I Want YOU!

And I knew the moment I saw it that this silly little Uncle Sam hat would come in handy one day. Recently I've been using it just to keep track of my keys and the mail, but it was nice to be able to dump all that stuff on the bed for a moment and use the hat for a quick Independence Day photo op instead. I'm still not exactly sure how I want to spend this day, which is the first day I've had in a long, long time without a single "obligation" -- no medical appointments, no church meetings no errands to run. I do still have a certain amount of "paperwork" to handle (including paying my first of the month bills), but that's something that can easily be procrastinated in deference to more important tasks, like reading, or napping, or writing in my journal. But what to read? What to write? And how long do I REALLY want to nap? And, of course, there are always mealtimes. Institutional life here at the Assisted/Independent Living facility tends to revolve around the cafeteria, just like it did when I lived in college dorms. It's a very odd full circle, at once both familiar and strange.

I heard today that the President is scheduled to be at Montecello to make an appearance at a swearing-in ceremony for a group of newly-naturalized citizens. And I'm almost afraid to hear what he has to say. Yet my illness also gives me a little "critical distance" -- my capacity for outrage is somehow muted by the intimacy of my awareness of my own mortality. I am deeply concerned about what is happening in the world right now: Climate Change, the "War on Terror," $150/barrel oil, not to mention all of the more familiar social problems of Race and Class and Justice and Violence and Poverty and Oppression and Opportunity...and, yes, even Health Care reform. But there is also a certain abstractness to my concern. So I find myself wondering: What WOULD Thomas Jefferson do? Or, for that matter, John Adams (who, like Jefferson, died on this day in 1826 -- the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration), or any of the other Founding Fathers? But then I also wonder: What does it matter? It's the PRINCIPLES they articulated, not the specific answers they might have arrived at to problems they could never have anticipated, that are ultimately important. Clearly the two are related. And discerning that relationship it the task of true Wisdom...which is why I'm so concerned about what is happening in the world right now....

I've been fascinated by the parallel Unitarianisms of Adams and Jefferson for a long time -- Adams, a life-long member of the First Parish in Quincy; Jefferson, who remained content to be "a Unitarian by myself," and who late in life predicted that Unitarianism would become the general religion of the United States. Jefferson's prophecy has remained notoriously unfulfilled, at least when measured against the membership roles of actual UU churches. Meanwhile, First Parish congregations like the one in Quincy continue to soldier along as they always have, facing many of the same struggles and challenges as they did 200 years ago. Can anyone honestly say today that one of them was more authentically "Unitarian" than the other simply because they belonged to a church? Or is the real question more along the lines of what can our church do to reach out to the majority of self-identified UUs who remain by themselves, yet who might benefit from a closer relationship with others who share their values and principles?

Omigosh, look at the time! Better get down to the cafeteria for lunch!