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Eastrose Fellowship Unitarian Universalist
1133 NE 181st Avenue, Gresham, Oregon -- 181st Avenue between Glisan and Halsey

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The  Minister's View  -  2009
Monthly Letters to the Congregation by  Rev. David Maynard
This Year's Letters

December 2009     The Minister's View...     Caring for the Baby

At this time of the year we recall the image of the baby Jesus and reflect on new life and the promise that is in each person. For Unitarian Universalists this season is a time of celebration and renewal. In part this is because we differ from most traditional religions over the matter of “original sin.”

On my UU wallet card one thing I say we often believe is that “all people are worthy of respect and capable of doing good. We need not feel guilty for being human.” That is, each infant has the capacity for good and evil, for happiness and despair, for an easy life or one of travail. Some combination of genetics and experience will set the path and determine the outcomes, rather than some innate failing or sin. This belief is fundamental to who we UUs are.

I find myself pondering what is best for an infant as Congress debates and divides over the prospect of expanded health care for the 40 million of us without health coverage. In the angst over costs and the vituperation of those opposed to universal care, it seems to me the moral issue is usually underplayed: do we as a people have the moral courage to provide quality health care to all citizens? Or, will we continue to ration this care based on employment and income? Do we respect all people and welcome them for what they can give to society? Or, do we separate them based on the degree of misfortune?

These questions, if considered seriously, to me seem to set a proper moral framework for the health care discussion.

As December comes in and as winter descends, I hope we can stay warm and remain on moral ground. In all our relationships, doing good, loving mercy and walking humbly with the all-in-all is the best choice. May we all have a Merry Christmas! And welcome the New Year with joy and gratitude.

Love, David

P.S.: This is flu season. Wash your hands and be careful as the viruses go around. We have sanitizer dispensers in the hallways at church.
November 2009    The Minister's View...     Fat Free Cream

Recently I was pouring our cat Quivers some half-and-half which “her majesty” prefers. As the viscous white liquid flowed into her dish, I recalled the time I poured her some Fat Free half-and-half.

The cat never even sniffed it, much less took a lap. She knew from a distance that there was nothing edible in that dish. I recall a brief moment of envy – that fat free stuff fooled me. So much for human intelligence, I thought.

During a recent radio report on nutrition in the public schools, the speaker told of a time she went to eat lunch at her daughter's elementary school. The school was having a “locavore” day – the menu that day was made from ingredients produced within a one hundred mile radius of the school. Her second grade daughter Zoe was ecstatic to discover bones in the chicken breast! The speaker added that the kids at the table were fascinated by them, too. Who knew that chickens had bones? Apparently at age seven Zoe at home or in school had only eaten processed chicken.

A year ago I shared three sermons on the subject of Michael Pollen and our national diet and food habits. He summarized his challenge to us by saying: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Our cat and Zoe were encountering the first suggestion – the fat free half-and-half and the processed chicken did not pass the “food” test. Pollen suggests that if the food has unpronounceable ingredients or is the result of “value-added” processing, we are being subjected yet again to “nutrition-ism.” This is the concept that food can be reduced and understood in terms of its components. He contends – and I agree – that food must be ingested in its original wholeness to be really useful to our bodies.

While it takes a bit of a mental jump, I believe the same principles apply to human relationships. My definition of spirituality is “nourishing and healthy relationships with other people and with one's environment.” Sometimes we try to have “fat-free” relationships filtered for social attitudes, religious viewpoints, or backgrounds. Sometimes we want “processed” relationships subjected to sufficient therapy, self-help analysis or the equivalent of social “sanitizing” to protect us from the uncertainties and unknown elements of humanity. However, I believe it's in the wholeness of relationships with the good and the bad, the easy and the difficult, the happy and the sad, that we get what we need to nourish one another. We need all of us working together to make a healthy and nourishing life. And while some relationships are toxic, just as there are toxic foods for us, we get more of what we need in the whole gamut of experiences if we want to live more fully in this world.

