Last week I talked with you about Easter. I tried to give proper acknowledgement to the various meanings of the holiday – pagan, Christian, and what might be called “free-thinking”. I was delighted that there was a good attendance, something like our usual Sunday number, because that’s not something you can be sure of with Unitarians. Whereas Christian churches tend to be packed on Easter Sunday, perhaps more than any other Sunday, Canadian Unitarians are quite likely to stay away in droves – after all, there are so many other good things to do, especially on a Springlike day, as it was. For those who came, the service had many and various meanings. For some it meant time spared with difficulty from other appointments and tasks; for others it was a welcome opportunity to be with their community of congregational friends. I'd guess that for most of us, the service wasn't an activity full of heavy theological weight, but it certainly had meaning and embodied the truth we so often express: we are not alone.
To my next-door neighbour, the meaning of Easter is very different. He's a member of the Church of God, which (along with Jews) keeps the sabbath and holds services on Saturday. He'd probably have disapproved of any particular attention paid to Easter, because his religion teaches, as do Jehovah's Witnesses and some others, that the observance of special days and seasons, other than the sabbath, is superstition and not a good thing. No Easter eggs at his house, though he's a kindly man who never criticizes my holiday observances. Easter, Christmas, and other holidays have a completely different meaning for him and his family than they do for me and most of us. I don’t know whether Earth Day (coming up on Friday) counts for him as a holiday in the same sense, but again, I guess he doesn’t think about it in the same way I do.
We probably each find a slightly different truth and meaning in any religious symbol. For the earth-centred and pagan-inclined and wiccan among us, Equinox and Easter eggs and the coming of Spring and perhaps Earth Day too recall ancient ceremonies and customs which precede Christianity, and have meaning because of links like that. They remind us of the truth that we live and move and have our being within Nature, its seasons and cycles. For others of us, the first flowers signify hope that death is not the last word. For yet others of us, or for the same ones, coming together for a celebratory service is a powerful statement of how much we value the community of people engaged in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
So many meanings! So much truth! Such a roundabout way of leading into my talk! But revisiting the fourth of the current Canadian Unitarian Council principles, “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning”, does fit in rather well, I think, with the confusion we sometimes experience as Unitarians in the midst of so many and diverse religious and commercial observances. So we focus today on the idea of a search, a free search, that idea and principle which is so precious because it is for many of us the primary reason we're in the Unitarian Universalist movement which welcomes all who freely seek truth. And I want to look particularly at the second adjective: responsible. The search in which we engage as free religious people is not only free but responsible, and I suggest that this part of the principle deserves more attention than it usually gets. In fact, we may not have very much idea of how responsibility and freedom go together, especially how the one affects the other. How do we act responsibly in our search for truth and meaning without limiting our freedom to search?
In a way, the coupling of freedom and responsibility in our religious quest is, I think, the next step on from the acceptance and encouragement of one another which is our third principle and which I talked about a few weeks ago. I heard once about the tension between a UU Pagan and her congregation; she gave a talk on Paganism, and the Sunday Programme Committee insisted on following it with one called “Why I Am Not a Pagan”. The Pagan found that response rather insulting, but as a local newspaper reported, “Among Unitarian Universalists debates are not only a way of life but the way to spiritual growth.” Just this week, one of my most respected ministerial colleagues suggested in an internet chat that Unitarians, who’re often suspected of not having any spiritual discipline or distinguishing practices, actually do have a distinctive practice, though perhaps for many of us it’s not very disciplined or even conscious. She said,
I think we ... have one core spiritual practice which is dialogue. Dialogue may not seem to many to be a spiritual practice – not like meditation or prayer. Yet, I would contend that in our diverse movement, a key to our seeking of spiritual truth is listening and talking to one another. As a whole, we don't turn to an authoritative text (though any of us may read, study, and meditate on any text of our choice). We don't all endorse prayer, though many of us pray. We don't all meditate, though many do. What we do all seem interested in, is sharing of our experiences. Perhaps because personal experience is seen as one of our sources.
Dialogue is spiritual practice in the sense of developing the kind of I-Thou relationship Buber spoke of. We tend to find the divine in that type of interaction. Though dialogue certainly occurs in other religious traditions, it's not the kind of core practice that it is in ours. Quakers sit in silence; we talk. We both encounter something holy this way.
I'm not going to set aside my practice of prayer, meditation, Tai Chi, or anything else I find valuable, but I do think we could consider dialogue as a Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice. I think the commitment to dialogue accounts for the popularity of [Small Group Ministry] in our congregations, and fits well with our covenant relationship.
