Unitarian Fellowship of Huntington, 619 6th Avenue, Huntington, WV 25701-2103

Member of the Unitarian Universalist Association �� Newsletter Number 2010:8

President: Bob Williams �� Vice President/Programs Director: Randy Miller �� Treasurer: Jim Maphet

Newsletter Editor: Jack Wilkinson III (304-521-9201)

The Free Seeker

The Voice of Liberal Religion in the Tri‐State

MARCH 3RD , 2010

EVENTS OF SUNDAY, MARCH 7TH, 2010

11:00 A.M. PROGRAM with the U. U. Fellowship:

Open Discussion

What would you like to talk about: the health care summit, the Winter

Olympics, the Tiger Woods debacle, the earth quake in Chile? If you have a particular

interest, please speak up and get it included.

FUTURE PROGRAMS

March 14th Christie Ruiz on "Healthy Eating"

March 21st Jack Wilkinson on "Ben Hecht and the Enigma of the Modern Jew"

March 28th Mike Mitchell on "The AIDS Task Force"

April 4th “Open Discussion”

CUUPS meets Thursdays 6:00 to 8:00 PM and the Tri‐State Meditation Group will be

meeting in April.

A RETROSPECTIVE OF LAST SUNDAY'S PROGRAM: BILL PATTON ON IRAQ

Patton reminded us that Arthur Conan Doyle's Dr. John Watson had been

wounded in one of the British Afghan Wars. Indeed, Afghanistan has a rich history of

domination by different empires, which, nevertheless, seem not to have significantly

altered its nomadic tribal nature. The next to last empire dominatrix, Great Britain,

departed in 1919 CE, when Afghanistan became independent and a monarchy in 1926

CE, when Abdullah Khan proclaimed himself king. Two more kings followed Abdullah,

and then the monarchy fell to a military coup in 1973, when Mohammed Daud Khan

acceded to power. Daud's government, at first progressive, soon became brutal, with

27,000 executions. Both the mullahs and the intellectuals fled.. Soviet troops invaded

in 1979 to protect Afghan Communists from the government. The Russians formed an

uneasy alliance with Daud, but soon they were at loggerheads. Continuing brutality by

both Daud and Soviets inspired a grass roots insurrection by Muslim holy warriors.

The USSR sent in 50,000 troops to protect its interests. The USA called this

sudden invasion the threat of World War Three. That's when President Jimmie Carter

called for a boycott of the Olympic Games being held in Moscow. The CIA supplied the

mujahadin in order to provoke the Soviets to send in still more troops and thereby

strain them financially. This resulted in the Soviets being bogged down in Afghanistan

for nine years. The Soviet invasion had the effect of uniting all the disparate factions in

the invaded country. The Afghans, knowing that they could not win by conventional

warfare, moved on the invaders like ghosts. Now the Soviets had 115,000 troops in

Afghanistan, but their generals said they needed 650,000. (That's about the number

Westmoreland asked for in Viet Nam.) For the Soviet soldier opium and hashish

became the drugs of choice. As the war continued the Soviets had 120,000 troops in

there at any given time, but in the end after several rotations 470,000 had been

debilitated, wounded or killed. The two sides raced each other in ruthlessness. The

Soviets napalmed entire valleys, but the genocide went unnoticed by the world at

large. In February of 1984 Chenenko ordered carpet bombing at 40,000 feet. Tens of

thousands of land mines were planted resulting in the death of many children.

Wounding people was even more effective than killing them, because it slowed down

other people who went to help them. The Saudis joined the US in funding the Afghans.

In 1984 Osama bin Laden came to the aid of the Afghans and established the el Kaida.

The CIA sold the mujahadin stinger missiles, which destroyed Soviet air superiority.

In 1988 the Soviets admitted defeat and withdrew leaving 70,000 Soviet soldiers

and 1,000,000 Afghans dead. 5,000 Afghans had fled to Pakistan and the USA.

HOMILY: "WHEN IN DOUBT, ETHEREALIZE" BY THE REVEREND JACK WILKINSON

We are two kinds of people. On the one hand we are those who get things done

or don't get things dome, and on the other hand we are people who just are. To put it

another way, we are people who are waiting for something to happen or aren't waiting

for something to happen, and on the other hand we are watching the one who's

waiting. That part of us who just is and is also watching can give commands that will

mitigate the strain of striving as well as the strain of waiting. It can give the command

to etherealize. What happens when that command is given?

The best way to answer that question is to do it. Here is what happens to me.

My spine stiffens of its own volition. I feel lighter, more relaxed, more joyful, more

restful. I may yawn and thereby expel carbon dioxide and other toxic materials. I also

get the feeling that nothing that has mass can do me any harm, because the ethereal

state trumps compactness. Perhaps best of all, waiting is no longer waiting, because it

has become grooving. What is grooving? It's bearing witness to one's body's

autonomic activity and its several rhythms. In religious terms it's kneeling at the shrine

of Lord Vishnu, the Preserver and Sustainer. It is an acknowledgment of our spiritual

handlers and also a unique kind of activity. I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend

one's time.

LIGHT FROM JACK'S LANTERN BY JACK WILKINSON

As I get older I become aware of a new exchange: I spend less time on

knowledge and more on perspective. Knowledge is frustrating, because the wider its

circumference the wider the circumference of ignorance. They expand together to the

point that darkness outside the circle seems to overwhelm the light within. At this

point the little I do know must be rearranged, reconfigured. I don't need to know the

shapes specifically, but for sake of imagination let's say a Star within a Circle. A fivepointed

star with the top point at due north.

In this particular configuration I am keeping things in balance (Star), and I am

also keeping them contained or limited (Circle). Now everything I already know has to

arrange itself along these lines, and anything new must also cohere with the rest of it

to be of any use. Now the figure may become skewed thereby changing the angles of

the Star figure, yet the sum total of the angles will remain the same as before the

skewing. In this manner configurations bring order out of possible chaos. Particulars

arrange themselves in terms of relationship and difference, and all is in dynamic

balance. This is perspective, the gyroscope of selfhood. It is largely intuitive, but if one

were to take the trouble, it could also be explained.

In theological school I had a famous scholar in New Testament studies as my

teacher by the name of Morton Scott Enslin, who said, "Whenever a new book comes

out I reread an old one." Besides being curmudgeonly conservative this attitude is an

example of my theme: the retrying and retrueing of the tried and the true.