Let's encourage one another to celebrate real food and real relationships. And let's stay in touch as we pass through all these living adventures together. See you in church!
Love, David

P.S.: This is flu season. Wash your hands and be careful as the viruses go around. We have sanitizer dispensers in the hallways at church.
October 2009    The Minister's View...   Meandering and Returning

What a gift this sabbatical time has been – thank you!

Our meanderings took us to California, Colorado, Chicago, Mount Hood, the Little North Fork of the Santiam, the Umpqua River, Waldport, the MAX Green Line, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Washington D.C. Several of these trips were only possible due to the time and energy provided by the sabbatical time. We also put together a large metal shed kit, got rid of extra “stuff,” did some house improvements, and gathered chicken eggs daily. I read several books and caught up on nearly all the back issues of the New York Times Science sections. I pulled together over fifty Minister's View columns from 1975 to this year and will publish them in various ways. I wrote several meditations and short essays and made major progress on a biographical essay. You'll see more of these this Fall. My counseling load stayed pretty steady over the four months except during our travels, so my trips across the driveway to my home office were many.

“Returning” to you carries several meanings for me. Of course, I have missed the daily interactions with Eastrose UUs. I look forward to returning to those many gifts and, sometimes, challenges. I might liken my returning to slipping in the back door. I did not do anything too dramatic – I just moved a little slower and deeper in my usual territory. Hopefully the stillness provided some insights and clarity that will be strengthening for me and useful to you as we talk and walk together.

In a column I found these thoughts from long ago: “Welcome Home....  I'm glad you are here. Welcome Home... I'm glad you are in this congregation, just because you are you. Welcome Home... this is the place for you to be today. You can help us make this a Home for the next person coming through the door after you. Welcome Home... THIS is the place we, together, really want to be.”

I'm glad to be back.
                              
Love, David

P.S.: The H1N1 virus, often mis-named the “swine flu,” seems headed for us. If you want to try the vaccine, track it down. If you want to try to stay healthy take your Vitamin D and other helpful supplements.
      
Follow the sensible suggestions from the health authorities:  Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. Wash your hands often with soap and water or alcohol-based cleaners, especially after you cough or sneeze. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way. If you are ill, the CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them. Finally, find healthy ways to deal with stress and anxiety. Such as, come to church!
September 2009  --  David Maynard is on Sabbatical.  This article is by Eastrose Board Vice President, Katie Larsell

Conversion  -   It has a ka-chunk feeling. 
 
Most people have experienced that feeling of satisfaction when a fact slips into place and suddenly you understood something that you didn't understand before.  As a kid I remember having that feeling at school.  Ka-chunk and suddenly I would understand what the x and y axis meant or get an image of water moving through the hydrologic cycle. 
 
As I've gotten older I've noticed a similar feeling around a different kind of knowledge.  I think of it as Knowing with a capital K.   Its when my heart catches up with my head and I KNOW something.  I usually already knew it with my head , perhaps for years.  I had that feeling of Knowing when I drove by the low-income apartments on Sandy Blvd. one morning just as the school buses pulled in and watched as this huge horde of kids pile into the buses.  I had always known that a lot of Parkrose students were low-income kids that lived in apartments.  But here they all were and so many of them!  I could never look at the statistics the same way again.  I had seen them and they now meant something to me.
 
I thought of that when I watched a clip of Wendell Potter being interviewed by Bill Moyer.  Potter is an insurance executive who quit his job, and now works to expose how the insurance industry is trying to derail health-care reform.  It's as good as my friend said it was, but I was fascinated by Potter's description of why he quit his job.
 
He had been visiting his family in Kentucky when he heard about a health fair at the county fair grounds.  He was curious about it and drove over to check it out.  What he saw appalled him.  People in long lines, waiting for a free medical check up.  Doctors doing procedures in horse stalls.  He took pictures and showed them on air: hundreds of people waiting in line in the rain.  He told Moyer, "I couldn't believe all the people."  Moyers asks him "well didn't you know the statistics already."  Potter answers "well I did, but this made it real, some of these people I probably grew up with."  Potter didn't quit his job immediately but he finally did.  The two realities of his high paying job and the people in the rain couldn't co-exist.
 
