Spiritual Spring Cleaning

The UUCiA's "summertime" quilt.

Back in May, I had a "Question Box" Sunday -- a Unitarian Universalist tradition where the congregants submit questions for the minister to answer. One of these questions was so beautifully constructed that I wanted to flesh it out in its own sermon (I might do this with some of the other questions, too, this fall). Here was the question:

“In Ecclesiastes, 3:6, it says ‘[There is] a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away.’ [NIV] This is the season of spring cleaning. Keeping is easy but throwing away can be hard. Is there something that has been lingering about that we, as a community or as individuals, should consider throwing away or giving up so that we have the space (physically, emotionally, or spiritually) for something new? What should we consider discarding?”

Good question, right? On June 15, I attempted to answer it. You can listen to my sermon at this link.

Culture of Violence, continued... animal cruelty

In my last post here, I spoke of our culture of violence. It was in the context of the tragic stabbings and shootings near the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The "big picture" question of our culture of violence goes far beyond the US epidemic of gun violence, and far beyond even misogynistic violence against women.

I saw the graphic above at the Engaging Peace website. It's a pretty good overview, in my opinion, of the many layers and levels of violence you can find in our culture. I plan to post more about this as the year goes on.

Today I'm thinking about animal cruelty.

Sixteen years ago, I became a vegetarian (with a lapse into pescatarianism). For a month now, I've been eating as a vegan, removing all animal products from my diet -- including eggs and dairy. This is always a process; I still have some leather shoes, and as part of my process I will move away from wearing animal products over time.

Part of our culture of violence is "othering" -- it's failing to see the oneness of life on earth. This is something we do with animals; we see them as "less than", and treat them accordingly. I believe we will live in a better world when we begin to treat non-human animals with compassion. And not everyone is aware of it, but the vast majority of the meat that people consume comes from factory farms. And factory farms are rife with appalling cruelty toward animals. (In addition, factory farming creates an enormous amount of global warming gasses.)

Today, I went to a Humane Society rally against cruel farming practices. These rallies are happening all over Massachusetts, but I went to the one in Dracut. I am sharing here a few photos from this rally.

To the left, a "human gestation crate" gives a picture of what gestation crates for pigs are like (click on the picture to see it larger). You can watch a Humane Society video that shows and explains the issues with gestation crates at this link.

Today's rally was specifically about ending the cruel confinement of farm animals in Massachusetts. Gestation crates for pigs are one of the very cruel practices. Another cruel practice is the use of battery cages for hens.

To the right is a picture of a battery cage (again, click on the picture to see it larger). These are not very big at all. It would be a little cramped for one hen, and very cramped for three hens.  Sadly, ten to thirteen hens are sometimes found in these cages. You can watch a Humane Society video that shows and explains the issues with battery crates at this link.

The rally was also about prohibiting veal crates for baby cows. You can read about some of the issues with veal crates at this link.

Want to take action? You can support H1456/S741 here in Massachusetts. You can call or write your state representative/senator.

One easy way to get started is to visit this link. There's a petition here to start you on your way.

Another great way to take action is to eat less meat and animal products, or perhaps even to stop eating meat and animal products.  As Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the book Eating Animals, tells us, “50 billion animals are factory-farmed every year.  It’s the number one cause of global warming, it’s responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than everything else put together and the UN has said it's one of the top two or three causes of every single environmental problem on the planet.” (See this link for more.) It is a new level of cruelty and pollution and offense to nature.  So people of our modern times are faced with a new reality.  As Foer puts it in Eating Animals, “We can’t plead ignorance, only indifference. Those alive today are the generations that came to know better. We have the burden and the opportunity of living in the moment when the critique of factory farming broke into the popular consciousness. We are the ones of whom it will be fairly asked, ‘What did you do when you learned the truth about eating animals?’”

What does the UCSB tragedy tell us?

Last Friday night, there was a horrible tragedy near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Lives were senselessly and tragically lost at the hands of one young man. I prefer not to use his name, because I'm tired of turning mass murderers into celebrities.

Another tragic mass murder in the United States of America.

Like many people, my first thoughts were of mental illness and gun control. If only we had better mental healthcare -- if only we had better gun control -- surely such tragedies couldn't happen. That's where my mind went first.

It's been pointed out, as the week has gone on and we've learned more, that the murderer in this case purchased his guns legally, and that he was getting lots of mental healthcare. The murderer came from a family with money, and he was getting more (and more expensive) mental healthcare than most citizens could hope for when struggling with mental illness. What does that mean?

And of course, we can ask (and should ask, I believe) if there were gun control provisions that stopped someone with mental illness from purchasing guns, would that have prevented this tragedy? In addition to shooting several people, resulting in three deaths and other injuries, the murderer also stabbed three people to death. Guns are not the only murder weapons, though undoubtedly they make mass killings more likely.

