On Religion: Dan Brown Has It Wrong

Like some (or perhaps even many) of you, I’m reading Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol. It’s a great read, no doubt about it. But early on, there’s this one part that really bugs me. It’s on page 30, where one of Professor Langdon’s Harvard undergraduates wonders whether Masonry is a religion. “Give it the litmus test,” says Langdon. “What are the three prerequisites for an ideology to be considered a religion?” An alert student answers, “ABC. Assure, Believe, Convert.” “Correct,” Langdon replies. “Religions assure salvation; religions believe in a precise theology; and religions convert nonbelievers.”

This is the part that bugs me. A bajillion people are going to read Dan Brown’s thriller, and most of them will swallow his definition of religion—which is a bad one—without blinking an eye. According to his definition, liberal Christianity is not a religion. Neither is Judaism, Taoism, or Unitarian Universalism. None follow the ABC formula.

But if ABC doesn’t describe Unitarian Universalism, what does?

For me, the better formula is EMC. Unitarian Universalism envisions a transformed world; Unitarian Universalism maps the way there; and Unitarian Universalism challenges people to be inner-directed and authentic in their spirituality. EMC.

Take E. Our religion envisions a future in which people respect the interdependent web of all existence as well as the inherent worth and dignity of every person that dwells within it. Our religion envisions the spread of faith communities which support a free and responsible search for truth and meaning in an empowering context of mutual acceptance and encouragement. Our religion envisions world community, grounded in democracy, in which there is peace, liberty, and justice for all. All of this comprises the transformed world which Unitarian Universalism envisions.

Note how I have simply reframed the Seven Principles here. The “E” part of my EMC formula touches on things we are already familiar with. And so does the “M” part. “M” maps out the way forward by naming specific spiritual disciplines which, if practiced regularly, will enable us to help make Unitarian Universalism’s inspired, future oriented-vision come true. These spiritual disciplines include worship, study, service, generosity, life in covenant-centered community, and inner-development practices like prayer or meditation. Each of these is an integral part of the map.

E, M, and, finally, C. “C” stands for “challenge”: Unitarian Universalism does not so much convert as challenge. It challenges people to face up to the fact that our transformed vision of the world is not guaranteed; we must work hard to make it so. It challenges people to be willing to grow and change over time, even if it takes us into places of chaos and messiness and grief. It challenges us to trust life and have faith that it is worth living, even in the worst of times. It challenges us to reject parroting other people’s religious ideas and to be authentic and inner-directed in what we believe and value. It challenges us to connect with the Divine Spark that is within each and all and, out of this experience of wonder and awe, to heal our world and make it whole.

This is the formula that describes our faith. Not ABC, but EMC. And do you see how closely it resembles Einstein’s famous equation: E=MC2? I think there’s an intriguing suggestion here. In our Unitarian Universalist way of religion, there is power. Dan Brown may not know it. Let’s be sure we do.

On Repelling Fewer People: Reflections on Multiculturalism and More

During this year’s Ministry Days and General Assembly, the trend toward multiculturalism in American society came up repeatedly—most notably in Paul Rasor’s Berry Street Lecture and UUA President Peter Morales’ campaign speeches.

Paul Rasor asks, “Is our brand of religious liberalism fatally linked to a demographic that’s fading?” In 2042, projections indicate that white people will compose only 50.8% of the population. Will we still be a faith community that is 90% white, as we are today and as we have been for the past 10 years, even after all the proactive antiracism, multiculturalism work of leaders in our denomination? “We face a major turning point: will we stand, or will we move?”

Echoing this, President Morales says, “One of our problems is we have a faith with enormous appeal, but we need to stop packaging it in Yankee culture.” We need “a new faith for a new America.”

Our congregational culture proves to be a barrier to many people who would otherwise love to be a part of us because they love what we love: the promise of personal and social transformation through free religion. Of what does this culture consist? From comments shared by Rosemary Bray McNatt, following on the heels of Paul Rasor’s lecture, this culture is a matter of aesthetic and lifestyle preferences: “We don’t own TVs, don’t like gospel and pop music and definitely don’t like rap, are unapologetic nature lovers, eat locally, say NO to shopping at Wal Mart, listen to NPR, love Garrison Keillor, read ahead in the hymnal to see if we agree with the words we are about to sing.” But, says Rosemary, “how does this allow us to encounter people whose experience of church is different? What’s their entry point into our congregations?”

I can personally attest to this. As Lead Minister of the Pathways Church project (the initial “rapid-start large church”) from 2003-2007, I was given this marching order: think outside of the Unitarian Universalist box, explore ways in which non-UU churches attract people by the thousands, and then, through trial-and error, create a church that integrates these dynamic elements. Build a new kind of Unitarian Universalist church for a new day, one that is at its core UU even as, on the surface, it might look and feel very different from what UUs are used to.

I can personally attest to what Paul, Peter, and Rosemary are getting at because the people who resisted this the most and gave me the most trouble were existing Unitarian Universalists. By contrast, people who had never heard of Unitarian Universalism before and found us (or we found them) were delighted, excited, on board and wanting more. But not existing UUs. Part of this definitely related to worship style. At Pathways, we modeled our worship after the intense, full-immersion worship favored by many evangelical and non-denominational congregations. Our music was primarily popular—one time we even did some rap—and it proved to be the golden thread that ran throughout our services, at times joyfully energizing us while, at other times, taking us to sweet silent places of prayer and reflection. Our services also appealed to multiple-learning styles in that they featured visual, dramatic, and kinesthetic components. I will never forget after one of our first services, how a 75 year-old-woman came up to me and said that it was the best worship she had ever experienced in her life. She loved the music. She loved the slice-of-life dramas. She loved the multimedia. The lesson is clear: it’s absolutely false to say that only youth and young adults prefer contemporary worship. Many people in this world hunger after worship that helps them connect with energy and joy in the idiom of contemporary American life. Many people, that is, who are not already Unitarian Universalist. I can’t tell you how many times I was “pecked to death” by people who came to us from other Unitarian Universalist congregations—people whose sense of what is proper for UU culture was mortally offended by what they were experiencing in our pews. They smelled white trash, and they sneered.

Pathways definitely taught me that Unitarian Universalism, as it is practiced in most if not all of our congregations, is an ethnic religion with cultural norms. Violate the norms, and you are in trouble. Free religion only in mind but not where freedom most fully and truly resides: in the heart and in the body.

And yet…. Even as I can personally relate to what Paul and Peter and Rosemary are saying, I feel that there are other, more significant obstacles to people entering into our faith (and staying). I am particularly struck by how all such obstacles tend to remain generally unspoken, unsaid, and unacknowledged.

One of these unspoken obstacles came to light for me during the opening events at General Assembly. During the opening plenary, outgoing UUA President Bill Sinkford reviewed the highlights of his administration’s achievements, and part of this included a recitation of injustice after injustice in the world, which he enjoined the Unitarian Universalist community to address. Then, during the opening worship that followed, he spoke of truth and reconciliation and formally apologized to representatives of local Indian tribes for what we did in the 19th century: our complicity (however ineffective) in the U. S. government’s initiative to “civilize” the indigenous tribes of Utah and elsewhere. By no means do I think that such an apology was unnecessary. By no means do I think that the evils of the world should go unchecked. Yet the whole thing, from first to last, was so solemn, so earnest, so suggestive of … overfunctioning. I sensed behind it all a larger pattern—a troubling pattern—which I will call “the Unitarian Universalist superego.”

Historically, our UU superego can be traced back to our Boston Brahmin forbearers, though the form it takes today reflects great distance from those social movers and shakers and the transformation of many years. Now it is a moralism that combines masochism with workaholism. Every evil in the world becomes our problem—its very existence suggests some kind of collaboration on our part, unwitting if not witting. And since we are interrupted Calvinists who have rejected the guilt-discharging techniques of our ancient ancestors without replacing them with anything else, the sense of guilt just builds and builds. Can’t get away from it. Our backs ache from the accumulated weight. We have become guilt-grubbers. We look for ways to kick ourselves.

The UU superego is into masochism, and it is into workaholism. We must be overachievers, in the lead attacking every social ill. Theologically, it’s not enough to become familiar with one world religious tradition—we’ve got to know them all, in addition to every liberal art and every science. Our dreams have got to be the biggest. And if we are going to do “diversity,” well, then, we’re gonna do Noah’s Ark diversity. We’re gonna gather two of every possible kind within our walls—we’re going to aspire to doing something only a God could do. We are going to act like the God that most of us don’t believe in. It’s all up to us. Poet Wendell Berry says, “Not by your will is the house carried through the night,” but we don’t believe it. It’s ALL up to us. If we don’t do it, it’s not going to happen.

Now I know that I verge upon exaggeration. I know it. Yet every time I hear a key UU voice reciting a litany of all the evils in the world, together with the message that we’ve just got to DO something, I feel the weight of the Unitarian Universalist superego: the masochism, the workaholism. What a heavy burden we place upon our shoulders. What a heavy burden we place upon the shoulders of those who come to us.

Makes me wonder what Meg Barnhouse’s surly waitress would have to say to us. “In my life,” says Meg, “I have certain things to take care of: my children, my relationships, my work, myself, and one or two causes. That’s it. Other things are not my table. I would go nuts if I tried to take care of everyone, if I tried to make everybody do the right thing. If I went through my life without ever learning to say, ‘Sorry, that’s not my table, Hon,’ I would burn out and be no good to anybody. I need to have a surly waitress inside myself that I can call on when it seems that everyone in the world is waving an empty coffee cup in my direction. My Inner Waitress looks over at them, keeping her six plates balanced and her feet moving, and says, ‘Sorry, Hon, not my table.’”

We need to have a surly waitress within ourselves and within our movement, so we don’t burn out.

