--each has taught me about living an ethical, mystical, and magical life."
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/109/story_10961_1.html.

I’d say that what we Unitarians aim for is to be both spiritual and religious in their more contemporary meanings. Hopefully, we as a church organization provide some of the motivation and information for your individual spiritual journeys. And I dare say, of our common journey as a community.

We have historical spiritual movements within us. Transcendentalism as promoted by Unitarians Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and others, mostly Unitarians, was a spirituality movement within the rational Christian Unitarianism of the mid 1800’s. We’ve done this before.

And so, since the early 1980’s when I first found Unitarianism, the pendulum has swung again. Just in the past month, God has been mentioned in the small groups where I’ve been asking "what sustains you when you’re having problems? What’s at your core?" The idea of God has been discussed, as has prayer. I see a more inclusive and open Unitarianism than the association I first encountered 20 years ago. Where humanists and theists can discuss their views without even subtly putting down the other, but respectfully listen to each other and appreciate that other paths work for other people. I believe that Unitarianism is further along its spiritual path now that we are able to do this. Yes, we are both spiritual and religious, no matter which definition you use.