UKSpirituality Blog

A Space Idiocy

nicktancock@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:42:16 +0000

A debate took place recently about whether we should actively attempt to contact aliens, and it
made me think how very like the inhabitants of planet Krikket from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy we humans are.

The Krikkets lived on a planet completely encompassed by cloud (a lot like England, now I think about it) until one day a spaceship burst through the atmosphere and crashed.

The event caused the Kirkkets to actually look up for the first time and contemplate what lay beyond. They soon knocked together a spaceship and saw the splendor of the universe for the first time.

One astronaut turned to the other. ‘It’ll have to go,’ he said, and thus the galaxy’s most destructive intergalactic war was born.

There was another scene in Hitchhikers when as a punishment they shackled someone to a chair and forced them to see themselves in contrast to the immensity of the universe; how, in a kind of reverse-telescopic effect, they became less and less consequential. It invariably sent the victim mad.

It was actually not unlike this.

There are apparently as many planets in the universe as there are grains of sand on every beach on the world. Think about that next time you bang out your deck shoes. All those tiny planets!

It’s been said that we have replaced our longing for the Messiah for the dream of alien-contact.

I signed up to SETI once – I could see the value in searching for electronic signals from outer-space, and I think the alternative of looking for carbon dioxide (based on the principal that aliens would fart the same as us) is also pretty cool.

However, I think the idea of actually beaming signals in to space to deliberately contact aliens is really, really stupid.

As Dr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, said: part of me is with the enthusiasts and I would like us to try to make proactive contact with a wiser, more peaceful civilisation.

But he was concerned at the risks.

We might like to assume that if there is intelligent life out there it is wise and benevolent… but of course we have no evidence for this. Given that the consequences of contact may not be what we initially hoped for, then we need governments and the UN to get involved in any discussions.

Given that the consequences of contact may not be what we initially hoped for.

Yeah, like they might eat us.

With an almost infinite amount of planets, it seems sensible to conclude that there is an almost infinite amount of possibilities, both benevolent and malign.

The smart thing would be to hunker down in the corner of the cave until we have developed enough tools to protect ourselves should we venture outside, or worse – something come in.

But, like the inhabitants of Krikket, I suspect we have an exaggerated sense of our own worth. Our expectation of “salvation” from the stars could simply turn out to be somebody else’s lunch.

A surprising source of redemption in one of the year's most powerful films

nicktancock@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 06:15:39 +0000

I've recently been able to catch some movies and have been particularly lucky that it's been at a time when some of the finest films of the year are on release - Kick Ass, with it's explosive c-word scene an instant classic, I am Love, an art-house meditation on the brutal authenticity of love, and City of Life and Death, on the pitilessness of war and specifically the 1937 "Rape of Nanking".

With our own focus on the Holocaust, Chinese suffering in the 1930s and 40s tends to be overlooked, yet between 10-20 million lost their lives. Before the war in the West had even begun (and long before Pearl Harbor) the Japanese had invaded China and sacked the then-capital Nanking.

The atrocities committed presaged those to come, as graphically portrayed in the film, the most convincing depiction of World War Two war crime since the Russian Come and See and certainly superior to Schindler's List, not least because for most of the characters there is no happy ending. It is also a far more complex film, making an attempt to understand this dreadful "phenomenon" from both sides and even daring to empathise to a limited extent with the perpetrators. We criticse China's freedoms, but I cannot imagine a Western film as even-handed - Letters from Iwo Jima perhaps, but the context was very different.

A further example of how it challenges our preconceptions is the portrayal of the leading "hero", Nazi official, John Rabe, German consul in Nanking. Rabe represents the refugees in the so-called Zone of Safety and does all he can, alongside American missionary Minnie Vautrin, to protect the terrified civilians. Unlike Oscar Schindler, it appears Rabe was a convinced Nazi, although for his activities he ended up being questioned by the Gestapo on his return to Germany and lived in poverty after the war, supported by a grateful Chinese government. Traumatised by what she witnessed, Vautrin committed suicide at home in Illinois in 1940.

