Sermon: Love is the Doctrine

Sermon delivered at Our Home Universalist Unitarian Church on 1 November 2009. 

Love is the Doctrine by Rev. Fred L Hammond 

We say this covenant every week.  “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.”  What does this mean to us as we close out the first decade of the 21^st century?   What does this mean to us as we close out the first year of a new presidency?  What does this mean to us as we debate and argue over health care reform, equal rights for gays, the escalating war in Afghanistan, bailouts for the oligarchic financial system, and the dismantling of agencies that successfully advocate for the poor and the oppressed?  

What does this mean—indeed?   I read a lecture by one of the pillars of our faith, Alice Blair Wesley, and these two sentences popped out at me, “What ought the lay members of a liberal free church understand our kind of church to be about, now, in our time?” She answers, “Strong, effective lively liberal churches, sometimes capable of altering positively the direction of their whole society, will be those liberal churches whose lay members can say clearly, individually and collectively, what are their own most important loyalties, as church members.”[1] 

Their most important loyalties.  It is difficult to articulate this as church members.  We have so many different loyalties, even within a congregation of our number, our loyalties are varied.   And to then place it on a denominational level, what are our loyalties then?  It is hard to encompass the scope of it all.  And harder still to understand how we could be on opposite sides of an issue.  

Yet, we do not dictate or demand uniformity of belief in our congregations.  We do not say to a potential member, if you are not in 100% agreement with us on this or that issue, this or that doctrine, then you cannot be a member here.    We strive, sometimes successfully, to let those differences fade into the background as we seek to live our covenant. And that brings us back to the question, what are our loyalties as a church?  What do we serve when we come together on Sunday mornings?  To what ends are we serving when we go back to our weekly schedules?  

“Love is the Doctrine of this Church, the quest of truth is its sacrament and service is its prayer.   To dwell together in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need, to the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.” 

If this covenant is indeed where our loyalties lie individually and collectively as a church, then how does this play out in our daily lives?   According to Random House Dictionary a sacrament is “a visible sign of an inward grace; something regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance; an oath; a solemn pledge.”   So when we state that the quest of truth is its sacrament, it means that we visibly, solemnly seek truth as an act of love.  We recognize that this love has a mysterious significance to us, that truth might remain elusive to us or that we might only see glimpses of an unfolding reality.   But to seek truth as an act of love opens us up to the possibilities of transforming our ideas, our bigotries, and our biases for something more inclusive, something more embracing in the other.  

To love our neighbor as we love ourselves is not an easy task to do.  We do not always love ourselves in the fullness that love has to offer us.  We sometimes carry within our beings the scars of abuse; either familial or societal, or the scars of oppression; either internal or external phobias that hold us down from our potential.  And so it is hard to sometimes love someone else when we do not love ourselves very much.  And as we vow to seek truth as a sacrament of that love, it is sometimes difficult for us know how that love should manifest in our midst.  But that is what we seek to do as we honor and uphold Love as our doctrine. 

Service is its prayer; service is love’s prayer.  How are we in service to one another?  How is that a prayer?  Here prayer takes on a much larger meaning than just a desire for something to happen.  For example, it is more than just asking the powers of the universe to restore to health a friend who is ill.  It is asking and acting together.  It is thought and action combined.  Service is action.  Prayer is the desire for the difference to be made in love.  It is doing what is needed to help that friend recover their health, and what that may be is myriad of possibilities.  Service is relational.  It is transactional.  It is transformational.   

It is one thing to ask for equal rights for sexual minorities.  It is another to ask and to combine it with service.  Opening the doors of the church so that PFLAG can meet here to offer support to families of gay children is service as a prayer.  Opening the doors of the church so teens have a safe place to gather and express themselves in discussion, music, and poetry is service as a prayer.  The prayer is that gays would find acceptance in our community.  The prayer is that our teens will find avenues where they can develop into their full potential as loving compassionate adults. The answers to these prayers begin with the opening of our doors.  

The common goals of this questing for sacramental truth and service as prayer are to dwell in peace, to seek knowledge in freedom, to serve human need.  To dwell in peace does not mean silence.  Peace does not necessarily mean tranquility.  Peace is a state of being that is assured that all is well even when the earth is quaking beneath us. To dwell in peace is an assurance that regardless of what you or someone else is going through that you are not alone but in covenanted community.  

When the Unitarian Universalist congregations in New Orleans and the Mississippi coast were destroyed by the effects of Katrina, as devastating and heartbreaking as that was for them personally, there was peace that held them knowing that they were not abandoned by their denomination.  People from across the country came into their communities to help them rebuild and are continuing to help them rebuild is the proof of that assurance.  There is peace that they will survive. 

When the news of the Knoxville shooting at the Unitarian Universalist congregation occurred, as painful and heart wrenching as that event was, there was a peace that assured them they were not alone in their grief.  The community congregations regardless of doctrinal differences poured out their hearts to the members of this congregation.  And so did members of Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country, some by offering their skills in trauma counseling and others in their cards and notes and money for the surviving families.  

And here in Laurel when ICE agents raided Howard Industries and arrested 600 plus workers on suspect that they may have been undocumented. Some of them were some of them weren’t.  There was an assurance of peace to those families by members of this congregation by dropping off food supplies to the families that suddenly lost their income. And there was an offer of peace when I stood with them in prayerful vigil, the only local clergy person, when they sought for their personal affects and final paychecks.  I was moved at how grateful these families were that someone, who represented to them a loving presence of the church, was there to stand in witness of their plight. To dwell in peace does not always mean tranquility but it does mean assurance of a supporting presence.  

To seek knowledge in freedom.  It may seem to be an odd thing to have this as a goal of this covenant but it is essential, for without it we have coercion, manipulation and propaganda.   This is perhaps more important for us today.  We have in this country a movement that seeks to shape the knowledge that is available.  It will take congregations like ours to recommit to this ideal that knowledge needs to be sought in freedom to ensure that our nation remains free.  

There is a resurgence of McCarthyism in our nation. This is being defined as “the reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries”.  We are seeing it through the irresponsible journalism of the Fox network.  It is one thing for a newspaper or television to have a conservative slant but it is another when the newspaper or television begins to use their resources to create the news they wish to cover. When I was studying journalism in my undergraduate work, the number one rule in journalism was to report the news, not become the news.  Fox News has in its manipulation of information restricted the freedom needed to find knowledge and their efforts have made them the news. 

Fox news is a source and one of the primary sponsors for the tea party protests that have occurred this past year.  These protests are based in falsehoods and misinformation propagated by Fox News.  They have grossly overcovered these events to give the appearance that they were larger than they really were.  For example, they gave on site coverage for a protest that no one was still in attendance.  And when another protest march was taking place in Washington, the National Equality March, a group that Fox news does not support, Fox did not cover it themselves and downplayed the attendance to a mere 70K which was the number allegedly in attendance at their teaparty protest the week before. Every other news network reported that upwards  to over 200K people being in attendance.   

