Long story short: I was headhunted by a local, private, reputable, boarding and day school to become their chaplain. After much deliberation I accepted, n a part-time basis so that I could MAYBE still look after my church and the nearly 2000 new souls that suddenly appeared in my shepherd's paddock.
The outreach potential for UUism is enormous, of course--quite unprecedented in our church's long history here, in fact. So I though it would be, yes, kind of my duty to say yes and try to make it work. It's early days yet, but I'm learning a lot and there is great potential for my ministry and beyond if I want to stay on. We'll see.
This is an avowedly non-denominational school, though its roots spring from the Christian non-conformist tradition. The school body is widely multicultural, therefore multifaith (and none of course--the majority). How to conduct chapel services in this setting?
Here's what I think they
can't be:
- another teaching moment that talks about religion academically, like a school TED talk (but offers them no actual spiritual experience)
- a proselytization tool specifically for the UU movement
- a propaganda tool for the school itself
- aimless Socratic questioning ("What do you think?", as if I have nothing to impart to the young)
- morally relativistic, especially on urgent questions of social justice
- coerced--if the Unitarian tradition is about anything, it's about freedom of pulpit and pew (but how's that supposed to work as it's meant to if they're compelled to be here?)
So here's my first go at the first Senior School Chapel service, transcribed verbatim, including visuals I'll be using, to be given today:
Senior
School Chapel 1
26/2/19
Music and entrance
Acknowledgement of country
(If you’re having
trouble recognising that, it’s the Kaurna acknowledgement of country in Kaurna,
probably mispronounced AND in a American accent. Those words translate to this:
“We acknowledge the Kaurna people. They are the landowners from a long time
ago. We recognize the Kaurna people are still alive. The territory of the
Kaurna Plains is exclusively Kaurna land.”)
Welcome: Good morning and
welcome to this chapel service. This is called a service because it means to
serve you by honouring things that matter. I am the Rev Rob MacPherson, the new
chaplain of this school, and Minister of the UCSA just down the road on Osmond
Terrace, Norwood. To begin services like this one, it is my church’s rather
quirky but long-standing custom to kindle a flame in a chalice and say a few words to set our
intentions. Please find a
space of stillness within yourself, so you can hear these words in your deeper
understanding.
Chalice lighting:
Flames like this both consume
things, and cast light.
Like this flame, may these
chapel services we share both clear away our clutter and light our path ahead.
May this flame consume any regrets about our past, any fears about our future year ahead, and any tensions
in us today.
May it light for us a path of kind actions, peaceful
souls, and joyful hearts.
“What’s the point?”
We only have 5 chapel services
together this year, and only about 20 minutes in each service and they’re often
months apart, so what do we make
of them? AND since this is a non-denominational school, I’m not going to spend the time shilling for Jesus, Buddha, Allah,
Brahman, Zoraster, Lord Chthulu, Zeus, Odin, or the Wiccan mother goddess in
these services. But I wouldn’t anyway, because the church tradition I am
ordained by is predicated on individual
spiritual and religious freedom, and this freedom is something you all have already anyway, even if you don’t
think you have it, or even want it.
So what would be the point of these services if I’d only be pushing the freedom
you already have? At least here in DY, I’m not offering this service in front of a humungous looming cross, eh?
Ooops, I guess I am
now…How’s that feel?
Better? Or worse? I’ve always found it odd that Cxtianity chose the cross as
its sort of brand logo, and not say, the fish (ICHTHYS—vamp?)
I mean the cross was originally a crude
Roman torture machine
on which the prophet of the Cx religion suffered a prolonged and gruesome
public execution. In its function, a cross is as grisly an object as a gallows
or an electric chair. So maybe not a great brand management. Also, Cx are
assuming JC would be cool with it. If Jesus ever DOES come a second time, as
some believe, do you think he ever wants to SEE another cross? Holding it up to
honour him is like…honouring MLK’s
birthday by handing out sniper
rifle pendants and lapel pins. “We remember Dr. King, we love him (SFX)…”
(
Any way the cross is Cxtianity’s business not mine. And you’ve probably heard that bit before too, cause I more or
less stole it from another dead prophet--the late Bill Hicks).
So we have a total of 100 minutes
(*checks watch* ooops, less now) spread out over months during which a lot
happens in your life, which is why I put the question to you in the bulletin: what can be the point of this? And I’m quite serious. Linguists will tell
you you need a minimum of 12 minutes of connected thoughts to get anyone to even consider an
idea they haven’t already had, AND then you need to repeat and reinforce in a timely way. So failing a regular, continuous, and connected set of chapels, all
anyone can really do is reinforce common-sense clichés: these are the best years of your
life, believe in yourself, do what you love and the money will follow, strive
for the best that’s in you, fall down 7 times get up 8, and so on. And I can
certainly do that, but frankly…I’m too old to waste what time I have left
telling you stuff you already think, much less jam your time up too. And when
did cliché and banality become worthy activities for bright young minds? And if
you think you’re done growing your bright young minds now, or will be done when you graduate, it’s
my sad duty to remind you that your mind will be under construction for some time yet. The rational
part of your brains aren’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so.