The next day, I went to Mark Morrison-Reed’s workshop entitled “The Perversity of Diversity.” In it, I was delighted to encounter a message that echoed my own sensibilities somewhat. It was my first GA workshop—I came there right after breakfast at the Radisson, during which I spent most of the time gulping coffee and writing cranky things in my journal. Mark shared his own thoughts about how UUism is an ethnic religion. He affirmed how, as a liberal religion, we are especially responsive to currents and trends in contemporary life, saying, “Rather than leading, we are reaping the rewards of a changing society. The growth of the black and Hispanic middle class has led to more blacks and Hispanics in our pews.” Mark also put his finger on how we assign ourselves incredibly ambitious goals and then, when (of course) we fall short, we fret, we self-flagellate. It’s moral workaholism, moral masochism: the UU superego. I know it well, since that’s exactly what the Pathways experience made perfectly clear. The ambitious and beautiful dreams that led to it; the incredible consternation and embarrassment and outrage that exploded when things did not unfold as expected and the small church did not become large instantly, as if it were some bag of microwave popcorn. As for the people who risked much to do a new thing: scant gratitude. Small thanks.

President Morales: “One of our problems is we have a faith with enormous appeal, but we need to stop packaging it in Yankee culture.” Yes. But more important is that our faith returns to a sense of genuine reverence, as defined by philosopher Paul Woodruff: “Reverence is the virtue that helps human beings from trying to act like God.” “Reverence and a keen eye for the ridiculous are allies: both keep people from being pompous or stuck up.” It’s Meg Barnhouse’s surly inner waitress, coaching us to loosen up. We can take ourselves way too seriously. We can become anti-liberal and inegalitarian in our enthusiasm. We can become overcontrolling of each other. We can nurture a sectarian spirit that makes us feel superior to all the other religionists who are working for world peace too. Perhaps if we talked more about God we would be better humanists. We would do a better job remembering our human limitations.

Of course we should aspire to bring healing and wholeness to the world. Of course we should incarnate our “many ways” theology and celebration of life in communities of vibrant diversity. Of course. But let this not become a moralistic burden, one we are lectured into by a superego that continually whispers in our ears that we are shameful. Our surly inner waitress needs to counter and silence our Unitarian Universalist surperego. Only then will we recognize what is and what is not our table.

Mostly, I’m talking about the need for an attitude adjustment. Resisting the anxious, perfectionistic impulse to clean up the messiness of the world. Savoring the world so that our impulse to save it flows out of a sense of abundance and love. Serving out of the deep knowledge that we exist in partnership with a grace-filled universe. “Not by your will is the house carried through the night,” says Wendell Berry:

The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common.
In healing the scattered members come together.
In health the flesh is graced, the holy enters the world.

What if, for example, this grace and this health were the focus of the opening worship at General Assembly, every year? Starting out, not by reciting an earnest litany of social evils and injustice, but by remembering and invoking the grace and the health in which we live and move and have our being? The President of the UUA, saying, “Here we all are, gathered together again, and the Spirit of Life is with us as well, within us and between us, leading us towards more strength and more healing and more peace. Let’s see where it takes us, in our time together. Let’s expect to be surprised. Let’s see where we go….”

The attitude adjustment is remembering always to serve out of a visceral sense of grace and abundance. Put this at our center, and our cultural ethos will be far more sustainable and far more encouraging. We will indeed repel fewer visitors and retain more members, but more importantly, we will be making our contribution to the healing of the world, and we will trust that, however imperfect or limited our contribution, the gracious universe will turn it into some good. It will be enough.

The Work of This Holy Season

My Easter homily draws from the picture book by Jane Cutler entitled, The Cello of Mr. O. Publisher’s Weekly summarizes the story as follows: “’At night, from my window, I can see the white trails of tracer fire and the orange flash of mortars in the sky. I pretend I am watching shooting stars and meteors,’ says the nameless girl protagonist of Cutler’s moving and, sadly, timely story of the healing power of music in wartime. With winter approaching, food scarce and her father off fighting, the high point of the girl’s week is Wednesday, when the relief truck arrives and the community gathers. Most days, she sits with the other children under the stairs until their high energy levels send them running through the halls, where they taunt an unsociable musician named Mr. O. As the girl stands outside his apartment, she remembers how her father described the craftsmanship of Mr. O’s cello and the command performances of the cellist’s youth. When a rocket destroys the relief truck, Mr. O surprises the children by courageously playing music in the middle of the square and lifting their spirits.”

For me, a key moment in our story for today comes when Mama, referring to the war her family and community are suffering through, says, “This is not the first time in history that such a thing has happened.” And then her daughter says, “It may not be the first time it’s happened. But it is the first time it has happened to me.” Thus the fear and anger. Thus the sense of hopelessness.

And thus the crucial and indispensable work of the holy season before us: Passover in the Jewish tradition, Easter in the Christian tradition, and, in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, carrying forward the universal insights of Passover and Easter as well as making our own unique contribution: the Flower Celebration. The work of this holy season is exactly like Mr. O after the rocket attack, marching out into the middle of the square where everyone can see him, and playing music—powerful reassuring notes—beautiful music that lessens anger and transforms it into energy that is more productive. Music that eases fear and strengthens courage, makes our faces shine.

This is what we are doing this morning. We march out into the middle of the square, and what we play is the complicated music of human nature and human history. With Jews around the world, we Unitarian Universalists play the music of Passover, we tell the story of the grinding, seemingly endless enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt. But then comes the tipping point: Moses, aided by the power and might of the Lord, leading the people out from bondage and into freedom. “Let my people go.”

We play the music of Passover, and we also play the music of Easter. With Christians around the world, we tell the story of the great rabbi Jesus, seen as a second Moses by his followers, who once said, “I have come that people may have life, and have it abundantly.” We play the harsh music of life in first century Palestine—the people enduring extreme social and economic oppression. We play the slow, sad music of Jesus’ last days, his devastating execution at the hands of the Romans. But suffering is not the last word here, either. Some call what happened next a miracle—resurrection. Whatever happened, it is unarguable how Jesus’ followers felt that, despite the brutality and finality of his death, his spirit was still with them, still alive and vibrant, as real as ever.  

The complicated music of human nature and human history is what we play, today: music of the Passover, music of Easter, and also the music of the Flower Celebration. We tell the story of the Unitarian minister Dr. Norbert Capek, who, serving in his native land of Czechoslovakia, created a ritual that would affirm the individuality and dignity of each person, as well as the sacredness of sharing this individuality with others, in the form of friendship and community. Ironically, this Flower Celebration ritual was born in a time that saw the emergence of a modern version of ancient Egypt or Rome in the form of the Third Reich. In 1939, the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, and Capek was from that time on a marked man. The Nazis hounded him because he dared to preach about spiritual freedom, he dared to preach about the value of the individual, he dared to preach about the blessings to be experienced when individuals live in beloved community—ideas that simply couldn’t co-exist with Nazism. So they were just looking for an excuse to arrest him, and they found it when they learned he had been listening to forbidden British radio broadcasts. Eventually, in June of 1942, Norbert Capek was sent to the death camp in Dachau. The Nazis killed him by poison, an agonizing death that, as with Jesus, seemed final. But look at how Dr. Norbert Capek has been resurrected, in our midst. Look at how his ideals have triumphed and still live among us—in the end proven far stronger that the supposedly invincible Third Reich ever was.

This is the music we play, this morning; and ultimately it is about seeing the present in light of the past. “It is the first time it has happened to me,” says the girl in the story; but when she and we see the present in light of the past, we realize something. We realize that though the arc of the universe is so long that its bending towards justice is usually imperceptible, there are nevertheless moments in human history that stand out as unique, and you can actually see the bending. Enslaved Israelites freed. Jesus crucified and yet his spirit lives on. Norbert Capek’s death in a Nazi concentration camp, and yet the ideals he stood for still vibrant, still strong. Such stories have inspired Unitarian Universalists for hundreds of years bring healing and hope to the world, and they can continue to do so even if elements of the stories, interpreted literally, are inconsistent with current historical and scientific knowledge. You don’t have to take the stories literally to take them seriously. This is our privilege as Unitarian Universalists. Once we cut through all the literalism, we can begin asking the really relevant questions the stories suggest, such as, Who or what Pharaoh enslaves us today? What Red Sea rises up before you, and how are you going to cross it? Have you ever had a crucifixion-like experience of your own, when you have felt so down and so depleted and even destroyed that the very possibility of coming back to life again seems as absurd as the possibility of the literal resurrection of Jesus’ physical body?

We need to remember these stories, as this morning we step out into the middle of the square. Thankfully, no recent rocket attack here in Atlanta motivates this; there are no white trails of tracer fire and orange flash of mortars in our sky, as there are in too many other parts of the world. Yet war is only one variety of suffering—there are so many others evident all around us. On a personal scale, we could talk about all the ways we nurture resentments in our relationships and imagine the other person to be less than human—and so, as the children in the story did with Mr. O, we pop paper bags right outside their doors, we laugh and run away imagining their fear, we wage a more innocent and less consequential kind of war but it is war nevertheless. So many varieties of suffering. On a collective scale, we could talk about the recent string of mass killings around the country—how some suggest the underlying factor to be the dismal economy, the epidemic of layoffs and uncertainty. Bonuses for top bank executives, bubkus for the working man and woman. Glimmerings of improvement in the economy, yes, but this in itself can cause a special form of suffering, because then you wonder: are we fooling ourselves? Perhaps we only think we’ve hit bottom, and worse is yet to come?

It’s just like our story for today. War has already taken its grinding toll. The beloved father is gone, with the other fathers and older brothers. The streets of the city are broken. All the wood has been used up for heat, food and water are scarce, nothing is as it was. How could things get worse? And then … it gets worse. The relief truck is destroyed. Supplies will no longer come to the people. To get them, the people will have to walk for miles….

