4 unrelated things: poetry; religious education; on writing "Intervention;" and editing reluctance

[edenfalling]

1. A few days ago, someone did another non-traditional poetry installation. It consists of a series of clear plastic bags, filled with water, tied to the railing along Cascadilla Creek between Tioga St. and Aurora St. Inside each bag is a short poem.

This is not as reader-friendly as the poems tied to the shrubbery from a couple weeks back. For one thing, these poems are handwritten, which makes them slightly harder to read in the best of circumstances. Some of the inks bled into the water, staining the bags interesting colors but rendering the poems completely invisible. Some poems have partially disintegrated. Some poems twisted in the bags so they are curled up and, again, impossible to read. Even the ones that are both in clear water and facing in a visible direction are difficult to read, because of the creases in the plastic bags and the refraction of the water.

But it's a nice idea, and the two poems I've been able to read were interesting.

-----

2. I filled in for my absent co-teacher at church today. I was expecting to teach a lesson on Beltane, but when I received the lesson plan on Saturday, I discovered that the curriculum had been adjusted.

We did a lesson on Earth Day instead.

Now, this is less far-fetched for UUs than for many other religions -- we do, after all, include "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" as one of our Seven Principles -- but still. I was under the impression that Earth Day is a secular thing. *sigh*

Also, I have now led guided meditation twice, and I have led basic yoga exercises. This is not at all what I am used to in a religious education program!

-----

3. I'm still poking away at "Intervention," which is now at 11,450 words. I actually wrote more than that tonight, but I also rewrote some previous scenes to tie in better with current and future plot threads, and to give Jahiem a few lines via ship-to-ship com, which required me to cut about 150 words from a scene to remove a suddenly extraneous com conversation.

"Intervention" requires a lot of thought and logistical planning: to keep track of who is where doing what when, to track who knows what when, to make sure the characters' actions are practical, to integrate technology into the plot or explain the absence of tools that should be in use, to hopefully not violate physics and biology too badly, and to clue in readers what's happened in the time jumps between scenes. I am very glad I am writing it all of a piece rather than trying to serialize it, because I keep running into things that I need to have laid groundwork for in previous sections, and every time I go back and stick that groundwork in, I have to make two or three other adjustments to pick up the logical consequences. It's like putting together a puzzle, only each time I slot another piece in, the other pieces change shape around it. *beats head against desk*

Also, when I'm finally done I will have to go back and work in some more descriptions of people dying, of the Cordites dealing with the sick and the dead, and the Red Cross people having, you know, emotional reactions to the tragedy they find themselves in the middle of. Because right now, it's a rather dry story -- there's some worry, and a fair amount of people expressing anger because it's easier to get angry than to break down crying (and also, they are genuinely angry at the way the Cordites are dealing with the plague and their attempts to help, and at the mineral Macguffin's interference with their diagnostic technology), but there should be more depth.

But I would like to get the actual plot finished before I do too much elaboration work on scenes (or puzzle pieces) that may well get shuffled around a lot more before I am done.

-----

4. The new ink cartridges did indeed seem to fix my printer, so apparently the problem with the black ink was just a dud cartridge. :-/ Anyway, this means I ought to finally print ch. 14 of "Secrets" and edit it. Except, oh god, I do not want to deal with that right now. I really, really don't. I don't even know why, but every time I think of that I have this... I dunno, non-physical total body flinch.

Very weird. I should buckle down and edit it anyway. Perhaps Wednesday, which I have off from work?

Comments

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

In my congregation, Earth Day pretty much qualifies as a religious holiday. :-/

My Sunday school class is doing the "UU Super Heroes" curriculum, so I taught about Beatrix Potter today, and my reaction was similar to yours. Beatrix Potter may have been technically a Unitarian, but neither she nor her parents were churchgoers. Her paternal grandparents were Unitarians and her grandfather was a Unitarian minister, and that probably had some effect on the kind of education she received. Still, calling her a "UU super hero" feels like a bit of a stretch.