But in case I be accused of mud-slinging with bias, let me add that the other news networks are not innocent in their manipulation of the news or their hindering of conveying knowledge.  They have taken a back seat when misinformation is spouted on their networks.  They do not do the fact checking that is needed when someone with an agenda, be it liberal or conservative, spouts unsubstantiated figures as if they are factual.  All of the news networks have failed their mission in reporting accurate news and instead are reporting opinions about the news.  Opinons that have one purpose and one purpose only and that is to divert attention away from an open and honest debate to one that is simply divisive.  The health care reform debate is just one example where the news networks have failed in informing the American public the facts of what true reform will mean to the average American.  

These words in our covenant are not simply nice words to say.  They have meaning in today’s climate of retrograde politics.  And these words could potentially mean risking our freedoms to support them like they did in the McCarthy era. 

To serve the human need.  James Luther Adams once said the purpose of church was to practice being human.  Church should be a place where our humanity is held in the safety of the sheltering arms of the congregation.  It is also a place where we can begin to serve the human need.  In our congregations regardless of size there is someone who is in need of a hug, a listening ear, or a word of encouragement.   There is someone in our congregations that need to be seen for who they are and not who they are forced to be in the world outside these doors. 

Yes, the human need exists beyond these doors and we have already mentioned how we have made a difference and are going to be making difference in these lives.  But for this one moment, take a look around you and see who is here in this room right now.  This is where we begin to serve the human need.  Right here, right now.  

To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine—

We affirm in our principles that we are all part of the interconnected web.  Many have come to believe that this means all of creation, not just humanity.  And so all souls has an expanded meaning of all creation growing into harmony with the Divine.  The Divine can be seen as not just a godforce but also as a lifeforce, a creative force that when we are in harmony with it  allows creation to fulfill its fullest potential.  

Thus do we covenant with each other and with God.  Thus do we promise, pledge, vow, to be our highest loyalty as individuals and collectively as members.  And when we fail, as surely we will, we will revisit these words and begin again to love, to seek truth as love’s sacrament, and service as love’s prayer.   Blessed Be.

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[1] Alice Blair Wesley,  Our Covenant: The 2000-01 Minns Lectures.  Lecture 1: Love is the Doctrine of this Church  2002  Meadville Lombard Press

Sermon: Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation

(This is the first of a series of sermons at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa reflecting on James Luther Adams’ Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Relgion. 25 October 2009 (c) )

Reading: The Five Smooth Stones of Liberalism by James Luther Adams 

Whatever the destiny of the planet or the individual life, a sustaining meaning is discernable and commanding in the here and now.  Anyone who denies this denies that there is anything worth taking seriously or even worth talking about. Every blade of grass, every work of art, every scientific endeavor, every striving for righteousness bears witness to this meaning.  Indeed, every frustration or perversion of truth, beauty, or goodness also bears this witness, as the shadow points round to the sun.

One way of characterizing this meaning is to say that through it God is active or is in the process of self-fulfillment in nature and history.  To be sure, the word “God” is so heavily laden with unacceptable connotations that it is for many people scarcely usable without confusion.  It is therefore well for us to indicate briefly what the word signifies here.  In considering this definition, however, the reader should remember that among liberals, no formulation is definitive and mandatory.  Indeed, the word “God” may in the present context be replaced by the phrase “that which ultimately concerns humanity” or “that in which we should place our confidence.” 

God (or that in which we may have faith) is the inescapable, commanding reality that sustains and transforms all meaningful existence.  It is inescapable, for no one can live without somehow coming to terms with it.  It is commanding, for it provides the structure or the process through which existence is maintained and by which any meaningful achievement is realized.  Indeed, every meaning in life is related to this commanding meaning, which no one can manipulate and which stands beyond every merely personal preference or whim. It is transforming, for it breaks through any given achievement, it invades any mind or heart open to it, luring it on to richer or more relevant achievement; it is a surpassing reality.  God is the reality that works upon us and through us and in accord with which we can discern truth, beauty or goodness.  It is that reality which works in nature, history, and thought and under certain conditions creates human good in human community.  Where these conditions are not met, human good, as sure as night follows the day, will be frustrated or perverted. True freedom and individual or social health will be impaired.

 Five Smooth Stones: Continuous Revelation

I had two dreams recently that I found to be quite interesting to me because they had to do with previous eras of my life.  Both are periods of my life that in contrast to where I am today are foreign to me.  

In the first dream, I am in a charismatic prayer meeting.  I didn’t recognize the place but I had a friend of mine from seminary at this meeting.  And I am much younger in this dream; I am the age I was when I would attend such meetings.  And if this dream were truly accurate in its time span, that would have meant my seminarian friend would have been a young teen since he is about fifteen years my junior but he is not, he is the age I first met him making us roughly the same age.   In the dream, John is seized in the spirit and begins to sing a song, two verses.  He finishes and then I am seized in the spirit and sing the final verse of the song.  The people in the meeting tell us that we must write the song down in order to preserve this song and we begin a search for pen and paper.  Which cannot be found.  So I am singing my verse over and over again so that I would not forget the words that had moved the congregation so very much…

(sings) “Praise god in the morning, praise god in the evening, praise god every day, that’s what I do.” 

Catchy tune right?  Time passes and I am still searching for pen and paper. I travel to distant lands and cultures looking for pen and paper and still I cannot find them.  Finally I stop at a fish market and there is yesterday’s NY Daily News.  The newspaper used to wrap the fish in.  And I tear off the front page and grab the wax crayon and write down the song.  End of dream. 

The second dream I am at some point in the not too distant future and sent back in time to the late 1980’s.  It is the height of the AIDS pandemic in terms of fear.  Remember the time period of the 1980’s in relation to AIDS. There is no true understanding of how this virus is working.  There are no effective medications.  AZT the first anti-retroviral drug to be used on people with AIDS is still in clinical trials.  People who are diagnosed with AIDS are told to get their affairs in order because they have less than a year to live.  The gaunt eyes, the skin draped skeletal figures of those with AIDS is a haunting image that appear in this dream and are in my memory of this period.   People with AIDS are still quarantined in hospitals and nurses and doctors alike will refuse to treat them for fear of contracting the disease.  

Here I am, from the future, knowing that this present condition regarding AIDS will not last.  In fact, it is at a close because in a few years there will be not just one medication to attack the virus that causes AIDS but several kinds of medications that combined will cause what the medical world called the Lazarus effect.  People will rise up from their death beds and regain health and live with the virus for perhaps their normal life span. 

 In my dream I am trying to tell these people with AIDS what I know to be true.  But I not only knew what was in their immediate future in terms of medical breakthroughs with medications, I knew that a vaccine was created that acted similar to the anti-retroviral cocktails that attacked the virus from different angles.  The vaccine released a variety of anti-bodies doing the same kind of multiple front attacks, thereby keeping the virus from being able to get a foothold in the body in the first place.  I knew this because I was coming to them from a future that was even further in the distance than the present day.   

Stating these future events to these people was like telling them some piece of fiction.  It could not be comprehended.  They did not know, could not know, if they would be among those who would live long enough to receive the multiple drug cocktail that would shrink the specter of AIDS to an aggressively managed chronic disease let alone live long enough to see a vaccine that would effectively place HIV on the shelf like smallpox.  The dream ends with these people looking at me with blank faces of total dismay at my words of what will be true. 

I have an interesting dreamscape.  Place these dream stories on hold for a moment. 

