Church of Skippy

a report of doings at meeting #129, Sunday, May 20, 2018
including liturgical items, major themes, and other odds and ends
blogsite: https://churchofskippy.wordpress.com/

INVOCATION

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait
for some other time.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are
the change that we seek.
—–Barack Obama

They always say time changes things, but actually you have to change
them yourself.
—–Andy Warhol

Let him who would move the world first move himself.—–Socrates

THEME

(CHANGE, part II)

Marge, always open to new places and ideas, told us how impressed
she’d been recently at her American Lit class with Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had caused a sensation and much
discussion of slavery, also with Stowe herself, abolitionist,
suffragette, a real change agent. Marge also spoke of all the
venturesome things her sons were doing out exploring the world, like
Mom and Dad.

Ann first raised an offbeat question: she was wondering how our topic
word change ever got applied to coins in “change” . (Anybody know?).
Then she gave us a fine bunch of quotes starting with a beautiful
excerpt from Rachel Carson’s classic The Sea Around Us, and including
her own comment on the so quick change in the social media landscape
recently re: personal information.  See AFTERWORD for her notes and
quotes.

Nancy’s first thought was of life itself as change, and our part as
change agents for good or ill, but was also very aware of the four
seasons (at least hoping for more than our winter); so she was very
struck by an essay in a recent issue of the Atlantic monthly on
Thoreau’s (2 million-word) Journal, 8 of 17 volumes recently published
of his notes from daily walks for 12 years in the changing seasons
that became for him “a metaphor of Earth as a living organism”.

We agreed to send our offering for May to another change agent: the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

BENEDICTION

One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.
—–Malala Yousafzai, Nobel prize winner

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my
measurements anew each time he sees me.  The rest go on with their old
measurements and expect me to fit them.—–George Bernard Shaw

NEXT TIME: Sunday, June 17, 2018 (1030), at a location TBA, but the
topic will be WISHES.

AFTERWORD

from Nancy:

For essay “What Thoreau Saw” in the Atlantic monthly, November, 2017,
check https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/toc/2017/II

from Ann:

Quotations:
“In my thoughts these shores, so different in their nature and in the
inhabitants they support, are made one by the unifying touch of the
sea. For the differences I sense in this particular instant in time
that is mine are but the differences of a moment, determined by our
place in the stream of time and in the long rhythms of the sea. Once
this rocky coast beneath me was a plain of sand; then the sea rose and
found a new shofixed reality – earth becoming fluid as the sea
itself.” Rachel Carson

Peace is born out of equanimity and balance. Balance is flexibility,
an ability to adjust graciously to change. Equanimity arises when we
accept the way things ground these rocks to sand and will have
returned the coast to iis earlier state. And so in my life and my
mind’s eye these coastal forms merge and blend in a shifting,
kaleidoscope pattern in which are. Jack Kornfield

If you expect your life to be up and down, your mind will be much more
peaceful. Lama Yeshe

Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday
is dead. John Updike

Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in
it yet? Lucy Maud Montgomery – published as L.M. Montgomery, was a
Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908
with Anne of Green Gables

If you are the only girl in the room it doesn’t mean you are better.
It means something is wrong. Columnist Alexandra Petri

How about the change, so quickly, in the social media landscape –
Facebook, twitter, etc. We became complacent in our expectations,
especially about privacy; yet we were willing to vomit vast quantities
of personal information to feel connected to one another, and then we
expected to have privacy…?

Six Wordies:
The word change itself has changed.

a report of doings at meeting #128, Sunday, May 6, 2018
including liturgical items, major themes, and other odds and ends

INVOCATION

There is nothing permanent except change.
—–Heraclitus

Look abroad thru’ Nature’s range.
Nature’s mighty law is change.
—–Robert Burns

THEME

Gail, our hostess at her beautiful farm, opened today’s conversation
on CHANGE by speaking of changes in progress in her and her family’s
life.  She’s expecting the arrival soon of her mom and dad, hopefully
for a long stay.  After her dad’s recent esophageal injury, things
have become more difficult for them, and one of the things Gail is
about to do—modification carpentry in the house will also be helpful
to them. The other big change in the works of course is Virginia’s
getting ready for college.

Sue gave us the word origin and meaning report we always look for,
then many quotes, including passages from Buddhist teacher Pema
Chodron, and two nice poems of her own. Most of her other commentary
today concerned the most basic and difficult change, death; in this
instance, the recent death of a dear friend, and all the difficulties
that that can entail. For her notes and quotes, please see AFTERWORD.

