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Does Geography Really Shift?

May 30, 2012

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As I prepared for a lecture I will give in the Boston area today on John Emerson Roberts I realized that I need to make a case for why Unitarians in Milton, Massachusetts, should be interested in what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, a hundred years ago.  It’s not a difficult case to make for those who are historically minded, because the events I describe affected the Unitarian denomination as a whole.  The question has reminded me, however, of how different geography appears depending on where you stand.

As a child growing up in California I had in my head a very simple map of the United States.  there was a blue line down the middle: the Mississippi River.  East of this everything was green and lumpy, west of it, all was flat and yellow, until one reached the border of California, whose topography I knew well from the flour and water maps we made in fourth grade.  You don’t have to have seen much of the middle of the country to realize how far off my notions were.  At the very least, I had seriously misplaced the big blue line.

When I moved to the Boston area for college, New England expanded hugely in my mind.  And when we settled in Philadelphia the Mid-Atlantic states were added to my area of familiarity.  The rest of the country shrank in comparison.  I had to remind myself that the 600 miles between Philadelphia and Deer Isle, Maine, were a small part of the country, even though we covered six states.

We are fortunate now to live in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and to travel to Maine by car.  Now I know something of many more states.  We’ve driven past the geographic midpoint of the contiguous forty-eight states in northern Kansas.  We’ve taken different routes across Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indian, Ohio and sometimes Kentucky and Tennessee.

The knowledge one gets from being in a place is different from map study and geography tests.  I don’t have to stop and ponder to remember that Nebraska (home of Dorothy Lynch dressing) is north of Kansas, and Iowa, where I followed a piece of the Mormon trail, is north of Missouri. I’ve been there.  It is a big, beautiful and―especially when you avoid the interstates―diverse country.  Yet, what happens in one place can affect all the rest.

You can read about the “Western Controversy” and why it mattered to Unitarians, in my book, John Emerson Roberts: Kansas City’s “Up-to date” Freethought Preacher, available from me through Amazon or via the contact page.

Surviving the Cruise

May 23, 2012

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A few years ago my husband and I went on a fancy cruise to Alaska’s Inland Passage.  We’re glad we did, we couldn’t have visited the area any other way, and it was well worth seeing.  But a week was not enough to accustom us to the curious ways of cruise companies.

First comes the financing.  We pay a fee that is supposed to cover everything.  Then come the offers for on-shore excursions.  This is where the cruise line makes much of its money.  We chose only a few of the simplest offers and did well exploring on our own the rest of the time.  No doubt we missed some big sights, but we found many interesting nooks and crannies.

As for the ship, the food was fine, but what else was there to do?  The library was useless.  There was art, jewelry and more to buy, none of which we needed.  The ship got us where we wanted to go.  That, fortunately, was enough.

This past year I have had a similar cruise experience getting my book about John Emerson Roberts published.  I chose to go with a major company because I was stuck on the index, and because I had footnotes, I had to buy a fancy package.

Like Holland America or Carnival Cruise Lines, the directors of my cruise thought they knew what would work best for me. I spent a lot of time saying no.  “No, this is not what I want.”  “No, this isn’t right yet.”  “No, you have the title wrong.”  “No, this is a non-fiction book; don’t use fiction-style page headers.”

At last the book is at the dock.  Then the on-shore offers begin.  The company makes its money, it turns out, on marketing.  “For 2,500 dollars, that’s 20% off . . .” or “This is a $4,000 package but we’ll give it to you for $3,500.”

“This book has a niche market,” I say again and again.  “How will this blanket emailing, this TV ad offer, this one-time New York Times ad, reach my target audience?”  I get no answer.

The first-year payment on the fancy website they created, but did not give me access to, has just run out.  So I abandon the cruise ship and set off on foot with my shipment of books.  The adventure has taken a new turn.

And I start this blog.

Where Is Hell?

April 2, 2012

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Holy Week seems like an appropriate time to ponder the existence of hell, something I stopped believing in decades ago.

It was harder to let go of the idea of hell a century ago.  Some seemed to think that there had to be a hell if there was to be a heaven.  Others thought the threat of hell was needed to maintain social order.  Such people didn’t like John Emerson Roberts when he started preaching against dogma.

Roberts was a successful Baptist preacher until some questioned his orthodoxy.  He may have believed his congregation agreed with him when he made statements like these in 1884:

Why do you punish your child?  To save him from greater wrongs and greater punishments.  Is not God our Father?  . . .”Whom he loveth, he chasteneth”

Against the theory of endless punishment, the universal moral sentiment stands unitedly arrayed.

But this did not satisfy his congregation.  In the end he said, “hell begins where sin begins, and is where sin is.  hell is no postponed catastrophe; it is here now.”  And the congregation cancelled his contract.  For more on John Emerson Roberts see the Books page.

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