What comes out of the film quite strongly is how brutally in the wrong circumstances - inevitably unlimited power - human beings can behave to each other. It is telling that Rabe, apparently at the time a true believer in the Nazi's twisted interpretation of Nietzsche's ideas about power should, when faced by its consequences, become the champion of the weak. It is perhaps one of the few sources of redemption in this outstanding, unflinching film.

I also saw Roman Polanski's highly-rated The Ghost but thought it was crap.

THE MEANING AND UNMEANING OF AUGUST 1980

questrist@aol.com (Nicholas Axam) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 08:51:34 +0000

Waiting for Lea to finish her shopping I strolled over to the monument to the victims of the Bologna railway station bombing in 1980 and was struck by how very many people in their early twenties had died.

I imagined them crowding the waiting room, where the bomb was planted. There would have been backpacks, books. Boyfriends, girlfriends, friends all heading somewhere – the future still ill-defined but full of possibility…

I thought of all the love that had been poured into them by their parents. The quiet, unconditional love and hope and faith over 20, 21, 22, 23 years they would never begin to understand, or not until they too became parents…

All of that ended by their killers, youngsters themselves, decoupled from humanity by nothing more than an idea – in this case a fascist pipe dream – and controlled, it is said, by people who remain at large today, or at least were never apprehended.

A parents’ love, I thought, must be the apogee of humanity, indeed of all animal life (because animals can certainly love). Forget Romeo and Juliet – this must be closest to actual holiness, albeit largely unremarked upon because it is so damn commonplace, taken for granted. How many parents would sacrifice their lives for their children, as Jesus is said to for us?

The killers’ act of destruction was the opposite of love, the opposite of holy. And if love, even in its mildest form, empathy, is absent, then what’s left? Nothing. A void. But one should not flatter them with nihilism – they had their meaning right enough, even if they misunderstood it as they admired their vainglorious reflections in the looking glass.

They sold their souls for the sense that they were somehow superior to their victims – above the ordinary, humble holiness they embodied – when in fact their act made them infinitely, infinitely less so.

And that, I thought, turning away to see Lea coming toward me across Maggiore, was all you needed to know.

IN PRAISE OF THE MILITANT MODERATE

admin@ukspirituality.org (Nicholas Axam) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:41:59 +0000

I would like to declare my commitment to extreme moderation.

Times are tough for moderates – we are being assailed from all sides

On the one hand we have secularists, with whom I have always harboured some sympathy, enforcing the will of atheist fundamentalists and over-turning centuries of tradition. For example in Italy, where I live, a Finnish-born mother recently won a ruling through the European Court of Human Rights to have crucifixes removed from all classes.

Soile Lautsi took her cause to court after failing to get crucifixes removed from the school at which her two children were being taught at a town in north-east Italy.

What a monumental example of egotism, if I may be so immoderate to opine.

Meanwhile, as I wrote last week, 125 Christian leaders have recently put their name to the pompously christened Declaration of Manhattan that calls on signatories to break laws that offend their moral sensibility.

God save us from those who know what is best.

Fundamentalism is the opposite of God – it is a human thing, born of existential fear. It applies equally to religion and atheism, embodying a need for definitive answers where, in fact, there are none. The fundamentalist’s inherent sense of powerlessness is symbolized by their need to impose their personal power, or righteousness, over others. In their insistent certainty they expose how uncertain they really are. They doth protest altogether too much.

Quantum Mechanics illustrates how particles – the grains of life – appear and disappear with utter unpredictability.

The very fabric of existence is actually woven with uncertainty. In fact, Heisenberg coined the Uncertainty Principle to describe this process.

This, not Latin, Aramaic, English or Arabic, is the actual language of God (or Nogod, if you prefer); the lesson it teaches us is that only uncertainty is the rule.

Ani di Franco sums this up beautifully in her song Paradigm.