This is exactly when Mr. O steps out into the middle of the square and begins to play. This is exactly what the holy season before us is all about. No matter how bad it gets—even if what’s bad has a false bottom, and you break through to something worse—nevertheless, the work of Passover and Easter and our Flower Celebration is to remember that, in the face of the worst, seemingly impossible beautiful things have happened to people just like ourselves. A Moses rose up, and slaves were freed. Jesus’ spirit and sense of abundance were unkillable, and lived on. A ritual involving something as frail as flowers outlasted the might of the Third Reich. Impossible things happening. Meaning that suffering need not be the last word, unless we allow it to be. Meaning that hope is real, if we believe.

May the music of this holy season make your face shine. 

 

 

Feel-Good Evangelism: Faith-Sharing for Liberal Religionists

About the good news of our shared faith, the Rev. Clinton Lee Scott once wrote a “Parish Parable” which echoes the old “thee and thou” language of the King James Bible. It goes like this: “Now there was a certain man that for many years did frequent the Temple on the Sabbath day. Then did he cease to be found in the Great Congregation. And a neighbor inquireth of him, saying, “How is it that thou art no more seen in the Temple on the Sabbath day?” And the man did give answer, “I like not the words that the Master speaketh: for he putteth not an end to the questions that vex my mind, neither provideth me with a sure salvation for my soul: verily he leadeth us into deep waters, and leaveth us there without means of rescue.” Now when this conversation was told to the Master of the Temple, he answered, saying, “Go tell him that remaineth away from the Great Congregation that the Temple standeth not to provide life preservers, but is a place wherein one learneth how to swim.”

This is but a classic statement of the Unitarian side of our faith, which is fundamentally a faith in people. It says, to each and every one of us, You have abundant potential. You are not inherently perverse and fatally wrong-headed, doomed unless some higher authority gives you life preservers in the form of detailed answers to which you must submit and never question (at pain of hellfire). You are not fundamentally weak, incapable of rising up to meet that challenges of the day, best kept in the shallow waters of life, best kept self-centered and indifferent to what’s really going on. No! You have inherent worth and dignity. It is a priceless inner wealth, actualized by all the heroes and sheroes that have gone before you, and you can realize this for yourself in your own turn. It naturally attunes you to truth and to justice, if you would but learn to hear; and to this end do Great Congregations and Masters of the Temple exist: to help you learn. To help you nurture and develop the potential that life has given you. Not to give you the answers up front, but to give you space and room in which to follow the nose of your curiosity and conscience, help you come into the integrity of your own answers. Not to protect you from the realities of suffering and evil, but to move you to engage the deep waters of social problems and do your best to make a difference. That’s what classic Unitarianism says. It is faith in the abundance of human potentials to fashion lives of positive wisdom and leadership and citizenship. Don’t treat me like I’m stupid. Don’t say I can’t ask questions. Don’t tell me that there’s nothing I can do to make a difference in the larger world.

Unitarianism says, “Jump in! Swim! Yes you can!” But as for the Universalist side of our faith—the classic message is different. Thomas Starr King, who was a minister in both Unitarianism and Universalism, back in the 19^th century and long before the two movements officially came together, once had this to say about the difference: he said that Unitarians think people are too good for hell, whereas for the Universalists, what keeps people out of hell is not people, but God. God is too compassionate, too good. That’s the classic Universalist vision. We are held and supported by an eternal, all-conquering Love that’s far greater than who we are as individuals. And so, if at some point you find yourself thrown out into deep waters and you have been trying the best you can to solve the burning, difficult questions of life but, in the end, you feel that the complete answers will always evade you; or, you have been trying the best you can to make a difference but, in the end, you know economic injustice will still exist and war will still exist and hatred will still exist and, on top of all this, your marriage is in trouble and the recession is hitting you hard—when you find yourself out in deep waters, like this, Universalism will come to you. It will gently take your hand and, with consolation and encouragement, say to you words like those the poet Philip Booth once said to his daughter: 

Lie back daughter, let your head

be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man’s float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Remember, whispers Universalism.  No matter what—when you and I are in deep waters, and our strength is seemingly gone—the sea will hold us. Failure is impossible. So lie back. That’s the Universalist message precisely. Let the abundant strength of the sea be our strength. There is nothing we need to do to earn it. We don’t need a Ph. D, we don’t need lots of money or class or beauty or personality. Just open up and let this abundance flow in us; let us dwell in it; and it will surprise us. Suddenly we will find ourselves healed and whole—and more courageous than ever. Bubbling up in our hearts and lives, this abundance will move us spontaneously into works of beauty and service and justice, and we will also find ourselves moved into faith-sharing. For how can we not share this good news? Only in giving to another the hope of abundant love, does our own joy become complete. It spoils if kept. “The joy that isn’t shared,” says one poet, “dies young.”

By now I feel like a shaken-up can of soda. I just can’t talk about this stuff without getting all excited. It’s the good news of our Unitarian Universalist faith, fizzing and frothing and bubbling up, ready to be shared. So today our focus is liberal evangelism—what that can look like for us. Getting us all shaken up like I am, so the pressure of our Unitarian Universalist message becomes so great within us that we have to do something about it. And then to talk a little about what this “something” might be—to offer up some hints that come to us from one of the preeminent evangelists in our history: the Rev. Quillen Shinn, credited with starting at least 40 congregations all across North America, one of which was the First Universalist Church of Atlanta, Georgia, organized February 24, 1895. Because of people like Quillen Shin, we are. Literally. Others may give him fancy names like “the Saint Paul of the Universalist Church,” but here in Atlanta, we can call him grandfather.

There’s something you might want to know up front, however, about Grandfather Shinn, and this actually takes us farther along the road of exploring our Unitarian Universalist good news as it has evolved from classic to contemporary form. Quillen Shin proclaimed an abundance message that, in at least one respect, is significantly different from our own today. He preached a Universalism of dogmas: the centrality of the Bible, the love of God, the parenthood of God, the immortality of the soul, the divinity (though not the deity) of Christ, the certainty of punishment for sin, and the universality of salvation. He preached these dogmas as central to what it meant to be a Universalist, against what he saw as a rising infidelity in many of his fellow ministers and especially against what he called those “go-as-you-please Unitarians.” “Occasionally,” he once thundered, “a church falls into decay under the leadership of an upright pastor because that pastor is too indefinite, too vague and uncertain. He talks too much about ‘Truth for Authority,’ and too little about ‘The spiritual authority of Jesus Christ.’ Of course,” says Quillen Shinn, “’truth is authority,’ when we know what the truth is, and take our affirmation of ‘The universal Fatherhood of God.’ The world received that not by evolution but by revelation. Christ is our authority for this sublimest truth, believed and cherished by man. When a minister ceases to regard Jesus as authority, he steps away from the bed-rock of faith, and drifts into those vague ‘Universals’ fascinating to many who call themselves liberals and who seem to be well equipped with circumference, but without any center.” That’s what Grandfather Shinn said, around the turn of the nineteenth century, and clearly he was feeling the growing trend in liberal religion, which had been building for decades, ever since the advent of such things as modern Biblical scholarship, the comparative study of world religions, and Darwinianism. The trend was away from an exclusive Bible-centered faith, towards one that opened up to the riches of the world’s religions, as well as to the findings of science. The trend was away from Jesus Christ being at the center, towards the Mystery at the center. And all who wanted to live into this Mystery were welcome in our congregations, together with whatever path they chose, whether or not Jesus was meaningful for them, or God a meaningful concept.

Even though Quillen Shinn did not like it, Universalism went the way of all liberal religion, towards a deepening appreciation of the abundance of Mystery. He saw it as decay and as drifting away, and he feared that it would be our doom. But on the side of history we’re on, we know that what happened was what happens to the snake when it sheds its skin. We were simply reborn into something more honest and therefore more vital. This side of history, we affirm that whatever the Sacred is, it is an elephant too complex and too big for any individual blind man to fully comprehend. No single book or system of belief can possibly hold all the truth. What’s at the center is fundamentally a Mystery—and therefore it is endlessly fascinating and provocative, provoking interpretation after interpretation, inviting a personal creative response from each of us. While we can no longer speak about Universalism like Quillen Shinn did, in a one-size-fits-all way, the central abundance insight nevertheless remains: that there is in reality some process or power that is larger than the individual person, and when we connect with it, we are transformed in ways that we cannot transform ourselves. Use whatever language you want to describe it. Some will talk about God. Others will talk instead about the reality of the unconscious, or synchronicity, or the interdependent web, or Buddhamind, or the Goddess, or simply the embracing arms of healthy human relationships. Still others will speak a rich vocabulary of all of these and more, seeing each metaphor as a uniquely valid pathway into an experience of the Sacred. The point, though, is that at our center is Mystery—this is where the past century has brought us—and it means that our faith is abundant with creativity, abundant with diversity, abundant with possibility. The good news message of our faith is all about abundance.

But now, how to share this with the world? Now here’s something that would make Quillen Shinn smile. “In truth,” he once said, “no [person] knows the full joy of Universalism until he sends it to another; and, in fact, he cannot keep it for himself in its fullness, unless he is sending it abroad.” So, how to send it?

First of all, send it and say it with purpose. A humorous story about Quillen Shinn comes to mind. His biographer says that once, when he was at seminary, he delivered a somewhat rambling sermon, and he was asked by his professor to describe the subject he was trying to preach on. He replied, “I didn’t have any subject but I had an object and that was to show that Universalists have the best principles and that they ought to be the best people.” You better believe that his preaching improved over time, but the basic principle never changed: have an object; have a purpose.

