Ethical rituals

Continuing with my study of Felix Adler's Founding Address, I am struck by the sparseness of what he proposes:

The exercises of our meetings are to be simple and devoid of all ceremony and formalism.

And later:

We propose to entirely exclude prayer and every form of ritual. 

No prayer.  No pledge to a flag.  No . . . but wait.  As I look at the Ethical Society of Austin, there are indeed rituals.  Simple they are indeed, but ritual they also are indeed--at least in the sense that they are repetitive, somewhat symbolic, carrying a minimal element of meaning for those present.

I've referred before to the limited rituals as I observed and participated in them.  Seeing now Adler's notion that there should be no "ceremony or formalism," I must consider them anew.

Adler had two purposes in avoiding ritual-prayer-ceremony.  First, he was seeking to avoid even the appearance of "interfering" with those to whom such things were an important part of their religious expression.  His effort was to eschew imitation or implied alternatives in order to avoid conflict with those already and firmly committed to a set of religious beliefs.  Second, he was also hoping to avoid offending those already more or less offended by religious rituals and, perhaps, supernaturalism.  His concern was, he said, reconciliation.

It is my dearest object to exalt the present movement above the strife of contending sects and parties, and at once to occupy that common ground where we may all meet, believers and unbelievers, for purposes themselves lofty and unquestioned by any.

Still, there it is.  I see ritual.  Where did it come from?  How widespread is it?  How necessary is it?  And what does it mean that the founder says "no ritual" but the practitioners have opened the door to these teensy tiny rituals?

Well, one thing I see is that Adler was an influence, but not the final word.  Ethical Culture is nearly 140 years old, and it has evolved in form and, I expect, in content as well.  It is not so much that in 140 years we added a chime, a lantern, and a burning bowl as it is that we added so little.  It's also, as I have noted before, a factor that the process is informal.  "Oops, I forgot the chime."  "Oops, the candle went out."  "Oops, my paper didn't fly up to burn."   These are rituals that have no power beyond the moment or our willingness to grant them personal meaning.  They provide structure for our function, focus for our higher purpose of considering the meaning and direction of our lives in promoting a more ethical world.  Somehow, I don't think Adler would mind.

Why Sunday?

I wondered, when I first found the Ethical Society of Austin, about the Sunday meeting.  I found it just a tad ironic, Sunday being claimed as the Sabbath by Christians.  Of course, Saturday is claimed by Jews as the Shabbat, and Muslims mark Friday noon with Jumu'ah, although whether a day of rest follows Friday prayer may vary by local/national custom.  Was it necessary to have a special day for the purposive meetings of the Ethical Society?  Did it need to be the same for each Society, or could it vary by the desires of the local group?  Why set aside a particular and regular day?

A day of rest for prayer and meditation is found in many religious belief systems, not only the religions of the desert.  These days may be timed to natural cycles as well as to the human constructs of the week/month/year.  After a more or less long work week, anyone would need a break to clear the mind and rest the body regardless of religious belief.  Personally after being around people (whether that is social, working, or otherwise) for three days in a row, I start longing for a period of quiet, stemming from the very simple reason that, being stimulated by events and people, I need time to process new information, slow my mind and body to rest, yes, but also to think about what I have been experiencing.  It's too easy to make commitments in the rush of meetings and gatherings and then to forget them as we rush on to the next encounter.  If you are like me, a week will fill your hands with handouts, receipts, instructions, prescriptions, lists, mail, every sort of thing that can be scribbled or printed and that must be filed for future need, shredded for security, and otherwise acted on--if you can keep track of them long enough to find the time to deal with them.  Or just add them to the growing pile of things you need to do.

Felix Adler's Founding Address very specifically refers to Sunday as the special meeting day for Ethical Societies.  He gave the very practical reason for meeting on Sunday because in 1876, as now, and in the United States, Sunday is generally, although not in all cases these days, a day on which workers are free of obligation to their employers.  If an Ethical Society were meeting in Saudi Arabia, no doubt the group would choose Friday as the day for its weekly meeting.  It was not the day of the week that mattered in Adler's thinking but the meeting--the need to gather in a community of like-minded people for an hour spent in "serious contemplation" which would "give a higher tone to all our occupations, and lend a newer and fresher zest even to those enjoyments, which we need and seek."

