Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Always Learning

September 9, 2005
Rev. Darcey Laine

Episode 1: the sabbatical begins.

When last I left you, Sunday, January 30, I had just two days to do my reading and change gears from full time minister to full time grad-student. I was quite nervous driving to Oakland that first Wednesday for new-student orientation and an opening night lecture by University of Creation Spirituality president Matthew Fox. There turned out to be about eight new students altogether. I was the only student in the sabbatical program. The others were beginning an MLA program in conjunction with Naropa University. Matthew spoke passionately about the state of education, declaring that awe should be at its core. Quite a challenge to a Minister of Religious Education. I took notes into a leather-bound book I had decided would hold both my class notes and my journal for the duration of this experience.

I drove home late that night, and returned early the next morning. This, like many of the classes in this program are taught in a four day Intensive format. We start the day with a half hour of Body Prayer, leading right into the morning seminar where the intellectual component of the class takes place. The afternoons are spent in Art as Meditation. The philosophy of both Naropa and UCS is that Art helps the student process and learn in a deeper way than lecture and discussion can on their own. I certainly found this to be true. Our first Intensive was called “Cosmology and Creation Spirituality.” Our seminar was taught by UC Santa Cruz science professor, Larry Peers. He taught not only the history of creation from the Flaring Forth to the present, but also taught the role a creation story plays in any cosmology. (More about this when I preach on September 18). The afternoons were spent with Jennifer Berezan, who led us in direct experience of various traditions of musical meditation,. By the end of the day I was overwhelmed by the ideas and emotions the program brought to the surface. Fortunately, each day of the Intensive ends with a Process Group where students and their advisors have a chance to talk through their experience of the Intensive.

The very next weekend I had my second Intensive. (By this time my family and friends were starting to ask: “how come we are seeing you less than before your sabbatical?) This Intensive was geared to train new leaders from around the country to lead the Techno Cosmic Mass. This was a form or worship created by an Episcopal priest in the English Rave scene in the 1980s designed to engage young adults. Matthew Fox and his students embraced the idea and created their own form of this mass in the Bay Area. That weekend we talked with disk jockeys and video jockeys, with Matthew Fox and the others who put the Cosmic Mass together. Forty people had come from around the country for the first-ever training of its kind. It culminated on Sunday with the celebration of the mass itself. For this I was even more nervous. I didn’t have preacher’s stage fright, since my only job was to help out behind the scenes, but the nervousness of participating in something entirely new and unfamiliar. Techno music is the music of my generation, but the “mass” part was somewhat intimidating. Nevertheless I am now trained to lead a Cosmic Mass, and I have the official certificate to prove it.

Stay tuned! In our next installment I brave the terrors of painting, and meet an old friend...