I was just a girl in a room full of women
Licking stamps and laughing
I remember the feeling of community brewing
Of democracy happening

But I suppose like anybody

I had to teach myself to see

All that stuff that got lost

On its way to church

All that stuff that got lost

On its way to school

All that stuff that got lost

On its way to the house of my family
All that stuff that was not lost on me
Teach myself to see each of us
Through the lens of forgiveness
Like we're stuck with each other (god forbid!)
Teach myself to smile and stop and talk
To a whole other color kid
Teach myself to be new in an instant
Like the truth is accessible at any time
Teach myself it's never really one or the other
There's a paradox in every paradigm

No one would accuse Ani of being a fuzzy relativist, a knock-kneed apologist. She is in fact a well-known radical. Actually, Ani strikes me as a militant moderate – a healthy skeptic with a keen grasp upon reality. As an artist, perhaps, she exists outside groupthink and perceives the complexities inherent in any absolute, that paradox in every paradigm. But this does not make her indecisive – on the contrary. Understanding, even of uncertainty, clarifies. The truth always illuminates.

Ani was married in a Unitarian Universalist church by the way.

First time around, at any rate.

Merry Christmas.

admin@ukspirituality.org (Administrator) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:03:02 +0000

Amazing sand 'paintings' by Kseniya Simonova. Astounding. Just have to see it.

The amazing thing is that the people in the audience are actually moved to tears...

Practice Being Human

apakula@gmail.com (Andrew Pakula) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:54:21 +0000

It has been said that ‘Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.’ Although some may differ, I think we can assume this statement takes in modern woman too.

Hafiz, the 14th century Persian sufi mystic and poet, defines more ‘human’, saying ‘More kind to every creature and plant that you know.’

Inhuman means cruel or unfeeling. Human is kindness and care. We could end all talk of religion right there and not miss too terrible much. Be human. Be kind. Love your neighbour.

But I would go a bit further.
It has been said that ‘Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.’ Although some may differ, I think we can assume this statement takes in modern woman too.

Hafiz, the 14th century Persian sufi mystic and poet, defines more ‘human’, saying ‘More kind to every creature and plant that you know.’

Inhuman means cruel or unfeeling. Human is kindness and care. We could end all talk of religion right there and not miss too terrible much. Be human. Be kind. Love your neighbour.

But I would go a bit further.

Being fully human, in the most positive sense, is about our relationships with other people and indeed, all other beings. It is also about our dreams and aspirations.

To be a living, breathing, fully human being is also about wanting something more for this world and for its other inhabitants. It goes beyond acting with kindness ourselves to the dream of a world where kindness is universal.

The fully human being is, in some ways, eternally unsatisfied. While she may become sufficiently enlightened and free of ego to be satisfied with her own life, she continues to strive in the interest of others.

Robert Zend was a Hungarian writer who moved to Canada after the Soviet Invasion in 1956. He was a wonderful phrase-maker and his writing perhaps reflects a pessimism born of repression. Zend asserts ‘There are too many people, and too few human beings.’
There are too many people who live without a sense of connection and a sense of care for others. There are too many people who live without a passion for this world to be a better place – more loving, more just, and more peaceful.

The great 20th century Unitarian Theologian James Luther Adams contributed to an understanding of the purpose and meaning of religious participation freed of dogmatic constraints. Adams put it simply: "Church is a place where you get to practice what it means to be human."

May we, together, create such places – where each of us may grow toward the fully human with the whole of the world the better for it.

May it be so

Practice Being Human

admin@admin (Administrator) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:54:21 +0000

Becoming Human

apakula@gmail.com (Andrew Pakula) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:19:22 +0000

A few months ago, a man came to the front door of the church and rang the bell. He wanted to see the minister.

I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’

The first time someone came to the door with a tragic story that ended with needing some money – that he would surely return – I was taken. I lost £35 of my own money on that one and I resolved never to fall for it again.
A few months ago, a man came to the front door of the church and rang the bell. He wanted to see the minister.

I thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again.’

The first time someone came to the door with a tragic story that ended with needing some money – that he would surely return – I was taken. I lost £35 of my own money on that one and I resolved never to fall for it again.

So, when I saw this fellow and heard that he wanted to talk to me, I knew just what to expect.

I sat down with him outside the door – knowing that it would be easier to get rid of him if I didn’t let him in the building. He began to tell me his tale of woe. He had had a job until something went wrong. He wanted to assure me that he wasn’t an alcoholic, although he had been drinking. He was down on his luck and needed help.

