FUC Houston *

OK, so it's 1980 and my wife and I are attending First Unitarian Church of Houston, the first time either of us have attended church in years. But it's cool. The people are real, we have common values, we're having a great time getting to know them all. My first thought being: "Wow, I didn't know it, but I'm a Unitarian!"
One of the things I noticed quickly was that people were interested in who I was, and that no one ever started the conversation with "so what do you do for a living?" I've always seen that as the first of the judgement questions. People were more interested in my beliefs, exploring ideas, and talking politics. It was a whole new world!
My boss was happy (he didn't know about UU belief), I was attending church and he was the catalyst (thanks again SR-See "It's All Religion".) Rita and I were on a pleasant learning curve with fellow seekers, ok, actually FUC was the non-churchy church. They didn't even pray, that was fine with me, as I've always seen corporate prayer as a bunch of groveling and asking of favors, special dispensation, etc.
But there was a choir, and good music, the sermons always had something to zing you at some point. I loved that... sermons that were engaging, yet there was always something to disagree with, and that was fine. We socialized with a couples club; co-vivants, I was a steady Men's Group member, learned about feminism, and made friends of all ages. We helped resurrect the RE program after it and been dormant. I worked with teenagers and made a friend that I still see and work with from time to time.

This was terrific and so we wanted to share it with everyone. Our family members (to their credit) did come out a time or two, but did not relate to what was going on. Some of them completely missed the point, I had thought. Now I realize like many religious experiences, one man's truth is another's hogwash. This goes both directions.

These days reminded me of the Green Monkey story.

It's a story I first heard about as a kid. I was into science fiction, in particular, the stories of Ray Bradbury. I read an interview with him in the Sunday paper where he spoke of the difficulty growing up "different". Take that as you will. Anyway, he said he read a story (as a child) that told the parable of the Green Monkey:

If you were to take a monkey, any ole monkey from the jungle, paint it green, and then release it back into the wild, the other monkeys would kill it. Not because it was a threat, but because it was different.

Short tale huh?

Ray Bradbury then explained the lesson he learned was to cover your tracks, and project what you had to, to survive. 'Said it may have saved his life... Boy, did I relate to that! Even at age 7 I felt like was born in the wrong world.

It also tells a great deal about the human condition. (damn monkeys).

Relating the story to my fellow UU's, they immediately understood when (in an issue of the newsletter), I referred to them as "a colony of green monkeys". The green monkey became the mascot of the next canvass drive, a seamstress sewed me into a green monkey costume, and I sang a version of "It's Not That Easy Being Green" at the canvass dinner in the ballroom of the Meridian Hotel.

There is more to the Green Monkey tale, but it will have to wait until another time.
I'll end with this:

Somewhere along the way, I uncovered that Ray Bradbury was a Unitarian Universalist.


*Good thing this doesn't take place in Kankakee!