It Does Matter

Today was a day of celebration in our church. Today was a day of sorrow in our church.

For the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr and the work to rid our lives of racism is far from over.

The responsive reading used, was written by a minister in the Unitarian-Universalist Association who had worked tirelessly for years in the advancement of civil rights.

Her words are as follows:

A Litany of Restoration

If, recognizing the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community, the strength we gather will be our salvation. If you are black and I am white,
It will not matter.
If you are female and I am male,
It will not matter.
If you are older and I am younger,
It will not matter.
If you are progressive and I am conservative,
It will not matter.
If you are straight and I am gay,
It will not matter.
If we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened, and that does matter.
In this sprit, we build community and move toward restoration.
Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley.

Responsive Reading Number 576 in the UU hymnal, “Singing the Living Tradition,” [Boston, MA, © 1993]

As I was later paging through the hymnal, I found a melody that has haunted me from the first time that I heard a young girl singing it to herself at a Camperee years, and years ago.

You may recognize it as “By the Waters of Babylon.”

It is usually used for the words from Psalm 137, “By the waters, the waters, of Babylon, we sat down and wept, and wept for thee, Zion. We remember, we remember, we remember thee, Zion.”

It struck me that the words of the responsive reading could be easily adapted to that melody . . . and so I did.

And I now share it with you.

It Does Matter

If you are black and I am white it matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m black and you are white it matters not, it matters not.

If you are female and I am male it matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m female and you’re male it matters not, it matters not.

If you are older and I am young it matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m older and you’re young it matters not, It matters not.

If you are straight and I am gay it matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m straight and you are gay it matters not, It matters not.

If you’re conservative and I’m a lib’ral I matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m conservative and you’re lib’ral it matters not, It matters not.

If you are Jewish and I am Christian it matters not.
It matters not one wit, one wit, it matters not.
If I’m Jewish and you’re Christian it matters not, It matters not.

If we join spirits as brothers and sisters,
The pain of our aloneness, aloneness, will be lessened.
And that matters, and that matters, and that matters, does matter.



The music is such that it can be sung as a three-part canon.


And as the Exiles in the Days of Yore sought solace and comfort for their aloneness by the waters of Babylon, we, in our Days of Today, seek to lessen our aloneness as we join spirits as brothers and sisters in community.


If anyone would like a copy of the music with words, I will be very happy to e-mail a one-page .pdf file with this arrangement and words.


And may you find comfort and solace for both you and your neighbor in the shelter of community.

The Refectory Manager

Me and My Relative, The String Bean

My very existence is one unified wholeness.

Know. Knowing. To know. To know the miracle in all that is about me.

Separate. Separating. To be separated. To understand that miracle in all that is about us.

And for the separation of the mind from the body, the mind from the soul . . . and then … what is there beyond the knowing . . .

The service today in our little UU church is about "knowing." About "Science and Religion." About life being the miracle. About the miracle in all that is about us.

And there were readings and meditation from the Celtic tradition.

And the choral music, so filled with pathos, so discordant, yet so resolving to unison.

I feel so touched. And, as our minister just said ... "nothing is too wonderful to be true."


With the separation of the mind from soul comes knowing. And science has focused on one kind of knowing. The knowing of the hoops and circles of atoms to galaxies . . . Of the quest of the underlying constant of all.


And the separation of soul from mind comes knowing. To dwell on the primal perceived angst of separation and salvation. And religion focused on one kind of knowing.

And both science and religion take us to the cohesiveness of the earth-centered, spirit filled kind of knowing. The knowing of the body separate from mind and soul. And yet, only existing within the confines of mind and soul.

And we all live each day, seeking our balance between our knowing of the spiritual and the knowing of our science.

We, as human beings, have our ancient heritage encoded in our genes ... we know of our animal nature. We have a sense of our presence. We may know that the sun, the water and the earth, the fire, the wind are our relatives. We may concede we are all but one. We each experience, in some visceral way, our experiences of the "outer." These experiences of the sun, the wind, the stars, the water, the creatures, the plants about us. And this gives us, allows us, to then experience the "inner." The presence of the indwelling Spirit.

Each brings something to the whole of life. The birds are the best at flying. The fish are the best at swimming. And we are the best at reflecting to the universe this miracle of life.