Last time I taught, the "Super Hero" of the week was Pete Seeger, who does in fact belong to a UU congregation--but it's miles from where he lives, he doesn't attend, and he's on record as saying he only joined in order to have a place for his chorus to rehearse. I really think our "UU identity" curricula needs to do better than saying, "Look, this famous and interesting person had some tenuous connection to Unitarian Universalism!"

[edenfalling]

I am all kinds of :-( about making Earth Day a religious holiday, because it isn't. It was very clearly created as a secular call-to-action day -- not even a holiday, really! So while I am all in favor of having a day set aside to reverence the earth and the 7th Principle, I do not like conflating that idea with Earth Day. It's not our day. It's for everyone. We should not co-opt it.

I have a "Famous Unitarian Universalists" t-shirt, and when I got it, I spent a good hour or so going over the listed names and saying, "Not actually a Unitarian," "Left the denomination," "Not actually a Unitarian," and so on. It was funny in a painful way.

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

while I am all in favor of having a day set aside to reverence the earth and the 7th Principle, I do not like conflating that idea with Earth Day. It's not our day. It's for everyone. We should not co-opt it.

Interesting--I never thought about it that way before. I guess the idea of co-opting it doesn't bother me, since everyone is free to observe Earth Day (or not) however they wish. And it's not as if UUs are such a mighty force that we're likely to, e.g., commercialize it and ruin it for everyone else.

Still, it sure would be interesting if we started celebrating some holidays of our own. We've got the Flower Communion and the ingathering Sharing of the Waters ceremony, although they're celebrated whenever it's convenient for each congregation. And there's a Facebook group called Chalica, which I actually joined last year, but I have to say I find the whole idea pretty lame.

What would a specifically UU "7th Principle Day" look like? It's interesting to think about. In my more cynical moments, I suspect it would look like a bunch of white people arguing very politely. :-)

[hamiechi.livejournal.com]

I was shocked when a nun asked me something this noon in, asking certain building in my college. Shocked bcuz...well...yeah, nuns! Perhaps they came to ascertain something, like about teaching the christian students. Anyway....
I am one of lemonade's readers on ffn -grins-
I know you teach religion, but from your profile I thought you taught new religion and here i read you taught on church....
So, ignore me (dont!) just dropping by...

[edenfalling]

I am a Unitarian Universalist. My religion began as two persistent and reoccuring Christian heresies (the denial of the Trinity and the denial of hell) that eventually became two Protestant denominations. Over the years, both denominations moved away from traditional Christianity and toward a more values-based secular humanist tradition; the American denominations merged in the 1960s. At this point, asking what UUs believe is a useless question; you will get a different answer from each person. The right question is what UUs value, which is roughly answered in the Seven Principles.

Anyway, my particular congregation is called a church because it was founded back in the 1800s. Many other UU groups are called congregations or fellowships instead. Also, the structure and internal organization of each group is unique, because we are a bottom-up religion; each group decides how to run itself, rather than following orders from a central organization.

Among UUs, I would use the term 'RE' (religious education) rather than 'Sunday school,' but I generally say Sunday school when talking to non-UUs, since it's more commonly understood in American society at large. The class I am teaching this year is called "Stories of the Sacred," and it involves telling stories from various religious traditions. So far, we've dealt with Islam, Hinduism, neo-paganism, Judaism, Christianity, and some more secular/UU ideas like, well, Earth Day.

I'm glad you're enjoying "Lemonade" so far!

[hamiechi.livejournal.com]

finally...I know what UU is. Sometimes I mess the whole english text I read with Indonesian and when I read UU, what was in my head was Undang-Undang which means 'law', and being gov academic, my brain is just sick with all UUs/law I should memorize, so I asked you instead, without even reading some of your journals.

Thank for the information^^ this UU is interesting.
I'll ask my christian friends, will they even know. Google!

Ah, and to make it easy for me to stalk you, I'll add you! Woho.