 James Luther Adams, the most prominent of Unitarian Universalist theologians in the 20^th century talked about five components that made liberal religion vital for this day and age.   These five components were crucial not only to liberal religion but crucial to the history of humanity because it is liberal religion that has influenced the course of history towards the reign of heaven.   If these five components are to fade away from liberal religion then what we are left with is a return to theocracy, a hierarchal authoritarian rule both in religion and in the state.  

These five components were titled the Five Smooth Stones of Liberal Religion based on the biblical story of young David who single-handedly slew the opposing giant and enemy of the country with five smooth stones and a slingshot.    These stones are the following:  1) Continuous revelation, 2) Mutual consent and not coercion need to be the basis of all human relations 3) Moral obligation towards the establishment of a just and loving community 4) Denial of the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation and 5) the resources (divine and human) that are available for the achievement of meaningful change justify an attitude of ultimate optimism. 

These smooth stones Adams suggests arose out of the reformation in the 1500’s and 1600’s.  James Luther Adams writes: 

“We of the Free Church tradition should never forget, or permit our contemporaries to forget, that the decisive resistance to authoritarianism in both church and state, and the beginning of the modern democracy, appeared first in the church and not in the political order.  The churches of the left wing of the Reformation held that the churches of the right wing had effected only half a reformation.  They gave to Pentecost a new and extended meaning.  They demanded a church in which every member, under the power of the Spirit, would have the privilege and the responsibility of interpreting the Gospel and also of assisting to determine the policy of the church. The new church was to make way for a radical laicism—that is, for the priesthood and the prophethood of all believers.  ‘The Spirit blows where it wills.’

 “Out of this rediscovery of the doctrine of the Spirit came the principles of Independency: local autonomy, free discussion, the rejection of coercion and of the ideal of uniformity, the protection of minorities, the separation of church and state.”[1] 

It was out of this movement of liberal religion that our democracy was born and has its being. It was liberal religion that influenced the core concepts of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to our constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The revelation that began to occur in the reformation and dare I say had its roots in the primitive church of Christianity but was thwarted by the conservative branch of the church; continued to grow and blossomed into the life we now enjoy and take for granted.  

James Luther Adams first smooth stone is that revelation is continuous. There is always something new to be revealed. There is always something new to be uncovered. 

And therefore, as our morning quote for reflection  of Adams states, because revelation is continuous then “Nothing is complete and thus nothing is exempt from criticism.” 

Let’s take apart this notion of revelation.  What is it?  In a strictly mystical sense, revelation is something that is transcendental.  It transcends the current state of affairs with information that was previously unknown.  Our myth stories are filled with oracles and prophets who have an uncanny supernatural ability to see and hear what no one else can and therefore are able to grant wisdom to the listener or seeker of such wisdom.  That is one kind of revelation. 

But revelation has another meaning as well.  It is the by-product of reason.  It is the reviewing of current evidence in a manner that sheds new insights into problems or situations that benefit others.  We see this in the sciences where scientists looking at the evidence begin to conjecture theories and then seek to prove or disprove those theories.   Copernicus looking at the stars, the moon, and the sun had a revelation that perhaps it is the earth that revolves around the sun and not the sun around the earth.  That was a revelation.  It altered the way humanity looked at itself.  But that revelation hasn’t ended, we now know that we are part of a galaxy and that our solar system revolves around the center of our galaxy.  There are clusters of stars that also revolve around our galaxy.  And the galaxy is also moving in space and is revolving around something.  As our technology increases to reveal new things in the universe, our revelation about this universe will also unfold.  Revelation is continuous. 

It has been about 18 years since I last attended a charismatic prayer meeting.  I was excommunicated from the group because of my own personal revelation. It was a revelation they were not able to comprehend.  And since that time my understanding of who or what god is has changed.  

What made my dream regarding attending the charismatic prayer meeting and having this moment of ecstasy where I sang my song interesting is that it is yesterday’s moment.  In my dream I sought to hang on to the moment as I searched for means to write it down.  Writing it down became all important as if that would somehow preserve the moment of transcendence. I forgot what the words were that my friend John had sung.  And the words I wrote down were nothing profound.  Not profound as they were in the moment they were first uttered anyway.  

In the almost two decades since I could have sung such a song of praise to god, my definition and experience of god has changed.  Then it was a loving entity that cared for her children, today it is all that is and all that is not, the amorphous je ne sais quois that has no sentient quality unto itself but yet continually is creating expressions of life and expressions of beauty.  Today my praise and thanksgiving is to life itself, to love eternal, to the creative interchange as the theologian Wieman would describe it.  And that is today, tomorrow my understanding may expand again.  

Conservative faiths regardless of their doctrines attempt to capture the revelation in its initial revealing and hold it in its place.  How does one catch the wind that blows where it will?  Conservative faiths attempt to freeze the event and the meaning of that event.  But in the process of attempting to preserve it, they lose the spirit of what inspired the moment.  The spirit has already blown to somewhere else.   Conservative faiths insist that the entire world has to abide by that meaning and that understanding of the event.  I suppose it is comforting to know that something is the same today as it was yesterday but that something is nothing more than an aging portrait of Dorian Grey.  It will distort in time and become an evil that seeks to control and manipulate its followers instead of offering liberty and release as it once did. 

What is ironic is that the arc of history as Martin Luther King, Jr., stated is always bending towards justice.  Even conservative faiths will release their revelations that no longer serve them well.  Evidence of this is found here in American history, where it was once believed that slavery was ordained, that women have no role in the society, and that to use the belt in disciplining children was god’s way.  Many conservative faiths are abandoning these revelations as no longer being reflective of the love of god.  Those that have not are finding themselves at sometimes perverse and angry odds with society around them.  

The revelation once uttered is already being transformed into new revelation in its interactions with people.  To deny that process of continuing revelation is to deny the transforming power of ever inclusive love, yea, even life itself.   

There is another edge to this sword of revelation being continuous.  And that brings me to the second dream that I had recently. Revelation, be it transcendent or through thoughtful reason, can only be heard by people who are ready to hear them. Unless the people are ready to hear, then it will not be heard. 

In my second dream, the people living with AIDS could not receive any comfort in the promise of a vaccine that was 30 years plus in the future. In their present condition of multiple potentially deadly infections, the idea that they would live 30 years was not a viable reality.  It was also a bit of a stretch that they would survive a few more years when the new medications would be released into the public sphere.  They had this blank look like I was speaking incomprehensible gibber.   

The dream would have had a different outcome if I had as a person from the future with knowledge of the outcome of the HIV/AIDS pandemic began to apply the knowledge based on where those people were at that moment in time.  Perhaps there would have been some basic steps that could have been done so that they would have had a better chance of surviving til the new medications came out.  We now know so much that this pandemic has taught us about nutrition and disease progression that could have been applied in my dream.  

My grandfather’s farm had a hand water pump.  In order for water to come up out of that pump you had to prime the pump by pouring some water down into the pipes.  It is the same with receiving revelation.   The pump has to be primed.  People have to be brought up to speed in order to grasp what the new revelation is—otherwise it is too fantastic to comprehend.  