Louise as well spoke of the change that is death, the end of life
experience recently of her former husband Archie. And by her account,
his was a passage which their daughter Ayana greatly helped ease with
her frequent visits, where she also sang to him his favorite blues and
jazz songs. And Louise herself was eased by an unusual dream from
which she awoke, to find later, was at the time of his passing into
peace.

Nancy first thought of life itself as change, then of the many ways to
use the word: change clothes, mind, places; change of scenery, pace,
seasons (YES!), and praying for, working for,  then Playing for
Change, great old cd/global effort for world change via music, and
then all the songs that have fed change, like freedom songs, the many
by Seeger, Dylan, Ochs, and then, with the opening of the new museum
in Montgomery on the real US history of lynching, that  heart-stopping
song “Strange Fruit” sung by Billie Holliday.    See AW.

We decided we would let the Part II meeting on the 20th pick the
beneficiary of our offering—an organization—national,
international, or local that works for change.

BENEDICTION

Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
—–the late Stephen Hawking

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
—–Mahatma Gandhi

NEXT TIME

Sunday, May 20 (1030), at Nancy’s house in Cobleskill. The topic continues:
We’ll talk about Change, Part II.

AFTERWORD

from Sue:

change (v.)

c. 1200, “to alter, make different, change” (transitive); early 13c. as “to
substitute one for another;” mid-13c. as “to make (something) other than
what it was, cause to turn or pass from one state to another;” from late
13c. as “to become different, be altered” (intransitive), from Old French
changier “to change, alter; exchange, switch,” from Late Latin cambiare “to
barter, exchange,” extended form of Latin cambire “to exchange, barter,” a
word of Celtic origin, *from PIE root *kemb- “to bend, crook” (with a sense
evolution perhaps from “to turn” to “to change,” to “to barter”); *cognate
with Old Irish camm “crooked, curved;” Middle Irish cimb “tribute,” cimbid
“prisoner;” see cant (n.2).
From c. 1300 as “undergo alteration, become different.” In part an
abbreviation of exchange. From late 14c. especially “to give an equivalent
for in smaller parts of the same kind” (money). Meaning “to take off
clothes and put on other ones” is from late 15c. Related: Changed;
changing. To change (one’s) mind is from 1610s.

• *Quotes*
  When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to
  change ourselves.  ~Victor Frankl
• If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. ~Kurt Lewin
  At high tide, fish eat ants; at low tide, ants eat fish.  Thai Proverb
• “he not busy being born is busy dying.” ~Bob Dylan, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m
  only bleeding)”
• “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing
  himself.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
• “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the
  world.” ~ Nelson Mandela
• “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be
  changed without changing our thinking.” ~ Albert Einstein
• “The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left
  behind.” ~ Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
• “Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change
  the world.” ~Malala Yousafzai
• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~Margaret Mead
• “How are we ever going to change anything? How is there going to be less
  aggression in the universe rather than more? We can then bring it down to a
  more personal level: how do I learn to communicate with somebody who is
  hurting me or someone who is hurting a lot of people? How do I speak to
  someone so that some change actually occurs? How do I communicate so that
  the space opens up and both of us begin to touch in to some kind of basic
  intelligence that we all share? In a potentially violent encounter, how do
  I communicate so that neither of us becomes increasingly furious and
  aggressive? How do I communicate to the heart so that a stuck situation can
  ventilate? How do I communicate so that things that seem frozen, unworkable, and eternally aggressive begin to soften up, and some kind of
  compassionate exchange begins to happen?
  “Well, it starts with being willing to feel what we are going
  through. It starts with being willing to have a compassionate relationship
  with the parts of ourselves that we feel are not worthy of existing on the
  planet. If we are willing through meditation to be mindful not only of what
  feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to
  stay awake and open to what we’re feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it
  as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change. ” ~Pema Chodron  “When Things Fall Apart : Heart”

 my poems
CHANGE/EVEN THE TOWERING STONES
In the canyon lands of the heart there are towering crags,
foundering ravines.  But their moody majesty, their peculiar perfections
are all ways—winter snow and icy winds; summer rains—changing.

If you did not keep seeking
a finish line which just as you reach it unravels
in the dark red dust, how large would your happiness be?

Even the towering stones in the canyon lands—their majesty,
their peculiar perfections only this moment this way.  They are all
ways—winter winds or summer dust; snow, ice receding, rain—changed.
2007-2008

LET CHANGE
Often, first learnings
require willed rigidty
a repeating rhythm
that makes a new way
in the body for the spirit’s
wandering….

Still the hand
that closes—catching,
holding—must always
open.  Then learning
deepens

as ice melts into water’s
fluid motion, as what
sinks, what rises
join energies and
change becomes
your strength.
12/28/2000

from Nancy:

Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is the fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Lyric by Abel Meeropol