Arbitrary Marks

The UU blogosphere is an interesting place. Throughout the past three to four years since I’ve been active within Unitarian Universalism (hence “UU” for those unfamiliar), I’ve watched a couple of bloggers leave the movement for Christianity (United Church of Christ and Brethren in Christ). There’s been quite a bit of debate about how unfriendly [...]

This post by MoxieLife may explain why I haven’t been regularly attending Unitarian Universalist services in nearly a year. True, I’ve been busy, but when I find myself in hard times I tend to lean upon Buddhist teachings and praxis. That doesn’t exclude being a member of a Unitarian Universalist church, but I think I [...]

This morning at Oak Park Unity Temple, the sermon topic was “Mammal Mind, Hard Drive Heart.” In an attempt to focus the congregation on what her thesis would be, the reverend encouraged us to reflect on our humanity, our emotions, our intelligence, our ability to be silly–things that animals like squid can’t do.

At that point, I realized I read too much PZ Myers because I started defending cephalopods. “They’re smart and they have emotions, too!” I started whispering to my wife beside me. “Shhh!”

So I drew this little guy. But hang on, because there’s a bit more to the story than a funny doodle in church.

This entry is filed under “personal” because it isn’t my typical analytical approach to a topic. So, keep in mind I won’t be weighing the pros and cons of the Emerging movement or analyzing theology, in what follows.

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This morning I had coffee with Rev. David Owen-O’Quill, who is a Unitarian Universalist pastor starting up a new church in the city of Chicago, called “Micah’s Porch.” The community meets, for now, in bars on Wednesday evenings, in an attempt to reach out to the unchurched. Because they’re close to where I live, I [...]

Longtime readers, especially those who come here through UUpdates, may notice that I haven’t been writing much on specifically Unitarian Universalist topics. There’s a reason for that which I’d like to explore. No, I haven’t decided to return to Christianity or to convert to Mahayana Buddhism. In fact, I’ve just found a church in Chicago [...]

Is the attraction to the Emergent Church the promise of becoming relevant and successful? Is it the shift from modernism to postmodernism? If it’s the former, I think we’ll need to wait and see. If it’s the latter, I sense fault lines in UUism about that topic, just as there are within Christianity (for the record, I’m on the modernist side of the camp, although when I was in a Christian seminary, I was on the postmodernist!).

A little bit about polemics and problematization from Foucault. And I conclude by talking about the brown bag discussion in this context.

Why is Buddhism so attractive to Unitarian Universalists?

Why Unitarian Universalism is doomed to fail. And why that’s okay. We’re peeling back the curtain on a magic show, explaining the tricks, and then going on with the show, asking everyone to applaud when the rabbit is pulled from the hat.