Tom Stites Take A HaikU Asterisk U. . .

Four clever haiku poems dedicated to hypocritical U*U Souls in general, and particularly hypocritical U*U Soul, former UU World editor Tom Stites, in particular. . .

These four haiku poems are adaptations of the four haikus of former UU World editor Tom Stites that were published in the UU World propaganda organ a while back.


Yellow minister

leaves "church" for New Brunswick —

red*faced U*Us spin. . .


Rollert's icy heart,

exposed now in 'The Gazette',

will note again soon. . .


Robin sends emails

to the bare*faced liar —

sudden corpse*coldness.


U*U spectacle —

ahead, fighting; behind, won;

look right! An U*U Soul. . .



Straight from the horse's U*U sorta. . .

In our contemporary culture of Unitarian*Universalist hubris, U*Us are desperately short of humility, and focusing outside ourselves creates a seedbed for it. The words human, humility, and humus come from the same ancient Indo-European root meaning soil. Like all parts of nature, we U*Us come from the soil — from the dust or, in the view of science, from the stardust — and we will return to it. Haiku ensures humility because it keeps U*Us close to the soil we came from and thus will admit none of the strutting and cleverness that fuel most other writing.

With haiku, the ego must stand aside.