Boots and Blessings

Back when you were a kid, you learned a lesson. It was wrong. And it's time for you to unlearn it. You learned that you were responsible for other people's feelings. Not that you should care about other people's feelings. (You should.) Not just that you should be sensitive to other people's feelings. (You should.) But you were taught that you were actually responsible for other people's feelings. It happens in almost all homes, even the loving ones. In abusive homes, it's more blatant. If Dad is unhappy, you get hit. So you learn that it is actually your responsibility to keep him happy, or there would be consequences. But even in non-abusive homes, it happened. If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  You are not responsible for other people's feelings. That's their job. And in fact, you are crossing their boundary if you try to control their feelings. They get to decide how they feel about something, not you. They may decide that you...

The Monday after SXSW, or "South By" as Austin folk call it, is usually accompanied by the calm feeling of returning to routine. Our kids are done with spring break and are back in school, all the out-of-towners have returned from whence they came, and we're back at our desks, cash registers, or if you're a minister whose day off is Monday, out enjoying a rare temperate day before the crushing heat of summer. The wildflowers are being led in their season by the bluebonnets, transforming parks and highway sides into bunches of blue. Most of us were, this year, back to that routine, but the calmness was not. I walked to my favorite bench by the creek, uncharacteristically keeping my eyes a step ahead of my feet. Not for the snakes we begin to see at this time, but, of all things, for trip wires. "Would you even know what a trip wire was, if you saw it?" I asked myself, mocking. It felt ridiculous, but there it was, a warning we were hearing from radio,...

There are things we just know to be true. Like that you need to sear a steak before cooking it, to seal in the juices. We all know that throughout time, there has been and continues today to be a war between religion and science. We all know this to be true.  You know something else we all know to be true? “The tongue map.”  Remember that? Back in elementary school, you were shown a picture of a tongue and you were taught that different parts of the tongue corresponded to the four different tastes. The front tasted sweet. The back tasted bitter. The sides were sour and salt. My parents were taught this. I was taught this. And still today, my kids have been taught this. This is one of those things we all know to be true. Except it's not. It’s not! It’s been thoroughly debunked. And not recently. Since 1974. When Virginia Collings confirmed that all parts of the tongue can register all tastes. Sometimes, things we know to be true, aren’t. We have a hypothesis...

For years, many UUs have talked about something found on Star Trek, that is a useful metaphor for us. See, in the Star Trek universe, there is a device available called a "Universal Translator." With it, you can land on any planet and because of the device you can understand the natives, and the natives of the planet can understand you. Handy! Not everyone has that device. But you, as a UU,  do. By virtue of being a Unitarian Universalist, you have the universal theological translator. You are equipped with the openness to ask questions, and the commitment to religious pluralism to swap some of their language for words that make more sense to you. When they say, Allah , or God , your brain subs in “Spirit of Life.” And each one of us has our own translator. Maybe yours subs in Goddess , or Universe ; when they talk about Jesus saving them, you can hear the underlying message of someone feeling adrift and alone, but finding a bigger message to believe in. It is a g...