My guess is that the members who arranged the follow-up talk after the Pagan had given her presentation did so out of a sense that dialogue is vital, and felt that they had a responsibility to give another side of the picture. They surely believed that the freedom on which we insist for ourselves as individual seekers can only work for a congregation if we make it our responsibility always to look at the other side (or sides, because there are usually many). The diversity of views in our congregations can lead either to friction and divisiveness or to growth and a more nurturing faith. “Which it will be in your congregation,” a writer in the UU World magazine said, “depends in large measure on the willingness ... to confront the issue (of diversity) boldly and openly.” We have a responsibility to deal with the diversity which freedom produces, not to shy away from it. Avoiding our differences may make for comfort, but it doesn't encourage us to move along in our free search for truth and meaning.
Because of some of the conflicts I've experienced in other congregations, and the tensions which inevitably exist in almost all congregations, I related empathetically to the experience of a minister in North Carolina some years ago. His congregation had a strong contingent of humanists who objected to any sermon references to God, Jesus, or the Bible. (As an aside, I would comment that it's not only humanists or atheists who tend to be understandably uncomfortable with traditional religious language but also many other people with non-Judeo-Christian backgrounds or convictions).
So the minister, who had made no secret of the fact that he was a theist, tried hard not to offend anyone, but found that being inoffensive is not necessarily at all the same thing as being an effective minister. He consulted ministerial colleagues who gave him the same advice that I've received from my colleagues at difficult times and which I've found to be essential to my ministerial integrity: “Don't be wishy-washy. Be a non-anxious presence. Be true to yourself.”
That minister started preaching from his heart, not apologizing for his views, though always acknowledging that not everyone agreed with him. And he discovered, as I have discovered, that the responsibility which goes along with religious freedom is the responsibility to speak from our hearts, honestly and directly, knowing that it may get us into trouble (and this goes for the members just as much as for the minister), knowing that it may offend and that not everyone will agree with us, not even feeling that they should agree with us, but knowing that, as Emerson said, the gift we have to give each other is our conviction, our life, passed through the fire of our thought.
Another congregation I heard about might sound surprisingly familiar to you; it certainly illustrates the first part of today's theme, the free search. The congregation, which wasn't a particularly large one, included the following individuals: a pagan who believed he lived a previous life in ancient Egypt; a recently born-again Christian who decided his search for true Christianity was best pursued in a free congregation; a woman who was merging her Christian heritage with Native American spiritual insights; a man who described himself as a fundamentalist agnostic; a man who held dear his Ethical Humanist upbringing; a Buddhist meditation group leader; a polytheistic pagan; a Jewish woman belonging both to the Unitarian congregation and the local synagogue; a Universalist practicing the spiritual discipline of Christian prayer; and a man whose Twelve-Step spirituality was focused on the Native American medicine wheel. You can find kindred spirits of all these people here in the First Unitarian Congregation of Waterloo these days! We have a responsibility to each one to welcome, appreciate and learn from the free search of each person among us.
Another church within our movement has a cross in the sanctuary, and its services often include Bible readings. Four times a year there are communion services. (I’m not brave enough to do that – I even avoided the word “communion” when we shared our bread in the service last Sunday.) But the membership of that church now includes about as many self-identified Pagans as Christians, and they hold monthly “full moon” services. Their minister says, “I realize it is a struggle for many of our members to accept the diversity, but the people who are discomfited are also committed not only to tolerance but to pluralism.”
To help them, she encourages members to voice their discomfort and seeks, she says, to “give everyone permission to come out of the closet with their beliefs.” And this, I believe, is a responsibility we have in our free search: to be true to ourselves, to voice our feelings and our convictions, to come out of the hiding places in which we've been keeping our beliefs, to dare to share them with each other in the trust that this is a place of acceptance at the same time that it may be one of disagreement and difference.
You may be aware that in recent years there's been a big effort in Unitarian leadership circles to increase racial, ethnic, economic, gender and other kinds of diversity within our congregations. Yet it's theological diversity which is blossoming most beautifully, even without much push from the organization as a whole. One workshop leader dealing with the topic of pluralism recently found that people wanted to talk about theological diversity more than the other kinds. “It touched on people's hurts,” she said. “Despite our commitment to a free and responsible search for truth, if you're at either end of the theological spectrum – either Pagan or Christian – you may be asked, 'Are you a real UU?' (And it’s the same, I’d say, with anti-theological, atheistic, members.) The reason this issue is not brought up in many of our congregations is that we're afraid to offend someone. But as a religious movement, how can we not talk about it?”
Yes! I would go further and say we have a responsibility to talk about our differences, because it's by exploring them that we make progress in that search for truth and meaning. We don't become more mature in our faith, or even become more united, by covering up our diversity, but by discovering it, celebrating it and learning from it. A free and responsible search must surely take place here, if anywhere – beginning at home, with the exploration of each others' varied views and insights. A teacher at a UU theological school has observed that “giving voice to deeply held beliefs can be a transformative experience.”