I'm in favor of better gun control laws -- meaning more strict ones. And of course I'm in favor of people having easier access to better healthcare, including mental healthcare. And while these two things (and maybe these two things together) could only help the situation, I can't honestly say that I believe it would prevent tragedies like the one that happened on Friday night.

I think the issues go much deeper.

One of my colleagues (Rev. Victoria Weinstein) wrote a post that this latest tragedy makes evident the rape culture in the United States. You can read her thought-provoking post here: "Rape Culture and the Myth of the Random Psycho".

Another colleague (Rev. Tom Schade) wrote a post about the narrative of the "mental disturbance" of misogyny being disrupted; perhaps it's not a mental disturbance but an "ideology". You can read his thought-provoking post here: "Re-Mapping the Ideological Landscape".

Rape culture and misogyny are a huge part of what's behind this tragedy. And it is completely appropriate, and even crucial, that this discussion continues and goes deeper.

I would also note, as some have pointed out, that in spite of the breath-taking misogyny of Friday's murderer, several of his victims were in fact young men. In fact, more men were murdered on Friday night than women. This isn't to minimize the misogyny of the murderer, nor to say that the rape culture isn't part of the tragedy; these were still central to the tragedy.

But I would also name the culture of violence in the United States. The rape culture is a part of that larger culture of violence, so it's not either/or. It's both. When are we going to get serious about naming and changing this? When will the United States of America say enough is enough? When will we get serious about addressing our culture of violence? I will write more on this later.

"I always feel like somebody's watchin' me"

If you're a child of the 80s as I am, you probably remember the song "(I Always Feel Like) Somebody's Watching Me", by Rockwell. It's possibly best known for the backup vocals, which were by the ultimate 80s megastar Michael Jackson. As a bonus (or punishment), here's a video reminder:

You're welcome.

On a more serious note, the current era of never-ending surveillance means that, whether you feel like it or not, you really are always being watched. I attempted to preach on this topic earlier this "church year" in a sermon entitled "Someone to Watch over Me: Spirituality of the Surveillance State". You can listen to the sermon at this link.

Daniel Ellsberg with local Veterans For Peace folks, photo by Maurice Morales

This past Monday, May 12, I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner for the ACLU of Massachusetts. It honored three whistleblowers: Thomas Drake, Cathy Harris, and Daniel Ellsberg. I attended with others from Veterans From Peace. Here is a picture of many of us from the local chapter of VFP with Daniel Ellsberg (He is at the top left corner of the flag; I'm kneeling in the lower right of the photo). Ellsberg – the original "national security whistleblower"– is a former Marine and a friend of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of VFP.

Of course, Ellsberg is best known for "The Pentagon Papers"; this was published by Beacon Press (of the Unitarian Universalist Association) when others feared to publish it. So Ellsberg is a friend of the UUA, too! In 2007, he was part of a presentation about government secrecy at the UU General Assembly (along with Amy Goodman, Sen. Mike Gravel, and Rev. Robert West); you can read about it and see a video at this link.

It offends me that my government has so many secrets, and yet it feels it has the right to know all of my private affairs.  It offends me that my government has been keeping secret how much surveillance it has been doing on ordinary US citizens. It offends me that my government is spying on its citizens as though we are a threat just by our living and breathing.

On Monday night, it was thought-provoking to hear from Drake, Harris, and Ellsberg. How brave one must be to be a whistleblower! Truly, it turns one's life inside out and upside down, never to be the same again. Whatever your opinion of these and other whistleblowers, it is hard to deny that they believe what they're doing is right. They are willing to give up life as they've known it to expose corruption and dangerous secrets.

The surprise of the night was a greeting by Edward Snowden, who currently has temporary asylum in Russia after exposing surveillance secrets of the NSA. Below is a video of his greeting; the part that gets cut off in the beginning is a joke he made about being sorry that he couldn't join us in Boston as he was having trouble with travel arrangements.


I do believe that it is my duty as a Unitarian Universalist – or even just as someone trying to be a good citizen – to be counter-cultural when it comes to living in fear and accepting surveillance as the supposed price we must pay for security. We can fight docile acceptance; we can try not to give in too easily to the intrusions. As I closed my sermon (mentioned earlier), "For those who believe in God, there are far more sophisticated versions of theology than 'God is watching, so act right.' And for those of us who want to be good citizens and good human beings, there are more sophisticated and important reasons to act morally than the knowledge that we are under surveillance. I don’t know whether it’s in our 'best interests to act as if God were there'; but I do know that it’s in our best interests not to let our government get away with playing God."