This theme cuts to the heart, or the Insula, on matters that have caused me some serious personal angst. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come off as merely a self-serving therapeutic exercise. Well, maybe that’s exactly what it has generated…but I mean well.

Our deepest of feelings never quite make it into the educative field. We are extremely influenced by emotion and yet we prevent it from breaking forth in our schools.

The only information I caught from Googling the theme had to do primarily with how to control or prevent deep emotions from surfacing in classrooms. Why have we avoided permitting primal innate feelings to emerge between students and instructors in classrooms? Moral decision-making has to allow for at least an element of profound emotion. Why should we not model that kind of learning in classrooms and workplaces? Schools at all levels are virtually devoid of it. Genuine intimacy is not only ignored but intentionally suppressed. Do we fear those breakthroughs? Is it the unknown we dread? If we’ve never accepted that kind of behavior; tested it or allowed for it, how do we know if it will either lead to out-of-control mayhem or a greater form of education?

Not until I entered graduate school did I have a chance to deal with my buried emotions in the context of being educated. Students were required to undergo group psychotherapy. It was a way of weeding out those who were attempting to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War. The process was led by a professor, and a therapist who became known in our sessions as the ‘Needler.’ We had other names for him but…He was in our face from day one, demanding to know who we were, what we wanted out of life and how we dealt with our deepest feelings. He pushed us to reveal our love needs, fears, anger, rage and sexual tensions. The Needler was not a fun guy. We pretty much hated him during the endless sessions but he managed to push enough to enable us to reach levels of sentiments we had never admitted to or knew they existed. I’m certain the relentless process caused me to engage more deeply in the academic course work, especially in the field of ethics.

While speaking at a clergy conference recently I admitted I had felt a need to take an additional semester of therapy in seminary. A classmate present at the meeting stood up and announced that I didn’t opt to enroll for another semester that year. He pointed out he and I were told we needed more therapy. I hadn’t recalled it that way but I should have had a clue when I was turned down for my preliminary ordination orders due to anger issues.

Surviving a ‘Gay Plunge’

Can we learn anything worthwhile in an atmosphere of extreme fear? One of the most profound and yet traumatic learning experiences of my life took place in the mid-1960s while in seminary. Our professor informed the class one day we had an opportunity to sign up for a three-day homosexual ‘plunge’ in San Francisco. San Francisco? Me, I’m imagining right off the bat a group immersion in a hot tub.

The gay community there was inviting theological students to meet with a cross-section of gay professionals, from single male prostitutes to couples who had lived together in committed relationships for twenty to forty years. The twenty-five students in our class would be matched up one-on-one for three days and nights with twenty-five gay men to learn about their life styles and environments.

I was reluctant to attend given I had been molested by a Scout Master and his assistant for a week at a camp when I was 13. I agonized for two months over whether or not to participate. I finally signed on. When we arrived at the site of the event in San Francisco we walked into a room comprised of twenty-five men that afternoon and we were immediately matched up one-on-one with gay persons who were assigned to guide us through the Tenderloin gay area of the city for three days and nights. The experience of entering the room and being met by a two-dozen ‘straight looking,’ highly dignified gentlemen caught me off guard. I was expecting to encounter aggressive gay men. They were respected business leaders, bankers, attorneys and engineers. It was an awkward, rather intimidating moment, and when it was obvious the straight seminary class members appeared uneasy with the pairing up arrangement the facilitator assigned one gay participant to be with two class members.

We started out by becoming acquainted with each other’s backgrounds and sharing our plans for the future. We then went to gay bars and other establishments where our host explained to us the unwritten rules of protocol for meeting in those social settings. The experience was fascinating but also threatening in the crowded pubs. Later that evening we met with a young man who was an active prostitute and worked the streets of the inner city. We also visited with gay partners that had lived together for nearly 45 years.

After the tours we met in the evenings to debrief and reflect upon our experiences. The sessions turned out to be a form of heavy group therapy where we were pressed to share our honest impressions of what we had experienced on our visits. The sessions created more anxiety than the threatening encounters in the bars and on the streets, partly because we were in a hit-and-run emotional pressure cooker. My host asked me, for example, why I had managed to wind up standing back-to-back with my classmate in each bar. “Did you expect to be patted on the butt in those settings?” he inquired. “Would butt-patting be acceptable in decent heterosexual social settings?” When I denied the back-to-back defensive posturing he simply smiled and said, “I watched you both maneuver around to protect your backsides in each bar and my hunch is you were not even conscious of what you were attempting to do.”

The confrontational session on the last evening, a chance to run deep and depart, was probably the turning point for me in my willingness to allow myself to truly experience the feelings of a gay person. I guess my purpose for entering into that emotional arena was to come to know the pain and suffering within the lives of gay persons and not to connect with the intellectual and emotional power, dignity and talents they might possess. I probably approached the event with the assumption I was coming from a superior, ‘stable’ position, visiting a fragile camp of oppressed people to provide emotional and intellectual resources that might benefit their needs.

Reading publications written about or by gays and lesbians had not impacted me deeply enough to alter my views on the issue prior to the three-day ‘plunge.’ Attending seminars on the subject of homosexuality, hearing articulate persons share their stories and meeting in small groups with gay persons on ‘safe’ familiar turf did not help me turn that corner either. I had the assurance that we would travel to a city 500 miles away from my place of residence and enter into a one-shot learning experience and have the promise there would be no commitment to relate beyond that event. The other aspect that opened my senses on the spot had to do with the element of fear present in the process. I was aware throughout those three days of experiencing a rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and being in a constant state of low-grade anxiety. When I returned home I had a headache, rare for me, that lasted two weeks, probably induced by my reasoning faculties battling it out with my deepest of emotions.

Surviving a ‘Family Plunge’

But, and this is a major consideration and a word of warning, we need to also take into account the deep genuine fear and possibly terror of those who cannot accept gays. My sister belonged to an Episcopal church for over 50 years. When the denomination elected a gay bishop she left her beloved priest and church. Within a month of the departure she was hospitalized with a rapid heartbeat condition. I called the IC unit at the hospital and talked with her son and asked him if she might like a visit from her priest. My nephew said “Just a minute, Uncle Buzz, hang on and I’ll ask her.” He came back on the phone to let me know that when he asked, her heart-rate peaked out on the monitor.