Maybe you've noticed, yourself, that when you make the effort to put your thoughts into words you not only feel freer but also more aware of what you really think. Part of our responsibility in our free search, I believe, is to keep re-articulating our beliefs, for our own benefit as well as for others. Most of us are not mindreaders, and we need help to discover what our fellow members believe. Let's try to tell each other!
For two centuries on this continent, Unitarian and Universalist congregations were largely made up of “come-outers” seeking freedom from other churches' doctrines. But the people who find us for the first time these days are often coming from a non-religious way of life, and looking for alternatives to the materialism with which they're all-too familiar. They're looking for a sense of spiritual community and personal support in their search for truth and meaning. (You may recognize yourself in that description.) Those who joined our congregations in the 1950s and 1960s, on the other hand, or who were most active in those humanist years, often wonder whether they're losing their familiar congregation and whether the style which they identify as Unitarian still exists. (You may recognize yourself in that description.)
One minister, Suzanne Meyer, has a response to this concern which resonates for me. She understands the grief which is experienced by older members as the familiar forms fade and change, and tries to explain to them that no, they are not losing their congregation but are being invited to share it with different people. Meyer emphasizes that the changes we're undergoing don't really touch our basic beliefs. “Feminism, Paganism, naturalistic theism, Humanism are all naturalistic (rather than dogmatic, authoritarian) religions,” she says. “Some people want an emphasis on the interior, spiritual journey, others on the intellectual journey. But nobody wants to go back to revealed religion.” We have a responsibility to offer a home to all those who yearn for free religion, without dogma.
Suzanne Meyer also points out that diversity is growing not only within congregations but also within individual members. “We now have many hyphenated UUs,” she points out. “There are people who call themselves rational-mystics. Others say they are Christian-Humanists or Humanist-feminsts, or Pagan-Humanists. The sharp distinctions are fading.” What's evolving, she believes, is a “new Humanism” – one that maintains the naturalistic insights of traditional Humanism but is softer-edged and more open to a sense of awe, mystery and wonder.
That's what makes it possible for gays and lesbians, for example, who are not comfortable in traditional churches to come to Unitarian Universalism while often remaining liberal Christians. Occasionally there's concern expressed about whether people are coming to us for the “right” reasons. I believe the right reason is that someone finds this a welcoming place. Freedom comes first; the responsibility of commitment to principles comes later – and that’s particularly true at a time when we’re deciding, as Canadian Unitarians, how our statement of principles is going to read for the next generation.
Our free search for truth and meaning carries with it, I think, the responsibility for blurring our own boundaries, for allowing humanism to discipline our mystic affinities, for discovering the Buddhist or Christian truths which can enrich our rationality, for acknowledging the earth-centred nature of our existence which may have been forgotten in our high-minded philosophies. I believe we also have a responsibility for living out our beliefs, as well as forming them in a free and responsible way. As our great religious educator, Sophia Lyon Fahs reminds us, “It matters what we believe.” If we are people of integrity our beliefs lead into action. The search is not enough. Even finding truth and meaning is not enough. As a Christian once asked me when I spoke about a free search, “What are you going to do with the truth if you ever find it?” Good question: what are we going to do with our truth and meaning?
If the truth you are encouraged to explore and develop here is the truth of earth-centred spirituality, I believe it's your responsibility to keep finding more ways to care for the earth, to celebrate the seasons, to live in a close and loving relationship with nature. If you find meaning in the religion of Jesus, it's your responsibility to grow in your understanding of Christian teachings, to discover how to find your life by losing self-centredness, to remember and honour how a holy birth, a life of service and a sacrificial death have changed the world. If your convictions are humanist, it's your responsibility to be as self-reliant as you can, to apply reason, thoughtfulness and faith in human potential to the betterment of the world.
When I'm asked by people who've never heard of us before what Unitarian Universalists are all about, I answer with a statement that has evolved over the years and is now very precious to me. I say to them, and I say to you now, these words which express the core of my faith and my ministry, and which has been slightly amended very recently, as an outcome of our recent evening sessions on “What Matters Most” – what we most want to express in our statement of Principles. I say, “Our central principle is a free and responsible search for truth and meaning; we meet to support and encourage one another in that search and to celebrate our values together.”
Here we are, gathered to support and encourage one another in the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and to celebrate with one another. How joyful the search is, and how precious is our being together! How deep is our responsibility and how deep is the well of resources which help us to fulfill it! As we explore, week by week, the infinite layers and dimensions of truth and meaning, let’s rejoice and be thankful; let’s gather new strength for the journey.