We talked for a while and he looked so sincere – but then, even the con man who took my 35 quid managed to squeeze out a real tear or two…

I was ready to be resolute about money with this man. I wouldn’t give him any. But he didn’t ask for any…

So, I told my visitor that I could do three things for him. First, I could listen to him as I had been doing. Second, I could get him a sandwich. And third, I could give him a bit of work to do and pay him for doing it.

A con man would have argued at this point – about how what he needed was just 20 quid to get his truck back so he could rescue his child, or 30 quid for a train trip to his mum’s funeral, or 25 for his wife’s emergency dental work… you get the idea.

But my visitor was delighted with the three options. I got him set up with my pressure washer and started him off cleaning the entry area to Unity and then went to make him a tuna mayo sandwich.

When I returned, he was hard at work. My expensive pressure washer was still there –he did not take off with it… I stopped him working for a bit and he gratefully took the food and ate quickly before getting back to work.

Hours passed. I checked on him occasionally, but not often. Whenever I checked, he was there – hard at work.

At last, he said he was done. I paid him for the job from my own money, not Unity’s.

I looked at his clothing. He was now pretty well soaked with water and covered with spattered dirt. And yet, he had a strange sort of happy look on his face.

Finally he spoke again.

He told me that while he was working, people who walked by thought he was a workman – not a homeless person. And they met his eye. They might have even smiled. He was overjoyed at this small thing – something that any of us would probably take for granted.

He said to me ‘Thank you. For a few hours, you’ve let me feel human again.’

It is no small thing – to be treated as human.

Our Unitarian faith tells that each human person is born with inherent dignity and worth.

Perhaps it’s our recognition of that fact that leads us to dehumanize people. We need to do it to justify our hatred of them.

In vilifying non-Muslim minorities in Iran, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Iranian Guardian Council, has said, “Humans who follow anything but Islam, are the same as those animals who wander about and commit corruption.”

In Rwanda, Tutsis were depicted as cockroaches and snakes to make way for the genocide there. To make the holocaust possible, Jews in Germany were called poisonous mushrooms, pigs and spiders.

Each of us who can hear and understand these words is human, with the dignity and worth and responsibility that this status confers.

We all dehumanize others. It’s a way of defining positions and of getting through the day.

Next time you’re in a crowded public place, try this. Look at the faces of the people around you. Most of them will be expressionless. Some will look sad or angry. A few will appear happy. Very rarely, you might even detect contentment.

As you look, remember that each of these people feels as you feel. As different and as ‘other’ as they may seem, each one has loved and lost and dreamed, just as you have. They had parents. They have hopes and fears just as you do.

Do this, and just for a barely tolerable and unsustainable moment, you may recognise life in its full overwhelming sweetness, misery and complexity. Keep that thought with you.

In a world of dehumanization, let us work toward rehumanizing all who are treated as less.

Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

revlahart@gmail.com (Linda Hart) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:28:28 +0000

Just before we went away on holiday, our Poetry for the Soul group considered Mary Oliver's poem 'Wild Geese' which includes this line:

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

The next morning as we flew away to Mallorca for a week at a resort hotel, these words stayed with me.
Just before we went away on holiday, our Poetry for the Soul group considered Mary Oliver's poem 'Wild Geese' which includes this line:

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

The next morning as we flew away to Mallorca for a week at a resort hotel, these words stayed with me.

We quickly fell into the rhythm of finding our places by the pool and sitting there in pleasure of sunshine and heat. Between knitting and reading and doing puzzles, I found myself watching the people and was keenly aware of the bodies on display, the 'soft animals' we were surrounded by. What was most remarkable to me was how much flesh I could see: women of every size and age in two piece swim costumes, men of equal diversity in tiny Speedos. Skin was dark brown, nearly black, or browned by the sun or pink or pasty in colour. Some suffered from the effects of the sun and not enough shade or suncream. The truly unfortunate were blotched with whitish areas and reddened areas where their suncream hadn’t got spread..