Definitely our purpose in sharing Unitarian Universalism can’t be about declaring what is best in general; we are too modest for that. It definitely can’t be about declaring what’s best for you, or else; we don’t even believe that. But what the purpose can be is this: to share how it has been best for us. How the message about abundant human potentials has enabled us to think thoughts and do deeds that other contexts and communities would have stifled or denied. How the message about abundant love that is larger than us as separate individuals has lifted us up and supported us when we were in the deep end and could not swim anymore—abundant support of this caring community, abundant arms of Life. How the message about abundant Mystery has encouraged active exploration of our spiritual depths, opened us up to the riches of the world’s religions and of science, invited us to be creative in our religious lives. Our purpose in sharing Unitarian Universalism is helping another person know how powerful this abundance faith has been for us—and perhaps they are in a place in life that makes them ready to receive. Perhaps. We can share it with the same graciousness as we would news about a fantastic restaurant, or a brilliant movie. Without any heavy-handedness, and only to say: it has brought wonderful things into my family and my life, and maybe it can do the same for you.

Say it with purpose. Also say it with structure. Don’t ramble on like Quillen Shinn did in his seminary attempts at preaching. One of the ways of preventing this—of ensuring that you have a focus to your conversation—is by developing for yourself an “elevator speech,” or a short statement about Unitarian Universalism’s value to you that, theoretically, you could give in the three or so minutes it takes you to go from the bottom floor to the top. While real conversations often aren’t as tightly compartmentalized as this, and tend to go on or spill over, still, the discipline of the elevator speech is a good one. It challenges you to think about what’s especially important and meaningful to you about our faith. Clearly, It won’t say everything, but it can at least get you started, get your foot in the door—either plant a seed that will ripen sometimes later, or move a person to open up right then and there for a richer conversation.

I’d actually recommend having several elevator speeches on hand, each one doing a different thing, to be called on depending on circumstances. Practice developing these with each other. Sometimes just a general historical orientation seems to be called for, so you might say, “Unitarian Universalism comes out of the Protestant tradition in Christianity, and some of the oldest churches in America are UU churches. Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson were UUs.” In other words: not many people may be familiar with us, but we are as American as apple pie. Other times you will want talk theology, and you could say this: “Unitarian Universalism says that God is bigger than any single book or single religion. That’s why we draw from many sources of wisdom and truth.” Another good one is this: “Unitarian Universalism doesn’t tell me what to believe about such things as God or an afterlife because it knows that all such specific beliefs are way too important to be answered for us by someone else. It tells me that people have to come to their own answers, first-hand, for them to be truly meaningful.” Yet a third category of elevator speech addresses current events—you draw on recent things you did at UUCA that were meaningful for you. As in, “A couple Sundays ago, there was a guest speaker who talked about slavery after the Civil War, and I had no idea. I love the fact that my congregation gives me new insights into justice issues and expands my sense of things!” And it IS cool—it is evidence of the core abundance of our faith.

Say it with purpose. Say it with structure. And then also say it with confidence. Some years, Quillen Shinn traveled 25 to 30,000 miles, and you better believe that, to be received as he was, he needed to be nonanxious. Surely we can model this same calmness in the relatively few conversational miles we will travel!

How we say something communicates far more than what is actually said. When evangelism comes out of a place of anxiety, you might stutter and stumble over your carefully prepared elevator speech. You might actually look offended, get defensive, even get angry. Or you might come across as cool as an ice cube—giving off the impression that, for you, Unitarian Universalism is of no more than clinical interest. All would raise red flags in the questioner, make them wonder if the emperor has no clothes, if there’s something to be ashamed of, if there’s some terrible secret to hide, or if it’s somehow not OK to ask. But our goal is to make the abundance of our faith contagious. Not to force it on anyone. Just to share something that has meant so much to us. What moved Quillen Shinn to plant his first church was the memory of his mother, and all that she had given him. Same thing goes for us. We give because we have received. So let this thought relax us. We can take a deep breath. We can ungrit our teeth, relax our bodies, and take a curiosity stance towards the journey that each conversation will take us on. See where things go.

Yes, sometimes the other person will use it as an opportunity to tell us we’re wrong, but we’re allowed to agree to disagree. We don’t have to allow ourselves to be abused. We can rest confidently in our experience, knowing what our faith has done for us. Uncomfortable conversations will happen. But then there will be the conversations that make it all worth while. Because you say yes to evangelism and make yourself available, in your own person you will transmit some of the abundance of our faith to another, and they will catch a glimpse, and what they see is something they have been looking for but never even knew existed, never even knew it had a name. Someone wanting to get out into deeper waters, just waiting for permission. Someone in deep waters over their head, looking for encouragement. And you give them what they need. That’s what you do.

There are times when deeds don’t go far enough. The hungers of others require words that only we can give, and evangelism becomes the means. Walking the talk must be matched with talking the talk. Our faith tradition is all about abundance, and it fizzes and froths and bubbles up, ready to be shared. So let’s do that. Let’s make our Grandfather Shinn proud. He helped start us up, so let’s start something up too. Make him proud.  

 

 

MLK Jr.: Lessons in Leadership

Tomorrow is a special day in the life of the nation. We celebrate the man who said, when civil rights marchers were facing the dogs and clubs and fire hoses of Birmingham, “We must face the forces of hate with the power of love.” He said, “All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” He said, “I have a dream.”

Monday, we celebrate this great man, Martin Luther King, Jr. And then comes Tuesday. On Tuesday–not far from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, site of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech—Barack Obama will be inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible,” he said back in November, on the night of his historic election, “If there is anyone out there who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. […] It’s the answer that led those who’ve been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”

What celebrations are before us. What high points in our nation’s history. The dream of racial and social justice unfolding. Though much more remains to happen, still—how wonderful to be alive in this time, to witness the parts coming true!  

But the journey has in no way been easy, or straight. Messy all the way, in America’s larger social life, but also in the personal lives of the leaders we are celebrating. The man who now says “Yes we can” once, as a sophomore in college, ridiculed such idealism, disbelieving that he or anyone else could make a true difference. Long before his political opponents charged him as all flash and no substance, he said, “Pretty words don’t make it so.” “That’s the last time you will ever hear another speech out of me.”

Can you personally relate to this irony? See in your own leadership story a time when you believed something couldn’t be done—or it could be done but by anybody but you—but then it WAS done, and the person who had done it was YOU?

“We are made for community,” says liberal Quaker and activist Parker Palmer, and so “leadership is everyone’s vocation.” That’s our focus today—exploring what this means, and doing it with the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. in the room, drawing on a messy moment in his leadership story to help us understand our own.

Here’s the story. Has to do with the time he was invited to become a part of the Montgomery bus boycott. As you may know, first there was Rosa Parks—her refusal to obey the bus driver’s demand that she give up her seat. What followed, as King’s biographer Marshall Frady describes it, was this: “That ‘No,” and Mrs. Parks’ arrest, quickly set off a spontaneous combustion among Montgomery’s black citizenry to boycott the city’s segregated bus system. Almost immediately, mimeographed leaflets calling for the boycott were coursing through the city’s black neighborhoods. But when, the night of Mrs. Parks’ arrest, [a local social activist by the name of E. D. Nixon] phoned [the young Martin Luther King Jr.] to ask him to join in the boycott movement, King, out of some uneasiness beyond just his absorption in his multiple other duties, seemed curiously reluctant: ‘Brother Nixon, let me think on it awhile, and call me back.’” Marshall Frady goes on to say that, “Concerned at King’s hesitation, Nixon called Ralph Abernathy…. Abernathy then called King to exhort him about the elemental importance of cooperating in this boycott effort. King finally agreed to lend it his support if it would not entail his having to aid in any of the organizing.” And that’s the story, with three things of note to lift up: the initial call to leadership, King’s hesitation to accept, and Ralph Abernathy’s intervention.

Starting with the call. What might it look like? As it did for King, sometimes the call takes the form of widespread social crisis, like the spontaneous combustion of the Montgomery bus boycott, against the larger backdrop of the burgeoning civil rights movement. This crisis gripped our congregation as well; we too were swept up in the civil rights movement, and in 1954 we affirmed desegregation, becoming the very first multiracial religious community in all of Atlanta. It represents one of the high points in our collective leadership story, here at UUCA.  

And may more highs ever be before us. Tomorrow, megachurch pastor Rick Warren will be the keynote speaker at Ebenezer Baptist Church as part of the MLK Day festivities. No doubt this is connected to his being invited to deliver the invocation at Tuesday’s inauguration, and both decisions, frankly, have been enormously controversial. Warren doesn’t just oppose gay marriage, he’s compared it to incest and pedophilia. He doesn’t just want to ban abortion, he’s compared women who terminate pregnancies to Nazis and the pro-choice position to Holocaust denial. Now Obama strongly disagrees with Warren here—he’s clearly said so. He’s invited him to deliver the invocation as a way of symbolizing his commitment to building bridges to parts of America he may strongly disagree with on some things but yet, on other things, there’s plenty of common ground—and right now, emphasizing common ground is the way forward. This is classic community organization strategy. Yet I would hate to see, because of this high-level emphasis on common ground, a tendency at the grassroots level towards apathy. You and I to stop disagreeing with Warren’s point of view because we’re afraid of being disagreeable. You and I to stop speaking out and letting people know who we are, what kind of place this is. People, our commitment to civil rights here at UUCA cannot merely be historical. It must be ongoing, and I believe that protecting abortion rights, as well as working for full social rights of GLBTQ people, constitute a key part of the civil rights movement that is here and now. Consider yourself called. Monday at 12:30 in the afternoon, the official MLK march will begin. Join us as we demonstrate our commitment to civil rights for ALL.    

