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Believe
it or Not First Unitarian Church of Des Moines 9/24/05 and 9/25/05
“Perhaps we should realize that our need is not to ‘find something to believe’—but rather to discover what our lives indicate that we believe right now. This is the place to start.” –Edith Hunter, Unitarian Universalist Religious Educator
Meditation for 9/24 and 9/25 From a 1969 mediation collection by UU minister Charles White McGehee.
Religion is not passive, but active. It is not a retreat, but an advance. A relentless advance Into both the realities of daily existence And the mysteries of the spirit. Religion is not a withdrawal But a relentless encounter with reality. Reality is not always pleasant Nor is it always comfortable. Religion, then, is not a mirror In which we see ourselves merely as we are, Or as we would want others to see us. The reflection is often less clear than the dream. Religion is rather a door Leading to many other doors: One related to the other, In wholeness and entirety; A progression, a growth; A closing and an opening; A process and a progression A force which resists inertia, Knowing yet that inertia also Is part of the process. Thus we march and serve and give; And we love, particularly Those things most difficult to love.
Reading From UU minister David Bumbaugh:
The heart of a faith for the twenty-first century, I am convinced, is suggested by [Unitarian Universalism’s] seventh principle: “Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.” Hidden in this apparently uncomplicated, uncontroversial, innocuous statement is a radical theological position. The seventh Principle calls us to reverence before the world, not some future world, but this miraculous world of our everyday experience. It challenges us to understand the world as reflexive and relational rather than hierarchical. It bespeaks a world in which neither god nor humanity is at the center; in which the center is the void, the ever fecund matrix out of which being emerges….It calls us to trust the process, the creative, evolving, renewing, redeeming process which brings us into being, which sustains us in being, and which transforms our being. It offers a vision of a world in which the holy, the sacred is incarnated in every moment, in every aspect of being, a world in which God is always fully present, and in which God is always fully at risk.
Reading “Praying Hands” by Ted Kooser
There
is at least one pair
Sermon I suppose we could have called it a confession. My friend, a woman many years older than me, held my gaze for a moment, exhaled, and then admitted that she believed she had “lost her faith.” I nodded, and let the words hang in the room for a moment or two. In the silence, I thought about what my friend might need most from me at that moment. After all, she wasn’t a member of our church and I am not her minister. In fact, she was raised Catholic and has attended Mass faithfully for most of her life. Still, I ended up giving her the response I would most likely give to any of you if you were to offer me similar words. “What do you mean by faith?” I asked.
Her quick response suggested she had anticipated the question. “I just don’t think I believe in any of it any more. I’m not sure I am a Catholic.”
Again, I resisted the urge to respond too quickly.
I have known my friend for over a decade and in all this time we had never discussed the particulars of her faith, other than her occasionally telling me that she thought she had some Unitarian impulses in her.
“What makes a person Catholic?” I wondered aloud.
She didn’t worry about answering my question directly, choosing instead to admit that she didn’t believe all the dogma, all the rules, all the restrictions. She said that she had come to realize that she was interested in what Jesus did and taught…and that was about it.
“How is that different from how you have felt before?” I asked.
Again, she took my question in another direction. “I just don’t feel I belong in that community any more.”
Now I had known that she had been involved in this particular community for most of her adult life. It had been an important place in her history. A liberal-minded, social-justice oriented Catholic church. She raised her children there, had nearly all her family’s major rites of passage there, even said goodbye to her husband there. The community had been important to her, so I didn’t want to assume she was doing anything more with her confession than letting off steam.
“Tell me about what has changed for you,” I asked.
She spoke of how she didn’t feel challenged spiritually, how her church-sponsored faith sharing group was dominated by a couple of surly fellows, and how she found herself just showing up to Mass and ducking out afterwards as quickly as possible.
Now I know, this being “Bring a Friend Weekend” and all, you may be expecting to hear a story of how I offered the Unitarian Universalist sales pitch to her…how I convinced her to attend a UU church and maybe even how her life changed once she did.
But that’s not what happened. (Well, at least not yet!)
After all, there is no guarantee that she would be challenged spiritually in a UU church, for I believe we are only challenged to the extent of our capacity…sometimes we have control over this and sometimes we don’t. There can be no assurance that she would not be a part of a small group dominated by a couple of surly people, for any group of people, regardless of their faith perspective, can be dominated by a disrespectful few, if the participants allow it. And there is no certainty that once in a UU community, she wouldn’t just duck out the door as soon as the service ended, for the choice would still be hers.
My response to her was the same I would offer to anyone struggling with her place in this or any other religious community that is not, I must add, violent or abusive. I told her, “This may not be the time for you to walk away from your church.”
I offered this response to her, and I would to you, too, because, from my liberal religious perspective, a lack of certainty about faith is not a mark of failure, or a good reason to walk away from the pursuit of meaning or community. Rather, a lack of certainty about faith is an invitation…an invitation to invest ourselves more deeply in the pursuit. Uncertainty is perhaps the greatest asset any of us has in our religious journeys because it is the circumstance that most readily leads to honest inquiry, where we drop the pretense of somehow needing to know it all or the assumption that we are not devout if we doubt. As psychologist James Fowler taught, humans are creatures who require meaning and who have developed religions in response to this need. Overlooking the ways in which people throughout time have searched for this meaning or choosing one approach as the only way, to the exclusion of all others, is not only short-sighted, it is dangerous. As German theologian Dorothy Solle has put it, faith without doubt is not stronger; it is merely more ideological.
