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adapted from Kenneth L. Patton, 1951, revised by Jone Lewis The days of the year have stiffened in ice, and darkness has grown upon the land. The season of cold and early dusk is upon us. The sun has retreated down the sky, the living green has forsaken the earth, and the leaves have fallen. The flowers no longer bloom, and the birds have fled to the south. We approach the shortened days with peace, for the ancient fear is no longer on our faces. The heavy death upon the earth is no lasting peril, and the roots in the soil are only sleeping a long sleep. We hold the turning of the year as a promise; and the renewing of life is our solid hope. The time of returning light is known, and we ready our homes for the celebration. The sun will climb the heavens again, and the darkness will be pushed back each day. The months of snow will give way to the months of leaves, and petals will fall upon the earth. The young will be brought from the womb, and the shoot will burst from the seed. We will walk upon the greening grass, and our plowshares will divide the warming soil. In the midst of winter the promise is given of the summer season, and in the midst of darkness there comes the assurance of light. In the time of cold comes a messenger of warmth, and in the days of death there is heard the good news of life. adapted from Charles Dickens by Jone Lewis We celebrate the winter holidays once again. Let us open our hearts, let the spirit within us walk abroad among our human neighbors and travel far and wide. Let this season be a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time. May we keep our humor to the last. Let us not be haunted at this season by the shadows of things that might have been. If our past is marred by ill-will, let not the mirrors of our own yesterdays show us what we shall be in years to come. We have the power to render others happy or unhappy. We have the power to make their days light or burdensome, and their work a pleasure or a toil. Our power lies in words and looks, in things so small that it is impossible to add and count them up. The happiness we give is no small matter. A good word is worth a fortune. Let no idol displace Love, even a golden one. Let us carry the torch of goodwill, that it may banish hate. Let us honor the holiday season in our hearts and keep it all the year. And wish a Happy New Year to all the world! At the time of the turning of the year, a question I often get asked by people outside of Ethical Culture is, “What kind of holidays does an Ethical Society celebrate?” Or, sometimes more specifically, “What do you do about Christmas?” When I testified before a judge in Illinois in December,1995 , justifying the Chicago Society’s standing as a religious organization, the judge asked, “Do you allow your members to celebrate Christmas?” I was tempted to answer, “Just try to stop an Ethical Culturist from doing something they want to do!” More seriously, the question is: what kinds of rituals and ceremonies are possible in a group that doesn’t share a common belief system? Years and years ago, when I was ill with a serious kidney infection and sleeping in fits and starts, I left the TV on after tuning into some cable station that had had some relaxing music on it. As I woke up, I became aware that there was a panel discussion about humanism. I thought at first it might be humanists speaking when one defined a humanist as “someone who doesn’t believe something just because someone tells them it’s true or they read it in a book.” Then I became fully aware that it was an evangelical religious channel, and the person gave this definition without a hint of emotion because they assumed everyone would be horrified at it, even without emphasis. I can’t imagine believing something just because someone tells me it’s true or I read it in a book. Since then, I’ve taken that as a pretty good definition of “humanism” in the broadest sense of it. The National Leaders Council of the American Ethical Union The National Leaders Council of the American Ethical Union supports current efforts to reform the health care system within the United States in order to provide affordable, effective and dependable health care for all. We reaffirm our historic position that “Health care is a right to which every man, woman and child is entitled.”* Although the present proposed bills in Congress do not address all the issues of concern to us, we support President Obama’s effort at creating a just and fair health care system. We expect that any national reform legislation should contain:
Nothing in such health care legislation should preclude the private practice of medicine or the private funding of medical care or research. A. Eustace Haydon, a signer of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto, Dean of the Department of Comparative Religion at the University of Chicago, and for some years a Leader in the Ethical Culture Movement (AEU) had this to say on the spirituality of humanism:
To sense our human at-homeness in the universe that sustains us and gives us life: this is the sense of spirituality which many of us who identify as humanists find in nature. Compassion without reason is ineffective; reason without compassion is destructive. “Man has been endowed with reason, with the power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But up to now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keep disappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, the climate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.” – Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya, 1897 MSNBC – We count, therefore we are : “Roman Catholics had the largest reported religious membership, with 66.4 million Americans, followed by the Southern Baptist Convention, with 16.2 million members (and over 94,000 pastors). Utah had the most self-identified Christian residents — over 74 percent — while Nevada and Oregon hovered at just 30 percent. On the more modest side, 11,000 Americans identified themselves as Rastafarians; 4,000 as devotees of Ethical Culture.” Originally posted online on December 18, 2004
I am often asked how I can have faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being. If someone abuses you or others repeatedly, seriously, are they still persons of worth? Here’s my quick summary of conclusions I’ve come to, over many years of thinking about these questions. Believing in the inherent worth and dignity of someone does not mean that anger is somehow “wrong,” or that all actions are equally “right.” Belief in worth and dignity does not mean that you “have to” forgive in the absence of changed behavior. You may, at some point, decide to give up anger and even hatred for the sake of your own emotional health, even in the absence of changed behavior — but I think that’s different from forgiveness, which comes only when there’s some genuine understanding and a choice to change and often, also, the choice to make proportional amends, on the part of the person whose actions you found hurtful. Even when someone’s behavior is hurtful to another, the belief in inherent worth and dignity even in that person is what makes me decide not to treat the person out of vengeance but only to stop the behavior and help establish consequences in proportion to and appropriate to the wrong. Thus, the person can be reported to authorities, such that our legal system’s consequences would apply — but responding in kind with abuse or torture would be something I’d avoid — for my own sake and for the sake of building a more humane culture. Belief in worth and dignity of others is far more about how I will behave than it is about what quality exists in the other. Even those we call “abusers” — people whose habitual actions hurt others — are human beings, and if we treat them as subhuman, it’s my belief that diminishes us more than it punishes them. But giving consequences to others for hurtful behavior, and establishing boundaries that protect ourselves and others, is not the same as treating someone as subhuman. Note: the original of this message was written in 1998 as a contribution to the AEU email list, Dialogue, in 1998. I might write it somewhat differently today, but I’m still in general agreement with these past words. In my experience, and from long and many talks with people who identify themselves as Ethical Culturists or Ethical Humanists who are attending UU churches because there is no convenient or well-functioning local Ethical Society: the key differences between the two are not theological diversity (Ethical Culture has almost as great a proportion of naturalistic deists/theists as does the midwestern Unitarianism in which I grew up) nor “creed” but the following: |
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