"Why Sunday?" is the wrong question, then.  Adler clearly indicated that he neither cared what others did on that day nor what they might think of Ethical Societies choosing that day for meetings.  The choice of day was, it seems, a distraction that he wished to dispense with so that he could get on to addressing his proposed solution to the great ills that he had identified earlier in his Founding Address:  A weekly meeting that would fill the void of morals, inspiration, goals, values, learning, purpose, vision, emotion that he found around him at that time.  A void that we still see today, I think.

Sunday--nowadays--is an inconvenient day because there is so much else that needs to be done on that day, little enough of which involves rest.  It's, just as Adler recognized, a time--a limited time--in which to visit with family who have work obligations during the rest of the week.  Anything which takes one away from that family time should be evaluated carefully to determine whether its merit equals or outweighs the time spent with loved ones.  (More on Family later, I think.)  Adler's notion is that we need still more than mere rest, more than the very important time with family--we need to elevate ourselves, our lives, our community, our world with a clearer understanding of their value, their potential, their relationships to each other and our relationships to them.  OK, Adler didn't say all of that.  Those are my words.  But I think that his intention aims toward that goal or something very like it.  It's not enough just to exist, to survive the day.  Living demands thought as well as action toward the goal of making ourselves and our world--better.  To do that, we need to stop our ordinary daily activities--no matter how worthy and important they are--to take stock, to evaluate, to consider them in the broader context of our lives and our community.  We can do this on our own, but we can often do it better together.

Adler's Founding Address

Ethical culture, as an organized religion and cultural movement, is coming up on its 140th anniversary.  I am still learning about ethical culture, still growing as a person, so I spend a little time now and then looking for more resources to add to my own sparse knowledge about it.  One fine resource that I have found is the website of the American Ethical Union (AEU), the national organization to which the Ethical Society of Austin (ESOA) is allied, ESOA's parent organization, if you will.  AEU has been digitizing and posting various addresses and writings of Felix Adler, founder of ethical culture, on its website.  One such address is Adler's "Founding Address" given on May 15, 1876.

I am still reading and digesting Adler's words, am still, indeed, in the beginning of the address where he is laying out the conditions of the world which cry out to him of the need for this new religious organization.  Without yet considering what he seeks to establish, it is worthwhile to pause to consider what and why he seeks to establish something new.  And, given my already proud admission of being a lover of words, the language, dear ones, the language!

The broader context for Adler's address is interesting in itself.  He only alludes to strife, corruption, and the general disarray of society and its institutions.  With very little detailed knowledge of history we already know that, in 1876, the United States was still undergoing the social upheaval of the Civil War which "ended" just 11 years before.  Adler also alluded to "this festal epoch of [the Nation's] marriage to Liberty," 1876 being the nation's first centennial.  One can imagine this to be an anniversary of great moment in the minds of a people who had just shed so much blood to maintain its unity, giving them even more pause to think about the principles on which the nation had been founded.  Lincoln was assassinated, his vice-president and successor impeached, his Commanding General elected president and presiding over an administration widely criticized for its corruption.  Rutherford B. Hayes, president at the time of Adler's address, was proposing reforms to which Adler refers directly:

But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.

Adler cites a reduction in moral presence from already established religious institutions ("Morality, long accustomed to the watchful tutelage of faith, finds this connection loosened or severed. . . ").  He spends even more time addressing "a fierce craving desire for gain [that] has taken possession of the commercial world . . ."  He calls for a "powerful check and counterpoise, lest the pursuit of gain be enhanced to an importance never rightfully its own, lest, in proportion as we enhance our comfort and well-being, comfort and well-being become the main objects of existence, and life's grander motives and meanings be forgotten."

In the latter statement, Adler parallels my own thinking--that we are not merely animals who live by consuming, excreting, and making whoopee--that we have minds and consciousness of our own being and the world around us and so can and should contemplate the nature of ourselves and our world, preferably to act to make of them both the best that they can be.  Adler says it so much more elegantly, of course, the language of his day being more specifically shaped for rhetorical effect and circumlocution, while the language of our day is more truncated, direct, and coarsened.

The Founding Address has echoes in the present in the greed of commerce, the ubiquitous pursuit of happiness at the expense of higher values, the concerns of public policy and the corruption of policy makers, the need to provide real moral direction to our children.  I will continue studying this address for its content but also for its perspective.  I'm sure I will find more in this address that speaks to me/us today.

Nice to see you!