It’s the call. We can hear it in the various crises and issues that trouble the larger world; but we can also hear it closer to home, when there is a crisis is our congregation, or a crisis in our family. A crisis of personal health. Even a crisis of spirit. You can feel two wolves inside you, in your heart, circling round and round, snapping at each other; one represents hatred, the other represents healing, and the one that you feed is the one that prevails. Something happens or does not happen in our congregation, for example, and you have an instant negative reaction—right here is a call to leadership. So what do you do next? Do you indulge your suspicions, cultivate your disgruntlements, insist on “my way or the highway,” believe that the rules don’t apply to you, perhaps even divide people into US vs. THEM, spread a spirit of war around rather than of peace? If you do this, you did NOT answer the call. You fed the wolf that destroys, not the wolf that heals. The leadership moment was missed.

We’ve got to be there when the moment comes. So much is at stake in how we use our influence. And it’s not always a matter of responding to crisis. Parker Palmer puts it this way: “I lead by word and deed simply because I am here doing what I do. If you are here, doing what you do, then you also exercise leadership of some sort.” Even just to smile across the room at someone you know—just to acknowledge their existence—can be a kind of leadership, an exercise of influence that is truly important. Just by smiling across the room, you are living into a larger vision of a community that strengthens and encourages. Someone was talking about this just the other day—how horrible and withering it feels to notice someone looking at you but they don’t smile, they don’t acknowledge your existence…. Leadership is about making the vision real, in acts both big and small. You see a piece of trash on the floor, and you pick it up even if you aren’t the sexton, even if you aren’t part of the paid staff, even if you hear a voice in your head that says, “Ahh, this is a BIG congregation—surely someone else will do it.” No. YOU do it, and as you do it, your simple act of leadership is helping to create the Beloved Community vision that says, We are all in this together. It’s up to all of us. Pull together and not apart. Everyone chip in. The ministry here involves every friend, every member, because that’s what it takes to live out our mission of changing lives. That’s what it takes. 

Leadership is everyone’s vocation, expressed through acts both big and small. It’s about how we use our influence, towards the direction of some larger vision. It’s about how we respond to the call, when it comes.

Which takes us to the second thing of note in Martin Luther King’s story: his hesitation to accept. It represented a momentous crossroads in his life, although he could not have known it at the time. Ultimately he did accept the call, and in this way achieved great visibility and respect as leader of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which in turn led to his role in founding (with others) the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and then to his leadership in civil rights campaigns in Albany, then Birmingham, then Augustine and Selma, and then the March on Washington and his soaring “I have a dream” speech. It all got started with Montgomery, and King’s ultimate answer of yes. But what if he had said, instead, NO? What then? Without Montgomery, would there ever have been “I have a dream”?

Hindsight is 20-20. “We live forwards,” said philosopher Arthur Schopenhaur, “but we understand backwards.” With only the knowledge that is given us in the moment—already full of the pressures of existing responsibilities and anticipations of future work we already know of—it is truly understandable and fully human to hesitate when a call to something new comes before you.

King was only human, and this is something we need to be reminded of, so that we can be confident leaders in our own right. Here’s why I say this. We take a hero figure like Martin Luther King Jr. and we lose touch with his story. Soon enough, someone who had just as many flaws and complexities as the rest of us becomes transformed into a superperson, untouchable. A change agent who leapt from the womb holding a protest sign. He was fearless, but we feel fear. The work came naturally to him, without any effort or awkwardness, but as for us, we endure setbacks, mistakes, trial-and-error. He was bottled lightning, but we have to pinch ourselves to stay awake. The perfect snappy comeback was always on his lips, but as for us, it’s usually only 12-24 hours later when it pops into our minds.   

We lose touch with our heroes’ stories, and in this way we lose touch with our own powers and potentialities. We hear a call to leadership, but our response can be, Who, me? Yet the message of the life of every hero who has ever gone before us, or who may be in our midst right now, is that you don’t need to be perfect to have a dream. You don’t need to be perfect to make the world a better place. You don’t have to already know how to preach if it is your dream to preach. You don’t have to already have the right credentials or know everything there is to know to step up. And if you are feeling the need to do something in your life to make the dream real, you don’t have to wait to start until the circumstances are absolutely ideal, as in: I am the right age (not too young, not too old), the kids are grown, the job is secure, I have enough money, my relationships are all better, I even have all the big questions of life figured out, related to God, immortality, the meaning of life, the existence of extraterrestrial beings. Just do it. I am so grateful for a hero like Martin Luther King Jr., a man who, at a critical juncture in his life, hesitated. The world did not need a perfect person to do what he did. The world did not need that. The world needed him. And the world needs you and me.

Leadership is everyone’s destiny, in some form, big or small. And now we turn to the third and last part of King’s story: Ralph Abernathy, talking King into accepting the call. His intervention.

This represents another aspect of the hero story that is easily passed over. Often the message put out there (or the one received) is about rugged individualism. One person acting alone. Nothing or not much about family, the larger supportive community, the worship services, the committee work, the coalition building, the flurry of letters and emails and phone calls, and, in the midst all of it, above all, key sustaining friendships. People whose judgment you trust, so that even if all the world is criticizing you, if THEY believe in you, you believe. People who will lift you up when you need it; people who will bring you back down to earth, when you need that. Nothing about any of this. Just one person acting alone. Rugged individualism.

It’s just not true. You can’t get to Martin Luther King Jr. without his parents and family and teachers, the black church community, liberal communities like this one, all the committee meetings, all the worship and prayer and hymn singing, all his friends and colleagues. You just can’t get to him without Ralph Abernathy—the man who reconnected him to his sense of call and purpose when he hesitated. The man who was with him throughout, until the very end and beyond.

I’m asking you this morning: Who is your Ralph Abernathy? Who believes in you, so you can believe?

This place—this community—can itself be a support to you. But you’ll get out of it only as much as you put in. So, how much are you putting in?

We need our communities of support. We need our Ralph Abernathys, to grow into the leadership that is naturally ours.

On Tuesday, when Barack Obama is up there with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, being sworn in as the 44^th President of the United States, using Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Bible, I want you to think of a person named Regina, whom Obama knew in college. He had just delivered his very first political speech, about apartheid in South Africa and the need to stand up for social justice. He felt swept up in this; he was feeling the call. Yet at the same time, he was full of self-doubt, and cynicism. At a party that evening, Regina congratulated him, calling his speech wonderful, but he cut her off, said, “Listen, you are a very sweet lady. And I’m happy you enjoyed my little performance today. But I don’t believe we made any difference in what we did today. I don’t believe that what happens to a kid in Soweto makes much difference to the people we were talking to. Pretty words don’t make it so. That’s the last time you will ever hear another speech out of me.”

Barack Obama, hesitating….. But what happened next was this. He shares the story in his book Dreams from My Father: “Regina stuck a finger in my chest. ‘You wanna know what your real problem is? You always think everything’s about you. The rally is about you. The speech is about you. The hurt is always your hurt. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Obama. It’s not just about you. It’s never just about you. It’s about people who need your help. Children who are depending on you. They’re not interested in your irony or your sophistication or your ego getting bruised. And neither am I.” That’s what Regina said. Right words at the right time.

“Strange,” says Obama, “how a single conversation can change you.” ‘What was she asking of me, then? Determination, mostly. The determination to push against whatever power kept [a person] stooped instead of standing straight. The determination to resist the easy and the expedient. You might be locked in a world not of your own making … but you still have a claim on how it is shaped. You still have responsibilities.”

Godspeed, Barack Obama. Keep on pushing. We too, in our own lives, whatever our situations happen to be, as we realize the leadership story that is uniquely ours, and our destiny to fulfill. Undaunted by obstacles both within and without. Determined. Always before us … the Dream.

READING BEFORE THE SERMON

Our reading for today comes from Barack Obama’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father. The time is 1981, and he’s a sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles, protesting the apartheid system in South Africa.

It had started as something of a lark, I suppose, part of the radical pose my friends and I sought to maintain, a subconscious end run around issues closer to home. But as the months passed and I found myself drawn into a larger role—contacting representatives of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting letters to the faculty, printing up flyers, arguing strategy—I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions. It was a discovery that made me hungry for words. Not words to hide behind but words that could carry a message, support an idea. When we started planning the rally for the trustees’ meeting, and somebody suggested that I open the thing, I quickly agreed. I figured I was ready, and could reach people where it counted. I thought my voice wouldn’t fail me.

Let’s see, now. What was it that I had been thinking in those days leading up to the rally? … I was only supposed to make a few opening remarks … [but] when I sat down to prepare a few notes for what I might say, something had happened. In my mind is somehow became more than just a two-minute speech, more than just a way to prove my political orthodoxy. [I thought of how powerful a speaker my father was.] If I could just find the right words, I had thought to myself. With the right words everything could change—South Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.

[I spoke passionately that day, but after other speakers took my place on the stage, I found myself] on the outside again, watching, judging, skeptical. Through my eyes, we suddenly appeared like the sleek and well-fed amateurs we were, with our black chiffon armbands and hand-painted signs and earnest young faces. […] When the trustees began to arrive for their meeting, a few of them paused behind the glass walls of the administration building to watch us, and I noticed the old white men chuckling to themselves…. The whole thing was a farce, I thought to myself—the rally, the banners, everything. A pleasant afternoon diversion, a school play without the parents. And me and my one-minute oration—the biggest farce of all.

At the party that night, [my friend Regina] came up to me and offered her congratulations. I asked what for.

“For that wonderful speech you gave.”

I popped open a beer. “It was short, anyway.”

Regina ignored my sarcasm. “That’s what made it so effective,” she said. “You spoke from the heart, Barack. It made people want to hear more….”

“Listen, Regina,” I said, cutting her off, “you are a very sweet lady. And I’m happy you enjoyed my little performance today. But I don’t believe we made any difference in what we did today. I don’t believe that what happens to a kid in Soweto makes much difference to the people we were talking to. Pretty words don’t make it so. That’s the last time you will ever hear another speech out of me….”

Here ends our reading for today.

