ZOOM ADDRESS TO UUFM ON EASTER 2020

How to begin? — well, lets do it this way.

We know viruses are not new. They’ve been killing millions since we started documenting events of our history. — Today is new because the whole world is technologically connected — and scientifically data impacted daily; including all the current stats of coronavirus.

We have telescopes that see almost to eternity and can watch the so-called horror show of the collision of galaxies and all sorts of random events of unimaginable magnitude.

We have colliders to examine the minute particles of existence – those gluons, muons and quarks.

Between all this show of the very large and very small of that existence out there…….

Is the ever-time show-time of us and our planet earth. The newest show of the very small on our Globe are these spiky balls of genetic material coated with some fatty chemicals called lipids. They are small: about 80 billionth of a meter they say. They are the coronavirus stuff in the air we breath and things we touch. [ I’ll conclude with some small things.]

They are causing a planet horror show called COVID-19….20,000 have died in USA so far and over 100,000 in the world — and counting and counting the yet to come. Tomorrow will be more.

Yet ours is a different time even since the swine flu of 1918 which killed over a million people and all the plagues before. Today we have machine to machine learning and computers are being trained to quickly and accurately examine the genomic sequence of this disease. And prepare better for the viruses yet to come, which seem to surely be in the waiting for whatever releases them. Some say the new 5-G world of increased EMF – electromagneticfrequencies will contribute to our vulnerability. Some evangelicals say our culture’s approval of homosexuals and the gay community has caused THEIR GOD to cause this virus to activate and kill.

Fortunately for our time – we have the laboratories of the world, which are working vigorously on vaccines for this virus. Seems that are some 78 labs hard at work right now — and another 37 to be up and running soon. Apparently all 50 states are on lock-down. A truly first ever historic event of cultural, ecological, economic, and spiritual magnitude. —

We all knew going into the epoch year of 2020 – that we would be on track to clean-up our act, get better vision of ourselves and planet, and focus on the future with greater international cooperation and commitment. We knew that before COVID-19.— We can see in the workings-in-and-out this COVID-19 on our cultures – that a Global Humanism is in the making. Ecological and Economic covenants will be formed as never before. Religion will give in to Science as never before. Healthcare workers will be the continuing heroes of sustainability and resilience. Spirituality will discover new resonances and holds.

So I begin with this thought and end with it today: COVID – Covenantally Inspired Destiny.

Hopefully, this will grab hold existentially: become a Promise fulfilled.

HELLO ZOOMERS!! Zooming together!! Boomers! Gen-Zers and Gen -Xers! And the newly designated Gen – Cers – the COVIDs just born and still in school. ALL HAIL! A new epoch as begun. I’ve been calling for some time for the recognition of the new Generation of GEN-i-US. Well, the need for it has arrived. If the human GENIUS and GENIUS LOCI is ever to manifest beyond profiteering, war, planet defiling, and general stupidity – now is the time. Indeed, ICYMI – we are at a pivotal transition thrust of human time and destiny. We can’t miss it. The stats are growing as we are zoom.

[Note: GEN-i-US–First introduced(2017) as concept in AUGURIES’s “Wonderman’s Address”—p. 233-238.]

So, we have this brief moment in time to try and comprehend our sanctuary of sacred spirituality.

That phrase sounds very traditional. But to some, as me, it’s not so. When you consider our Planet as our Sanctuary and real-time place where what’s sacred to us and gives us life and where a meaning to our life occurs and appears in stories like the Gospels to Mary Poppins. Mary’s magical broom becomes Maria’s daily realities in the Sound of Music. I’ll conclude with that. Now, I’ll share some of an essay on this Spring 2020, which I wrote a week or so ago. Here goes:

I hope, even trust, that there will be  gentle (GEN-i-US) souls who will find what spiritually/existentially HOLDS for All Humanity in this new Global Epoch of Now: working the vineyard for the best wine and communion – the truest science, and strongest poetic/artistic grasp of our unique existence. Fifty-four years ago, I was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist Minister — with Emerson on one side and Jefferson on the other – and the quest of that time for a New Humanism. Emerson still calls for new Bards to leave the past of superstitions and grasp anew nature’s real miracles for our most natural communion. Jefferson still calls for a declaration of independence and the separation of church and state as required with the formation of a new America.

Since this New Humanism was in the UU world and moving West to Chicago away from Boston and Harvard – I chose to go to the University of Chicago and Meadville-Lombard. There I studied and related quite personally with Mircea Eliade (famous History of Religions author/professor), who wrote of the “terrors of history” and the need for a “New Humanism” response. These three – then and now – spoke loudly to my call to be a “freedom-reason” worker in this vineyard of nature and planetary existence.

Indeed, to minister with people to conger-comprehend and celebrate our meaning of life in this new world.  [ Another major influence was Charles H. Lyttle’s 1952, Beacon Press publication –FREEDOM MOVES WEST – A History of the Western Unitarian Conference 1852 – 1952.]