It was in some ways deeply moving to see all these bodies, these 'soft animals' of bodies. Our common humanity was on parade in the bulges and bellies of the more abundant of flesh, the taut skin of children and youth, the pleated drape of aging necklines and faces, the contours of muscle.

And yet at first I was a bit aghast. My American sensibility and the insistent blare of the media seem to conspire to arouse shame in me when looking at what is (by that unrealistic standard of beauty) an overweight body. You would only very rarely see a woman of abundant figure in a bikini on an American beach. And elder women would be discretely covered up, the truth of their aging bodies cloaked in blowsy fabric. Here women of every age showed belly and leg and cleavage such as it was. A few showed breasts with little thought or care it seemed.

Men – more likely to be casual about their bodies in my experience – might show some more of their skin and but most on American beaches they would likely favour more fabric than the thin strip of spandex that was stretched across most of the men at this resort.

My cultural bias showed itself in my strong response.

Still I knew that there is a beauty in the plainness of flesh, an earthy pleasure in bodies unadorned, unhidden. Day on day I came to appreciate the view at the poolside, and even considered buying a new swim costume myself. That adventure will have to wait for another sun-soaked holiday, but I am renewed in my sense of connection to my own body, and to the soft, sweetness of our physical selves.

This is, of course, one of the purposes of a proper holiday: to shake us loose from that which has become too common, to open our eyes and hearts a little to new experiences, and to put us back in touch with ourselves away from the press of everyday life.

As we come into the summer months when holidays, I wish you some time to rediscover and reconnect with yourself, too. However you find that moment – on holiday or at home – may it be for you renewal and inspiration.

I Saw You

revlahart@gmail.com (Linda Hart) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 08:30:13 +0000

I saw you. You may think that no one noticed, but I saw you.

In fact, you may not even have thought that what you did was worth any notice, and certainly not any comment, but what you did has stuck with me over the last few days and I just needed to tell you that it didn’t go unnoticed and certainly it was appreciated.
I saw you. You may think that no one noticed, but I saw you.

In fact, you may not even have thought that what you did was worth any notice, and certainly not any comment, but what you did has stuck with me over the last few days and I just needed to tell you that it didn’t go unnoticed and certainly it was appreciated.

My daughter and I got on the bus just ahead of two, shall we say, older women. Noticing them behind us, you moved from your comfortable seat and threaded your way to the back of the bus. I don’t know that the woman who took your seat even saw that you left it for her. The bus was filling up, but there were still seats in the back, and you found one and settled in. Claire and I sat behind you. I was mindful that you had just acted kindly, and no words of thanks were offered. You probably would have dismissed any thanks. Anyone would have done it, you would have said. But that’s not true. And even so, it was an act of kindness, and those shouldn’t go unappreciated.

Then a mum with two young boys moved toward the back of the now full bus. She directed her sons into the remaining seats in the back of the bus. Hesitating not a moment, you got up again, and she sat. Distracted by her energetic sons, I’m not sure she noticed that you had gone so that she could sit. She took the seat, I suspect, gratefully as any mother of two small sons would.

You didn’t ride for all that far, perhaps 4 or 5 stops further along. You strode off the bus, looking thoughtful and your attention on where you were going, no doubt you were already on to whatever was next on your schedule for the day. If today I saw you and said something, you likely wouldn’t even remember doing it.

But I saw it. And I gave thanks out into the universe for those two small acts of kindness. And, while I am fairly certain that you won’t see this – if you read the Unitarian, you would likely buy it from my church – still I wanted to let it be known that those small acts did not go unnoticed.

It is those little acts of kindness that weave the fabric of the world, I think. They are mostly unnoticed – a smile offered along the street, a hand held out for assistance whilst crossing a street, a word of care spoken in a difficult moment, making a seat for someone who might need it. Acts of kindness endure in ways that moments of meanness never can. Small act by small act, goodness is woven, and each of us is a thread in the weaving.

Today I say thank you to you:

You, the woman on the bus who gave up her seat twice;

You, who smiled at a baby;

You, who held the hand of a friend in pain;

You, who made a meal for someone you love;

You, who performed one of those innumerable and important acts of kindness.

I saw you. And I say thank you from the depth of my heart.