Welcome to the first ever "shut-in service" for the First DailyKos Unitarian Community Fellowship or DKuuF.
This is where those of us unable to make our own congregrations will have an opportunity to take part in churchin' on sunday.
Any and all new comers are indeed welcome, in fact the first two rows of bandwidth are open for you and your diversity. I ask you to stay for coffee and conversation afterwords, unfortunatly you'll have to provide the coffee.
Don't forget your order of service...
Welcome to the first service for the DKuu. We welcome all to commence drinking coffee, or what ever religous beverage of choice you may have.
I light this chalice to begin our worship service.
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Let's begin with a recitation of our Mission Covenant. (please stand, as you are able)
We the First DailyKos Unitarian Community Fellowship agree to:
# Promote the spiritual, intellectual, and personal growth of each member without excessive snark;
# Minister to each other in an atmosphere of welcome, acceptance and caring and not to flame on;
# Be a positive force for social, environmental and economic action without cussing;
# and to promote the wider understanding of our purposes and principles within blogtopia (y!sctp!).
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Please sing with me:
From all who dwell below the skies;
Let faith and hope with love arise;
Let beauty, truth, and good be sung;
Through every from every tongue;
De todo bajo el gran sol;
Surjan esperanza fe amor;
Verdad, Bellisa cantado;
de todo tiera, todo voz
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Our reading and response comes from jcarrol at the San Francisco Gate. Now join me in response (clergy response in italics):
We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere.
Sincerity is not enough.
We will appear in public places and require
people to shake hands with each other.
Sincerity is not enough.
We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to
dress like trout in public.
Sincerity is not enough.
Televangelists will be forced to take jobs
as Xerox repair specialists.
Sincerity is not enough.
Demagogues of all stripes will be
required to read Proust out loud in prisons.
Sincerity is not enough.
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A moment of silent reflection.
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Now it is time for Joys and Concerns, where we light an ethernet candle for each Joy and Concern.
I will light the first candle of concern for all of our servicemen and women in Iraq.
Please place a comment for your joy and concern, but remember the last ethernet candle is for all joys and concerns that go without comment.
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Now join in singing "Spirit of Life" (please stand, as you are able):
Spirit of Life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea; move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close; wings set me free; Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me.
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Please greet your neighbor as we pass around the plate.
Peace be with you.
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Today's sermon is about the recent flap with Karl Rove, aka Bush's Brain. I won't go into deep details, but he took the basic line that the liberal response to 9/11 showed weakness because lib's wanted to show tolerance.
"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.
Now it's time to look at that, and ask, "and the problem is?"
Now, we know that it is not all true. As UU's we know stereotyping us does not work. So let's take a look at what kind of response true liberal's had.
I don't think you can find a more liberal test group than Unitarian ministers. They are the epitome of liberal.
Here is Rev. F. Forrester Church, a minister of New York City's All Soul's congregration. This is from a special service just hours after the tragedy:
At first these visions of a future rebuilt upon yesterday's ashes may seem to contradict each another. Justice and mercy. Retribution and compassion. War and love. Yet they will only be at odds should we choose one vision in place of the other. On the one hand, if hatred and vengeance spur our lust for retribution, rather than the greater quest for peace, we will but add to the world's terror even as we seek to end it. On the other, if we pray only for peace, we shall surely abet the spread of terrorism. Our hands will end up far bloodier than those that lift up arms against it.
History supports each of these statements. In the first instance, we must recall history's most ironic lesson: Choose your enemies carefully, for you will become like them. Terrorism is powered by hatred. If we answer the hated of others with hatred of our own, we and our enemies will soon be indistinguishable. It is hard, I know, to curb the passion for vengeance. When we see Palestinian children dancing in the street to celebrate the slaughter of our neighbors and loved ones, how can we help but feel a surge of disgust and anger, the very emotions that precipitate hatred. But the Palestinians are not our enemy. Nor are the Muslims. This is not, as some historians would have it, a war between civilizations. It is a war between civilization and anarchy, a war of God-demented nihilists against the very fabric of world order. I hope you will all go out of your way in the days ahead to practice the second great commandment and love your Arab neighbors as yourself. Few outside the circle of those who lost loved ones in yesterday's tragedy are more surely its victims than are the millions of innocent Muslims whose God's name has been taken so savagely in vain.