The gist of this Spring 2020 is that the quest for that meaning is spinning on a very sharp pivot of transition and transformation (It’s immanent not transcendent). Not the time for fool’s play. The meaning of life is sacred play. Integral to that meaning is the love-drama of this life and the fulfillment (HERE) of its promise: from each individual’s story to the total theatrics of the Globe. A very tattered curtain rises for the next act. Then – how to be and how not to be are straddled side-by-side within a dialogue of undeniable clarity of meaning and purpose. Actors and Audience are all Groundlings together. The Proscenium Arch HOLDS A FRAME OF ACTION with new dimensions of visions and voice to see-sound against all voids and imaginings of oblivion. Our roles and the stage are well defined. Now comes the crafting. Our boots are in the stirrups. Reins in hand. Soon the saddle-up to a new world of mortality. FORWARD HO! Up the mountains, across the plains, and through the flowing streams. COVID’S  a COVENANTALLY INSPIRED DESTINY. O! The depths and heights of our Earthen Spirituality in such a ride. HOLD ON TIGHT!

Hold on Tight was my concluding urgency of that essay! Our history on this planet is one of resilience no matter the tales of resurrection from this resilience to some heaven. What resurrects time and time again — is our resilience. — HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS RESILIENCENS!! O! The ancient plagues where many millions died. O! The recent plagues of 1918 – more than a million died.  Over 100,00 globally so far—today. But we have technologies and connections and products — as never before in history to quell this contagion and solve it. Nature does not die in the freezes of winter. She HOLDS TIGHT. AND SOON BLOOMS AGAIN. — Alas, the bloom again is rarely to a world as before.  — There are fires, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and climate changes. And human doings all about.

Resilience is the true resurrection theme of Easter. And it always has been – regardless of theologies /mythologies of other worlds. Good tales help our resilience and reassurance midst the randomness. TODAY IT PLAYS LOUDLY OF A NEW HUMANISM and NEW GLOBAL US  — ALL AS ONE  in our Universal Pandemia.  —- Pandemia means a universal condition that affects all things and everyone. GAIA was such a first a name for our planetary existence. PANDEMIA is perhaps a last name…or middle name. Surely, we are re-naming ourselves into our new GEN-i-US destiny.

I’ve simplified that destiny stemming and steaming from three realities:

The CLIMATE CRISIS — NEW GLISTENS OF SPIRITUALITY(in our Earthen PARADISE) — WORLDWIDE COOPERATION. — Here’s a Sonnet from a writing currently in process  — as frost embodies these three:

So far, every Spring season plays the same,
Following the rules of its Kairos game –
Winter transitions by the use of Frost:
Life’s table set by rules of our Host. First . . .
Frost can kill the unprotected, too soon new.
Second, it transforms sun’s glistens into dew.
Third, the ever-promised Spring is now due.
There’s a managed care required to protect
Our joining thrall in glistens of the sun:
Bringing home the promise that feeds the soul.
Where, now, the sun Paradise, we implore?
It’s found with the tweeting birds that soar.
O! Please pass the Holy Grail of Splendor!
Quick! Over here – with that Ventilator.

[This Sonnet comes from a writing, now on my website under New Poems – entitled  “Finding Paradise in Pandemia – In the time of COVID-19”]

Ventilators, Masks, empty churches, vacant neighborhoods, staying home and 6 feet apart — all of this COVID-19’s demands of contagion — are portraying our mortality and our mortal resistance and resilience fighting this virus. Priests/Pastors/Prayers are not the workers and healers in the midst of this contagion. Fabled transcendental powers are not in evidence. Mortality and science and human workers – and the dying and the dead are the manifestations. Soon, the evangelicals will come out fighting to fill their churches again. Much of their game-plan is already evident. I suspect the issues of separation of church and state to get testy and messy – when the world opens again. I also expect the ranks of humanists, secularists  —  and the SPIRBUNORES ( the spiritual but not religious ) to increase.  There will be renewed efforts for a global humanism that unites all peoples — for what unites us — holds us — and what holds us gives us the feeling/trust of being held. And such is the source and sauce of our meaning.

A new Humanism, indeed, if worldwide cooperation forms to enhance the promise of life on this earth really happens. — Remember EARTH DAY happens on April 22. Someday the GEN-i-US of humanity may take effect and the connection between Easter and Earth Day is fully comprehended. Call it the Resurrection of Resilience—the Perseverance of Promise.

Then there are the Personals of Paradise – those visceral vaccines against vicissitude. The little things of our lives that holds us together and structure our resilience along with the big things. Such are THE BELONGINGS OF PARADISE – the title of a poem on my website inspired by a street sign    in West Milford, about 20 miles South of where I live. A street sign off the main drag through town says to turn left on to PARADISE LANE. The poem was about the many right-now-things/events we don’t want to miss because they are always the way home.

And so it is I bring Maria from The Sound of Music to sing to the ever-child in us of those FAVORITE THINGS. I’ll not sing it – you know the song. It reads as follows:

Raindrops on roses
And whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells
And schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad.

That sings so well of the magic of reality. The small things gathered like jewels into necklaces, eggs into baskets, and into memories that have place on all the altars of home. It is such that structures and COVENANTS: that holds in place our persistent resilience midst the challenges to our mortality, our loves, and our dreams. Add, now, to those dreams the COVID  that sings of a COVENANTALLY INSPIRED DESTINY. ZOOM IT!

QUICK! OVER HERE – WITH THAT VENTILATOR!

SOBEUS – Happy Easter to All You Spirited Resilients!!!

Michael D. O’Kelly

From a ZOOM UUFM Easter 2020 – [I added a few notes.]

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