The
connections between the emotional part of your brain (the amygdala, which governs how you process stuff
at this stage of your life) and the rational, decision-making part (the
pre-frontal cortex) are still developing—and not necessarily at the same
rate. To help you develop that growing mind so you make good
judgements, which take account of both thoughts
AND feelings, instead of accepting cliché and banality, you should question everything, including the point of
chaplaincy and chapel services and the education you’re getting here, including
your own “set-in-stone” ideas, and the goals for your own life you’re already setting
your sights on beyond this place.
Question everything! Why Rob?…SEE: good
question…. Because you damn well owe developing good judgement to your one and
only life, to the social fabric that makes possible the privilege to even ask such
questions, and to the future society you’re gonna help build, even if you’re
just dragged along while others build it. And you know as well as I do, there are profound changes that have to be
made what society
already thinks of as common-sense, normal,
natural and right. We have
to question the status quo, especially our own part in it, or the near future holds serious, possibly mortal, trouble.
For example: private education itself. No one seriously disputes there’s
rising inequality in our country and
the world. According to the OECD,
contemporary Australia has
been far and away the biggest spender of any advanced economy in the world, of public money on private
schools like this one, and that was
before a spectacular re-up of an additional 4.6 billion public dollars last year to support private schools. Public schools, on the
other hand, teach 70% of
the nation’s students. 52% of PS enrolments are from families below the average Index
of Community Socio-Educational Advantage. Only 11 per cent of Catholic school and 5 per cent of
independent school enrolments come from such low-index backgrounds. As a
result, a full 87% of the
public schools that educate most
of the most disadvantaged students are being funded below the minimum
school resource standard with no
change planned. You might well question, in a democracy, and in a culture supposedly founded on
the ‘fair go’, what
could possibly be the justification for spending another
$4.6 billion on students who are overwhelmingly from better-off families in
already well-resourced schools?
It’s certainly questionable whether or not strong,
well-resourced public education, open
to every child regardless of the crapshoot of birth, is or is not of vital importance to an
advanced economy and to any democracy worthy of the name. Across the world and
through history, equality of opportunity has been the difference between free societies
and their many opposites. You could question how free can anyone possibly be
when the random circumstances of their birth determine the opportunities they’ll
get?
Another question you might ask: what has this to do with you? Well, it’s not beyond
question that you may be obligated
to ask such a question, because you would appear to benefit directly from an unequal system, and
if you know history, you’d know high levels of inequality only ever means:
rising crime, broken families, ill health, mass ignorance, and social and
economic unrest. No amount of advantage
can shield you from the effects of degrading the social order that created that
very advantage. We
are all bound up together: this is as true for social inequality as it is true
for climate change: you can run, but you can’t hide. So
what we need for you and from you IS hard questioning, not a
repetition of banality and cliché. “The world we have made as a
result of the level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems that we
cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them,”
Einstein said. That’s become a cliché too, but begins to bite a bit when your
questioning includes yourself and your own interests.
To illustrate a different level of thinking… here’s
a true story:
There’s this farmer who
grows the best quality corn in the
country. One year a investigative journo questioned why. Turns out, the farmer
shares his best seed corn with his neighbours. “Why would share your
best corn seed with your neighbours, when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” “Nature
doesn’t respect boundaries. The wind blows where it will and picks up pollen
and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbours grow poor corn, their corn will steadily
degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help all
my neighbours grow good corn.” As it
is below on the natural earth, so it is with we who are a part of nature. For the
welfare of each of us is bound up with the welfare of all of us. So yes, question
yourself and your interests and whether the advantages you’ve been given are yours at all to hoard like corn in a famine.
If you do face such hard questions, you
will be able think anew and act anew, and the world you will grow can be made anew. Oh and by the way…if Jesus were ever to come back again, you
can bet he would tell you the same thing.
Here is a prayer that’s
been taken from the Cx tradition, but revised for inclusive settings. Please
say it with me:
May
I become an instrument of peace;
where
there is hatred, let me sow love;
where
there is injury, pardon;
where
there is doubt, faith;
where
there is despair, hope;
where
there is darkness, light;
and
where there is sadness, joy.
May I seek not so much to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying to self that we are renewed.
Musical interlude
Benediction and chalice extinguishing
The Chalice flame is now extinguished, but
may the fire of our time together live on in
the minds and hearts of each one of you. Carry that flame within you as you leave this place and share your light and warmth with
those you know, but more importantly, with those you have yet
to meet. Amen and see you next month. Exit to music