Can controversial topics contribute to fatalities? How many silent deaths have occurred over the last fifty years in Intensive Care Units over divisive issues? We Methodists have argued intensely over the gay issue for at least half-a-century. I love my younger sister, not just because she provided me with some gorgeous dates with her classmates while in high school but because she became a cherished friend.

So, obviously my sibling and I possess two different fields of ‘truth-feeling.’ How do we enter into each other’s deep-seated reality realms? We will have to risk drawing near our pain, fear, anger and possibly rage. It is rare when adversaries do dare go there because it calls for one-on-one interaction. Who wants to mess with their demise or that of a loved one attempting that? My sister and I have tried it around the edges but it has not been easy. I can protest publically but that course can minimize the intensity of the pain and fear. When I have gone public on contentious matters by way of street demonstrations there was little obvious suffering, dread or tears expressed among the participants. Mother Teresa was heard to say “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

We in Arizona who are supportive of immigration and opposing our Senate bill to profile the undocumented need to be aware of those on the other side of the issue who can experience deep legitimate fear. While protesting the bill at the state capital last year I had a chance to talk briefly after the event with an elderly woman who was supporting the bill. She was in tears and I believe in some pain for fear her kids and grandkids might not be able to have access to ICUs or urgent care centers in the future given the invasion of immigrants in the state. She might become a candidate for an IC unit in the near future. Well, hey, maybe by engaging deeply with her angst I may wind up in one.

Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist, declared

“There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls. There is advantage in wisdom won from pain.”

“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.” Helen Keller

Somewhere in the middle of the last century I worked in the aircraft industry for a few years. One of the most impersonal, demoralizing, lonely workplaces I ever experienced on my first job after college was the hydraulics division at a well-known aviation company. It was housed in a hanger with no partitions and comprised of over two-hundred engineers and draftsmen. I met some nice people early on there but the relationships were pretty superficial until I bumped into the vice president of another aviation company at a church event. It was my first visit to any church. We managed to run deep within fifteen minutes at his home. He happened to be a Methodist and that’s how I happened to become a Methodist. I never saw him again but that profound brief meeting transformed for me the entire hydraulics department at North American Aviation. It went from feeling like a demoralizing place to a moralized setting overnight.

You’ve gotta know by now where I’m going with this. I do believe most work venues could be transformed with the help of a little bit of intimacy on the order of what Walt Fellows embedded in me one evening. Every time I visit our bank I wonder if those employees will have access to a Walt for a few minutes. This post addresses that theme.

Moral decision-making has been markedly dominated by reasoning faculties over the last century while our emotion-laden functions seem to have been minimized. Nicholas Kristof ends an Opinion piece based on psychological research by stating “In short, moral and political judgments are complex and contradictory, shaped by a panoply of values, personalities – maybe even smells…Little of this is a conscious or intellectual process.” (NY Times “Politics, Odors and Soap.” 3/22/12).

Ah ha, the columnist just made it possible for me to allude to the Insula functions once again. I’ve missed referring to them lately. Yep, moral opinions might be greatly influenced by the awesome little cranial organ that houses nearly every feeling we experience from deep compassion to odorous emissions. Maybe we can sniff our way through tough moments when it comes to wrestling with ethical matters.

Unconditional compassion erupts from the Insula, as do anger and rage for that matter. The empathy urge coming out of that weighty zone is not subtle nor does it have to deepen over time. It can emerge full-blown instantly and sporadically while much of our relational ties with co-workers, for example, progress gradually, incrementally, safely and often cautiously. The range of urges packed into that tiny cerebrum appendage is comprised of empathy, anger, rage, lust, fear and orgasms together with a craving for foods and olfactory senses. I suddenly realized what they have in common are sensations that may merely last for seconds, minutes or hours. Their short-lived emissions may be more potent at times than the empathy felt in our long-term friendships or romantic ties.

If they are brief emotional bursts bent on plunging us to unplumbed depths of intimacy even for minutes or hours it can be a good thing for how we make use of our compassion in the future, especially in the workplace. The Insula gang makes strange bedfellows and the dubious companions may influence each other. Compassion at that level could be impacted by a fear of running deep and/or slipping into a lustful encounter. But that may be the risks we will have to take in the future to detect the captivating smell of fleet moral bonds in the business world.

Several years ago I met a gentleman in his early nineties who owned a small bank in the Midwest during the Great Depression. He knew too well his patrons who lost their homes and farms. Bankers in those days formed decades-long personal relationships with local residents. When the ’29 crash hit many bankers dropped into depression along with their customers. The owner whom I met claimed a few of his bank-owner-friends contemplated suicide. Those who thought about taking their lives during the 2008 meltdown were mostly distressed over their monetary loss.

Do we want to return to those empathetic times of the past and if so how do bankers/investors guard against bonding too profoundly with their patrons? For the good of the order we ought to come up with some form of compassion that gets us back to caring once again within the banking sector. If it has to be perilous so be it. There is no getting around it, if we bond deeply enough with any mortal we risk being pulled into their anguishing trials to some degree, or to a great degree possibly.

What if loan officers were trained to run deep once with their patrons by risking becoming vulnerable in a first meeting and entering into each other’s interior lives? Bankers these days can never seem to afford the time to engage in long-term relationships. What if the only way to get a whiff of the smell of a moral business transaction requires that we go for a quick-quality trusted bond in the initial encounter? Are we capable of generating immediate trust? A neuroscience lab experiment has revealed an innate tendency to trust can be triggered between total strangers. Scientists suggest the risk to trust instantly is “probably augmenting an extremely rich model (we) come equipped with.” Times 4/2/05, “A Study of Social Interactions Starts with a Test of Trust” by Henry Fountain). Will participants who expose their deepest and most candid feelings in such daring business ventures be urged to continue the relationship? Boundary rules would need to be revealed beforehand but there would be no assurance that either party would stay away.

Danielle Ofri, a professor at New York University School of Medicine, has a great take on how she deals with empathy and moral commitments in her field of work. “I try to help my students and interns pay attention to the basso continuo (a musical term referring to explorations of harmony) running underneath. I try to point out when our emotions might be impeding us, and when, as sometimes happens, they might be assisting us in caring for our patients. Doctors can’t — and shouldn’t — eradicate the emotions that grease the wheels of patient care. But being alert to them can help us minimize where we fall short, and maximize where we succeed.” (Author of “Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients). Dr. Ofri is obviously determined to catch the smell that leads to moral grounding in her work world.