Well, no doubt you already have met Meetup, the online portal for setting up specialized groups on a more or less ad hoc basis.  Ethical Society of Austin has its own Meetup group with 170 participants.  This is new technology for me, so I was initially rather slow to participate.  Eventually, I realized that ESOA uses Meetup to get an initial heads up on the number of participants to expect for a meeting and figured I needed to get with the program.

After signing up, I began to receive weekly reminders that meetings were planned--and did I plan to attend?  The setup made it very easy to respond yes or no and even to change my reply when plans changed.  I'm all for easy.

And then I saw that the meetings would show up on my online calendar with a reminder on my cellphone.  Not long ago, this would have annoyed me and perhaps alarmed me.  Too invasive--or some such.  Having seen how the system is working to support participation, when our lives and schedules are so packed with distractions, I'm all for all the support I can get.

One thing that did surprise me about Meetup--a technological method for supporting social interaction by means very different from how we did this "in the olden days"--is the very homey "Good to see you" button that pops up after a meeting has passed.  I have been a very enthusiastic clicker of that button as I have gotten to know more people in ESOA.  Meetup has moved, in my mental ordering of my world, from a somewhat cold and practical way to connect to something much, well, warmer, more conducive to reaching out to others with that simple, yet meaningful, greeting.  I'm all for reaching out.

This past week was so busy that I didn't have a chance to respond to the query about attendance, so I wasn't on the list of people who were planning to attend.  That also meant that I didn't get a list of people who did attend with a nice-to-see-you button.  How sad!  I really miss that chance to affirm how positive this week's meeting was for me and how--really!--glad I was to see folks there.

So this is my solution:  Nice to see you all there today!

And this is my resolution:  Gotta be sure to RSVP for the next meeting.  I certainly can't complain that I won't get the chance.

Mindful shopping: BYO veggie bags

Food shopping is a personal activity, and we tend to think of it in personal terms. What will I cook for dinner?  What does my family like to eat?  Do I have everything I need for that recipe?  We shop for value (is this a good price?).  We shop for taste (this kind of apple is juicier than that kind of apple).  We shop for our health (blueberries have fewer carbs than bananas).

Shopping is also a community activity.  What we buy influences the market of what the agricultural and food processing industries prepare for our purchase. Their advertising and other strategies do attempt to influence us, but, if we don't buy the product, it will eventually disappear from the shelves.  What we buy can also influence the lives of people who live and work far away from us.  If our shopping inclines us to buy quinoa, for example, we may distort food production and consumption in Peru with health consequences for the people who depend on quinoa's nutritional value there.  Shrimp farming in Thailand depends on slave labor to provide the fish meal needed to farm the shrimp.

In Ethical Culture, we say that we are committed to making a more humane world.  One way to do that--in my opinion--is what I am calling mindful shopping.  Shopping responsibly in order to minimize displacements and disruptions for others.  Making food choices that follow after thoughtful inquiry about food origins and conditions of production, processing, and shipment.

Now, that's a lot of work.  We already have to worry about the effects of junk food on our bodies.  We have to think about shopping locally, eating fresh, minimizing the packaging--sometimes it seems like we could starve before we even get the first bite of something that won't kill us or the planet.  Yet we have to eat.  And, frankly, growing my own is not all that appealing.  Maybe tomatoes, but kale and beans and corn and . . . well, no.

Maybe we can only do what we can do.

One thing that we can do is reduce the number of plastic bags that we bring home from the grocery store.  We already do this when we take our own reusable shopping bags, with positive benefits for the environment as well as our wallets.  Even so, we still tend to accumulate plastic bags--and wire twister ties--when we shop for fresh produce.   The solution?  Reusable produce bags.  Net or mesh bags, preferably with a drawstring for closure, that can be used for one, preferably for more than one, type of produce.  You can make your own or purchase pre-made bags.

The one and only time I've ever seen this done was while unloading my cart at the grocery store and seeing a mesh bag full of a variety of produce items on the conveyor in front of me.  I was immediately struck by the utility of such a bag and asked the woman whose bag it was about it.  She had received it as a gift and had no idea where to get more, but she said she really liked shopping with it.  Her strategy was to weigh the produce while it was loose, print the appropriate label, toss the produce in her bag--all mixed up--and then affix the printed label to a sheet of paper that she brought for that purpose.  The checker then only has to scan the various labels, all on the same sheet of paper, which speeds up the check out process even more.