 

Four Spiritualities

Personality types. They’re like masks. They reveal and conceal at the same time. Products of nature in combination with nurture, they give us something to see the world through, and to be seen. They grant us a particular means of communicating; they incline us to care about certain things and not other things; they represent a vital avenue for experience and learning. Which leads to an irony. For to the degree that our personality masks settle on our faces and seem completely and utterly natural, we forget that we are, in fact, wearing a mask, or that others may be wearing different masks leading them to see the world in very different ways, to communicate differently, or to care differently. It gets us into trouble.

Consider the following incident, in which two people, Sheryl and Steve, are going to a meeting here at UUCA, and Sheryl asks Steve a very simple question, “What time is it?” What follows is like an episode of Abbot and Costello, a comedy of miscommunication. Steve replies, “It’s late,” but Sheryl has the kind of personality which prefers concreteness and exactitude of detail, so she responds, “No, I mean, what time is it?” Which confuses Steve, because he thinks he IS being to the point, although given his different personality, being to the point is a matter of clear imagery and intuitive vision. So he says back to Sheryl, “It’s time to go!” but with even greater insistence than before, thinking that will do the trick. It doesn’t, and now Sheryl is getting frustrated, and she says, “Hey, read my lips, what time is it?” When Steve replies, in a miffed tone, “It’s past three,” all heck breaks loose. “Listen,” says Sheryl, “I shouldn’t have to ask a simple question four times to get an adequate answer. How MUCH past three? What time is it EXACTLY?” To which Steve replies, “You are so picky. The time EXACTLY is 3:12pm, Eastern Standard Timezone, planet earth, solar system, outer arm of the Milky Way Galaxy!”

It’s a comedy of miscommunication. Two people hearing exactly the same question—“What time is it?”—but each approaching the answer differently. One prefers down-to-earth exactitude and specificity, the other prefers evocative imagery and future-oriented metaphors which can float above the ground. Personality types are real—vital avenues of expression and experience—but we can lose sight of this undeniable reality and fail to accommodate for the masks we wear in our relationships. The result is high drama. The stuff of soap opera.

It happens at home; it happens at work; and you better believe it happens in congregations like this one. Of course, when clashes and conflicts happen in congregations, we get extremely nervous. We think something has turned terribly wrong, since isn’t religious community the one place where we’re all supposed to be singing Kumbaya together, and all is spontaneous mutual understanding and peace and harmony?

It’s an unexamined expectation that so many of us bring to a place like this, and it can’t be farther from the truth. This is a home for the human spirit, and the human spirit brings with it variety and diversity, of all kinds. Meaning that, in the course of our taking this diversity and uniting it to serve common goals and common purposes, things heat up. That’s what happens, if a congregation is working right. If it’s NOT working right, things stay cold and clammy. Sluggish. People stuck in their usual sense of who they are, and what’s possible. No risks. No enthusiasms. No one united by a transforming cause. People entirely justified in saying “it’s not worth it” and walking away. But if a congregation IS working right, it heats us up. Takes us to difficult places. Takes us deeper. Causes us to care, to discern a higher calling. Gives us something worth fighting for. Charges us full with the electric charge of the soul. There is no better symbol of how congregations that work do this than our Flaming Chalice. The flame is the heat and the fire of our life together. Things are supposed to get hot, in a place like this. No wonder conflict can happen.

It’s just a natural consequence of being in a vital spiritual community. Natural, normal, necessary, and also this: neutral in value. What matters is not so much that we can disagree and feel frustrated by eachother as how we manage these disagreements and frustrations. How we respond.

Today I want to talk about personality types as they impact congregations. Different personality types give rise to different spiritual styles—so what are the different styles? How is each a valid way of connecting with the Sacred? And, when they clash, what can we do to respond in a manner that is creative and constructive? That’s my message today.

Beginning with the basic spiritual styles. Historically, there are many sources of insight about this we could look to—astrology being one of the oldest, together with the four classic temperaments (phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic, and sanguine). We could also look to the Enneagram, as well as to Carl Jung’s system of psychological types. Of the theories I’ve studied, one of my favorites continues to be Hinduism’s system of the four yogas—thousands of years old and yet still influential and credible. Very much worth a closer look.

Now when I say “yoga,” what might immediately come to mind is certain distinctive physical postures. But the word as I’m using it—its original sense—has a far larger meaning. Literally, it means, “to bring under disciplined training,” and right there we have an inkling of what we’re getting ourselves into. Each of the four yogas incorporates activities and practices that are uniquely effective for a particular personality type, in its quest for spiritual fulfillment. We’re not talking about a casual stroll along a garden path, in other words, and the thought of this is in itself significant, for there are times when life, completely without warning, challenges us to run a sprint, or a marathon. On the spur of the moment, it can require us to lift 300 pounds of deadweight. It can throw all sorts of stuff our way, and unless we are already actively developing our spiritual muscles, how can we expect to last or cope effectively? How are we gonna run our race, or lift that weight, if we aren’t actively training for it right now? 

“Yoga” means “spiritual workout,” and the first one to consider is the Yoga of the Rational Mind. Here, the central discipline is intellectual adventure. If you are a follower of this way—if you are a Rational Mind yogi—then you seek out all the wisdom you can find: in scripture, in science, in philosophy, in history, in literature, in the arts, and on and on. The marketplace of ideas must be free, for you; scholarship is your true love; study is your cup of tea; and your core spiritual practice may very well be … underlining. You are the kind of person who’s always asking questions, doubting, challenging conventional understandings, and always game for looking into a new idea or a new way. But with a main purpose. Not to parrot the wisdom of others, but to use conscience and reason to separate the good from the bad and fashion a worldview that rings true for you, makes sense of your experience. Gives order to the complexities of life. 

The Yoga of the Rational Mind. It stresses step-by-step logical reasoning as well as conceptual clarity and linguistic precision. Rational Mind yogis are the people who would rather stand outside of heaven and talk about it than step on in. In fact, that is their heaven. Realizing through critical discussion and thought the truth that sets us free. 

That’s the first Hindu yoga, and now here is the second: the Yoga of Transcending Mind. It’s very different. People on this path are generally active types, and they tend to be impatient with the theoretical and abstract. As far as they are concerned, head knowledge distorts rather than clarifies. Language does to the world what a funhouse mirror does to reflections. Others might pride themselves on their intellectual scholarship and be right at home with that, but not Transcending Mind yogis. They want something more body-centered, practical disciplines that calm “monkey mind” down and connect them to a peace that is above and beyond all words and theories. I’m talking about a capacity of awareness that is like a calm eye over the storm of our thoughts and feelings, an eye that’s always there, always, but we have to learn how to see through it, we have to calm “monkey mind” down to do that.

If this resonates with you, then more reading and more speculating are beside the point. No more talk. Action. So, as a Transcending Mind yogi, you will practice “asanas,” or physical postures that cleanse the body and develop the mind’s ability to concentrate. You will say a “mantra” or a sacred sound over and over again, throughout your day, to keep you centered and focused. You may meditate on your breathing or focus on a visual form like a candle flame, or a picture of a saint, or a mandala. Note, again, how all of this emphasizes a form of spirituality that is body-centered, image- and sound-centered, all to the end of experiencing first-hand the reality beyond all distinctions and difference, the bliss of no-thingness. You don’t want to just talk about heaven. You want to do heaven, be heaven!

That’s the Yoga of Transcending Mind. But now let us turn to yet another spiritual style: the Yoga of Service. If this is your preferred style, by now what you might be saying to yourself is this: something like, “Good Lord! What’s up with how Rational Mind yogis are constantly challenging the status quo or living in their heads? And as for Transcending Mind yogis—why would I ever want to twist up like a pretzel or chant all day OM? Seems totally beside the point. I mean, I just want a way of being at peace while I’m trying to be a good parent, or a good employee, or a good friend, or a good citizen. Nothing fancy. I want to work within the world, not outside of it. I want to work within the system, not buck it. I want to find the sacred right here, in the ordinary.”

That’s what Service yogis say. Stability and structure are their watchwords; they’re the ones paying attention to detail and rolling up their sleeves to make our communities happen. So naturally, for them, the central discipline is everyday work done with the right intention and without any expectation for certain results. Selflessness while paying the bills or commuting to the job or doing the laundry. One of the most popular scriptures of Hinduism, the Bhagavad Gita, says it like this: “He who does the task dictated by duty, caring nothing for the fruit of the action: he is a yogi.” This is how, in the midst of life’s wear and tear and busy-ness, the Service yogi attains peace.  

And now: the last of the four yogas: the Yoga of Love. Short and sweet: if this is your spiritual style, you are a people person. You are on a search for authenticity and uniqueness, and you want this for everyone else as well. You want to make everyone feel important and cared for, and you just want there to be harmony in the world, you peacemaker you.

People are so central to your path that, when you imagine the sacred, it must have a face. Your God is a personal God. And so your central spiritual practice is devotion. You will choose an image of God which is right for you. Perhaps an image of the Goddess like Kwan Yin, perhaps Jesus, perhaps Krishna. Some concrete image—and whatever it happens to be, you will open your total heart to him or to her. You want to fall in love. “Love the Lord Your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.” That is the discipline precisely. Out of this love, you will study, you will practice asanas, you will chant, you will care for the hurting, you will do the work of justice, you will fulfill your everyday duties selflessly. But the motivation is, first and last, love.

Same motivation goes, even if you don’t believe in a God per se. Fact is, the Yoga of Love, like all the yogas, cuts across theological categories like theism and atheism. If there is no such thing as a God for you, then the face of the sacred will be beloved family and friends, a hero like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. who has inspired you, people who belong to your chosen spiritual community (like UUCA), or the living earth. Out of love for these, you live fully and freely.