Potter had a conversion experience!  We tend to think of conversion as only pertaining to religion.  But Potter went through a rapid realignment of his heart, mind and soul that was as profound as the classic religious conversion.  He looked out at people standing in the rain and felt that ka-chunk of real feeling. We can know something intellectually for a long time, but now and again we get the privilege of KNOWING it.
 
If you are interested in watching the video, Google Moyer Wendell Potter or try the link below:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07312009/watch.html
August 2009  --  David Maynard is on Sabbatical.  This article is by Eastrose Board Secretary, Sandy Sakurai.

Recently I read The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, a French novelist.  In fact I read it twice, something I rarely do, because I thought it was so good.  The book is about a concierge who has extensively educated herself but pretends to be dull and  frumpy, the French stereotype  of a woman concierge, until she is recognized for who she is  by a young girl who lives in the building and a refined, warm Japanese man who is a new tenant.

One of the major themes of the book is the power of small things.  The woman, Renee’,  is entranced by a scene in a Japanese movie that shows a camellia resting on moss.  It moves her deeply and she keeps coming back to it in her mind.  Just  imagining it, we can be moved to wonder and sense its serenity. 

The power of small things is a part of life which draws me in whenever I am quiet and calm enough to notice it and contemplate what is seen or heard.  It might be the pitcher of Jane Maynard’s tulips sitting on the alter at the front of the church.  Or perhaps a flock of goldfinches in the tree behind the Looking Glass Book Store, a particular smile and twinkling eyes seen on a elderly man in the grocery. Or maybe it’s a metaphor moment, say the view of the snow on a hill side of deciduous trees reminding one of a Malamute’s coat.  What about the petticoat flounce of dogwood around the spring wood’s edge?

All these moments are powerful , moving, and spiritually uplifting.  They are the things of poetry and of a poetic life.  Be on the look out for this enrichment. It is powerful and  It’s free.  

Another intriguing concept from the book:  To determine whether a book was good, Renee’  read it while biting into a yellow plum.  If the book surpassed the plum it was a good book.  This one was a plum of a book. 

Sandy Sakurai
July 2009 -- David Maynard is on Sabbatical.  This article is by Eastrose President, Ron Randall.

Community Wealth

With our faithful minister on sabbatical, I have been asked to write a column in his temporary absence. Other members have been asked to do so in the remaining months of David’s time away from us. As with many of the roles that we as a congregation will be picking up during this time, this is one that is made lighter by the work of several hands. And this fact has given me reason to reflect on the wealth that I have at my disposal of having many ready helping hands in my life.

Here at Eastrose, I am only willing and able to serve as the President of the Board of Trustees because of the strong support and effective leadership that I am surrounded with. Every member of this Fellowship’s Board is bright, capable and willing to lend a hand on any number of tasks. I rely on the board to do its work, and that is the only reason I am able to do my own.

At Eastrose, I am also involved in two musical groups—the church choir and the Eastrose Band. Six years ago, I would never have considered performing or singing in public in any way whatsoever.  But now, having found myself surrounded with fellow enthusiastic music-makers, I am enjoying some of the richest spiritual moments of my life by doing just that.

I spent the first many years of my career as a commercial artist, cartoonist and illustrator working alone in a home studio, virtually isolated from the community of my fellow artists. But in recent years, I have become a member of a large studio. The association with these talented artists has enabled me to reinvigorate my career more than once, and has allowed me to take on several assignments that I would have turned down had I not known I would, once again, have capable and willing hands to support me through the rough patches of impossible deadlines and unruly clients. And from my fellow studio members, I have picked up countless new “tricks of the trade” that I would never have come across had I continued to work in the isolation of my solitary home studio,

In all these instances—becoming the Board President, joining a church choir, joining a band, joining a professional art studio, I was called upon to stretch and take certain risks, called upon to make certain commitments of time and resources. And each time I was willing to take that step I have been richly rewarded with personal growth and learning, with gains in confidence and competence, and with deep and fulfilling connections with those with whom I share these meaningful experiences.

This is the value of community as I experience it in my life every day. I believe it is available to each of us. To experience it, we are called upon to take action, to take risks, to make commitments and sacrifices. I believe we all do this, as we are ready and able. The returns we get on these investments range from the personal growth and enrichment we experience when we are supported and challenged to stretch our personal limits, to the satisfaction of the rich relationships we form with those with whom we strive to accomplish meaningful tasks, to the reassurance of knowing that supportive hands are ours for the asking.