Baskets were just past through our congregation. We were encouraged to take, to hold, to touch, to experience, to thank our relative. The basket in my row contained fresh green beans and bananas. We were to take something. Our relative. To know.

And I did. A fresh green string bean. And to think of our shared existence. The string bean and me. Of our common miracle. Of the intimate blending of science and spirituality within each of us.

I held my string bean. My relative. I touched him. Looked at him. Smelled him. Bit into him. Listened to the crunch of him via the vibrations through my jaw to my inner ear. I tasted him. The astringent pungency of essence of fresh, raw, string bean. And the life within my relative was incorporated into the life of me. For we were one, we are one, we will be forever one. And the indwelling Spirit of Life that sustains both my relative and me is the miracle that forms the conjunction of mind and soul into body.

And to know is to know. To understand is to understand. And the separation of mind and soul is the oscillation that maintains my existence. And it is the oscillation on the primal level of things of science and things of the spirit that fuels my life itself.

And religion is void without science.

And science is void without religion.

And to make science religion is to debase both science and religion, to make pornographic that which is complete and beautiful.

And to make religion science is to debase both religion and science, to make pornographic that which is complete and beautiful.

But in the touching, the feeling, the smelling, the tasting, the assimilation of my relative the string bean . . . is to blend the science and religion of my very existence into one unified wholeness.

And so the words of a well-know hymn in the Unitarian-Universalist hymnal are so fulfilling, so complete in the blending of the “outer” with the “inner,” so encompassing of the whole of my life . . .

Come, sing a song with me, come, sing a song with me, come, sing a song with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, dream a dream with me, come, dream a dream with me, come, dream a dream with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, walk, in rain with me, come, walk, in rain with me, come, walk, in rain with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.

Come, share a rose with me, come, share a rose with me, come, share a rose with me, that I might know your mind.

And I'll bring you hope when hope is hard to find, and I'll bring a song of love and a rose in wintertime.


[Words and music by Carolyn McDade. ©1976 Surtsey Publishing Co., “Singing the Living Tradition,” Hymn Number 346. Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, MA.]

The Refectory Manager

And Mothers Are Just Like That

Maybe you have done it?

Participated in one of those risqué “parlor” type games?

Like when you are with a group at a Chinese restaurant, and they hand out the fortune cookies at the end of the meal, and everybody reads their fortune out loud with the added words “in bed” at the end.

Or worse yet, you are in a group, maybe at a shower or something, and everyone is given a card and the instructions to write the following sentence: “I hate [a common household task] because [and the reason you hate that task].

Then, everyone has to read back, out loud, what they have written, but this time, the sentence is “I hate sex because [and the reason you hate that task/sex].

Of course, it elicits hilarity and embarrassment . . . and that is the whole point. Naughty fun. At everyone’s expense.

And the time I did it, my innocent contribution was “I hate cleaning the lint off the dryer filter because I just can’t stand the feel of it.”

I didn’t know there would be a word substitution coming up. And one’s physiology is such that one can easily demonstrate a number of shades of red.

But I was not kidding about that lint thing. I hate it. I can’t stand it. And so I will let it build up. And to let my fingernails touch that screen and feel that vibration as I try and dislodge that lint . . . it just sends the heebee-geebees up and down my spine.

And I suppose in retrospect, it was one of those Freudian do-ies. One can hate the feel of a lot of wonderful things . . . like the tickle of butter on the back of one’s throat.

And this past week, while visiting with my octogenarian mother over the Christmas holiday . . . I was forced into that despicable ritual, again, of cleaning the lint from the dryer filter.

I don’t know what I was muttering under my breath, but mothers, being the way they are, heard me.

And then gave me one of the most valuable lessons of my life.

Just take the little dryer-freshener-softener thingy, you know, those little folded fabric things that you throw into the dryer. Those “fabric” tissues that are embedded with stuff that just blows off in the hot air and takes the snap, crackle and pop out of your socks and shorts. And ends up as some flimsy remnant of the warp and woof of a now useless backing . . . well, just fish that dang thing out when you extract the now dried clothes. And use it to clean the lint from the dryer lint-filter trap.

Viola! My fingers didn’t have to touch a nasty thing! And talk about being slick! Now that is one hint from Heloise that hunkers. And my mother was peaked with pride that she could still tell her sexagenarian son a thing or too.

And her son was quite proud with pique to actually learn a thing or too.

And mothers are just like that.

The Refectory Manager