And there they are, the four yogas. Rational Mind, Transcending Mind, Service, Love. Four spiritual styles, for four different kinds of personalities. Each equally valid, as a way of connecting with the Spirit of Life. Keep in mind that the idea here is not that one and only one yoga will appeal to you—just that you will feel most at home in one, and make the most progress working in one, even if at times you might borrow some ideas and practices from the others.

Let’s take an even closer look. Worship preferences are extremely concrete and practical, so let’s see what each yoga might bring to this. Beginning with Rational Mind yogis, who might say, “Boy, I love intellectual-type sermons with lots of vocab words that get me thinking and give me something to talk about over lunch! I love the purity and complexity of classical music. But what’s up all the rituals, or the prayer? I don’t get it when the music for the day is drumming, or folk, or rock. I don’t like it when things feel too fuzzy and gooey and emotional and ‘spiritual.’ Makes it harder for me to focus. Makes it harder to read the song lyrics ahead of time so that I can be sure to sing only the words that make sense to me…”

As for Transcending Mind yogis, this is what they might say: “It’s just not worship if I don’t feel immersed in something larger than me. Give me spirituality, give me ‘smells and bells.’ Give me more ritual—I love getting out of my head and into the flow of an experience. Love our annual Water Communion and Moravian Love Feast and Flower Communion. Loved the Breaking Bread Ritual from this past Thanksgiving. Even something as small as getting up and greeting each other feels good. More meditation, though—I wish it lasted a lot longer than it usually does. How about five minutes? Ten minutes? And, have we ever thought about doing some chanting? Sometimes I think we could learn a thing or two from the Episcopalians down the road….”

Service yogis, for their part, might say this: “I love all the rituals too. Classical music is beautiful, but I feel more moved by drumming, or jazz, or folk, or rock. I just feel more at home in worship when we play music that’s similar to what I already listen to. As for sermons: honestly, the artsy-fartsy intellectual ones just don’t turn my crank. I like the ones that focus on life skills instead, on how to be a better partner, or parent, or citizen. Show me how! Finally—have we ever thought about regularly incorporating multimedia in our worship? I was at another church that projected the hymn lyrics on big screens in the sanctuary—they even showed a film clip from a popular movie where we would do a straight-ahead reading. At first I was skeptical, but I walked away amazed at how powerful the effect was—even more amazed at how my kids loved it….”

And then there’s what Love yogis might say: “I need a worship experience that really gets my blood flowing. Give me inspiration. I can do a sermon that is intellectual, I can do a sermon that is practical, but don’t forget to elevate it into poetry, and use lots of stories. As for clapping: I know it bumps some people out of the flow of worship, and I totally respect that, but for me it works. It makes me feel warm and good, and gets me into the flow of things. Finally, I love it when we all stand up and hold hands to close out our service!”

This is just a bare sketch of the different preferences the four yogas bring—and you can already see the potential for disagreement and conflict. Things heating up into our Flaming Chalice. While a Love yogi, for example, is perfectly comfortable with language that is evocative and poetic, a Rational Mind yogi insists on clarity. “What does ‘spirituality’ mean, anyway? Define your terms! Stop being so fuzzy and vague! How can I wrap my mind around things when I’m having a hard time perceiving a hard core there?” To this, a yogi of the Transcending Mind will say, “Come on! You’re just stirring up a tempest in a tea pot! Ultimately the sacred is a more-than-what’s-before-the-eyes-Mystery—every word and name is just like a finger pointing at the moon. So let’s not argue about our fingers. Let’s focus on the moon!” To which the Love yogi replies, “I agree where you say that ultimately the sacred is a Mystery, and all words and names for it fall short. But when you suggest that it is OK to be casual with words and names—especially traditional words and names—I can’t go there. As imperfect and fuzzy a word like God might be, I still need it. I can’t grow spiritually without it.” To which a Service yogi will say, “Would you all just get your act together and make up your minds? How are we gonna fulfill our mission in the world if all our energy is tied up in fighting?”

And that IS the central question. It brings to mind a personal story from my seminary years, when my colleagues and I were studying worship—what it’s all about, how to craft it. I found myself admitting to my class that I’d always been a bit cranky about the worships I’d experienced. Rarely had I experienced a service that satisfied me completely in all ways and didn’t leave me grumbling on the way out. There was always some element or other that struck me as pointless or irritating or not as good as what some other church was doing. To this, my worship professor at the time—the saintly Rev. David Bumbaugh—said, “Anthony, nothing can live up to your kind of standard, if you feel entitled to being satisfied completely by everything that happens in a given service. Instead, I would have you define success like this: If a worship service has touched you in at least one deep way, that is enough to have made it a success. Be positive and look for the one thing that will feed your soul; let all else pass. And know that the parts which are unimportant to you—perhaps even offensive to you—may very likely be feeding the souls of others.”

I continue to think that this is a wonderful attitude to have—one constructive way of responding to the disagreements over worship that are inevitable and will never end, given the different spiritual styles in the room. Stepping back from a sense of entitlement and stepping up to a sense of generosity and a willingness to be OK with something you might not prefer exactly because you know that it could very well be beautiful and meaningful for the person sitting right beside you.

Besides this, another thing to keep in mind as we face disagreement and conflict together is this: the idea that personality differences, while deep, are not absolute. People with different styles can learn to understand and even to sympathize with each other; people on different yoga paths can learn tremendous things from each other. It’s just like being right-handed—you’ve been using your right hand all your life to write and wave and do so many other things. But with conscious effort and patience, you can learn to shift over to using your left. It’s awkward. It takes time. But it can happen, and the result is a good thing: you’ve just multiplied your power in the world. Now you can do things with both hands, not just one. Similarly, when a given personality type learns to walk in the shoes of another personality type, what happens is greater wholeness. We grow towards greater wholeness in our lives. We become less one-sided, more compassionate, more complete.

Conflict comes with the territory. In spiritual communities like this one, it’s natural, normal, necessary, and neutral in value. What matters is how we respond. “Do not teach your children never to be angry,” someone once said. “Teach them how to be angry.” That’s what our Congregational Covenant of Healthy Relationships is all about. That’s what the Healthy Relationships Team is all about. Helping us face down the challenge of life in community as it does its proper job of heating things up, charging us full with the electric charge of the soul. We need to learn how to stand in this fire. We need to assume a stance of curiosity towards both ourselves and the other person or the situation. Not self-righteous certainty. But curiosity. “I wonder what my spiritual style is, that I would have such a negative reaction to that?” “I wonder what spiritual style she is speaking out of?” Asking questions like this. Valuing questions like this, as a necessary part of what it means to be Unitarian Universalist.  

I’ll close with a story told by Anthony de Mello, Catholic priest and psychotherapist:

In ancient India, water used to be drawn out of wells by means of the Persian wheel, a convenient device whose only drawback was the great noise it made when in operation. One day, a horseman happened to pass by a farm and demanded water for his horse. The farmer gladly put the Persian wheel in motion, but the horse, unaccustomed as it was to the noise, wouldn’t come anywhere near the well. “Can’t you stop the noise so my horse can drink?” asked the horseman. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, sir,” said the farmer. “If your horse wishes to drink, he will have to take the water with the noise, for here [HERE], water comes only with noise.”

 

Testimony Before the Firearms Study Commission of the Georgia Legislature

Thank you, Chairman Seabaugh and committee members, for allowing me to share my thoughts about the proposed changes to current Georgia gun laws [which would allow permit holders to carry concealed handguns into our congregations.] I’m Rev. Anthony David, Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Atlanta, one of the largest Unitarian Universalist congregations in the United States.

 

Recently, the Unitarian Universalist religious movement has been tested with violence. On the morning of July 27^th, during a worship service at our sister church in Knoxville Tennessee, a man named Jim Adkisson started shooting. 200 people were in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church sanctuary that morning, including the 25 children and youth who were leading worship that day. Many were wounded and two ended up dead. Based on Jim Adkisson’s own testimony, as well as that of a letter he had written, he wanted to target the church because of its emphasis on freedom and inclusivity—his belief that liberals should be killed because they are ruining the country. He concealed a shotgun in a guitar case, carried that case into the church sanctuary, took the gun out and started shooting indiscriminately into the crowd, fully expecting to keep shooting until police arrived and he was killed himself. He fully expected to die that day, even going so far as to leave his home unlocked to make it easy for police to enter.

 

In the aftermath of this event, Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country are feeling vulnerable to hatred. Our sanctuaries should be places of safety, but we know now that safety is not a guarantee. There are people in this world who are already dwelling in hell, and they want to take it out on the innocent. So it is a time of discernment for us and for congregations everywhere, as we face the question of gun violence. Would things have been different if there had been people in our sister church’s sanctuary carrying concealed handguns? Ready to defend the congregation against the shooter?

 

One thing is clear—even if people in the Tennessee Valley Church had been carrying concealed handguns, this would not have deterred Jim Adkisson from doing what he did. He was not afraid of dying, and I suspect that this is generally true of the kind of person who’d want to kill people at a church.

 

Then there is the issue of competence. Even trained police officers, on average, hit less than 20% of their intended targets. As I understand things, there are no physical force or proficiency training requirements in order to get a concealed carry permit in Georgia. To me, this all adds up to my conviction that, even if some members of the Tennessee Valley church had been carrying guns, they would probably have missed their target.