We often assume care givers are the only unconditional empathy providers with any oomph on their job sites. Is it possible the compassionate functions within the Insulas of the sick and dying can burst forth with a surge or two in the most unlikely settings? If so, perhaps medical staff members in hospitals, care centers and hospice units will be the recipients of such unexpected blasts of empathy. And maybe shared bonding makes for easier moral decision-making.

When in doubt regarding a word I often go with the Wikipedia folk for a definitive definition because they always seem so brilliant. How about this? “Morality is a differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong).” Does that explanation reflect smarts or what? When we get a hint of the sweet smell of unconditional empathy on a mutual front in any demanding situation no matter how brief, we’re apt to be on the right track when it comes to acting good. Will we be able to smell it when we get there? Probably not but we’ll know it when we sense it. I looked up the term ‘sense’ in a 1951 edition of Webster’s publication and it defines the word simply as ‘an ability to feel’ and ‘soundness of judgment.’ Is that 60-year-old explanation sweet and to the point or what?

Paul David Hewson, aka Bono, world traveler and lead singer for the famous Dublin-based rock band U2, has declared that “Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.”

In 1992 the United Methodist Church world-wide formed a fire task force and founded a much-needed university in the heart of Zimbabwe, a country that remains in severe political and cultural turmoil.

A delegation from our Desert Southwest Conference traveled last month to Africa to attend the university’s 20th anniversary where the team participated in the dedication of a chair of professorship of Health and Sciences. The position was subsidized by our annual conference in the name of Joel Huffman, a former treasurer and beloved leader. Our bishop was very instrumental in raising the funds for the faculty chair. Our team hoped to meet Methodists in Africa who are instrumental in nurturing, teaching and training their members and outsiders to become top-notch citizens and leaders in their countries. And I was hoping to learn about brigade-type missionary educators in the past that did such work when I visited Africa nearly fifty years ago. We were not disappointed.

In 1978 Abel Muzorewa, a Methodist minister, became the country’s first black Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. He is credited with providing a strong yet humble spirit to enable the transition to black rule in the midst of perilous political strife. “If it was some other power-hungry prime minister, Zimbabwe would have plunged into a bloody civil war,” said Ernest Muzorewa, his youngest brother. “Thank God for giving us a compassionate and peace-loving first Prime Minister, Bishop Muzorewa.”
Bishop Muzorewa’s dauntless action and compassion reminded me of a statement my ethics professor made one day in a seminary class, an expression I didn’t quite grasp at the time. He said “By the way, your biggest task as clergy may be to risk being compassionate in the midst of chaos in the secular world.” That was it. I never forgot that declaration but I’m not sure I ever had the guts to live it out. Come to think of it I do recall exactly a time when I held back from taking such a chance. In the summer of 1965 faculty members and students at my seminary were risking their welfare and the possibility of being jailed while on the front lines of the civil rights movement locally and nationally.
I was privileged but also somewhat reluctant to link up with clergy that summer in South Africa who were protesting Apartheid, a system of racial segregation enforced by the National Party governments. I was ready to join a dissent group at the capital in Pretoria when a pastor warned me we might be jailed. It could mean days or weeks of incarceration for residents but outsiders would likely be imprisoned permanently. The clergy advised me to not join in on the protest march. In those dreadful moments I became fully aware of my professor’s prophetic pronouncement in class. I watched from a safe distance the clergy brigade holding forth.

When I returned from that trip to begin the candidacy process for ordination I agonized over whether or not I would have the courage to become a Methodist minister. I assumed there would be more occasions calling for stepping up and risking my life “…in the midst of chaos in the secular world.” I’m not sure whether I just played it safe during my tenure and merely relied upon our denominational agencies to enter the fire-frays or what but I do know I never again experienced the paralyzing fear I felt that summer.

Canaan Banana, also a Methodist minister, served as the first President of Zimbabwe under black rule from 1980 until 1987. Many such candidates for high political office were sent to detention camps for years and I believe he spent some time in one. His personal life began to crumble in his final years in office together with the country’s condition when charges related to sexual assaults were brought against him. Some say they were politically motivated others claimed he was guilty as charged. His obituary revealed that during his administration Zimbabwe experienced its most stable years. At his funeral President Robert Mugabe called him “a rare gift to the nation.”

While many might have stood around with watering cans in the midst of a country in flames two daring, dedicated Methodist preachers managed to establish a fire brigade to deal with the raging political storms in their day.

Ah, but then our team visited Old Mutare in Zimbabwe, a highly acclaimed Methodist mission station on the African continent established in 1898. We witnessed more evidence of holding forth with brigade ministries. Bishop Joseph Haskell, the founder, stood on a hill that year and envisioned hundreds of African youth with books in their hands running to school. At the outset of his venture he likely thought he would be battling the odds forever by merely juggling water cans to put out fires. Today there are 1,000 students in the primary school and 1,050 students attending high school on the mission campus.

Hotshot crews are diverse teams in the world who have solid reputations as multi-skilled professional firefighters. On the first day of our visit we met a team of hotshot house mothers who cared for ten orphans in their respective tiny modest homes. Many or most of the eighty children came from starving families. Others had their homes burned down by Zimbabwe police. The households were immaculate with primitive kitchen ware, limited lighting and scarce water. The personable, nurturing, around-the-clock care mothers tended their own gardens for their vegetables. We left the compound with misty eyes. A few of the awesome hotshot moms waved us goodbye at their front doors until we were out of sight.

The tears began to roll when we visited another extraordinary mission care facility nearby. We were greeted by 40 young adults suffering from HIV with their fire-fighting care givers standing in a line, dancing, clapping and chanting a welcome song in their native language.

The medical center on site provides the basics in the field but it is a first-class facility housing operating rooms, labs, a counseling center, a maternity ward, a school for deaf children, a full-time physician, 12 nurses, 24 nurses aids and 10 support staff.
Here’s the hopeful part that convinced our team members there is evidence that Africa has a fire-fighting chance of holding forth in the future.

A relatively new addition to the university funded by the U.N. is the Institute of Peace, Leadership and Governance. It offers a master’s degree in peace and governance and a master’s degree in intellectual property.

The Faculty of Health Sciences at Africa University offers undergraduate degrees in nursing and health science management and a master’s degree in public health. Malaria remains a devastating disease that has continued to sweep across the continent. Faculty and students are determined to have a part in extinguishing that fiery threat. Methodists have been on the forefront in dealing with malaria in Africa. On December 15, 2006 the Commitment of The United Methodist Church to the Eradication of Malaria was recognized at a forum hosted by President and Mrs. George W. Bush at the White House.