I have since bought my own bags but haven't yet had a need to shop for veggies, so I can't say how they work for me.  Mine are smaller than the one I saw in use, with finer mesh, so I'll likely only be able to put one type of vegetable per bag unless I am buying a smaller quantity.  I still plan to try the labels-on-a-sheet-of-paper thing.  I know that they are washable, although I don't know how many washes will wear them out. Cold water and hanging to dry will help, I'm sure.  I can even see an advantage in using these bags to hold the vegetables that don't need refrigeration once I've brought them home.

Have you been using reusable produce bags?  Do you have a different solution to the accumulation of plastic produce bags?  Is the adoption of reusable produce bags a practical step for your mindful shopping?

Mindfulness and mindful living

At a recent meeting of the Ethical Society of Austin, the platform focused on mindfulness.  Our guest speaker, Dr. David Zuniga, a practicing psychologist/ordained Buddhist priest, shared the concept of mindfulness from several perspectives, spoke of its origins and gradual expansion in American society, and touched on several practical benefits of mindfulness.  After explaining various techniques for engaging in mindfulness, Dr. Zuniga led the group in a practical exercise in mindfulness.

I was still confused.

I have heard of "mindfulness" before.  Who hasn't?  In the last few years, the word is everywhere.  I have even incorporated the term into my vocabulary.  After hearing Dr. Zuniga's presentation, however, I began to wonder if I hadn't missed something important about the word.

A quick search shows me that my suspicion of error has some validity.  Two definitions are offered:

1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. . . .
2. a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

I have been using--and understanding--"mindfulness" in the everyday, ordinary sense of conscious awareness, thinking that living mindfully would entail making an effort to actively see and then seek understanding of the people and events around me.  I would have taken my sense of the word from the adjectival form, mindful, itself a synonym for a nice array of words for paying attention (aware) with a touch of wariness (chary).  Adding "ness" on the end, would just make the term an abstraction of the activities described by mindful and, perhaps, take us back to the root word "mind," with its heavy emphasis on the brain and mentation.

One might even take in the elements of the root that are verbs:  "I don't mind the weather when I have a cozy fire;" "Don't mind what other people say;" "Mind the gap."  In this sense, we are looking at an element of "caring" as well as of "paying attention."

Since I am more familiar with these aspects of the word, I am more at ease thinking of them in terms of how we might apply this version of mindfulness to living an ethical life.  I will have to study a bit more to become comfortable with the second definition and how it might be applied to my life at a later time.  In the meantime, I want to look at "living mindfully" as living with attention to detail and context and meaning.  I would take it beyond the present moment to incorporate past as well as future.  Notwithstanding the mental/thought elements associated with the term, I would also extend the concept to action.

For example, I am thinking that living mindfully would include shopping mindfully, driving mindfully, treating others mindfully, and so on.  Mindfulness in this sense is quite congruent with the commitments we make in Ethical Culture.  I will be exploring some of these aspects of living mindfully in later posts.

More about comments and such

Blogger, we have a problem.  I am told that the attempt to post a comment leads to a page of gibberish.  It would be kind of someone to copy and paste that in an email to me.

In the meantime, comments are happily accepted via email, if you have the address already.  I can post your comment and reply in the blog.

I have also changed the settings for comments.  I did have things set up so that you could comment "in line" and not have anything pop up.  I have now changed it to "full page," which will, I hope, take you to a separate page for the purpose of commenting.  This may make it awkward should you want to quote from the blog, forcing you to flip back and forth between the post and the comment form, but you will at least be able to comment.

In other news, I have added the option to subscribe to the blog.  If you have a newsreader, you can click on the little orange icon  to subscribe.  If you want to receive posts via email, enter your email address in the box on the right.  Please note that I have no clue how to use your address for spam, so all you'll get from me are these posts.  Note, too, that there is some pent up opinionating going on right now, so posts are a tad more frequent than I expect them to be in the future.  Anything that needs research can take one or more days to write, and I do hope to "have a life" apart from the blog.  That means, you shouldn't be getting a lot of mail from the blog as things settle down.  My goal will be one post per week, with the occasional week of multiple posts.

What is Burning Bowl?

When the Burning Bowl was first announced as a program activity for the Ethical Society of Austin, I had no idea what that might entail, but I was anxious enough about this new ceremony to begin researching it.  I wanted to know more than the what and the how.  I also wanted to know why and who originated this ceremony and who practices it and when they do.  Are there variations?  How long has Burning Bowl been practiced?  In the US?  In the world?  And where in the world is it practiced?