This said, to pray only for peace right now is unwittingly to pray for a war more unimaginable than awakening to the World Trade Center smoldering in ashes. After a day's worth of breathless repetition, we may be tiring of the Pearl Harbor metaphor, even finding it dangerous. Yet, if anything, the comparison is too comforting. After simmering for decades, yesterday World War III commenced in earnest, against an enemy more illusive and more dangerous than any we have ever known before. Good people here in American and around the world must join in a common crusade against a common enemy. From this day forward, any state that sequesters terrorists as a secret part of their arsenal must be held directly accountable. The only way the world as we know it will not end in a chaos of nuclear terror is if, first, we take every appropriate measure to destroy the terrorist henchmen themselves; and if, then, we make any cowardly nation state that finances and protects terrorists so manifestly answerable for this crime that they will never commit it again. Both challenges are daunting. I am not in the least confident that success in either or both will prove possible. And I know that the effort to curb terrorism will shed more innocent blood, claiming the precious and fragile lives of children and parents, lovers and friends, falling from windows, crushed under buildings. But the future as we knew it ended yesterday. Even as Churchill not Chamberlain answered the threat of Hitler, we must unite to respond to this new threat with force not appeasement.
So, this does not sound like a "namby pamby" liberal. He was calling for the war.
Other sermon's from the time were also reluctant and aware of the coming violence. They knew what our response would be. From Rev. Laurie Proctor at the Fort Wayne, IN church:
In adversity we do meet ourselves, and we have met the both the good and bad this week. Like most of you, I have been touched by the stories of heroism on the plane and in the towers. I have been surprised by my admiration of Rudy Guiliani, whose leadership has been not only what New York needed, but what this country needed. I was also surprised to hear that Donald Rumsfield did not bunker himself, but stayed in the Pentagon to rescue people.
Being the granddaughter of a firefighter, I have cried over the loss of so many women and men who, along with many brave police officers, did what they were called to do, only to be lost.
I have been heartened by the people, including some in the administration, who have responded to the President's call to war, with moderation, cautioning us not to take innocent lives, and warning that if we do, we will become the evil we seek to weed out.
Inevitably, there have been those whose response has been wrong-headed. I count Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson among these. Also the people who have shot at and otherwise harassed people of Middle-Eastern descent.
As Unitarian Universalists, I believe we can play a large part in the healing of this country and its strengthening by calling on our deepest traditions of reason, tolerance, and compassion.
Yes, liberal's were calling for moderation and non-violent solutions. This was Rev Grace H. Simons' of UU Fellowship of Stanislaus County position:
We have also heard cries for vengeance, for immediate military action, even heavy bombing. To all of these, and others like them, we must say a steadfast 'No'. Actions taken in that spirit, while they may seem demanded by our pain and anger, have a damning flaw. They compromise our values as a nation, a people. They turn us away from liberty and law, from justice, from proclaiming that all are created equal. They give the real victory to the terrorist by turning us from our own high ideals. In saying No, we affirm them. We must refuse to abandon our historic values.
So, of course, we had liberal's calling, as loud they could, for a non-violent solution. They called for not taking the "easy way out" went against their revenge inclinations.
We also had liberal's calling for the war.
The point is that we are tolerant enough to look at all sides. We have respect and vigilence for all life enough to hear those that disagree. We have a drive to gain an understanding of our world, so that we may live in it.
So, I thank you Mr Rove, for pointing out that we did have people looking for non-violent solutions. That's the point.
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Please join me in the fellowship circle.
May faith in the human community, and hope for human love, keep us ever growing and changing together. Peace.
Please join us for coffee and conversation.