“I wish [Christianity] were more productive of good works. I mean real good works…not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing, or making long prayers filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise people and much less capable of pleasing the Deity.” Benjamin Franklin, Works 7:75.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the following ‘What ifs?’

“What if we have an intuition we are built to bond profoundly with foreigners/strangers one-on-one and avoiding them causes us to feel slightly guilty? Is it possible Americans live with a low-grade form of depression as sociologists have construed because we know we belong to all beings as well as loved ones? What if we are gradually sensing the time and compassion we expend on insider loving go against the grain of our instincts to connect with outsiders one-on-one? What if our Insula functions, the cranial organ that houses all of our innate urges, have been interfered with by institutions with well-meaning but relatively distorted agendas? And what if single encounters with strangers were to become a social model for cultures and millions of family-free intimacy pursuers roamed the planet?”

A few days ago I read about the following ‘Why nots?’

“Living alone doesn’t isolate people: it encourages socializing” so states Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University in a book titled “Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.” He also contends “For the first time in human history great numbers of people are settling down as singletons.” After interviewing hundreds of single people for over a decade he contends they are freed up to engage with those outside the circles of friends and family members. The demographics indicate 40 percent or more of Americans in big cities are living alone and most choose to do so and like it. A whopping 60 percent of the Stockholm population is comprised of single people living by themselves. From what I’ve read so far the socializing among singles is limited to rather light interaction but perhaps deeper dialogue will come later.

Maybe residents in cold regions are beginning to teach mortals how to be present to outsiders. Old country Vikings are coming up with a novel social model that may surprise their Minnesotan Scandinavian successors who have been known to be somewhat insulated when it comes to socializing. Perhaps the stand-offish demeanor will melt a bit when singletons warm up to other loners. What if Swedes are taking the lead in how to break the ice when it comes to risky bonding in the frigid polar areas?

Rachel Swarns in an article titled “More Americans Rejecting Marriage in 50s and Beyond” claims the surge to become single is attributed to factors such as longevity, economics and evolving social mores. “Many baby boomers, who came of age in the 1960s and ‘70s, feel less social pressure to marry or stay married than their parents and grandparents…Being divorced or single later in life also no longer carries the stigma that it did for previous generations.” (New York Times 3/02/12).

OK, but here’s the downside, guys, sociologists are also reporting that men who live alone will live less years than women. So, single mortals who roam the planet in the future will most likely be female. The males better think twice about it.

“When it comes to changes, people like only those they make themselves.” French Proverb

Greetings readers,

I thought you might like to receive a sample of the responses to the last posting. I was not necessarily pushing for opening our mini-mansions up to inviting the squatter village residents in. I grew up in a small place and I don’t recall feeling squeezed and/or deprived but maybe my folks felt it. We do want to keep up with those who live well; like having fond friends as we do who invite us annually to live in luxury in time shares as we did in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago. I had no memory of there ever having been a squatters’ village in Mexico during that stay but I will likely have a vivid image of Duke’s bar and grill on Waikiki beach for the rest of my life. But then someone has mused “Memory is the thing you forget with.”

I’m writing this in a room way back in my big nest.

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From a lay person in Nebraska…

Dear Buzz,
Does living in a nice home stand in your way? What are you not doing that you feel you ought to be doing because of it? If everyone lived as your friends did in Tucson we would not have much progress in the world and would that be a bad thing? Many of us in this country are richly blessed and that is partly because we spend our money and keep the economy going. I personally like progress and feel those of us who are haves do have obligations to have-nots but I have never figured out the best way to do that. I thought Roland had the best ideas in that area and did accomplish a lot, but he told me he felt his best years of ministry were at Lakeview in Sun City and we certainly didn’t lack for money there.
We can keep taking those scriptures out of context, but I didn’t think Jesus was anti-living well, he just didn’t want it to get in the way. Take care, Jerre Brammeier
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From the pastor of Catalina UMC Tucson…

Buzz,
Maybe something that would be fun to do would be to ask UM pastors to share their parsonage stories, good and bad. Sounds like you had pretty good luck, but I know some of the parsonages we lived in (and the trustees we had to deal with) were pretty bad. One of my favorites is the time the dishwasher in the parsonage broke down. I asked the trustees to replace it and one of them responded “I thought that was what your wife was for, doing dishes”. He was serious. They decided that since two of the nine of them did not have dishwashers in their homes (except their wives I assume) that it should not be replaced. I went home very angry and discouraged and told Mary. She said, “No Problem”. The next day I got a call from the UMW president asking if what she heard was true, that the trustees wouldn’t replace the dishwasher. (I think Mary called her but I can’t prove it.) I said yes, and the next day we had new dishwasher. And so it goes. Blessings. Ed”
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From a seminary classmate in Northern Calif…
Dear Buzz, I wish I could open up my house to the homeless. I feel privileged to have so much living space but it is what it is. I tried it and he was a Bush supporter. I went ballistic!!! If I were raised, for example, Chinese or Japanese or Netsilik or African and been raised in a different housing configuration where space is not a priority, then it would be easier to adjust to sharing and living in tight quarters. I think we are applying 30 AD housing to 21st Century conditions for those of us who have been raised in middle class families. It is a shame and not sustainable but I feel we can’t flog ourselves but see where we can make life better for others. Life is full of “gray areas” but we become dogmatists when we take literally the Scriptures and what they meant for an earlier time and apply it today to us as if they are truths for all time. Please God forgive me. Thank you, Buzz!!! Cheers, gil.”

From a lay person in Colorado…

Well, Buzz, you certainly touched a nerve with me. We just moved into “jail” (a brand new big house) here in Loveland, and I am trying to deal with the same issues/emotions you described so well. Waiting for answers! Love, Sherry

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From a seminary classmate and professor at a seminary in Kentucky…

Dear Buzz, Those of us who have lived in parsonages-I have half my life-will resonate with your article. One thing I say about my experience is that “I don’t know if I saved many souls, but I have saved a number of parsonages.” My handiness to fix things was a requirement for better living. I did discover that once owning my own house that my worldview changed. There is a big difference not investing materially into your living space and translating most of your work into money with which you buy your postage stamp of space in life. There is some humbleness that comes from living in these two different worlds. Somewhat like the great divide in our culture. Best, Dave Sharrard

“The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.” James Madison, The Federalist, 1787.

