with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 30 May 2021

To be a Unitarian Universalist is to have a sense of humour, even about ourselves.  There are so many jokes about us.   Garrison Keeler, of course, teased us constantly.  The comedian, Lenny Bruce, said this about us: “I know my humour is outrageous when it makes the Unitarians so mad they burn a question mark on my front lawn.”    Somerset Maugham in his classic “Of Human Bondage” said “A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively sustaining faith in he doesn’t quite know what.”  On a M.A.S.H. episode the character, Col. Sherman Potter, said:  “The General answers his own phone. Must be a Unitarian.”

Then there are the UU bumper stickers; there is lots of folk wisdom condensed into bumper stickers, by the way.  One I saw said:   “Honk If You’re Not Sure”.  Another says:  “We have questions for all your answers.”

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 23 May 2021

We have just heard Polonius’ collection of proverbs as advice to his son Laertes, who is off to university in Paris. It contains one of Shakespeare’s most oft quoted lines in valedictory speeches, blogs, music and films, “To thine own self be true.”

Third Lightning Round (Multiple choice:-
What does “To thine own self be true” actually mean? 

1. Be yourself?
2. Don’t change who you are?
3. Follow your own convictions?
4. Don’t lie to yourself?
5. All of the above?
6. None of the above?
7. It depends?

I wager that the correct answer is 7. It depends to some extent upon the meaning of “self,” the meaning of “true,” and perhaps even the meaning of “meaning.”

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 9 May 2021

My first academic assignment in seminary is still very much a part of my memory. The reason is that it made me wonder if I was cut out for this new path I was taking. I was to write an essay on Rudolph Otto’s work The Idea of the holy. Otto, an early 20^th century German theologian, argued that the holy was to be addressed with fear and trembling, which he called awe. I know I was a neophyte theologian but I did not get his conclusions. They did get clearer years later when George W Bush attacked Iraq with “Shock and Awe”. That was definitely an Old Testament kind of holy. But anger, vengeance, oppression, and indiscriminate genocide do not instil me with awe. Ever since then, I have wrestled with the idea of the holy.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 2 May 2021

One of the more influential, life-shaping memories I store in my dishevelled filing cabinet of a brain, is reading King Lear when I was 16. It may have been my first in-depth encounter with the Bard of Avon. While I can give a basic outline of Shakespeare’s tragic play, it is not the story itself that haunts me, but one particular interchange between Lear and his Fool. The Fool tells him, “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 11 April 2021

The Sankofa Bird

Sankofa comes from the Twi language of Ghana in West Africa. A common English translation is “go back and get it.” The sankofa bird is an example of adinkra. Adinkra symbols make up a highly symbolic language—similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. They are common among the Akan people of Ghana, and have made their way into the wider African diaspora. The symbols express complex thoughts and proverbs. The sankofa bird’s head faces backward as it attempts to catch its lost egg in its mouth. Its feet face forward. One translation is, “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have lost,” or “that which was taken.” Learn your past so that it may guide your actions in the present for the purpose of shaping the future. Another translation: “remember the past to protect the future.”

Whether it is a story about Rip Van Winkle or A Wrinkle in Time, sentient and self-aware beings cannot escape their enchantment with time. It wasn’t only Unitarian Charles Dickens who used time travel as a device to offer Scrooge redemption by visits to his Christmas’ past, present and future. Time like threads woven into the warp and weft of our lives connects us and all that followed the big bang. Tracing those threads as we seek to know where they lead has been a human endeavour since the ancient past.

with Rev. Clay Nelson

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Clay Nelson © 28 March 2021

I have a bone to pick with my daughter. In a recent FaceTime call she was appalled to learn I wasn’t familiar with a TV series called The Walking Dead. I reminded her that I do do dragons and wizards — and werewolves if Michael J Fox is one. I don’t do horror films or at least not since I was 14, when I “watched” Hitchcock’s The Birds with my jacket over my head. A book about vampires is okay, but I don’t want to read about or watch zombies.

Then while looking for a new series to watch I saw that Neon had just made The Walking Dead available — all ten seasons. Just to be more up-to-date with cultural references I decided to watch just one episode and then tell my daughter it was a waste of time. I’ve just about completed season four.… I am thoroughly hooked.