When I use the word “faith” today, I am talking about the unique system of belief that each of us uses in an attempt to grapple with what are often called the “Big Questions”--questions about the meaning of life and death, our place in the universe, the ground of our being. Faith, then, is the set of principles by which we deal with these ambiguities. Rather than strict adherence to one answer, or set of answers, in response to mysteries of our existence, a liberal approach to faith emphasizes openness to the void. It is welcoming of doubt and questioning. And it challenges its adherents to value humility higher than certainty.
That’s why I did not suggest to my friend that she abandon her church, at least not yet. Instead, I encouraged her to speak her truth (which, of course, includes her doubt) to others in her community, to search out those who might share her challenges, and to create new connections as an outgrowth of her sense of disconnection. This way, not only is she served by taking her doubt seriously, others might be, too.
In essence I was suggesting the same approach offered by 14th century Persian poet Hafiz, who wrote:
Don't surrender your loneliness So
quickly, Has made my eyes so soft, My voice so tender. My need of love absolutely clear.
I think about this poem when I consider all of the new people we have at the church these days. Over the past three years or so, we have added over 100 members, many of whom were (and still are) new to Unitarian Universalism. Occasionally, I have an opportunity to hear from these new folks that they are still not sure if they fit in here, that our approach to religion, even if it grew out of Christianity more than 200 years ago, is so different from their previous experiences that they cannot help but consider that perhaps they have made a mistake. After all, during services here, we rarely speak of God without qualifying that God is a concept that is problematic for some of our members. We rarely pray (without also suggesting that people could meditate or reflect instead, if they choose) and there may be several weeks in a row when the Bible is mentioned only in passing, if at all.
Let’s face it. The whole thing can seem pretty bizarre.
And yet…
To those of you who feel a little lost here, whether this is your first time with us or your fiftieth, allow me to make a suggestion: “don’t surrender your loneliness too quickly.” Give us the chance to get to know you. We need to hear of your struggle and your doubt, for those things are important to us. We need your presence to ferment and season us. We need your contribution to the never-ending dialogue that is our faith. And, may I so boldly presume that you need us, too. You could be needing this liberal religious community to reflect your doubt back to you, to challenge you to increase your understanding of what is different among us, and thereby expand what is possible between us.
Trust me, there is room here for any humble, open-minded seeker…and even those who aren’t so humble or open-minded, but who know how to give others the space they need to continue discovering their own unique religious path. A healthy liberal religious community is open to difference, particularly theological difference. It is willing to grapple with diversity of opinion and humble attempts at understanding. It is more interested in getting to know how others view reality than in an obsession with one particular view. Perhaps UU minister Tom Owen-Towle put it best when he said that Unitarian Universalists are “called to converse, not to convert.”
Of course there may be those among us who do not seem all that interested in this kind of conversation…those of us who have it all figured out, thank you very much. Don’t be fooled by our bravado. We are, after all, just as wounded and challenged by this “wretched and magnificent” life as you are. That’s why we need to be gentle with each other. As Rev. Owen-Towle says, “A healthy church charges its members to speak their faith with passion and without fear or equivocation but with caring regard for the humanity of the person across the table.”
Preach it, brother!
One of my favorite places where this kind of interaction happens is in the church’s Small Group Ministry program, which will soon begin its eighth six-month session. Sunday marks the final day to enroll before the fall groups begin to meet [however, groups are always open to new members. Contact Rev. Stringer at minister@ucdsm.org or our new member coordinator Lori Emison Clair at membership@ucdsm.org to find a group that fits your schedule.] The program features groups of 6-10 members and friends of our church who covenant to gather twice a month for two hours at a time to get to know each other more deeply than what might be possible otherwise, to reflect together upon some of life’s big and not-so-big questions, and to perform a service project together for the church or greater community. There is perhaps no greater expression of Unitarian Universalism in action than this program because it is designed to enable people to serve, while making meaningful connections to others…connections that can grow our understandings of life…connections that can grow our souls.
Before concluding, I need to be sure I make one more point about liberal religion. It is, for me, perhaps the most important point of my remarks today. A lack of certainty, which can be not only inevitable but desirable, does not and should not imply a lack of conviction or serve as proof that in this church people can believe “whatever they want,” for this is simply not true. In fact, our understanding that doubt is acceptable is a conviction itself…as is our interest in equity and compassion in human relations, the use of democratic process, an ultimate goal of world community, and respect for the interdependent web of life of which we are a part.
It is this respect for the interdependent web, in fact, that grounds everything else. If we are all inextricably connected to each other and to this planet, then it matters what we do, who we know, and how we are together. It is the inspiration for our humility and the source of our hope. That’s why the best way to express our Unitarian Universalist approach to religion is not to simply describe it, but to live it with our neighbors…whether they agree with our approach or not. Who we are in the world is always more important that who we say we are.
Or as Rev. William E. Gardner put it: “We all have two religions: the religion we talk about and the religion we live. It is our task to make the difference between these two as small as possible.”
Closing Words Adapted words of Greta W. Crosby If I could give you one key, and one key only, to more abundant life, I would give you a sense of your own worth, an unmistakable sense of your own dignity as one grounded in the source of the cosmic dance, as one who plays a unique part in the unfolding of the story of the world….Secure in the sense of our own worth, we could then rejoice in the worth of others and love out of fullness instead of an inner emptiness that eats others alive.
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