There is no question in my mind the term ‘parsonages’ is derived from the expression ‘parson ages.’ The first time a member of a parsonage committee traipsed through our first church home and commented on how beautifully the previous parsonage family had arranged the furniture and how we hadn’t I must have aged ten years. I aged another five years when I heard second-hand the lawn looked a whole lot better when it was mowed by my predecessor.

It was a nice house and we were privileged to live in a few more spacious and beautiful parsonages. Frankly I liked trustees maintaining our houses. When we were fortunate to get to live in an old but well-kept house with a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean I told a trustee board member early on my toilet didn’t work. He replied “Yeah, but isn’t it a great view you’ve got?”

“Well, yes, but my toilet’s broke.” It was repaired within two hours. I honestly appreciated living that way but a dozen years and three parsonages later we were assigned to a church with no manse. We scraped, borrowed and prayed (I use to pray for low mortgage rates and high income in those days) so we were able to purchase rather impressive homes with God’s help.

An article titled “For God So Loved The 1 Percent.” (NY Times 1/18/12) offers an account of how we came to be so blessed from on high when it comes to wealth. The pastor of First Congregational Church in Los Angeles was credited with tying God to the fiscal corporate sector plight in the 1930s and 40s in the wake of the Great Depression. He, with the help of other prominent clergy and business leaders, put forth a new blend of conservative religion, and subsequent U.S. presidents bought into the notion. It was a precursor to the theme “God wants us to get rich” that remains popular to this day. I knew of that Congregational preacher when I served on the staff at First Methodist Church of L.A. in the early 60s. I thought at one point I should have signed on with his outfit.

I managed to preach around scriptural texts referring to possessions or riches that made me or my congregational members nervous. Here’s one from the Gospel of Luke that never quite made it into a sermon. Jesus states unmistakably “Sell all your possessions, and give alms.” I hate to admit it but I figured during my four decades of active ministry I had approximately 2000 opportunities to preach on the possessions part but didn’t. If I would have stayed another forty years I might have given it a shot. But I did bang away on the alms part.

Back to the new church assignment and the purchase of our first home; two young ecology-minded professors from a university began attending services. They lived in a small house with few stark possessions, grew their own provisions, rode bikes and relied on public transportation. We became good friends until they ceased coming to church. I called on them and both confessed they could not reconcile the contrast between the content of my preaching and the size of my house and turf. For starters, they were living in a 600 sq.ft. house on a small lot. The preacher resided in a 2000-plus sq.ft. abode on an acre-and-a-third desert lot comprised of 30-foot statuesque saguaro cacti on a knoll with a grand view of the city, a house complete with three workable in-door toilets. As usual I didn’t preach on Luke 12:33 but the professors must have been familiar with the text, dammit! I might add that the three of us were a little teary-eyed over the departure.

I was devastated and called a couple of clergy friends for comfort. They proceeded to assure me I had worked hard to become a minister, endured 5 years of graduate school, tolerated a couple of micro-managing senior pastors, and probably tithed; that would be the alms to which Jesus referred. My colleagues also pointed out the professors had no offspring and we had two. They reminded me that Methodist clergy in previous generations retired after 50 years of service and could not afford to rent a place let alone buy one. That helped to console me a little but I never quite got over that below-the-Bible-belt blow.

I gradually overcame the guilt and became accustomed to living in large dwellings after the kids moved out. Is that a bad thing? How easy it is to live well and relatively wealthy – and territorial as it turns out. When a gated community cropped up across the street from us and a friend moved into it I let him know what I felt about the intrusion. I said to him half-jokingly or more accurately one-fourth teasingly, “Do you know what it’s like to reside across the street from your fenced-off place? It’s as if you drop by before construction and say to me ‘Wow, what a great neighborhood. We’d like to live here but when we do get settled in we will not want you to be in our part of it.’” He laughed but also conveyed a hint of ‘whoops.’

Soon after my friend moved in I was walking by his “part” with my 5-year-old grandson and caught sight of him outside his home. He stepped over to us and we talked through the fence for a few minutes. When we left him Cameron asked, “Now, Grampa Buzz, was he in jail or were we in jail back there?” And I had to counter emphatically “Let me put it this way, Cam; he’s in jail and we’re not!” Do I enjoy acting that crude? Well yeah, I did in that moment.

Ah, but the guilt related to big-home living merely stayed submerged and maybe it would not have broken through so much if I had not made several trips across the Mexico border to participate in mission house-building ventures. We had to drive back and forth by a squatters’ settlement consisting of a thousand or so families living in cardboard structures, tents and tiny shacks made of wooden pallets with dirt floors.

That’s when I would begin thinking about friends and neighbors who live alone or as a couple in 2000-plus sq. ft. residences with Mexican tile floors and often with a second casa in a gated community in Mexico, or a cabin in the mountains, a boat or an RV, and as we happen to be blessed with, a second home in Scandinavia. That’s when the haunting Biblical refrain comes to mind; “Give up all your possessions, and give alms.”
That’s what concerns me when I read about our infamous county sheriff’s officers wanting to profile and apprehend illegal immigrants who are perhaps merely young mothers and fathers who want more for their offspring and we don’t seem to have room for them.

I assumed by moving north to Phoenix which is 150 miles from the border while our Tucson mansion was only 50 miles from it and by dispensing with visiting Mexico that those efforts would have helped lessen the guilt. It’s not working given the persistent news about the immigration issue and the fact a Gospel of Luke publication remains at eye-level on a shelf in my office.

It seems our state has become more condensed over the past 30 years, closer borders with pent-up unhappy Arizonans. So, who’s in jail now, preacher? Who’s in jail now?”

Frankly, I was enamored with the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin along with my wife-to-be while in seminary. He was a French philosopher, a Jesuit priest, trained as a paleontologist and highly regarded but then he was eventually branded a heretic and buried on unholy ground. Wait a minute can any kind of heresy lead to one’s demise these days? Can a light-weight dissenter be burned at the stake by messing with dogma and tradition as I have? I really don’t want to go out that way. I figured I’ve endured several decades of living in Arizona, arguably one of the hottest places on the planet, so it just wouldn’t be fair to have to be set on fire. But I digress.

When I asked Paolo Soleri, the noted architect and futurist, if he based his work on Teilhard’s theology he replied testily and a tad nervously “No, definitely not, I rely upon his philosophy.” Ah, he’s no dummy; he too has spent decades living on a torched desert floor. What struck me as fascinating was the fact the naughty priest kept alluding to ‘primordial particles’ of the universe that mature over time. He advocated that human development is influenced by the same universal laws as material development. That must have been what ticked-off the Vatican.

