Punch him back!

Today I went with my kids to playground. They were playing with a big group of other kids and I was relaxing sitting on a bench and reading a book.
When I was there I overheard a conversation between a father and his son, who could have been about 4 years old.
I didn't hear what the child say, but he was crying and his father replied sayin: "How many times do I have to tell you that you have to defend yourself? Did that kid punch you? Ok, punch him back! Hurt him! So he won't touch you again".
I had to light a cigarette because this thing made me feel very uncomfortable.
We have the chance, as parents, to give to our kids a better world. We can teach them how to live together, how to respect others, how to behave when someone shows using violence his disagreement.
We have a responsability towards future generations, towards the environment our kids will inherit, towards what they will make of their lives as free men and woman.
I wouldn't ever say such a thing to my daughters. 
Instead, I am try to make them understand that there's no use in behaving unpolitely towards people, even if they make us get angry. I would like them to learn that disagreement is a natural condition in man, and that there are some people that cannot handle stress properly. I always tell them that peace is something we can create if we reflect and try to understand what is really important in life. 
I hope my girls will learn what respect means and will behave accordingly.

Intolerance, again

Today, one of the Facebook pages I follow, "I am UU", showed this news on my wall.
Since I am translating a book whose main theme is so far religious intolerance and its often deadly consequences on the growth of the Unitarian Church in Europe, I have been very upset by it.
These guys entered into the Church while a burial service was being held.
So, they don't even show respect towards a dead person and to all the people who where there to remember him.
As this article says: The organization framed their action as simply an effort to “present the truth of the Gospel in this synagogue of Satan”.
What does it mean?
It means that if I don't share your religious ideas, I am a worshipper of Satan, with Jew tendencies (maybe as a bonus, I can't say with certainty).
It means that these people don't even know what free thought is.
I feel pity for them.
I have friends who belong to many religious confessions: buddhists, catholics, muslims, unitarians, kabbalists, a Jehova's Witness, even atheists.
I strongly defend the right of each man and woman on this Earth to have his/her personal relation with the Divine, in the terms they prefer.
Diversity is the second most powerful weapon God granted us.
The first is Love.
Be yourself, love and respect one another.
I guess that just respecting our differences and loving each other exactly for what we are - as a certain guy calle Jesus told us to do - we have a chance to grow and reach the Kingdom he said we can reach. Here, on this planet. 
I am confident that this is possible. 
I hope that a growing number of people will understand that hate and divisions are leading us straightforward to a Hell that is not waiting for us after our death. 

Religion of the Spirit

Thanks Rob for having published this on Facebook tonight :)

I completely endorse this view of Religion - all the more, of Prayer - as a spontaneous act that cannot be limited by fixed rules or words.

When I was at school, as most of the kids of my age, I've been sent to attend Catechism in my local (Catholic) church. Once I asked our priest to explain me the reason why I was supposed to recite all nights and mornings every time the same three prayers with the same words and I couldn't directly talk to the Boss asking for what I needed or giving thanks for what I had.

This guy told me these exact words: "Because God will understand what you need or wanna say without you even having to ask. Say these prayers and trust me".

I don't remember how old I was, I suppose around 10. I'm almost 41 and I still cannot understand if he was kidding me or just believed in magic formulas. 

A forgotten history

Well, these days I am working on a translation of a book into Italian. Actually it's several months, I underestimated the time I would have needed to complete this task, but this is another story.
I didn't know anything about the history of Unitarianism before, mainly because at school this part of the history has been carefully cut out of the books you keep in your backpack. 
I am amazed by the persistence of these men and women who lost everything more than once thanks to lack of tolerance, to bigotism, to an insane sense of superiority whose meaning I still can't understand even if I have translated more than 190 pages by now.
If you ask me about my relation with religion in my life, I can say I've always been a stray dog, and maybe I still am. I never liked boundaries, cages, labels, ready-made concepts and prayers that ask me to turn my brain off and just obey and/or repeat.
I always say I prefer spirituality, because it's a personal research and not something you are taught and you have to reproduce in the same form you have received it.
I left the Catholic Christianity because every time I entered a church I have been told that God has mercy on me but I make him get angry because I am a faulty creature who has to pay for the sin committed by a couple of guys I'm not even certain have really existed - provided theirs has really be a sin. Well, couldn't he have created me in a better version? I firmly believe that God created each one of us exactly as we are because this is the best version we could have been created in.
This is the reason why I refused to have my girls baptized (my mum still didn't forgive this offence): I don't think they have to be cleaned from anything. One of them has been about to die once, her doctors told me that there was probably nothing to do for her. And I asked the friar to go away and let my girl alone: if his God wasn't ready to accept my girl because "her sins" (which ones? She was 17 months old, damn, she could barely call mum and eat using a spoon) haven't been "washed", well, he could well have kept that kind of God for himself and going on living in fear and in self-despise.

Yes, reading this book I understand I would have probably been burned at the stake.  

