This is the fifth of my reflections with you on the document which sets out six primary sources of the Unitarian Universalist “Living Tradition” or way of being human religiously. The full wording of this fifth source is “Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.” Quite a contrast to the previous two sources, which were concerned with world religions in general and Judaism and Christianity in particular. You may remember I've stressed in my previous reflections that itís only the wisdom of the world's religions that we're enjoined to draw from, not everything about them, and that itís only the teachings about love which we're encouraged to take from Judaism and Christianity, not the whole of those faiths. Here, in the wording about humanism, the Unitarian attitude to traditional religion is made even more explicit: we're warned about religious idolatries which need to be balanced by this other way of seeing the world, humanism.

Around a dozen of us just took part in three Adult Education sessions called, “What Kind of Humanist are You?” and it became clear that although I just referred to humanismís way of seeing the world, there certainly isn't just one humanist way or one kind of humanist. All of us in those three sessions would accept the name humanist as saying something important about our religious outlook, but there were as many varieties of humanism as there were participants. It was striking, though ñ to me, at least ñ that we were all ready to adopt at least some sense of humanism, in a way that I think we certainly wouldn't all have owned to being Jewish in some sense, or Christian or Hindu or whatever. Humanism seems to be some kind of UU common denominator, so much so that the word risks being almost meaningless, almost like motherhood, which may be an appropriate analogy for today. Of course we're humanists; how could we be against humans, any more than we could be against mothers, who happen to be human too!

But to use the word humanism as loosely as that is to distort whatís meant in the sentence we're considering today. The fifth source of our tradition is not just about being in favour of human beings, but about humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science. My guess is that in fact for most of us who came here from other traditions, it was the acceptance and encouragement of (reason( in forming our beliefs which we found particularly attractive in a Unitarian congregation. Our central Principle, which I think is the most distinctive Unitarian characteristic, is (a free and responsible search for truth and meaning( and it's almost impossible to imagine such a search without the use of reason. A ministerial colleague in Atlantic Canada describes it this way, tying reason in with our direct experience and with the endeavour called science:

We are always interpreting whatever we experience in terms of what we have previously experienced (or in terms of the reports from those we trust of what they have experienced). How could we possibly know if something was "objective truth"? All we have are various interpretations of what is going on - inside us and outside us. Some interpretations are more persuasive than others. We develop an understanding of what is going on. Then someone else presents us with a more persuasive understanding and we are convinced that s/he knew what was going on better than we did. Then, a few years later, we find that yet another person has an even better interpretation, and so on and so on . . .

Science is a history of interpretations, a research-tradition in which each generation builds upon and modifies the efforts of previous generations. If science offered us TRUTH ITSELF and not just the current interpretation, then there would no longer be a need for science. Science itself depends on the assumption of ever-improving interpretations.

How we Unitarians love that ñ unending questions, ever-improving interpretations! There probably aren't many people here who haven't heard the joke about Unitarians coming to a fork in the road with one sign pointing to Heaven and one to Discussion about Heaven. You know which way the Unitarians go, don't you? Some even say that a question mark is a more appropriate symbol for us than a chalice. I think questioning can itself become close to an idolatory, if we lose sight of what the questions are about or what theyíre for. One reason I enjoy the good legal shows on television, such as The Practice, is that when an interesting, issue-oriented case is well-argued in court, as they always are well-argued in these shows, I can be fully convinced by the prosecutor and then, as the cross-examining takes place, I'm persuaded the other way by the skillful questioning of the defence lawyers. Itís a wonderful illustration of reasoning at work ñ and all we have to remember is that itís often more about cleverness than truth. Still, there's no way we can discount questioning ñ itís so very important to us to encourage people to “cherish your doubts” as one of our readings puts it. I love the way poet Rainer Maria Rilke expressed it, in his Letters to a Young Poet:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

In our recent course on humanism, we considered many categories and descriptions of humanism, but it wasn't until the course had ended that I came across this one, by Allan Bullock, in a book called Dictionary of Modern Thought, which appeals to me particularly as both moderate and concise. I'm abbreviating it to make it even more concise:

[Humanism signifies] theories or doctrines, however varied their conclusions, which take human experience as the starting point for [human] knowledge of [the]self and the work of God and Nature. Thus the critical, rational methods of scientific enquiry . . . produced a secular humanism . . . against the dogmatic claims of orthodox Christianity . . . Human experience, however, is varied [and] humanism is [best] viewed as a broad tendency, a dimension of thought and belief . . .