In a recent NY Times op-ed piece Brian Greene, a physics professor, gives a report on the Higgs particles (I assumed there had to be mortals in the mix) that move, along with other forms of life, through a cosmic force-field comprised of a molasses-like substance that allows for bonding with unfamiliar particles. I nearly flunked a physics course in college so I had a hard time grasping his observations. But I managed to imagine world citizens – individuals risking leaving their safe communal bonds and getting fused together – once – with as many strangers as humanly possible during their earth journeys.

As crazy as the vast scheme seems we are likely designed to navigate through the cosmos as individuals as much as possible and spend less time clinging to collective bonds. We may not fully mature as a species by remaining too long within friendships, families, congregations, nation/states or any communal entities for that matter. We’re apt to go against the grain of nature and stunt our growth by sticking too much to our clannish ties.

Loren Eiseley, a philosopher, anthropologist and natural science writer was heard to state “Like the herd animals we are, we sniff warily at the strange one among us.” We might do well to do a lot less sniffing and whole lot more gluing. OK, what’s the makeup of the cosmic bonding material, the ‘molasses,’ the sticky substance that will likely enable us to link up unconditionally with total strangers or particles, if you will? I’ve referred to it as compassion, love or intimacy. Steven Pinker in his new blockbuster publication The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined holds out for empathy. I’m sticking with intimacy. Unfortunately many if not most people assume, or perhaps want to imagine, the term smacks of erotic tendencies, pursuits that will only lead to trouble. Could be, but not if we’re careful unless of course one is addicted to such quests. What if intimacy is the primary goal and not coitus when we dare to run deep with strangers? And what if those who associate the term intimacy with sex in their minds are charged with a bit more raging hormones than others?

Empathy works mostly as the first step toward experiencing compassion when we begin to care for others from a distance. We may be using some of our reasoning powers in that mode of relating. I imagine empathy emerging over a degree of time. If we sense we are about to have a one-and-only chance to engage deeply with a stranger it’s possible we can bypass the empathetic part and risk plunging into unconditional compassion in minutes. Empathy may be relied upon to feel the other person out while intimacy can be acted upon rather quickly without the promise of the other reciprocating. That’s a daring impulse. Empathy may be essential for potential long-term relationships but maybe not for abrupt encounters with strangers.

Let’s get back to the sex part. Readers might argue that the following definition of the term intimacy in Webster’s dictionary runs counter to my views. “1. the state or fact of being intimate; intimate association. 2. an intimate act; especially, illicit sexual intercourse.” I know, I know, but I’m recommending classification # 2 be expunged.
Dr. Huston Smith, revered scholar of world religions, in alluding to Ian Suttie’s publication, The Origins of Love and Hate, concurs with the iconic pioneering psychoanalyst who was persuaded through his investigations that “our major repression is not of sexual or aggressive impulses, but of affection and openness. These repressions in individuals add up to a collective taboo against tenderness in our culture.” If those findings prove to be credible then risking running deep with strangers to experience affection and tenderness is a more pressing innate urge than that of pursuing illicit sexual intercourse as Webster and company seem to be warning against.

So imagine if you will that you’re a mere but classy sticky particle, sexless or otherwise, floating in the universe and there are gobs of other gooey particles out there that can’t wait to glom onto you affectionately and tenderly; you lucky creatures.

“Life is either a daring venture, or nothing….Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.” Helen Keller The Open Door.

Steven Pinker declares in his most recent popular book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined that we are likely living in the most peaceful period in human history. He would contend that progress, modernity and human nature have contributed to the decline of hostilities in the world. I’m betting our natural instincts could be emerging more forcefully than ever before when it comes to lessening the level of violence on the planet.

Daniel Kahneman, who is considered the world’s most influential psychologist, contends in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow that irrationality is in our bones, and we are not the worse for it. If he is suggesting we might do better by trusting our instincts over reason occasionally by risking cutting through our fears to bond deeply with even a foe, life in this world will only get better.

One day, in the community of Ocean Beach in San Diego, a couple dozen very tough-looking members of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club moved into the neighborhood near the church I served. Soon after their arrival on the scene several elderly members of the church came to my office to convey how anxious they were about the new, scary residents invading their community. The women insinuated that if I considered myself a shepherd of their church flock I ought to do something about the black sheep overrunning their neighborhood. They were genuinely terrified and claimed they had not been able to sleep soundly since the gang came into town.

While trying to comfort the delegation one of them asked me point blank, “Do those men frighten you personally at all, Pastor?” She caught me off guard with that. I was a little anxious about the bikers moving in but I tried to give my visitors the impression things were not out of control. I replied, “We can rely upon the police keeping an eye on them.”

One of the women smirked and whispered to the others on departing, “Yup, the preacher’s chicken too!”

After two additional members revealed to me their terror regarding the biker gang members taking up residence in our parish I thought it was time to deal with the matter in some fashion. I asked Charlie, a federal probation officer and a member of the church, if he could arrange a meeting with a Hell’s Angel contact person that might be willing to discuss the neighborhood fears and concerns. He assured me he would try to find an officer within the biker club who might be open to talking. A month later the federal employee informed me he had found a gang member. Charlie smiled and said, “His name is ‘Snake’ and he is the secretary of the Hell’s Angels local chapter, a major player!”

“Good, let’s go see him.”

Charlie claimed he was too busy and that it would probably be better if I were to meet him alone, one-on-one. All of my urban fears came down on me in that moment. The probation officer had known about my single encounter ministry days on the streets of L.A.

Charlie remarked “You ought to be pretty prepared after having spent three years on Skid Row as a street chaplain.” He enjoyed watching me squirm over the thought of his preacher meeting face-to-face with a bruiser named “Snake.” That was the morning I wound up inadvertently using hair spray under my armpits and deodorant on my hair in getting ready to visit the tough biker. How does one groom for a serpent?

I sat in my car for a half-hour in front of the Snake’s house working up the nerve to step out and approach his door. I finally got to the porch. Before I could knock the door swung open and before me stood a terrifying shirtless creature whose entire upper body was tattooed with snakes of all sizes and colors. The “Angel” turned out to be a middle-aged, strapping, balding, 270-pound chunk of a guy. He managed to actually hiss when he spoke. “Yeah,” he snarled, “whad-a-ya-want?”