I wish for each of us the wealth of such community.                           

Ron Randall
June 2009    The Minister's View...What Ever Happened to David?

A Maynard family story dates from my freshman year after leaving for college in September. In early November my youngest brother asked one night at the dinner table: “whatever happened to David?” Finally after two months he missed me! As a teenager I read J.D. Salinger's “Catcher in the Rye.” The main character leaves his boarding school in the middle of the night. Holden Caufield stands on the hill overlooking the school and reflects on the importance of being missed and of saying good-bye when one leaves.

Congregations such as ours are a place where it's important to be missed. One part of my job that leaves me feeling most inadequate is staying in touch with people – or not. I often wait to see someone on a Sunday to catch up or to set a time for coffee. If somebody does not come to church for a while I realize that I miss them and that I've not been in touch. For a minister making a phone call is right up there with giving a sermon – and yet I still find myself putting it off to handle something that's right in front of me. While I certainly talk with and call people frequently, those of you I've not called are always on my mind.

At a staff luncheon recently several of the staff were teasing me about staying away from Eastrose during my sabbatical for the next four months. “Shall we change the locks?” they asked. I confessed that it will be difficult for me not to be in touch and to work on the projects planned for the sabbatical. From what members and friends say, our conversations are useful and even fun. During this time off duty I will miss those as much as any one of you. “Whatever happened to David?” cuts both ways.

The time period is June 1 until September 30. The Sabbatical Committee of Reverend Sue Matranga-Watson, Kristen Warren, and Larry Adams will work with President Ron Randall and my colleagues on the staff and in ministry to respond to needs and to keep Eastrose going strong. I will be reachable for emergencies through them. I'm not saying “good-bye” like Salinger's character, but I am saying that I'll be back on active duty in a few months with energy and plans for years to come. Thank you again for this opportunity to reflect, to do some special work, and to renew my spirit. As a group, you are the best congregation any minister could desire.

Love, David

P.S.: We need helpers for the video and sound system, taking care of light bulbs, security and trash issues, office supplies purchases, and related small tasks that Reverend David often performs. Can you help? Contact the office or Reverend Sue Matranga-Watson to do so.
May 2009  The minister’s view... Hard Work and Changes   Keeping our congregation healthy and growing is hard work.

A colleague recently used the paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6 penned by the late Seattle Unitarian Universalist minister Peter Raible: “We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves at fires we did not light. We sit in the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know. We are ever bound in community.” Eastrose members and friends are certainly among those UUs who build foundations, plant trees, dig wells and put up the money to benefit persons yet to arrive and who may never know our names.

Part of the hard work is to acknowledge one another along the way. After over a decade of supplying piano music for Sunday services week after week Joyce Walsh will be taking a break. Like you, I have smiled, hummed and sung along with her as the Preludes, Offertories and Postludes spilled from the keys and the service songs bound us together. In terms of her volunteer time on Sunday and with the Choir we have been especially blessed by her – and owe her our thanks!

Our community keeps going smoothly and beautifully due to other “chief” volunteers, too.  Warren James sings, does Sunday coffee and clean-up, sells Fair Trade beverages, deposits monies, writes checks, does special calligraphy (until 3 a.m. recently!) and sustains the Social Concerns committee – and I know I've omitted something.  Linda Schaldach oversees the conditions of our Grounds and puts in seemingly vast amounts of time and even money.  Flo Lewis counts the crowd and the donations week after week as well as organizing special events to sustain our community (not the least of which was the 50 Year Celebration two years ago!)  Alexis Hylander produces the Orders of Service and cleans the building for us every Saturday.  Ken Stine and Jerry Busse get the Petals out and Lynne Pfeiffer and Nancy Woods work the electronic media.  There are a host of other volunteers whom we will recognize as we move along – these are the few I've been responding to in the past few days.