A few years ago, I was working with a congregation and I presented them with a vision of where they could be as a congregation.  It was a vision of a congregation serving the community by working closely with the minority community in their revitalization programs.  A vision that included affordable housing through increased involvement with Habitat for Humanity, advocacy on the city council to support locally run minority businesses, and increased food access for the poor.  The congregation looked at me like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.   These vacant translucent eyes shining back at me as if my words were describing a complex mathematical equation on string theory.  It was too huge of a leap for the congregation to see themselves doing this kind of outreach.  They could not see where to begin such a grand vision.  

And so it is with revelation.  A few people may grasp the fuller picture but for many it is the smaller more immediate components that are necessary to begin developing.  The reformation that resulted in a new experiment of democracy in the Americas did not happen over night.  Religious tolerance was not a widespread event in Europe when the idea was first suggested.  It happened first in discussions.  Then tentatively in pockets like Transylvania in the kingdom of John Sigismund. Sometimes these were short lived pockets of tolerance.   People were burned at the stake for these ideas. Wars were fought over these ideas.  Such was the hold of the old revelation, the old way of seeing and being.  But gradually and over time the vision of a land where these ideals could be experienced first hand came to be.   America and other countries in the world are still unfolding that revelation of tolerance of the other.  It still is resisted even in the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Revelation is continuous.  Revelation is an evolution of thought that spirals outward embracing more and more in its wake.  What are the revelations that are expanding here in this congregation about who we are as a people?  What new insights will we have that can influence the community to be more open; more accepting of others are to be revealed in the days and weeks ahead?  Revelation is continuous.  May we be open to receive it and act upon it in our journey as a people.  Blessed Be.

 

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[1] “James Luther Adams, “Our Responsibility in Society”  in The Prophethood of All Believers  page 157

The Good News of Unitarian Universalism

There is a commercial airing these past few weeks on local TV that starts off with all the scary things happening in the world—Halloween, war, teen age pregnancies, divorce are some of the examples given. Yes, Halloween is in the commercial with these others as being scary.  They proclaim the solution to this fear is in placing trust in Jesus Christ.  It is a concrete, one size fits all answer.  For some people this may indeed be the answer they desire. 

 How would Unitarian Universalists answer these frightful and painful events?   Unitarian Universalists tend not to think that a belief in a creed or a doctrine can heal our hearts.  We may believe in the power of prayer or meditation.  We may even believe in the teachings of a spiritual leader such as Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or contemporary spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hahn or Maryanne Williamson. But it is not the teachings or the prayers themselves that heal painful events but rather how we integrate those teachings and prayers in our active responses to the event that heals. 

We covenant to be together and to support one another in each of our spiritual journeys, which are as unique as our fingerprints.  We covenant to listen to one other.  We covenant to be present to one another; to be present with a full heart of compassion and empathy.  We choose not to see each other as broken and fallen but rather as having inherent worth and dignity. It is that inherent worth and dignity that we call forth with our actions when we see another in pain and in suffering.  We recognize the ambiguity, the murkiness, and the messiness of the situations that afflict us in our day-to-day. And we declare that ambiguity to be okay even as we seek to have clearer answers for our lives. 

We seek to live our lives with justice, equity, and compassion in all of our relations.  To live our lives in such a manner is a spiritual quest that demands our daily attention.  Sometimes that will mean that we march and protest against those forces that oppress and inflict injustice and sometimes it will mean that we will be silent witnesses holding the other close to our hearts.  Sometimes it may mean that we seek forgiveness from others when we fall short of our desired intention.  But we believe that to seek to live our lives in such a manner can and will have a profound impact on the world around us. 

In looking at our history either just back to our merger of Unitarians and Universalists in 1961 or further back to the American formation of these religious expressions; Unitarian Universalists have had a profound impact on society.  It was these principles being lived out that influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and the formation of our democratic government.  It was these principles that encouraged abolitionists and suffragists to seek freedom and the right to vote.  It is these principles that are being lived out in the seeking of equality for sexual minorities today.  This is our good news.  Blessings,

From Cage to Cage

“This struggle [for congregational polity in the 16 /1700's] was a revolutionary institutional struggle, a struggle against the cage of centralized power in church and state and economic order. … But during the past century our society has been moving in the opposite direction, in the direction of a new centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry, the fragmentation of responsibility, retreat into privatized religion–all of this in a world of massive poverty and hunger. …A major question today in a world of multinational corporations is how to achieve a separation of powers and consent of the governed, a self-governing society in the midst of corporate structures that are rapidly becoming a new cage. So we have moved from cage to cage.” —  James Luther Adams in “From Cage to Covenant” as found in the text The Prophethood of All Believers.

These words spoken by James Luther Adams in 1975, 34 years ago this month,  ring even truer today than they did then.  A lot has transpired in the past 34 years that make these words of Adams eerily prophetic in the tradition of the great prophets of the Hebrew writings. 

Adams argues that in order to survive this new cage that we need  to develop new covenants that consider “communal responsibility in the economic sphere.”  He details five components of a covenant that he believes is essential for this age.   He posits that (1) humans “become human by making commitment, by making promises. “   Realizing that this process includes the breaking of these promises with a renewal of making new promises.  He posits  (2) that “the covenant is a covenant of being.”   We covenant with that which is transforming in whatever way we might interpret the transforming.    (3) “The covenant is for the individual as well as for the collective.”  He states that “we are responsible not only for individual behavior but also for the character of the society…”   How we are known in the world is each of our responsibilities.   Perhaps the best way to describe this is to quote Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s famous quote, “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”  This displays the moral character of a nation. 

What is our character  if we are the country where a three month old child can be denied health insurance for being in the 95 percentile of weight for that age of a child?    Or where a person can lose health insurance coverage because the required treatment  is considered by the health company as too costly.  Or where the number one cause of bankruptcies  is due to medical costs.  This is an example of the  ”centralization of power in mammoth bureaucratic government and industry.”

Adams posits that (4) the “covenant responsiblity is especially directed toward the deprived.”  Who falls into the gap between the covenant and the system?  This is where our work lies to close the gap so that no one falls “from neglect or injustice.” And (5) the covenant follows a rule of law that is founded in faithfulness and love.  “What holds the world together, according to this dual covenant then, is trustworthiness, eros, love.  Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go.”   

We have our work cut out for ourselves since we did not act to stop the cage from being developed in 1975 to today.  We allowed government to deregulate the protections that have been linked to the financial collapse and resultant recession. The gaps between the working classes and the wealthy are wider than ever before in my lifetime.  The corporate giants of finance,  healthcare, oil, and industry have more of ahold on our lives than ever before stripping us of our endowed rights to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

This is where our congregations can be relevant to an age of individualism and capitalism gone awry.   We can be offering a different message than one that is found in the prosperity gospel driven congregations of our day.   Jesus may indeed want you rich but the richness is in how we relate to one another not in how much money we each have.   If there is a judgment day, it is the day when we are asked whether we have loved our neighbor as ourselves.  It is the day when we are asked if we truly were our brothers and sisters keeper.  How do you fare in this regard?  What are you willing to do differently to honor a new covenant of being?  Blessings,

Obama self-portrait

This spoof of Rockwell’s famous self-portrait is going around the internet as an attempt to be a pejorative statement.  There have been conservative pundits who believe there is a messiah message being sent about President Obama by the liberal left. 