I mumbled, “I’ve come on the recommendation of your parole officer.”

He backed off some, “OK, what the hell, if Charlie sent ya, come on in.” He nodded toward the couch and when I sat down he plopped himself right beside me, butt-to-butt; obviously a move to intimidate. It was working. I was duly threatened.

“Are you coming with a problem?” he asked abruptly.

“Well, yes, I’m a pastor in the community and there are several elderly widows in my congregation who are pretty terrified by your club’s sudden presence in the neighborhood. I was hoping we could just get to know each other a little and perhaps come up with an idea that could help me go back and put my parishioners at ease.”

He sat quietly for a moment. “What do you mean by ‘get to know each other a little?’” he asked petulantly.

“Maybe I could learn something about you personally that would make you and your biker buddies seem less scary to my parishioners.”

“And what do you mean by learning something about me that is personal?”

“I guess I’m not sure but perhaps if we just talked awhile something just might crop up.”

“You’re a preacher, right?” He stared at me for a few moments. “What a coincidence, my Dad was a preacher. We got crosswise and I left home in my young teens. He was an asshole! Your being here is stirring up some bad memories.” He began to talk about his father. His eyes narrowed, he clinched his fists and blurted out, “The son-of-bitch was tough; you tough, preacher?” I was not sure whether it was a physical challenge or just an innocent inquiry.

“Are you as angry as you look?” I sputtered. “You know, I have to be honest; on the way over here I had a crazy notion I would be encountering a bad guy or at least a guy with a bad attitude.”

“Do you want to know how I deal with my anger?” I was not sure I wanted to know, but I replied,

“Well, yeah, I guess.”

“If your church folk are afraid of us maybe I should tell you how I deal with my temper.”

“OK,” he confessed, “when I’m ready to explode I’ll ride out to a deserted highway in the middle of the night and punch my bike up to 90 or 95 miles-an-hour and start screamin’ in the wind.”

I let his remark hang there for a moment and then I took what I considered to be a chance and asked, “Any tears go with that?” He took his time answering but finally he softly emitted, “Yep!”

He went on to say “Let me tell you about Maggie and you can tell this story to your church people. It might help to cut down on the fear. A couple of years ago a bunch of us club members got busted on some minor traffic violations and outstanding warrants on unpaid citations. We got jailed suddenly and we were not able to come up with bail money. A neighbor lady, about 80 years old, who lived next door to us, learned about our arrest and put up a bond to get us released. We had never even talked to her up until then.

“After we were released and my biker buddies had left the house I went over to her place and thanked her for springing us from jail. She said, ‘My name is Maggie, what’s yours?’ ‘They call me Snake!’” ‘Oh, God,’ she yelled. I asked if I could do anything for her. She said she would like to go for a ride on my motorcycle. So, I took her for a ride. We rode around the block. After a couple of laps Maggie asked if we could stop for a minute. I was not sure what she had in mind. We got off the bike and she asked, ‘Mind if I wear your jacket on the next go-around?’

“Jeez, preacher,” Snake admitted, “my Angels jacket is very special to me and I don’t let many people touch it let alone wear it and I was not keen on letting the old gal put it on. I took it off and handed it to her. She handed it right back and told me to hold it like a gentleman so she could get into it. There I was, standing on the curb dressing an old lady. We got back on my bike.

“On the third lap around the block Maggie yelled, ‘You got a horn on this thing?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Well, how about tootin’ it when we come by my place so my neighbors can see me on this contraption?’

Snake concluded with “I asked Maggie after our ride if she was scared getting on the bike. She said she was more frightened of me than the machine. I got a kick out of her, preacher. She started out behind me barely hanging on and then after a few minutes she held me tight and I could tell she was having fun.”

Weeks later Snake’s woman friend called to tell me he was killed in a drug deal that went bad with another biker. She eventually dropped by my office to offer me a few of her lover’s shirts and jackets. “You might be interested to know,” she expressed tenderly “that Snake stopped packing a weapon recently.”

His life ended violently but not before he lodged a piece of sheer compassion within Maggie, me and a part of his world. In a chapter titled “Better Angels” Professor Pinker cites David Hume who had to have had the likes of our better angel in mind when he penned the following sentiments.

“[It] cannot be disputed that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with elements of the wolf and serpent.” An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.

The notorious WWI Christmas Eve truce in 1914 provided a night of peace between warriors on the front lines. An individual had to have courageously broken ranks by stepping out of a trench to lead others to exchange gifts with the enemy. I’m hoping that initial spark within the bosom of a single soldier that would spread across the battle field was a contributing element to the decline of violence on this planet. Most everyone who participated in the exchange were probably killed after returning to their respective trenches but some particle of the dove had to have taken flight that night for all time.

Did Jesus have that kind of valor in mind when he urged his followers to love their enemies? If so, there will likely not be many takers. Alfred North Whitehead offered a stark warning on the subject. He claimed “As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death.” Dialogues, 1954)

You may have caught that Pinker picked up on the closing remarks of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address for the title of his book. The president was urging citizens to strive to come through with the better angels of their nature but he also knew they could resort to living out of their shoddier angelic side when up again their antagonists.

What if mortals are finally evolving to the point of mustering a new kind of courage to get the job done? What if the Insula – a compartment in our brains that houses our deepest emotions – has matured over the past century or so? And what if we are getting better at enabling our compassionate urges to burst forth in the heat of the moment while wrestling with our fears, anger and rage, and those of our enemies?

“Heroism feels and never reasons and is therefore always right.” (Emerson, “Self-Reliance.” 1841)

“America shudders at anything alien…” – Max Lerner

“Whoever lives at a different end of the town from me, I look upon as persons out of the world,
and only myself and the scene about me to be in it.” – Jonathan Swift

A quote out of a publication on the subject of the nerve to write candidly caused me to realize how I have held back from being riskily truthful with my musings on the single encounter theme. A successful author asks “Is it true that writers are pillagers of privacy? Yes. And it is also true that others get hurt along the way. But what are a few hurt feelings along the fiction trail?” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write). Well, given my writings have to do with the non-fiction path and the possibility of marring the feelings of loved ones I need to think twice about what I write about.

I’m still advocating for a single encounter lifestyle that can hold its own alongside any forms of tribal bonding whether they be families, faith communities, corporate institutions or nation/states. The term ‘tribal’ is defined as “relating to, or reflecting the traits exhibited by a group of people with a common ancestry, and culture; a tribal solidarity that transcends all other loyalties or bonds.” (Marion-Webster). I’m coming to believe there is no way to achieve a peaceful life on the global front by clinging mostly or exclusively to clannish ties. Was there ever a time when there was no tribal living when individuals populated the planet?