These thoughts are on my mind as I look around on Sundays and marvel at the vitality and importance of our Unitarian Universalist church. From June 1 through September 30 I will be on a combination of sabbatical and vacation time.  Your professional staff of Kathryn Estey, Christine Walsh and our community ministers plus all these volunteers will keep Eastrose running well.  If there is an emergency, I will be reachable, of course.  During this time I plan to write two manuscripts, edit a whole bunch of videos for Eastrose, and read some big books that are beyond my usual capacity – plus get some time to rest and plan for the years to come.  Serving as your minister is a privilege.  Just like our volunteers, to keep us healthy and growing takes a lot of hard work.  The sabbatical will help me stick to that work for a long time to come. T hank you.

Love, David

P.S.: The Annual Meeting on May 17 and the Covenant of Right Relations Workshop on May 24 are important events for us – please plan to attend!
April 2009   The minister’s view...  For Better, For Worse; For Richer, For Poorer

 In my work I often meet with couples in distress. Frequently I recall the traditional words of the marriage vows: “to have and to hold from this  day  forward,  for better,  for  worse;  for  richer,  for  poorer;  in  sickness  and  in  health;  to love and to cherish till death do  us part;”  When I am meeting with a couple these serious commitments have become pretty tenuous. My approach most often is to address their immediate pain, to reconstruct what qualities attracted them to one another in the first place, and then to recommit themselves to their vows.

How and whether a given couple gets through the distress and the rebuilding is up to them and varies based on circumstances.  Most stay together with greater peace and contentment.  Some go their separate ways.  I usually remind each party that, regardless of the outcome of their relationship, he or she will need to work through these issues for any future relationship, too.  “Wherever I go, there I am” puts the responsibility on the individual to be honest, learn some new behaviors, and be willing to move forward if they want to have different outcomes.

What works in relationship for couples works in relationship to a church, also.  Although we don't use the words of marriage vows in our new member ceremony, we do commit ourselves to a community and we commit ourselves to supporting one another in life's joys and sorrows.  Just like a married couple, church members can have easy times and difficult times.  Also like a couple, we can get pretty tenuous about commitments if we have hurt feelings, do not feel respected or if we get scared about another person's attitude or behavior.

There are three aspects of this on my mind as I write.  One is that we can forget to be kind and tolerant even if we disagree with someone.  In May we will have a workshop to develop a Covenant of Right Relations to help us keep focused on treating one another well.  Similar to good table manners, good “congregation manners” go a long way to help us stay in relationship.  Second, we must not forget to keep reaching out to one another in times of stress or illness or change.  As my sabbatical approaches, we are actively working on improving our way of caring and connecting with hurting members and friends.  Although this is certainly part of your ministers' work, it's also part of being a church community.  Third, these are difficult economic times and Eastrose is not exempt.  In March I reduced my salary by 10% to help balance our cash flow.  All of your staff work hard on behalf of our church.  I hope that we can get through the money crunch with a minimum of financial struggle.  Your Board and I will keep you posted on how we are doing.  In April I will begin a series of Common Security Club meetings (see elsewhere in this Petals) to enhance our ability to listen to and support one another.

“For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer” is both a vow and an opportunity. Helping one another to live these is part of being a healthy congregation.

Love, David

P.S. Don't forget the Auction on April 18 at Mt. Hood Community College!
March 2009    The minister’s view...    John Updike 1932 - 2009

My wife heard this John Updike reading on NPR and had me read it. I offer it to you both as a memorial to a remarkable writer and as an observation on church:

“There was a time when I wondered why more people did not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what could be more delightful, more unexpected than to enter a venerable and lavishly scaled building kept warm and clean for us one or two hours a week and to sit and stand in unison and sing and recite creeds and petitions that are like paths worn smooth in the raw terrain of our hearts?

To listen, or not listen, as a poorly paid but resplendently robed man strives to console us with scraps of ancient epistles and halting accounts, hopelessly compromised by words, of those intimations of divine joy that are like pain in that, their instant gone, the mind cannot remember or believe them; to witness the windows donated by departed patrons and the altar flowers arranged by withdrawn hands and the whole considered spectacle lustrous beneath its patina of inheritance; to pay, for all this, no more than we are moved to give­surely in all democracy there is nothing like it.