But from an Universalist Christian theology perspective the message is far from pejorative and is in fact a very positive one.  We are all made in the image of God and therefore something of God is revealed in our lives.  And for Christians who believe that Jesus lives within our hearts then when we look at one another we should see the God who lives within shining out of them to us.   Jesus for many Christians represents not only the messiah who saves humanity from sin but also the ideal, the best of humanity, the best of who we can be. 

There is an old story about an old monastery that was dying. There was no longer any life or zest in the monks who worked and prayed there.   The Abbott of that monastery was friends with the Rabbi.  So one day the Abbott goes off to speak with his friend the Rabbi about his concerns for the monastery.  The Rabbi had no words of wisdom as his synagogue was also dying.  And so the two old men cried together with their grief.  And as they cried and prayed together the Rabbi comes across a passage about the Messiah coming.  The Rabbi’s face begins to glow and he says that he believes the messiah is already come and is living at the Monastery. 

And so it was time for the Abbott to return to the Monastery.  And the monks ask him if there was any special wisdom that the Rabbi shared with the Abbott.  The Abbott shook his head sadly, no; just some nonsense that the Messiah is here living among us at the Monastery. 

The monks heard these words and wondered, who could it be?  As they pondered the words of the messiah living among them, they began to wonder if it was one of them.  And has they thought of each of them, they remembered how awful they treated each other.  If Brother Mathias was the messiah, why he must think I am the dregs of the world for how I have piled on him the work I did not want to do.  If Brother Sebastian was the messiah why he must think I am just the worst as I am always scolding him about being late for prayers.  And on and one the wondering went, each examining their own behavior towards the messiah living among them.

And so in time the brothers began to change their behavior to the other brothers of the monastery, not wanting to do anything that would offend the messiah.  The monastery began to change.  It was somehow more inviting to the villagers and they would come up and partake in the noonday meal.  And the monks would go into the village more and share their farm grown goods with the poor.   The synagogue also began to show some new life with children coming to learn from the Rabbi the teachings of the Torah.  The messiah was indeed living among them.  The messiah was in each of them. 

For all of humanity’s faults,  for all the human failings that we carry, there still lies within  each of us, a spark of something transformative, of something divine that beckons us to be all that we can be.   This painting reveals not a president with a messiah complex but rather a human being who sees beyond the frailties of humanity towards a more compassionate and loving reality.  We all should be able to look into the mirror and see our best potential peering back out at us. And then find the strength to live it. May it be so.  Blessings,

What are the fruits of our beliefs?

” ‘A man bears beliefs, ‘ said Emerson, ‘as a tree bears apples.’ He bears beliefs about himself, about his fellows, about his work and his play, about his past, about his future, about human destiny. What he loves, what he serves, what he sacrifices for, what he tolerates, what he fights against–these signify his faith. They show what he places his confidence in.” James Luther Adams  wrote these words in 1946 in his essay A Faith for the Free. 

I found these words to resonate a chord with in me as I read and watch the news about events in our country.  I only have questions at this point.  And there are many.  What is our faith if we deny health care to 47 million uninsured americans and millions more with pre-existing conditions?  What is our faith if we feel justified in yelling, “You Lie!” to the President of the United States?   What is our faith if we continue to support business practices that are clearly not in our best self-interest?   What is our faith if we feel comfortable in fighting against others receiving something (government sponsored– taxpayer paid  health care)  that we ourselves benefit from (Our elected officials in Congress) ?  What is our faith if we insist that schools only teach concepts we are in agreement (creationism, euro-centric american history) ?  What is our faith if we teach that some humans (sexual minorities) are abominations?  What is our faith if we insist on citizens being able to own weapons of automated destruction?   What do these things tell us about us as a people? 

If we were to honestly attempt to answer these questions, I think we would find that we are not the religious people who we claim to be.  Our faith seems to be made up of beliefs that are not found in any religious heritage.   We have missed the mark and need to repent of our short comings. 

Perhaps the day will come where we can measure up to the ideals stated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey:  “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”    We seem to be having trouble with how that government even treats those in the fullness of life.  We can be better.   Blessings,

The heart of the debate

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I was having a friendly debate the other day on facebook about a quote by Ayn Rand and indirectly about the health care debate that is raging in this country.  One of the participants placed this quote from the preamble of the US Constitution into the conversation.   I suddenly realized that the current polarization that is occuring in this country is when stripped of its emotionalism of fear is based on how we interpret this preamble.  

I personally believe that healthcare needs to be a right or privilege  given to the citizens of this country as one of the benefits of being a citizen.   It is part of the process of establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquilty, of promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  For me this seems clear cut and a logical extension of  these principles that this country was founded on.  From my perspective providing health care as a right given as a benefit of citizenship will reduce many of the domestic problems we have;  reduce bankruptcy, reduce crime (Think the story of Les Miserables), reduce infant mortality, increase life expectancies, increase quality of life across the board.

My friend in this debate believes that government should not interfere with the lives of people in any way, benevolent or otherwise.  His perspective claims that there would be a loss of self-sufficiency if the government was given the power to dole out health care provisions.  He bases this on the dependency he sees in generational recipients of welfare assistance.  How it seems that once a person is on welfare not only do they remain but their children and grandchildren remain on welfare.  His perspective points out the need for reform in many arenas not just healthcare.  In short his perspective emphasizes what he sees as the primary goal of government which is to provide for the common defense of the nation.  Period.   If this is done, he believes that the rest is assured or made possible by the ingenuity of private enterprise.  

I now have a better understanding of his position.  However, I still disagree and for this reason.   President Reagan proposed what became known as trickle down economics.  The notion that if the government de-regulated various industries and reduced government taxation on corporations that the money earned by these industries and corporations would trickle down to the working class.  President Reagan believed that government should be smaller and less involved in the daily operations of corporations.   It is an argument that has been debated repeatedly and it presumably is the main difference between two political parties.   Whether the answer to various problems lies in government intervention or in no government intervention is the core debate.  

Well, Reagan’s theory of trickle down economics was an interesting one but unfortunately nothing trickled down.  The top 1% got richer and the bottom got poorer faster than ever before.  The  middle class shrunk and continued to shrink as the policies instituted by Reagan’s administration were emulated by the administrations that followed.   In fact, the current recession / quasi depression is the result of policies begun in the Reagan trickle down econmic era.   

To be fair to President Reagan, I need to add that the current health care debacle is based on policies instituted not by Reagan but by President Nixon.  President Nixon allowed for deregulation of health care insurance companies allowing them to become predominantly for profit industries.  This was when the shift from the doctor making the decision with the patient on a particular plan of action to the health maintenance organization making the decision took place.  It was supposed to cut costs and not allow doctors to perform unnecessary treatments.  The HMO’s however were formed to be in it for profit and so denying a treatment saved them money and increased their profit margins.  

The question remains how do we form a more perfect union? Is it through private enterprise and if so how do we ensure that private enterprise serves the best interest of the people and not their own coffers?  Or is it through government regulation and offering a public option of health care and the risk of making a people who are ultra dependent on a government? 