 

But bullets would be flying, and this leads to yet a third consideration: unintended side effects. Not just in the moment, but over the long haul. In the moment, if some Tennessee Valley Church members had been carrying guns, they probably would have accidentally shot fellow church members. As for the long haul: imagine what happens if a gun accidentally goes off during a church event, or during a service—or if, God forbid, a child or youth somehow gets a hold of one. In the long haul, the presence of a gun does not minimize the possibility of violence but multiplies it. Imagine people coming to church carrying concealed handguns, and because of tragedies like Tennessee Valley, they are on the look out for others who appear suspicious and may, in their vigilance, develop an itchy trigger finger.… The long haul has to do with what happens to the larger culture of a religious community, which is supposed to lay out a welcome table to all who want to connect with the sacred in life. To bring handguns into the sanctuary is to bring the expectation of violence into it and therefore spoil the culture of the generous welcome table, which was so central to the spiritual vision of Jesus as well as to so many other great religious leaders. The guiding religious principle here is that the means we use to achieve the ends of nonviolence and justice in the world must themselves be nonviolent and just. You can’t get to true nonviolence through violent means. You can’t get to true justice through injustice. Perhaps this is why the U. S. Supreme Court, in its Heller decision, acknowledged that houses of worship are truly “sensitive places” where guns do not belong. This is emphasized by even Justice Scalia, who is one of the most conservative Justices on the Supreme Court.

 

In light of all I have said, I believe that for the Tennessee Valley Church, members carrying concealed handguns would not have prevented the tragic shooting and, in fact, would have made things worse in both the short and long haul. What did make all the difference, in the moment, were a couple of heros who tackled Jim Adkisson at full risk to themselves. One of these heros, in fact, died. In a situation like this—when someone is set on killing others—something bad is going to happen. But our task is to identify responses to violence which do the least harm. Our desire to be safe must not make us reach for solutions that will do more harm than good.

 

Is it possible to prevent tragedies like the one that happened at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church from happening ever again? Is there a way to guarantee that our sanctuaries will always be safe places? I don’t think so. Danger and risk are nonnegotiable aspects of the human condition. But what is all important is that religious communities are able to model spiritual leadership and might in the face of evil. Concealed handguns have absolutely no role to play in this. I believe this, and so does the minister of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church—even after what happened. 

 

Rev. Anthony David

Sept. 23, 2008

 

 

**

 

Objection: But why shouldn’t congregations have the right to decide for themselves? Why not allow some congregations to ensure safety for themselves by developing and deploying armed security teams, while congregations that disallow concealed handguns can put a sticker on the door to make declare their places “gun free zones”?

·        Reply: First of all, a sticker on the door cannot replace the kind of deterrent that exists now, which is a misdemeanor charge. Even with a sticker at the door, people won’t have to be afraid of breaking the law, so what will stop them from carrying them in? Don’t see how this avoids all the negative consequences I mentioned earlier.

·        Also, whereas it may be true that some congregations may want the right to develop and deploy their own armed security guards—and again, given my comments above, I don’t know why they’d want to do this—I would not underestimate the incredible burden that this will put on all the other congregations in Georgia. Even congregations with stickers on the door will need to invest financial and volunteer resources to ensure safety in a world where people are not prohibited by law to carry firearms into churches.

·        Finally: this objection assumes something false about the role of government, as well as the nature of constitutional rights. Government’s proper job is to balance competing interests and competing rights in a way that does justice to the common good. As important as Second Amendment rights are, when they are emphasized to the detriment of other rights, then this is not justice but injustice. Government has the right and the obligation to establish laws that reflect a just balance between competing interests. The decisions it makes then act as healthy boundaries, and within such boundaries, people can exercise their individual freedoms.

 

 

 

Diligent Joy

An excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love on happiness….

What is “diligent joy”? :  “I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think of happiness as a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don’t, you will leak away your inner contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distres but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”

Which takes us to”diligent joy”:    “As I focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend Darcey told me once–that all the sorrow and all the trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-’n'-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me. The search for contentment is, therefore, nor merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.”

In light of all this:   I am profoundly inspired by the children of the Tennessee Valley UU Church involved in the play that was to be performed during that fateful Sunday morning when all hell broke loose, who, during the healing service led by UUA President Bill Sinkford, sang these words from Annie:

The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow
There’ll be sun!
Just thinkin’ about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
‘Til there’s none! 

When I’m stuck a day
That’s gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,
And Say,
Oh! 

The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You’re always
A day
A way!

“The congregation,” says Annette Marquis, “spontaneously joined in singing with them, and after a few seconds, when the impact of this moment had sunk in, the crowd erupted into applause, tears, shouts, cheers, and many more tears. As the cast finished their grande finale, they took their long-awaited bows to an adoring, grief-stricken, and healing audience.”

Now this is Unitarian Universalism at its best. It’s diligent joy.

Gathering to Bear Witness

I’d like to share the words I spoke at UUCA’s vigil this past Monday, as we held the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville at the center of our thoughts and prayers:

 

We are gathered here this evening because of a human tragedy. Yesterday, a shooting occurred at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville. Two people died, another 12 or so were treated for minor wounds, and five continue to be in critical condition. The suspect, Jim Adkisson, opened fire inside the church, during a youth performance of “Annie,” at about 10:18 a.m. His only connection to the church seems to be that his ex-wife used to be a long-time member there.

 

It is a human tragedy, and we gather to bear witness to the sorrows and sufferings that humans are prone to and inflict on each other. Whereas we Unitarian Universalists affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, at times like these we are reminded that inherent worth does not automatically translate to worthwhile action in the world. What is potentially worthwhile may not become actual. Two wolves exist within every breast; one is for good, another is for evil, and life is a journey of making choices about which one of the wolves we feed.

 

Human tragedy gathers us here together this evening. And we gather in solidarity with our brother and sister Unitarian Universalists across the land, right at this very moment, all across the land, for this tragedy has struck close to home. Some of us have friends at the church in Knoxville—we see them regularly at various national and district events and gatherings, including most recently at the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute (or SUUSI).

 

There is this—and then there is the knowledge that violence profaned and sullied one of our worship services, shattered sanctuary space and time. This in itself is so deeply disturbing. Reverence is so very fragile. Peace is so very fragile.

 

Finally, you may have heard some of the most recent reports about the suspect Jim Adkisson’s context and motives. The Associated Press reports that he recently received a letter from the state of Tennessee telling him that the food stamps he had been receiving would be reduced or eliminated. Jim Adkisson, already prone to violence in solving his problems—his ex-wife had put out a restraining order on him—was frustrated about being out of work, not being able to get a job. Which he blamed on liberal values and social policies. This is what he did. So he brought all this resentment and all this blame, and he decided he’d take it out on a Unitarian Universalist congregation with a liberal track record—which is so ironic, since last I heard, it’s liberal values and social policies at their best that fight against economic injustice and try to help people like Jim.

 

It’s a human tragedy, and we bear witness. Whether or not we know people from the Knoxville church, our grief and sadness and anger overflow. It is so hard to comprehend senseless violence on this scale, or the monumental misunderstanding that underlies it.

 

At times like this, you might find yourself wanting to know as many details about what happened as possible; you may find yourself glued to the TV or to the internet. Others of you may want to get as much distance away from this as you can. People respond to tragedies like this in different ways, and all of these ways of coping are normal.

 

Please treat yourself and others with care and compassion. It’s also true that a moment like this can trigger memories of times when tragedy visited us and left us feeling out of control in our own lives. The personal impact of a tragedy like this can’t be underestimated. Please treat yourself and others with care and compassion.

 

Dr. Nadine Kaslow, from the Emory School of Medicine, says that one of the best things that can happen in a messy time like this is to take things step by step. She says, “One of the things you can do is let people talk, let them share their stories, let them talk about what they want, but also sometimes, they’re going to want to be distracted, and that’s okay too. Appreciate that everybody has a different way of responding.”

 

In a moment, this is exactly what we’ll be turning to. After a time of prayer, Rev. Keller will lead us in a time of sharing, in which we can share our thoughts and our feelings and so begin the work of healing. 

 

But before we get there, though, I need to mention that we gather here this evening not just to bear witness to a human tragedy. We also gather to bear witness to the human spirit at its best, which mourns and rejects violence, which comprehends the violence that it is always capable of and yet chooses the better way of peace, works for peace and justice.

 

The human spirit at its best, represented by our coming together as Unitarian Universalists, undaunted by the events of yesterday, courageously standing up for our liberal faith and works though they be misunderstood, though they put us in places of risk….

 

The human spirit at its best, which, with Gandhi, says that “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall—think of it, always.”

 

The human spirit at its best, which was so fully demonstrated in the example of one of the Knoxville church members, Greg McKendry, who sacrificed himself so that others might live. Greg McKendry, said a fellow church member, “stood in front of the gunman and took the blast to protect the rest of us.” Another church member made this comment: He “was a very large gentleman, one of those people you might describe as a refrigerator with a head. He looked like a football player. He stood up and put himself in between the shooter and the congregation.”

 

This is the human spirit at its best—and we gather today to witness this as well. Not to forget it, even as we are faced with the evil that people can do. There are two wolves in my heart and in yours; one is for good, another is for evil, and life is a journey of making choices about which one of the wolves we feed.

 

Today, we bear witness to the sorrows and the joys of that journey.

Free Resource on Confronting Gun Violence

I received a heartfelt reply to my previous post about the shootings in Knoxville from Ryan, who pointed out that there is a free resource for congregations on confronting gun violence offered through Christianity Today. Here is Ryan’s complete comment, together with the link to the resource:

“This is such a tragic and unwelcome reminder of the pain and brokenness in our sinful world. Our prayers go out to our brothers and sisters in Tennessee as they mourn in this time of loss. I pray that, though difficult, events like this will help unify the church in the hope of the Gospel.

I was thinking about this today and found that Christianity Today is offering a free resource called “Confronting Gun Violence.” I’ll include the link below for any of you who are interested. While we can never predict when an act of violence might occur, this download offers some precautionary measures churches can take to safeguard their people and facilities.

Again, my deepest sympathies go out to our friends in Knoxville and I pray that we can learn to prevent such tragedies in the days to come.”

http://store.yahoo.com/cgi-bin/clink?yhst-78230354700659+8NQpna+cogunviatchd.html