"Hope and Fear: Cousins in Conflict" - Prologue

Last weeks service:

“Hope and Fear: Cousins in Conflict”

Fear is often an unwelcome guest. He shows up when least expected, sometimes taking up residence. Becoming a part of your home, your church, your country--your life. It wouldn't be so bad, except Fear is so demanding as a house guest. Demanding our attention, involving himself in our conversations--and in our thinking. Fortunately, Fear rarely goes anywhere without his cousin, Hope. Hope is quiet and kind. She wants to help out where she can. When you talk to her, you will find out she is stronger than her cousin—
and actually, more demanding.

Readings from:
J. Ruth Gendler's Book of Qualities
(One of my favorite texts for worship planning. I highly reccomend it for everyone's personal library.)

Rabbi Michael Lerner's The Left Hand of God
(Another good book. I hope some of the candidates for the next presidential election have read it. Heck, I hope our next president actually reads books.>

And my addititon to Ms. Gendler's pantheon of qualities.

HOPE

Hope is quiet.
She is easily overlooked.
And while she goes to all the parties, loves crowds and gatherings, she is rarely seen.

People often forget to invite her, and just as often forget she was present.
But Hope doesn’t mind.
She likes the hustle and the bustle.
She likes doing small things while people aren’t looking.
Straightening pictures on the wall.
Carrying empty dishes to the kitchen.
Little assistance, rarely noticed.

When she was a child, Hope had an unfortunate experience with a game of Hide and Seek.
When her cousin Fear had been found, the girl they were playing with stopped looking for Hope.


As a young adult, Hope had numerous relationships.
But they rarely lasted—her lovers held her too tight.
They were really in love with her cousin, but were too afraid to say so.

Hope and Fear are both best friends with Change, and they often go traveling together.

Some day, with Ms.Gendler's blessing I hope, I would like to write a sequel to her book.
There are many other qualities out there waiting to be introduced.

And the closing words:

HOPE held too tightly is really FEAR,
HOPE let loose in the World—
is HOLINESS made FREE.

Burning the Midnight Oil

UU-Jester is a night owl.
He does most of his reading after the sun goes down.
He does most of his writing after the world has gone to bed.
This works well for him.

Usually.

Last night, UU-Jester was working on a wedding plan.
At a certain point, the sandman came a-calling and UU-Jester couldn't keep his eyes open.
Wisely, he put down his computer and went to bed, resolving to work on the rest of the wedding plan this morning.

This morning, UU-Jester wiped the sleep out of his eyes, stumbled to his computer, and looked for where he had left off on the wedding. This is what he found:

Exchange of Vows
Question of Intent
Couple Exchange Vows
Read individual Vows
Couple floats upwards.


Couple floats upwards?

Sometimes, working late into the morning is very, very foolish.

A Change of Color

Well, hello, there.

Forgive me, Reader, for I have sinned.
It has been 4 months since my last blogging.

Oh, wait, wrong faith. Must have been a guilt flashback from my early religious days.

It has been a very busy four months and UU-Jester has been having some identity issues.
Or, to put it differently, I'm still struggling with what to do with this blog.

After much thought, I've decided to turn my jester hat around to a new color.
The first jester hat I owned is a very simple four corner-four color hat with four bells on it.
It has a red panel, a green panel, a yellow panel, and a blue panel.

When I wore that hat, I was very intentional about two things:
One, I would always speak the truth while I wore it (that is what jesters are supposed to do.)
Two, I would always wear the appropriat color to fit my mood and intentions.
Green - Happy and Mirthful
Blue - Sad or Quiet
Yellow - Cautious or Tender
Red - Angry and Agressive

Now, all of these are valid attitudes for a jester to have and I have played the jester under each color.
But these past few months, I've been trying to jester with the Yellow or Red colors facing front.
I've been angry about things I've seen in my larger denomination or fearful about how my new congregation would judge me.
And honestly, Angry jestering and Fearful jestering are the hardest jestering to do well.
(They also require the most energy.)

So, its time to change the colors.
I'm turning my hat around to Green, with the occasional Blue.
Yellow and Red will be reserved for those special, rare occasions.

UU Jester's Journal will change a little.
It will have funny observations about this ministry we share.
It will have observations about this stage on which we all play our scenes.
It will have additional comments and resources from my worship services.
And I'm going to try and make entries a regular process. Once a week, or two at the most.

Time to turn the hat and live a different color.