I believe the debate is anchored in this preamble.  There in lies the question of who we are as Americans and how we see ourselves as citizens not only of this country but also as citizens of this world.  Blessings,

Sermon: Questions From the Heart

The Heart Nebula

 16 August 2009

UUCTuscaloosa

Rev. Fred L Hammond

I thought it would be fun to hear what people in the congregation are thinking about regarding living their Unitarian Universalism. Were there any questions that were being unsaid or not being answered in a clear manner? The questions fell into a theme for the service and I am always amazed when that happens. I don’t think it is important to identify who asked the questions. These are questions that almost anyone in the congregation could have asked and you may resonate with the questions yourself. So let us begin with a history question.

 At one time, both Unitarians and Universalists believed in a Christian God. That’s no longer part of the Purposes and Principles, though. When did an explicit belief in God get phased out—and how did that happen?

Unitarian Theology as it was developed in the United States in the early 1800’s was a belief in One God. This was the God of the Jews. It was a return to the monotheistic belief that was held at the beginning of the Christian era. What we consider the Christian God didn’t become orthodoxy until the Nicene Creed in the 4th century, when the concept of a Triune God, three personas in one was established. This is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Trinity of Christian doctrine. God for the Unitarians was still a father figure, still a personal god. Jesus was the son of god, but so was all of humanity, all were the children of god. Jesus was fully human.

Unitarians in William Channing’s famous sermon on Unitarian Christianity did not believe that Jesus was crucified as recompense for humanities sins. Channing pointed out that no loving parent would punish a stronger child to atone for the sins or wrong doings of a weaker child. So while Unitarians believed that Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected from the dead, it was more of an unfortunate consequence of people not heeding his message. Unitarians believed that salvation was through the following of Jesus’ teachings to develop moral character.

Universalists started out as trinitarian but they soon shifted to a Unitarian concept of God as well. Universalists believed that all of humanity would be saved because the death of Jesus on the crucifix paid the price for all of humanities sins; past, present, and future. There was no ever-lasting torment in hell because God was too good, too loving to condemn people to everlasting hell.

Rev. Thomas Starr King who was an ordained Universalist minister and then became a Unitarian Minister is quoted as saying the only difference between Unitarians and Universalists is that the Universalists believed God was too good to condemn people to hell and the Unitarians believed they were too good for god to condemn them to hell.

By the mid-1800’s Emerson, Parker and others were espousing transcendentalism. This was the belief that revelation was available through intuition that transcends the physical and empirical. Personal experience had to be accounted for in one’s exploration of faith. The Bible was not the only source for revelation- Emerson had said no one book could contain all the revelations of god. Emerson and others found some translations of the Vedic texts of Hindu teachings. These were badly done translations so there were misconceptions but the impact of these writings was profound on American thought and the development of transcendentalism.

Parker in his famous sermon, The Transient and the Permanent, announced that if Jesus had never lived there would still be a Christian religion because the values and concepts that Jesus taught were readily available to everyone. There were some aspects in Christianity that were transient and others that were permanent. He suggested stripping away the transient in order to find that which was permanent.

The civil war had a devastating effect on the heart of America. This country had never seen such a bloody war of this magnitude on its shores before. Abraham Lincoln revived the national fast day where people were to fast from food and repent for national sins and return to God’s ways.

There was in the Unitarian Church a move to list in their preamble that they followed the Lord Jesus Christ in their convention in 1865. This caused heated debate. Unitarians already had a strong non-creedal tradition and this was seen as developing a creed, a doctrine that people had to agree on. Two years after the civil war ended, there was a split in the Unitarian Church with the founding of the Free Religious Association. This group rejected the notion of a personal god. And the Free Religious Association leaned heavily on the teachings of science and the implications of the Origin of Species.

Someone asked a question regarding the Ethical Culture Society and Unitarian Universalism. As a side bar, the Free Religious Association while it later reconciled with the Unitarian Church and rejoined, one of its members was Felix Adler, a reform Jew in NYC. Felix Adler was the founder of the Ethical Culture Society in the mid 1870’s after the Free Religious Association dissolved and rejoined the Unitarians. They have four principles to our seven and these four principles are similar in concept to ours. So in genealogical terms, the Ethical Culture Society would be cousins to Unitarian Universalists. There is one ethical cultural society that has joined the UUA in recent years. This is the society in the Washington, DC region.

When the Free Religious Association disbanded and rejoined the Unitarians, the Unitarians had shifted in their thinking closer to the notion that god was not a personal god. There was an emphasis once again of their non-creedal heritage. By the late 1800’s the Christian world was no longer calling Unitarians a Christian faith. Unitarians still called themselves Christian but the rest of the Christian world did not recognize Unitarians as such. The Universalists were right behind the Unitarians in their evolution away from Christianity as their core identity.

At the turn of the 20th century there was the first world war which again profoundly impacted Unitarian thought. The rise of the social sciences led to the hope that humanity could perhaps evolve beyond violence. In the 1930’s there was the Humanist Manifesto, signed by many Unitarian clergy. And by World War Two, the Unitarian Church no longer declared itself to be a Christian denomination and the belief in a god, personal or otherwise was no longer assumed. There are other evolutionary factors that occurred along the way.

Why are UU’s not considered a denomination? Follow-up with are we a denomination or something else—a school of thought, a movement, a unique religion?

This notion of Unitarian Universalism being a denomination, a school of thought, a movement, a unique religion is still being debated. There are many among us who still see us as a denomination of the Christian religion. Remember the term denomination refers to being a sub-set of a larger whole. The World Council of Churches, which prides itself as being the most inclusive ecumenical organization of all of Christendom does not recognize us as a denomination since we as an association of congregations do not proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Our heritage came up through the reformation of the 1500’s and then through the puritans in the American Colonies. Congregationalism is the governance that we adopted as opposed to an Episcopal or presbytery format. This had to do with the fear of any one person or body having control over another group as experienced in England in the late 1500’s and 1600’s. So while our governance structure is similar to other Congregationalist faiths, like Baptists and United Church of Christ we are not a Christian denomination.

I suppose one could argue that we are denomination of the free church which would include The Ethical Culture Society, Unity, and Science of Mind, all cousins to Unitarian Universalists and descendents of the thoughts and teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The next two questions I am going to read together because they are essentially the same question from two different poles.

“What is the role of atheism and religious skepticism in a Unitarian Universalist congregation? I ask because I’m occasionally uncomfortable with references to God, Jesus, heaven, and even spirituality in our sermons or music. Are UUs really welcoming in this regard, or welcoming only in hopes that that skeptics will “come to religion (lite)”?”

 “If it is okay for members to follow their own path, then if a member wants to follow the path of Christianity (and actually talk about it) why are UUs sensitive and touchy about that? If somebody wants to follow the path of, say, Hindu. That’s fine. If you say you’re a Christian, many (sometimes angrily) want to know ‘what are you doing here?’”

It is a challenge, isn’t it to be a non-creedal group and be willing to be together in covenant regarding a set of principles? Remaining in covenant with one another is hard work. Yet that is what we are called to do. We have a purpose in the greater society to show the world that a diverse group of people can indeed be in community with one another. We can honor one another’s view points and conclusions as being valid even when they seemingly are contrary to everything we have processed in our lives to date. As congregations we have covenanted together to affirm and promote a set of principles and to draw upon a living tradition that derives from many sources.