These days, for casual information on a subject, Wikipedia is often a first step. Imagine my surprise when I found that Wikipedia does not give the term "burning bowl" alone or paired with "ceremony" or "ritual" a separate entry.  Wikipedia did allow me the option to have the page created, but I did not pursue it.

The second step, a Google search, did, however, provide an abundance of images, videos, and webpages to give a fair indication of how widespread and diverse the practice of burning away <something negative> might be.   I sampled only a few of the search results.

One of the more interesting results was a link to the song "Burning Bowl," sung by She Keeps Bees.  It seems that Burning Bowls are fairly common in Unity and some independent Christian churches as well as some Eastern-based healing traditions.   There may be other practitioners that I skipped over in my haste.  The Burning Bowl might also be practiced by individuals in a personal ceremony.  It is common to practice the ceremony at the end or the beginning of the year, but some practice it during a full moon and others at any important life or personal transition (burning away the old to make room for the new).  All one needs to make the ceremony happen are:

• a personal need to let go of something negative;
• a bowl or some fire-resistant surface;
• a source of fire;
• paper (flash paper optional);
• writing implement;
• community (optional);
• transitional occasion (end/beginning of time period, life phase, etc.).

I used a number of keyword searches and combinations to try to find out more about this practice.  There are some who think it originated in Hindu traditions, but I could find no quick resource on the web to confirm this.

A few days ago, I talked about the ESOA Burning Bowl ceremony and what it meant to me with a friend, who happens to be an active Methodist.  She told me that her church has a similar practice around Easter when church members can write down a problem or concern, pin it to a cross provided on the altar, and so have that problem or concern taken away, presumably by the Christ.  I am familiar with the belief that one can pray and have one's burdens taken away, but I had not previously heard of this sort of paper/cross activity before.

Are there other (or similar) practices being used in (other) sacred and secular contexts that include this process of writing down a <negative idea/feeling/problem>, then destroying or otherwise "letting go" of the written problem so that the individual can, through the physical act, symbolize the desired emotional/physical/social release/relief?  An old idea with new forms?  An Eastern idea that has moved to the West?  When?  How?  And how widespread has it become?

Just curious.

Tacky will be deleted!

So much fun!  The Ethical Society of Austin has linked back to my blog on its Facebook page.  (Thanks, Trish!)  The way Blogger (the platform from which I blog) or Facebook (you probably know more about that one than I do) makes the link, what shows up is not the latest post but the text that heads the comment section.  Awkward.

The comment section now reads:

Post a Comment

Keep it courteous and mindful. Disagreement can be both courteous and mindful. Tacky is neither courteous nor mindful. Tacky will be deleted.

I would like to hide that (on Facebook) or otherwise have something more positive show up, but it will take a bit of doing to figure that out, I suppose.  The folks who set up these programs all seem to speak a different language than I do, and I don't mean a foreign language.  The jargon of any specialized discipline can seem opaque to the non-specialist, but that of programmers seems especially difficult as it evolves before we who must try to decipher it enough to actually use their programs can figure out what they are telling us.  Besides, I am living proof that nothing is foolproof!

In the meantime, I should say that I really do hope to have some comments.  The prospect of dialogue is a strong driver for this blog.  I have much to learn from other humanists and look forward to hearing their thoughts.  I have, however, been warned to expect some negative comments.  While I am a Happy Human, working on being a better person in a better world, some folks are just not there yet.  My viewpoint is non-theistic, but not anti-theistic.  At some point, that's going to show.  I thought it best to let those who might take offense at my viewpoint know that tacky comments just won't be allowed to stay around.  As for what I mean by "tacky," I have to confess that I don't have a definition, but I know it when I see it.  And so do you.  Just because we're talking on the internet doesn't mean you can forget how your mama raised you.  Mine always said:  "Be a lady if it kills you!"  Your mileage may vary.

Lighting the Burning Bowl

On the first Sunday of the year, the Ethical Society of Austin held a Burning Bowl ceremony.  Each of us present wrote down a problem or trait or issue that we wanted to "get rid of" in the coming year on a small piece of flash paper.  We each lit our paper and watched our problem/trait/issue burn and, in some cases, float away.  As moving as a Burning Bowl ceremony can be, this one had a special feature.

As it happens, we used the humble kitchen match to light our papers.  To light the match, however, we touched it to the flame of our meeting lantern, rather than striking it on the side of its box.  The striking panel, alas, was just too worn to do the job.  After the ceremony had ended and we were reflecting together on its meaning and impact, one member (was it Lucy?) noted the significance of the fire that we used.