I’m very reluctant to reveal publically that I could have opted to remain single and reached a level of unconditional compassion with strangers in one-shot encounters throughout my life at a depth that most couples may experience in their married lives. I’m pretty certain the accumulation of intimacy I garnered within those stranger-to-stranger encounters reached the intensity of compassion I’ve felt with my spouse for over four decades, and I’ve loved her dearly. I also cherish my kids, grandkids and son-in-laws. I believe I could have maintained a meaningful and enriching single lifestyle, but once I did wed I had no qualms about staying married and welcomed a lengthy love bond. The compassion I felt with total strangers, male or female, came close and at times matched the feelings I have for my wife and children. I’ve yet to meet married acquaintances who claimed they got in touch with such levels of compassion with strangers. If they did they were reluctant to confess it. They have to be out there.

I’m becoming more convinced most tribal living, familial, congregational or national, will never enable us to live peacefully on this planet. The recent rash of reports related to sexual assaults within religious orders and universities and the escalating mistrust in the investment sector may have everything to do with in-house clannish loyalties. And what about the ever-present desire of the state of South Carolina to secede from the union? Is that not evidence of an undying tribal yearning? The Arab Spring survivors will likely remain divided tribal bodies.

So, what’s the alternative to communal bonding in the world? We’ve not tried honoring and encouraging citizens to remain unmarried throughout their lives. There is little if any real affirmation of those who wish to stay single and no religious or cultural rites that pay tribute to a solitary lifestyle. What are the drawbacks in being married or partnered? Couples committed to lengthy bonding may miss out on experiencing profound momentary ties with perhaps thousands of strangers in a lifetime as opposed to engaging with a dozen or so. Once couples commit to the time and energy given to work, raising offspring and retaining congregational ties they may be too worn out to want to connect deeply with world citizens. What would happen if a majority of Americans, for example, chose to remain single? How would that work? Would it undercut obligations to married life and child rearing? Would it merely cause chaos in cultures or could it possibly slow down the population growth on an overpopulated planet?

Will there ever come a day when citizens will opt to spend as much or more time running deep with strangers as they do with relatives and friends? In northern Europe married life is being challenged by those choosing to link with partners without the blessings of state or church. An increasing number of women are opting to raise children on their own and nearly half the marriages in our country are ending in divorce. Remaining single is becoming more of a choice than mere circumstances for women than in the past.

Spending considerable time bonding with extended family members seems to have diminished in the last 30 or 40 years. As a child I assumed I would always retain a deep relationship with my first cousins. It has become an obligation to stay in touch with them. Letting go of sustaining those traditional ties ought to free us up to bond unconditionally with outsiders but we may have to be trained and urged to pursue such ties and have an incentive to do so.

Could the changing trends indicate there are inklings among the younger generations that married life or partnering may not provide the kind of lifestyle that will allow them to actualize who they are, who they are meant to be and with whom they might wish to bond? Do the recent social trends and cyber contacts suggest that citizens are willing and wanting to find ways to open themselves up to have more time and energy to bond with outsiders? Will new modes of living enable citizens to be present to a world beyond families, faith communities and nation/states? And if so, will the unattached risk running deep with unfamiliar peoples on unknown soil?

What if we have an intuition that we are built to bond profoundly with foreigners/strangers and avoiding them causes us to feel slightly guilty? Is it possible Americans live with a low-grade form of depression as sociologists have construed because we know we belong to all beings as well as loved ones? What if we are gradually sensing the time and compassion we expend on insider loving go against the grain of our instincts to connect with others? And what if our Insulas, the cranial organs that generate our deepest innate emotions, have been interfered with by institutions with well-meaning agendas but plans that may not fit the times?

We may need to keep in mind that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the legendary German pastor, martyr and prophet, was single when he wrote the Cost of Discipleship in 1937. He was not married with children when he risked his life attempting to assassinate Hitler. Obviously he figured he would never come to love his enemy, the Fuhrer. That seems fair enough. And another point to ponder; Jesus never modeled married life. The established church would take us there and I doubt if Jesus and the disciples functioned as a tribal entity. He apparently spent as much time away from them as he did with them.

What about loving our neighbors and enemies? How do we do it? How do we find the time to maintain a compassionate bond with those next door or around the block? Luckily Jesus didn’t set a time limit on such daring loving. We don’t have to love our enemy day in and day out, year after year until our demise or theirs. Maybe a single encounter unconditional bond is enough. Perhaps we can love our foes on the spot once within a couple of hours. Will that suffice? If we have no desire to love our neighbors and enemy forever we might try a one-shot plunge. We ought to be able to pull off a dozen or so of those in a lifetime.
“The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual – namely You.” Walt Whitman (only one more page to go)

Bill Killian, a wise, married and passionate retired hospital chaplain, has composed a rough draft of a ritual for the unmarried that might find a place someday in our United Methodist Book of Worship between the baptismal and marriage ceremonies. Bill came up with the following statement and would welcome your response by way of suggestions.

Single & Sacred: Celebrating a Life-long Commitment

On this day I solemnize my choice for the single life. Whether or not I am a parent or become one is not the issue in this ceremony and ritual; I simply choose not to enter into the marriage vows now or in the foreseeable future. I like being single, and I honor this life as a sacred commitment. My prayer is that my family and friends will support me in my choice, and I re-commit my energy and time to all my relatives – my siblings, parents, and especially my nieces and nephews. I will practice the principles of integrity and wholeness in all my relationships, and I will continue to build my support team – an important group of friends who enable me to live the abundant life. My choice for singleness is based in my understanding of who I am, and I do not feel diminished in any way because of this choice. The promise of my faith is that I am as enriched and fulfilled as any person within or outside of the marriage vows. I do not take this commitment lightly – it is my responsibility to share the happiness of the single life with others, and I will fulfill that responsibility as I practice my faith in my local church congregation through teaching and witness as those opportunities become available.

The word “S-I-N-G-L-E” encapsules my understanding of the life I have chosen:

S-I-N-G-L-E
Sacred life – alone, but rarely lonely
Integrity in all relationships
Nurturing self and others is my focus
Gratitude is a daily gift to self and others
Love is the essence of my life
Equality is what I expect/embrace at all times