There are two principles that address this polarity directly. Our third principle states “Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.” Our fourth principle states “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Can we be accepting of one another here, even when the person in the pew next to you has not come to the same conclusions you have regarding the ultimate questions?

Last April we affirmed as our mission statement that we saw ourselves as being “an open and nurturing Unitarian Universalist community made visible by our actions to make a better world.” In order to show ourselves as open and nurturing out the world we need to be open and nurturing in here.

To me that means I choose to be in covenant with you to listen to your journey with my heart, accepting your words as your best expression at this moment in time AND you in covenant with me, choose to listen to my journey with your heart, accepting my words as my best expression at this moment in time. Together, we may learn some new piece of wisdom that can only be revealed when these two expressions come together.

I recently heard of a story of a rabbi who met a person who had a Jewish surname. The rabbi said “your surname is Jewish yes? but I don’t recall ever seeing you attending Shabbat.” The person answered, “yes, rabbi, my surname is indeed Jewish but I am an atheist so I do not attend Shabbat.” The rabbi answered, “What does being atheist have to do with being Jewish?”

Actually, everything. The Jewish faith is founded on a covenant with God / the ultimate other. Remove the ultimate other from the covenant and you are left being alone. Even if one is using God in the metaphorical sense of the cosmic unknown, if that is removed then there is nothing.

One could argue I suppose that the community is metaphorically god and that is where the covenant lies but the metaphor as presented in the Abrahamic text breaks down with that notion. Abraham was alone when he made his covenant with god; there was no community present. And that paradoxically becomes the strongest argument for the atheist who is also Jewish. His covenant is first and foremost with himself. The Jewish community invites him to expand that covenant to be inclusive of others. Our UU congregations could be said to do the same. We invite you to expand your covenant to be inclusive of others.

The role of the atheist in our congregations is a prophetic role. As we ponder on the mysteries of the universe, we humans have an amazing ability to develop matrixes with things that simply are not there. Seeing Jesus in a water stain on a wall is one such example. Our minds are always searching to make meaning out of everything we see. The devout catholic might in response set up an altar with candles. The atheist is there reminding us to use our sources which include “humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science…” to say “nope just a water stain, nothing miraculous to see here folks, move along now.”

The covenant that we seek with one another is not based on a doctrine or belief. So as time evolves, the pendulum between the two poles of atheism and theism within our congregations are allowed to swing. There is a need for both in our communities. The one that says nothing miraculous to see here folks, move along now and the one who sees the face of Jesus in the water stain and from this regains the hope and vision to rebuild a disintegrating community. This is the wonder of the possibility. Both have a role in our congregations. Both can help us find the transcendent reality.

It is true that this congregation was founded predominantly by secular humanists over fifty years ago. But we are no longer a collection of secular humanists; we are of many different beliefs, of many different paths. The question these two questions are really posing is this: Can we be in covenant with one another today given that we are as diverse theologically as the spectrum of humanity?

This seems to be our growing edge as a beloved community. Some of us are uncomfortable with the language of religion in our midst. Some of us are uncomfortable at the lack of spirituality in our midst.

I wonder if you would be willing to identify where you resonate theologically so that others will know that they are not alone here. You may resonate on several areas so as I mention different spiritual paths would you raise your hands? And be free to look around, you may realize for the first time that there are people you have more in common with than you thought. Now these words are all complex and there are multi-layers as to how we define them. And I will talk about that in a minute, so with the broadest of brush strokes that these words might encompass…

With a show of hands, how many here resonate with being atheist? How many here resonate with being agnostic? How many here resonate with being Buddhist? How many here resonate being Bahá’i? How many here resonate with being Christian? …with being Hindu? … with being Jewish? … with being Muslim? … with being Mormon? … with being Pagan? … with being Pentecostal? … with a Native American religion? … with being New Age? How many here resonate with some other spiritual path?

We are a diverse group. We should all feel free to discuss our beliefs here with out worry of ridicule and scorn. Unfortunately, I know that is not the case here. If we have felt uncomfortable with words and ideas being expressed here, can we examine where we sit with our third and fourth principles? Do we truly honor these principles in our lives?

I guarantee that if you were to move to another community and sought out a Unitarian Universalist congregation there, you would find a different configuration of spiritual paths. You might not be comfortable attending King’s Chapel in Boston with its common book of prayer revised when that congregation left the Anglican faith and became Unitarian in the 1700’s. You might not be comfortable attending All Souls in Tulsa, OK where Bishop Carlton Pearson’s former congregation has now joined as members and meets with them every Sunday with hands in the air. ( Bishop Pearson, you might recall had one of the largest mega Pentecostal churches in Tulsa and then he discovered the message of universalism and his congregation was reduced to a fraction of its size.)  You might not be comfortable in a Unitarian church in Transylvania where they serve communion to honor and renew the covenant they believe Jesus was making with his disciples. You might not feel comfortable in First Unitarian in Chicago with its dominant humanist message. These are the varieties of expression of Unitarian Universalism.

However, if you believe that the principles in which we covenant to uphold is a useful guide then all these expressions in the final analysis should not matter because all of our paths can enrich our lives and be made better for them. I am enriched by the presence of Christians here. I am enriched by the presence of Atheists. I am enriched by the presence of our diverse theology. Each offers a gift that will enable my faith to grow, and I believe that for you as well.

Theologian James Luther Adams said, “An unexamined faith is not worth having, for it can be true only by accident. A faith worth having is a faith worth discussing and testing.” This statement is true for all of us regardless of our path.

+++++ Let’s look for a minute at the multiplicity of the words here. Someone identifies as an atheist here what does that mean? It may mean they do not believe in a personal God as defined by Christianity. Or It may mean that they do not believe there is any divine or otherwise force that created the universe. That definition of atheist is different from the first.

Someone identifies as being Christian. What does that mean? It may mean that they believe that Jesus is the son of god, both divine and human and that Jesus came to take away the sins of the world. And that he will return again to judge the quick and the dead. Or it may mean that they try to follow the teachings and example of Jesus as a great human teacher. They may not believe the other aspects of the orthodox faith. Or it may mean that they identify as a Christian as a cultural identification. They grew up in the Bible belt and therefore they recognize the cultural aspects of Christianity as their own but they adhere to the specific teachings only to the extent that these have influenced the culture in which they live.

So when someone wears a Cross and attends a UU congregation what does that mean? Can we assume it means they are bible thumping evangelicals who believe that Jesus is the only way, radically pro-life, and they are anxiously awaiting the rapture to whisk them away so they will avoid the demonic forces of the Great Tribulation? Please don’t.

If this thought washes across your mind, please keep it to yourself because we have a mission that we are seeking to fulfill. We want to be an open, nurturing Unitarian Universalist community and by questioning someone that they don’t belong here because they wear a cross or that they pray to Jesus when they feel in need is not open nor nurturing and it is certainly not Unitarian Universalist. See principles 1, 2, 3, and 4 and read our sources again, where we state that we draw from the Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. God’s love could be interpreted as the warmth of community, feel free to translate as needed to increase comfort level. I say that not to be facetious but in the honest truth that we sometimes, in order to understand within our personal contexts, need to translate.

What do you (meaning I) make of the G** word?