A laughing dentist

Today I had to accompany my youngest daughter to the dentist. My daughter had a cavity. 

We were 5: my father, my mother, my eldest daughter, my youngest and me. 

We are often all together when one of my daughters has to be examined by a doctor. I'm not married, and bringing my two children alone to a medical examination means that I have to split between the daughter who must be visited, the other who is bored or crying, and the doctor that I have to listen. I would need superpowers.  

When at last the dentist came calling my daughter, he saw 5 all of us there and laughed, saying: "All the family here? Ok guys, who's the first?".

Having a family who is ready to help you when 

All this may be considered "normal" by someone. Well, I don't think so. I am a lucky woman.

I am lucky because, although I live alone with my daughters, many people love us and check on us daily.

I am lucky because even if my eldest daughter has a disability, I don't consider it a misfortune. Ok, it didn't go as planned. Who cares. Let's try and see the best in what we have. 

I am lucky because even if I always have doubts about my way of raising my kids, they love me and they show it daily, and I can say that we have a unique bond.

I am lucky because maybe at least I found out what I wanna be when I'll grow up. And who cares if I found it now that I'm almost 41.

I am lucky because, all together, we all can share love and make it grow. 

I am lucky because today I succeeded in seeing the best part in the people I had around, and I hope they have been able to see my best part (provided I have one).

And if I succeed in remembering this every day, all the more when things won't be so good as they have been today, I'll be doubly lucky.

The magnet

This is a magnet.
You may say: no, this is a wheelchair for kids.
And I can ensure that this is a real magnet.
And it fatally attracts couples of smiling Jehova's Witnesses, wherever we may be.
Today, the wheelchair my eldest daughter uses to get around manifested its magical power attracting another smiling couple of Jehova's Witnesses, who happened to pass by when I was at the playground with my kids.
Don't misunderstand me. I don't have anything against JWs. I really admire people who have faith, and I guess that their "pioneers" (is this their exact term?) have it. The thing I don't like about them is their lack of dialogue. I sum their approach as such: I speak and you agree. This happened when I attended a Catholich Church too. Last time I entered in a church to attend a mass I was 23. And, since I came home again with that persistent feeling of having to fill my mind with ready-made and non-negotiable ideas, I didn't do it anymore.
Let's come back to my magic wheelchair. The two women come towards me smiling. I try my last resource before having to talk: I quickly roll a cigarette and light it. It doesn't work.
Their eyes point my daughter's wheelchair.
"Oh, sorry, so you have a disabled kid".
I bite my tongue and I succeed to keep my mouth shut. 
I suppose that should I have replied - as I would have gladly did - "Nah, using wheelchairs is fashionable this summer, didn't you know?" I would have sounded a little unpolite. 
"Yes".

They promptly show me a leaflet whose exact title I don't remember, but it had something to do with the reason why bad things happen to good people. As soon as they begin to quote Bible's passages like a parrot I quickly dismiss them saying I am not interested in the subject, but agree to keep their leaflet. I am not unpolite, believe me: just it never happened to me to have a real conversation with a JW. I don't like unidirectional talks. They smile and go away.

My younger daughter reaches me asking for water, I give her some and she asks me who those two women were.

I explain that they belong to a religion whose members call God Jehovah, they believe they will be saved when the end of the world will come because they live "according to biblical principles",  and have a particular lifestyle.

She asks what these women said. I tell her they tried to explain to me why bad things happen to good people and I didn't want to pay them heed.

She asks me why.

Me: because the answer I like most is "that's life", and they most likely wouldn't have listened to what I would have said. I think that when two people talk, each one of them has the right to expound his point of view and the other one should listen and reflect. This doesn't mean they have to agree. This means that sharing the respective points of view enriches both parts. Whatever the subject of the talk may be. And this is exactly what we UU do during liturgies. We share our experiences and nobody judges.

Some hours later we were on the bus, coming back home, and she looked at me and said: "So mum, next time someone wants to tell me something I have to listen, don't I?". "Yes". "And then I can say what I think". "Yes". "And doesn't he get offended if I don't agree?". "Well, maybe he does... But it's his problem, not yours. And... you are such a sweetie, did I tell you I love you, today?".

"My" Virtual Library

Well, this is my first post so I guess I should talk to you about one of the things I most love doing in my life. I love reading, studying, translating texts...

I got in touch with my Unitarian Universalists community here in Italy by chance at the end of 2013, and I suppose this is one of the best things ever happened to me.

I just became disappointed for the lack of books in my language (Italian) about UU - CUI's website provides some books written by our ministers, but I was interested in something very old, just to understand what our history may have been.

I just took a look into archive and openlibrary... And look what I found! 

66 old and free books about Unitarian Universalism.

I just collected the URLs and my mate posted the result of my research on our website.

Enjoy these books here!

I hope I'll be able to make it grow :)

Sara

PS: If you know about other free e-books available on the net, just comment this post. Thanks a lot!