The Free Seeker

E-Newsletter of the Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, WV

Issue 17:  May 5, 2010

Jack Wilkinson, Editor

Program for Sunday, May 5, 2010

Buddhism:  Episode I

            Buddhism is extremely important, especially so to us Universalists who are interested in developing a world-wide perspective on religious beliefs.  Anthroposophy teaches that the Buddha was among the Heavenly Host of the nativity scene in the Gospel of Luke, and, indeed, the Lukan messiah is the most Buddhistic of the gospel messiahs in his emphasis on compassion.

            Charles Morris in his engrossing book, Paths of Life speaks of the coming Maitreya Buddha (a different Buddha altogether from Gautama) as an exquisite combination of the major religious attitudes.  Indeed, in the resort to holy war on the part of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (especially Islam) the Buddhist stands as an abiding example of cool judgment, sanity and universal love.

            So, y'all come Sunday and see what Program Director Randy Miller has managed to capture on film in the far reaches of the continent of Asia, where the saintly Gautama continues to exert his influence.

Future Programs

May   15:      Buddhism:  Episode II

May   22:      Jenny Kerr:  "Autobiography"

May   30:      Fellowship Pot Luck Picnic

June    6        Open Discussion

June   13:      Ed Necoo,  "FREETHINKERS....A History of American Secularism"

June   20       Jack Wilkinson,  "The Holy War"

June   27:      Jaqueline Muth,  "Occupied Minds in Occupied Palestine"

Retrospective of Previous Sunday

Business Meeting

            Fellowship President Bob Williams called the business meeting to order.  He opened with a round of accolades: 

            *to Randy Miller for his purchasing of supplies, cutting the grass, cleaning the floors and other such building and grounds maintenance activities over and beyond his work as Program Chairman;

            *Serge Ruiz for giving us an electric stove;

            *Kristie Ruiz for the constant flow of food to augment the coffee offering;

            *Mike Moore for his management of the food box donations;

            *Wayne and Claire Horton for their faithful Coffee Hour preparations;

            *Ed Necco for his regular hiring of a cleaning service;

            *(Jack Wilkinson for his editing of the Fellowship E-Newsletter.

            Then Fellowship President Bob Williams moved the slate of officers.

            *President:   Bob Williams

            *Vice-President:   Randy Miller

            *Secretary:   Marilyn Young

            *Treasurer:   Jim Maphet

            *Trustee:   Wayne Horton  (Serge Ruiz will continue his term as Trustee also.)

The slate was firsted by Claire Horton and seconded by Serge Ruiz and was passed by acclamation..  It will be noted that, besides Serge, three officers are serving for a second year or more.

            It was noted that the Fellowship operates without a formal budget witrh approximately $4,000 to $5,000 coming in and going out.  Jim Maphet discussed our deal with Krogers.  If we buy there as Fellowship members, the Fellowship gets back $5 of every $100 the Fellowship- spends..  See Jim for your card, if you would like to participate. 

            Clara Cook's daughter visited and donated some books to the Fellowship library. 

Open Discussion

            The Open Discussion got off to a sputtering start.  Matt Christenson opened with energy, and we reviewed the options of offshore drilling, renewable, nuclear, geothermal, solar, etc. 

            Local recycling services were discussed.  The recycling center at Moorhead, KY was said to be pretty good.  I put in a word for Allied Waste in Huntington, which I use.  Marilyn Young gave us numbers to call for recycling:

Cabell County:  9304) 537-4211 and Wayne County:  (304) 272-6706.

            Wayne and Serge got into solar energy.  we were informed that it could not be stored and could be used only during the day.  Wayne defended nuclear energy, so I asked him about the debacle some years ago at Three Mile Island.  He said that what happened there was not an accident.  A little steam escaped , and people panicked.  Matt said nuclear was the only good solution  to the carbon problem.

            Someone observed that the wind farm in California was a problem because it chopped up birds.  Heath Bozoni observed that the same air currents that turned the blades buoyed up the birds.

            Jacqueline Muth raised some money from the Fellowship for her cat projects of sheltering, spaying, neutering, inoculating, boarding, and feeding the kittens with eye-droppers.

            We sputtered to a close and feasted on Kristie's delicious dishes.

Light from Jack's Lantern

            At City Hall for its last performance on Sunday afternoon I watched "Camelot" starring our own Alan Sterne as a squire..  He was very funny, when he mimed his frustration at the behavior of Arthur and Lancelot.  As I settled into the play I became more and more pleased.  Finally there was the scene wherein King Arthur is braced for the Battle of Mount Badon, a war of all against all, which will erase everything he has been trying to uphold.  He has been undone by a combination of human frailty and treachery and cannot avoid the outcome.  In this tender scene Arthur tells a young boy that once there was for a brief shining moment in time a place where right made might and the champions of chivalry and justice sat about a round table that had no head, hence no leader, united by their common ideals of defense of women and others too weak to defend themselves.  In brief, he tells the boy about the Camelot that is about to disappear, and he admonishes him to run behind the lines, save himself, and go back to England and live to keep the dream alive. 

            At that point I was blindsided by emotion and totally lost it.  While others rose for the standing ovation I was huddled in my seat racked with sobs.  Where but in the theatre can one be lifted to a heigh t, albeit fleetingly, where in the face of all odds one can believe in the perpetuation of goodness and nobility?

****

            In this vein I ask that we consider something else.  I am calling it Christianity's Camelot moment, and I'm referring to the desert fathers of the fourth century.   These men were inspired by one who lived earlier and is dear to our Universalist hearts, a man named Origen.  He was himself a universalist and a voice of sanity to early Christians as he taught at the Academy at Alexandria.  Alas! some three hundred years later, in the 6th century, Origen was posthumously excommunicated by Emperor Justinian.  What better liberal credentials could he have than these?

            Inspired by Origen, then, the first hermits of Christendom took to the deserts of Egypt and Palestine in search of their own authenticity.  Their leader and most prominent member was St. Anthony, who became abbot of a monastery of many seekers.  Thomas Merton, a 20th century monk, looks back upon these pioneers with admiration in his book, The Wisdom of the Desert.

               These monks insisted on remaining human and "ordinary."  This may seem to be a

               paradox, but it is very important.  If we reflect a moment, we will see that to fly into

               the desert in order to be extraordinary is only to carry the world with you as an impli-

               cit standard of comparison.  The result would be self-contemplation, and self-com-

               parison with the negative standard of the world one had abandoned.  Some of the

               monks of the Desert did this as a matter of fact:  and the only fruit of their trouble was

               that they went out of their heads..  The simple men that lived their lives out to a

               good old age among the rocks and sand only did so because they had come into the

               desert to be themselves, their ordinary selves, and to forget a world that divided them

               from themselves.  There can be no other valid reason for seeking solitude or for

               leaving the world.   And thus to leave the world is, in fact, to help save it in saving

               oneself.  This is the final point, and it is an important one.  The Coptic hermits that left\

               the world as though escaping from a wreck, did not merely intend to save themselves.

               They knew that they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered

               about in the wreckage.  But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were

               different.  Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole

               world to safety after them.

            They had their shining moment, perhaps not as dramatic as that of the paladins of King Arthur, who lived two centuries later, but a landmark for those of us who toil for authenticity in the vineyards of religion and philosophy.