Indeed, it is the most available democratic experience. We vote less than once a year. Only in church and at the polls are we actually given our supposed value, the soul-unit of one, with its noumenal arithmetic of equality: one equals one.”

Love, David

-- “Churchgoing,” from Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, 1962, pp 249-250  with assistance from Garrison Keillor and the Prairie Home Companion.

PS: Don't forget to return your Congregational Surveys to the church!
February 2009   The minister’s view...  Sabbatical

Among Unitarian Universalist congregations providing a ministerial sabbatical is common. The usual formula is to have one month of sabbatical for each year of service. In the case of Eastrose Fellowship, I just completed six years at the beginning of last August. As I am employed one-half time, the proposal is to allow for three months of paid sabbatical time to be wrapped around my usual July vacation, so I would be gone from June 1 to September 30, 2009.

The purposes of a sabbatical period are several. By its nature, ministry involves work beyond the usual eight-hour day and five day week. Committee schedules, personal crises, congregational events, and the normal worship services and programs easily flow into extra time. A sabbatical period is an opportunity to step away from this process to allow for renewal, to develop new visions and energy for the congregation, and to accomplish special projects that simply are not possible during the usual church year. In my case, I have two significant writing projects, some travel and some special reading to make good use of the time.

A sabbatical also helps me stay here.  I am approaching retirement age. Part of my commitment is to stay for two years after returning from the sabbatical.  This will allow Eastrose to benefit from the renewal and vision a sabbatical can provide and also ensure a continuity of ministry before my retirement.

I am working with our three community ministers to provide pulpit and pastoral coverage. The Sabbatical Committee will work with the Board to make the time away a successful experience. This opportunity is deeply appreciated by Jane and me – and is just another aspect of our wonderful ministry with you.

Love, David
January 2009   The minister’s view...  Sacred Dances

As we begin the new year with all the changes, politcal and economic being foremost in our minds, we can recall that conflicts and tensions are not new to our faith. Sometimes I think of these as “sacred dances” which pull us between diverse views. My Memphis colleague Burton Carley wrote about such in his column “Reflections from the River” last October:

 “Next fall is Charles Darwin's bicentenary and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of the Species.  In anticipation of these events the Rev. Malcolm Brown recently wrote on the Anglican web site that the Church of England ought to offer an apology for the hostile reactions that greeted Darwin's theories when they were published.  Many of the senior Anglicans of the day responded with hostility.  Dr. Brown wrote: "Its hard to avoid the thought that the reaction against Darwin was largely based on what we would now call the 'yuk factor' (an emotional, not an intellectual, response) when he proposed a lineage from apes to humans."  Brown said he opposes Christians for whom "evolution is equated with atheism" as well as Darwinists who feel ideas about evolution "completely undermine any kind of credibility for God."

This is not the first time that the work of science has been thought to undermine the power and authority of the Church.  In 1992 Pope John Paul II said that the Roman Catholic Church has been wrong to condemn astronomer Galileo for offering a model of the solar system that did not put the Earth at the center of the universe.  The polarization of science and religion is still alive and well into the 21st century as surveys show that many Americans want evolution and "intelligent design" taught in the public schools.

The good news of our faith is that science and religion are not in conflict with each other.  Explanations of the origins of humanity and the universe embedded in ancient sacred texts are not valued in the 21st century for their good scientific method.  They speak to the meaning of being human and the right relationship of humanity to the world.  Science probes how things work and religion probes the human meanings we assign to our experience of that world.

Our good news is also that science and religion share something vitally important.  Both require that we keep open minds and hearts.  As science dares not fence the mind in exploring the mystery of the universe so our way of being religious dares not fence the spirit.  In partnership both science and religion teach us in our faith that the best way to be in the world is with a proper sense of humility, and how each day brings to us something new to learn.  Important for both the growth of the mind and the soul is giving up the false confidence of "knowing for sure" and approaching all things with the attitude of the student.”

As we of Eastrose Fellowship enter 2009, may we continue graciously the sacred dances of an open mind and heart; of science and religion, of humility and certainty; of knowledge and learning. The balance resulting from such dances will give us a fascinating new year.

Love, David