ESOA has few true rituals.  We call ourselves together with the note of a single chime.  This is the signal to turn off cell phones, stop chatting, come sit together, and focus on the meeting.  Once any announcements or preliminary discussions are completed, a member is called to light the lantern.

As the lantern is lit, the day's leader reminds us:

May we kindle within us the warmth of compassion, the light of understanding, and the fire of commitment to build a brighter future for all.

This is the point at which we turn to the heart of the meeting, the activity, platform, or colloquy that will help us to reflect on the meaning and direction of our lives.  On this day, the activities included the Burning Bowl ceremony. At the end of a meeting, our leader reminds us:

As the candle is extinguished we ask that you keep within you the warmth of compassion, the light of understanding, and the fire of commitment to build a brighter future for all.  

These are simple statements that never fail to inspire me.  The lighting of the lantern, the invocation of meaning, the solemnity of the moment all enrich the experience of the meeting.

How fitting it was, then, that we used the fire of that lantern, transferred through the kitchen match, to burn away the problematic issues that we sought to end.

Now we all knew--and know--that the action of lighting the lantern is merely symbolic.  It's not always a perfect process for all that the symbolism of lantern and fire are powerful in many cultures.  Sometimes the lighter is cranky.  Sometimes the candle goes out.  Once, at least, a leader forgot to have the candle lit until the program had already started.  Stuff occurs.   The ideas behind the lighting of the lantern are not subject to the vagaries of circumstance.  Even so, it does seem that circumstances did work on this day to increase our sense of meaning in the Burning Bowl, to increase the power of the image of our burned-away problems.

For me, the ceremony was already beneficial.  The notion that we used the flame of our lantern to burn away the pain took things a bit further and enhanced my confidence in my ability to do the real work that the Burning Bowl had symbolized.  I had--have--a heartache, a pain so strong that I know it will harm me if I continue to hold on to it.  With the Burning Bowl, I learned that I had the power to choose to let go of that pain.  I could objectify it, separate myself from it, and turn it to flame and ash.  With the added symbolism of the lantern's fire, I could see where understanding of the source of the pain and compassion for both myself and that source could allow me to commit myself (fierily?) to making my future one where I have left that pain behind.  It's work in progress, yes, but the lantern's fire gave me some tools.

A welcoming humanist community

This past Sunday was a momentous occasion for me.  I was welcomed into the Ethical Society of Austin as a new member, making me a Happy Human on many levels at that moment.  Although I have been attending the weekly meetings of ESOA since September, I am still very new to the whole concept of Ethical Culture.  From the very beginning, however, this organization seemed very much in tune with where my heart and my mind are at this stage of my life.

How fortunate it is--for me--that ESOA really is, as they claim, a "welcoming humanist community."  After long months of mourning and generally feeling overwhelmed by being more alone than ever before in my life, coming to that first meeting was like coming into the light.  I was welcomed warmly.  I was included in the discussion.  I was uncertain that I could force myself to make the effort to attend again, but the need for community pulled me back. I have missed few meetings since that first one partly because of the fellowship.

Another large part of the pull--for me--has been the opportunity to examine serious questions of life and the world and the cosmos.  We've talked about cycles in our lives, questioned what we mean by family, wondered about life on other planets.  (As a Star Wars fan, I was somewhat saddened by the latter one, but, y'know fiction doesn't have to reflect reality.)  We've delved into the Eight Commitments of Ethical Culture.   We have shared some fun potlucks and actively lived our commitment to make the world a better place.

My welcome into ESOA was quiet, gentle.  No ceremony.  No ritual.  No vows. No big deal as rites of passage go.  Still, I took it as a transition of great moment in my life, a step toward personal growth and knowledge, community participation, and shared work toward a common goal.  Plus I got another good book to read:  The Humanist Way, by Edward L. Ericson (with a preface by my hero, Isaac Azimov).

The only lack I have found in ESOA so far is that I can't get enough of it.  Our meetings are brief--30 minutes for visiting, if you get there early--90 minutes for the actual meeting.  The topics that we discuss need more discussion, more time for interaction.  I have questions.  I have thoughts.  I want to talk about these things more.

So here I am.  A Happy Human who wants to learn and discuss what she's learning.  "Hoedown" is just a nod to Texas and alliteration, but, yes, let's dance!