"How to be Idle and Blessed"

Here is the reflection I did for the Unitarian Universalist Association's Pacific Northwest District's web site:

"How to be Idle and Blessed"Rev. Peg Boyle Morgan, Minister, West Seattle Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

"I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed." Mary Oliver from "Summer Day"

Mary Oliver’s poem is always a challenge to me. She says she knows how to be idle. I don't do idle very well. But my little poodle Angie is teaching me. Angie has balance. She loves to go out in our backyard and tear around as if she were a race car in the hottest competition of her life. Her motor revs audibly as she repeats laps around the yard, dashing through the tall yellow Siberian irises, darting around the proud white calla lilies, threading herself through the yellow daisies, leaping over the deep green ferns and onto the deck, touching her nose to my hand and then relaying off again for another lap, and another, and another until, finally spent, she brakes for a pit stop at a little bubbling fountain, and a rest on the Irish moss in front of a statue of Qwan Yin.
Many of us involved in the life of our congregations may be feeling a similar experience, since we have just sped through another year of heightened energy dedicated to flowering of new service projects, growing our organizational processes, blossoming of celebratory worship, exploring in our RE classes, and experiencing precious caring ministries. Summer is the time that congregational life takes on a slower pace, primarily because so many of us take vacations during July or August. It's harder to get people to meetings and into classes. And that is a really good thing, for like Angie, it is important to know that we need to give ourselves a little respite—we need to turn aside from all the exciting work we love, and take a rest… and be idle.
Being idle is a spiritual and sacred experience, for it allows us to notice life within and to delight in the beauty of life around us. Being amidst the movement and cycles of other life somehow stirs our souls in a way that reminds us that we are a part of something so much bigger than our human lives alone.
So I’m going to try to learn balance from Angie. I’m going to take some rest breaks this summer, outside, with other living parts of this amazing blue green earth. And I encourage all of our dedicated lay leaders and ministers to take similar time over these next few weeks ….to be idle …and blessed. May it be so!

SICKO

I was ambivalent about seeing SICKO, Michael Moore's documentary, full length film on the health care system in the United States. Maybe I thought there wouldn't be anything I didn't know, or maybe I just didn't want to be depressed. But friends chose the movie, and I tagged along. I'm glad I did. It was not boring. It moved right along. It was touching, tear provoking, anger stimulating, disgust generating...especially when a woman talked about having three jobs (to pay all her bills) and President Bush looked at her with his signature grin and said "Oh, three jobs, why that's so American!" not having a clue about what it means to work for a living, and get small compensation for it.

The bottom line is that our system is set up to fuel the bank accounts of the rich and the medical and pharmaceutical companies, not to serve the medical needs of our citizens. That's the immorality of it all. The woman who Kaiser put in a cab and sent 16 miles to be pushed out onto the sidewalk in front of a shelter, a woman who needed medical care. The man who only had one finger tip put back on because he couldn't afford both decapitated fingers to be fixed (the middle finger would cost $60,000). The woman whose cab ride to the hospital after a car accident in which she was unconscious, was not reimbursed because she did not call ahead to get it approved first....the little baby who died because their insurance was only good at another hospital...

What was striking was how the cultures of France, Britain, Canada and Cuba have set up their system to adequately compensate their medical personnel, and provide excellent care to all for free.

The bottom line was that our system in America keeps us in fear and demoralized so that we don't rise up to change it. It is a democracy, don't you know, but demoralization keeps each individual depressed and lacking in any hope. All we need to do (a big ALL) is realize our power as individuals to vote, and select a candidate that understands moral priorities of basic life needs for our people, not the siphoning of the corporations now given personhood by the courts.

I did not come out of the movie depressed. I came out grateful that here is a man (Michael Moore) who risks his life to state the truth. He is powerful, and his values are all in the right direction. I came out knowing that there is hope, if we can get enough people to feel their power. Go see the movie. You'll be glad you did.

Be well (don't get sick!)
Peg

God, who are you?

What is God? Nikos Kazantzakis said that "God changes appearances every second. Blessed is the man who can recognize him in all his disguises. One moment he is a glass of fresh water, the next, your son bouncing on your knees or an enchanting woman, or perhaps merely a morning walk."Walking through my garden today, God was the brilliant red and yellow cactus dahlia, and my puppy Angie running across the lawn with her ears flopping in her wind, and the pair of sleek great blue herons flying across my home in the close sky, and one of my husband's bright juicy red tomatoes picked from our garden, now lying sliced next to my poached eggs. God is the beauty and sensuousness all around us. Let us not be afraid to take it all in. May we be open to seeing, and holding and tasting God. What a marvelous life.Be well today, Peg
posted by Rev. Peg

Being Perfect

I have always struggled with perfectionism. It is definitely a spiritual malady. Who's to say that any one of us were not made good enough? Alice Walker speaks to this as she says:"I have learned other things: One is the futility of expecting anyone, including ourselves to be perfect. People who go about seeking to change the world, to diminish suffering, to demonstrate any kind of enlightenment, are often as flawed as anybody else. Sometimes more so. But it is the awareness of having faults, I think, and the knowledge that this links us to everyone on Earth, that opens us to courage and compassion. It occurs to me that often many of those I deeply love are flawed. They might actually have said or done some of the mean things I’ve felt, heard, read about, or feared. But it is the struggle with the flaw, surprisingly endearing, and the going on anyhow, that is what I cherish about them. Sometimes our stones are, to us, misshapen, odd. Their color seems off. Their singing … comical and strange. Presenting them, we perceive our own imperfect nakedness, but also, paradoxically, the wholeness, the rightness, of it. In the collective vulnerability of presence, we learn not to be afraid."May your struggles with your "flaws" be a source of grace, courage and compassion.In faith, Rev. Peg

Chanting

This Sunday the service at our congregation is going to be all about chanting. I'm looking forward to it. Our new Unitarian Universalist hymnal supplement has a wonderful chant set to music whose words are "When I breathe in, I breathe in Peace, When I breathe out, I breathe out Love." Whenever I am feeling tense, if I'm lucky I'll remember this chant, and begin singing it. Then is when I know that "all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well" (Julian of Norwich, 15th century mystic). So when I was figuring out what to call this blog, I decided to name it after my favorite, soothing mantra. Be well my friends.