I feel obligated to write, write something, anything. I’ve been doing it so many years it’s like brushing your teeth; if you skip for any reason and get by without a consequence, that oversight doesn’t go unpunished for long. Gazing at a blank page with no ideas is like dialing 911 and nobody answers. One alternative is skipping over to YouTube to watch music videos, the feeling is as good as scratching an itch but the fix is short lived.
My blog’s website provides some indirect feedback on how many hits each article gets but it’s not reliable and I accept that. But I’ll never know for sure if anyone and certainly not who does drop in. I don’t get comments as the process is too complicated (register & sign in required). That’s alright, I’m not fishing for feedback I just need to follow through on my end. I think of each post (article) as a little time capsule that captures me (my thoughts) in that moment. By themselves they are no more than snapshots but in the collective you get a story that may wander and stumble but a story never the less. A single post may be more interesting or revealing than another but when you look back to see where you came from and how you got here, it helps that you left some footprints. For any other purpose my preoccupation with writing and the blog must be irrelevant but it gives me something to do if not a job.
My blog’s website provides some indirect feedback on how many hits each article gets but it’s not reliable and I accept that. But I’ll never know for sure if anyone and certainly not who does drop in. I don’t get comments as the process is too complicated (register & sign in required). That’s alright, I’m not fishing for feedback I just need to follow through on my end. I think of each post (article) as a little time capsule that captures me (my thoughts) in that moment. By themselves they are no more than snapshots but in the collective you get a story that may wander and stumble but a story never the less. A single post may be more interesting or revealing than another but when you look back to see where you came from and how you got here, it helps that you left some footprints. For any other purpose my preoccupation with writing and the blog must be irrelevant but it gives me something to do if not a job.
I went to church yesterday: that, coming from me almost requires a disclaimer. Unitarians work diligently to justify their (our) claim to be a legitimate religion but Christians in general presume we are just another denomination who share their fundamental beliefs. What we are in fact is a community of Humanists who fashion our own rituals and ceremony that fit a secular belief system. For the most part we believe that we were born with everything we need to meet our spiritual need and didn’t need to be saved in the first place. If you like the idea of an all powerful, all knowing, supernatural god then you would feel out of place at our place. Anyway: our sermon yesterday was about justice, what’s fair and why society only pays attention when an exclusive group has been treated unjustly. In that sermon, a quote that MLK Jr. borrowed in 1968 goes; “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Too much content for me to dwell on here but one thought is that we may not live long enough to see justice done our time. But MLK Jr. and his cohorts recognized the far reaching scope of just practice and just how short the span of a human lifetime. Parallels were framed between civil rights leaders in the 1960’s and Mahatma Gandhi from non violent protest to relentless persistence. I thought it interesting (from my own reading) that one of today’s hot issues was anticipated by Dr. King. In the same speech, same language, he alluded to staying awake (be alert) in the struggle because every small (seeming irrelevant step forward) could be undone by the entrenched powers that be. George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis triggered the (Woke) movement but King had seen it coming and true to his caution, organized white supremacists in particular, they have been empowered by MAGA bigots who are showing their true colors now (White only served here.)
As much as I like and respect Unitarian’s Humanist roots I am not well rooted there. To make that leap I would need to be better schooled in the arc of the moral universe, to see it starting to bend toward justice even a little bit. I am better schooled in evolution and human nature. I have trouble getting past the long arc of violence and exploitation by people of high birth and power, against those people who are vulnerable, who are in harm's way. I am waiting for the moral arc to budge off of its bubble. We (Humans) have the capacity to make real what has been touted as a divine sensibility in regard to each other and particularly with those who struggle. It would gravitate from the ground up but at some point that thin slice of divine nature would have to break the surface. In college I was reminded often, dozens of times every year; “Frank you have great potential.” That stroke of confidence was always followed by a pregnant pause and, “But don’t forget that potential is the list of all the things you haven’t accomplished yet.” In that context I am waiting for the arc to bend, even just a little bit before I jump both feet on the Humanist band wagon.
As much as I like and respect Unitarian’s Humanist roots I am not well rooted there. To make that leap I would need to be better schooled in the arc of the moral universe, to see it starting to bend toward justice even a little bit. I am better schooled in evolution and human nature. I have trouble getting past the long arc of violence and exploitation by people of high birth and power, against those people who are vulnerable, who are in harm's way. I am waiting for the moral arc to budge off of its bubble. We (Humans) have the capacity to make real what has been touted as a divine sensibility in regard to each other and particularly with those who struggle. It would gravitate from the ground up but at some point that thin slice of divine nature would have to break the surface. In college I was reminded often, dozens of times every year; “Frank you have great potential.” That stroke of confidence was always followed by a pregnant pause and, “But don’t forget that potential is the list of all the things you haven’t accomplished yet.” In that context I am waiting for the arc to bend, even just a little bit before I jump both feet on the Humanist band wagon.
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