I thought it only fair to answer this question. Even though I have had a long history of being a charismatic Christian, I do not identify as a Christian in the orthodox meaning of that word. I do not believe in a personal god. I do not believe that there is a god who is watching over my shoulder to see if I am living according to HIS plan. Gender use is deliberate. I do not believe in an omniscient omnipresent god. So in this regard I would be an atheist.

For me, the concept of god is all that is and all that is not. It is the expanse of everything known and unknown. And I think there is quite a bit that is unknown. But this is a conceptual god not an actual entity or stream of reality.

I recognize the legitimacy for those who believe in a personal god. And I can accept their language to express their experiences of this personal god because the experiences they are describing are universal. The interpretation of what those experiences mean may not be. I don’t have to agree with the interpretation of their experiences but I can find affinity with the experience.

Who has not experienced a love so rich and deep that it was transcendent? Now to a Pentecostal that might be described as being blessed by the Spirit (with a capital S) to an atheist it might be the increase of oxytocin in their brains. The experience is the same. If you or I were to experience this, it would be up to you and me to define its meaning.

Because of personal experiences that I have found no reasonable or rational explanation, I consider myself a metaphysical mystic. This is the best way to date that I have been able to reconcile my charismatic Christian experiences and the paranormal experiences I have had in my life. I no longer seek to define them within a context of religion because those answers are simply too dualistic for me. I have grown comfortable in the mystery and wonder of life and so I let those experiences be and am amazed when they occur. May we all be comfortable in the mystery and the questions of life. Blessed Be.

Socialism, Healthcare reform, and Fear

I am trying to wrap my head around the fear that is being sounded across America and in Alabama about healthcare reform and socialism.  There have been town hall discussions on health care reform and people are shouting angrily not so much about health care reform but about socialism.  People have said their number one fear is not about health care reform but because they are afraid of Obama because he is a socialist.  WHAT? 

What is this about?  This doesn’t even make sense.   First off, Obama is not a socialist, not even close.  His health care reform is not a single payer system which is what socialist countries have.   And just what is so bad about socialism?  The countries that are socialist democracies last I knew were our strongest allies and friends in the world.  These countries tend to defend our most outrageous decisions like invading Iraq.   I mean they are our staunchest friends not enemies.  Friends can learn from friends.  Perhaps we could learn from them about how to better care for our citizens. 

These socialist countries  have better life expectancies than we do and lower infant mortality rates than we do.  Better than we do, the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world.   We are 50th in the world for life expectancy with an average of 78.1  Some country I haven’t even heard of, Macau, is number one with 84.36.  Singapore has the best infant mortality rate of 2.31 per 1,000 births.  We are 45 nations behind Singapore with 6.29 per 1,000 births.  Cuba has a better infant mortality rate than us. 

Why?  Maybe because all of their citizens regardless of income or station in life have access to health care.  Our current system of a free market health care system is not, I repeat, is not in our best interest.   It is in the best interest of the insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical industries.   We have missed the mark  on this one.  We have placed these industries on a higher value pedestal than the lives of our children and grandparents, even above our own lives.   That to me screams of idolatry. 

We have people being denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions, conditions that in order to live a full and productive life needs medical treatment.  They cannot afford the treatments and therefore are not treated and then they die an early death because of it. We have people with life threatening conditions being denied hospital care because they do not have insurance being sent to hospitals hours away that will take them. If we are to be afraid, be afraid of a country that allows, no wills its citizens to die than remain healthy and productive.  How screwed up is this thinking?   

We need health care reform.  I personally believe that the best answer to ensure that all Americans  regardless of income regardless of medical conditions need to have access to a single payer system.  It is the only system that I have seen that has resulted in increased longevity of people, decreased the infant mortality rate, and contained health care costs across the board.   But that is not what  Obama’s administration is advocating for.  He is advocating for a middle ground between what we currently have a free market system that has run amok and is crushing the backs of the American people and a single payer system.    Will it work? 

I don’t know.  But it is not something to fear.  It is something to get behind and work towards a solution.. so that our lives, the lives of our children and children’s children can be healthier and more productive. 

To quote FDR, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Fear is irrational and is usually based in rumors and innuendos and not in facts or reasonable thoughts. 

Wouldn’t we rather live in a country where we do not have to worry about how to pay to treat our diabetes or high blood pressure ? Or worry that our new employment site’s benefit package is not going to deny coverage for our pre-existing condition of high blood pressure?   Wouldn’t we rather know that doctors are going to be guiding our treatment plans rather than some insurance company that doesn’t know us and is more concerned with its bottom line of profit than our well -being?     

Isn’t this the country that we fought hard to protect so that we are free to live out our inalienable rights to  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?  Shouldn’t these values be expressed consistently and equally across the board in how we govern and work in this country?   Blessings,

Southland UU Leadership Experience

SUULE attendees 2009

The third week of July, I was at the Mountain Retreat and Learning Center in Highlands, NC serving as faculty for what was called Southland UU Leadership Experience (SUULE).  This was a four district collaboration.  Southwest Conference, Mid-South, Thomas Jefferson, and Florida districts came together to develop this revamped version of leadership school for congregations in the Mid-South, TJ and Florida districts.  

What made this truly an experience was the immersing of the participants into a case study congregation about the same size of congregation that they currently belong.   Each congregational group had to name their congregation, develop a mission statement, and define for themselves the values of the congregation.  

There were lectures presenting the history of congregationalism in this country.   This history was not just a dry reading of events but a delving into the values  of our founders as found in the Cambridge Platform of 1648.    There were presentations on Systems theory as it pertains to congregations.   There were presentations on worship theory.  Four avenues were available in which to process all of this information.  These were congregational groups, student led worship services, chalice circles, and an optional spiritual practice group.  Woven through all of this was James Luther Adams five smooth stones of religious liberalism along with what became a mantra for us, SUULE leader Connie Goodbread’s  “Faith Development is all we do.  Unitarian Universalism is all we teach.  The congregation is the curriculum.”

All of this information was synthesized in examining the case studies of the various sized congregations where the ‘members’ of the congregation were asked to identify triangulation, homeostasis forces, roles and other factors being played out in the system of the congregation.   None of the scenarios were far fetched as the case studies were compilations of congregations across our faith tradition. 

It was indeed a leadership experience to allow these participants an opportunity to step back and look at a congregational system functioning  given the skills and mindsets in the scenarios.  The real learning will take place when these individuals return to their own congregations and begin noticing the same tendencies at work.  How will they respond differently now that they know and can recognize self -defeating behavior.   

I strongly recommend congregations to find the money to be able to send two or three people from the congregation to this event next year.  Having a team from the congregation attend will ensure the possibility of transforming our congregations into healthier systems.  All congregations regardless of size or health will benefit from such an infusion of wisdom and skills.  This is money spent as an investment in the future of the congregation.  It will be held again next year  August 8-12 2010.

At the bottom of the SUULE web-page is this quote by Rev. Frank Thomas:

“Leadership is the spiritual process of discerning what one believes (clarity), acting on that belief in the public arena (decisiveness), and standing behind that action (responsibility) despite the varied responses of people (courage).”

SUULE certainly began that process of leadership development for its participants this year.   At this moment, if I am asked to serve again as faculty at SUULE, my answer will be a resounding YES.  Blessings,