Comments | paulhope: Hymns and Prayers

paulhope

Hymns and Prayers

Aug 23, 2006 22:47

Last Sunday Katie and I went to a Unitarian service in Providence. While I think we both understood why it made sense to do it at the time, I'm not sure how to explain it, except that it probably had something to do with finding compromise or common ground between her recent rediscovery of faith and my continued, principled rejection of it ( Read more... )

hymns, prayer, unitarianism, katie, meditation, untermeyer, religion, fanon, church

Comments 9

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paulhope August 24 2006, 04:12:50 UTC

Yes, that's the impression of Unitarianism I've gotten from conversations with (diverse) Unitarians in the context of the Interfaith program housing I was in for the past two years.

As far as a daily meditative practice, there's nothing inherently spiritual/Eastern about it

Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, it often gets sold that way; the kind of metaphysical story spun around it in some traditions (Vedanta, Samkhya, New Age bullshit...) doesn't help. When I was talking about needing to avoid Orientalism, what I meant was that while I think I've been considering it for its practical benefits, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't being secretly drawn in by a kind of weird attraction to that. I hate falling for marketing.

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paulhope August 25 2006, 15:17:01 UTC

I'm really happy to hear your response to this, since of course you were on my mind for much of the service and especially when I saw that second hymn.

but some unitarian churches - like the one i go to at home - really fucking nail it. and, as always, the worship services led by youth/young adults are generally far superior to the church services. ha.

It's just a hunch, but I think that despite our agreement on criticizing the fluff you and I might disagree a little on what it means to "nail it," as well as what it means for a service to be "superior." What in particular does your church at home do better?

anyway, if you ever want to go to the providence church sometime, i think that might actually be motivation enough for me to step foot in that santuary again.Deal. Let's do that some time. They just got a new--what do you call them, ministers?--who Katie and I met after the service. We can see what he's like and then complain about it to each other afterwards ( ... )

Thread 10

paper tiger anonymous August 26 2006, 15:07:40 UTC

paper tiger = fantastic song ( ... )

Re: paper tiger paulhope August 29 2006, 14:26:44 UTC

It's funny--I had this kneejerk reaction to your story about the lesbian speaker that was like "YOU CAN'T SAY THOSE THINGS ABOUT HER!! SHE'S A LESBIAN!!"

Then my brain kicked in again.

Yes. "... it seems, thats the only way she could relate to the world. miserable, to say the least." I've been thinking a lot lately, and I'm sure this isn't a new thought at all, but it seems like people are much better off when the center of their world is outside of them selves.

"With me or against me" is especially interesting coming from a Unitarian.

I am definitely enjoying the tunes!