My fairly safe guess is that the broad tendency, the dimension of thought and belief which starts with human experience and the valuing of human beings, is dear to almost everyone here, though for some of us it may be secondary to one of the other sources ñ earth-centred religion, perhaps.

Because we value non-human creatures and the non-human world for its own sake, and not only to the extent that it contributes to our own well-being, we may be a little wary of some of the more extreme humanist positions. When I was choosing hymns for today, for example, I found I couldn't conscientiously ask us to sing words such as, “We are of life its shining gift, the measure of all things.” I'm not at all sure that human beings are the measure of all things. Moreover, I tend to think that reason and science are not the only ways of discovering truth and meaning, although theyíre certainly good and useful ways. I like to leave room for mystery and magic, too, and to remember that people have reasoned themselves into some quite cruel and destructive positions. On a lighter note, realizing the capacity of the mind for self-delusion as well as for great discovery, I appreciate this little aphorism from an unknown source:

See, the human mind is kind of like a . . . pinata. When it breaks open, there's a lot of surprises inside. Once you get the pinata perspective, you see that losing your mind can be a peak experience.

And then again, thereís a warning about the worrisomely reasonable tendencies of Unitarians, taken from the vast repertoire of light-bulb jokes:

How many UUs does it take to change a light bulb? Seven. One to object to the racist use of "light" as a synonym of "goodness," one to protest the scorn for the upper parts of plants in the term "bulb," one to outline how electric utility monopolies support the military machine, one to propose homemade tallow candles as an appropriate technology, one to suggest sarcastically that the others sound accustomed to being in the dark, one to call the question ..... and one to change the blankety-blank bulb.

Sometimes changing the light bulb is more important than reasoning about it ñ but I suppose we wouldn't get very far trying to change it without the benefits of science and technology, and I'm extremely grateful for light bulbs instead of candles.

More seriously, the limits of humanism seem to me to be similar to the limits of religion ñ that is, there are boundaries to what can be proclaimed with certainty. To state as some humanists do that there definitely is no God, that humans have no need of any outside help, that there's no purpose for human life, no possibility that any kind of life survives the death of the body, or that no human can be happy and productive and peaceful without particular intelligence or sophisticated science -- that seems to me to be going too far for my kind of humanism. Still I recognize that the questioning of Godís existence, and the rest, is essential to our tradition.

I find it particularly hard to accept statements which make sweeping claims about the power of technology to improve life overall, when we've seen how limited that power is, and how many problems technology entails. But I applaud the humanist dedication to making life better for as many people as possible by whatever means are possible. Claims sometimes made by humanism that all the major religions of the world are outmoded seem to be at the very least disrespectful of the beliefs of most human beings, but I strongly agree that religious allegiances can often be destructive to peace and well-being.

I believe that humanism is most effective when it expresses a restrained hope that it can contribute to the future well-being of the world. I believe also that its possible for many kinds of humanists, and even those whose beliefs come wrapped in more traditionally religious language, can find common ground. For example, Abner Kneeland, a 19th century Universalist preacher, was the last person in the United States ever to be convicted of Blasphemy; he served 60 days in 1834 in Massachusetts, then moved to Salubria, Iowa, and founded a Utopian Community. Fifty years later he wrote this credo:

I believe... that the whole universe is NATURE ...that God & Nature, so far as we can attach any rational idea to either, are perfectly synonymous terms. ...I believe that it is in God that we live, move, and have our being, and that the whole duty of humanity consists in living as long as we can and in promoting as much happiness as we can as long as we live.

Kind of hard to pigeon-hole, isn't it?! Almost as wonderful as these words by our honoured Unitarian poet, Walt Whitman, in his preface to Leaves of Grass, which sum up for me the humanist message:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown . . . reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency.

I'm very much aware that except possibly for an anonymous writer or two, I've quoted only men to you on this Motherís Day, which doesn't seem quite right. Let me make some small amends for that by ending with a piece from a dear colleague, Frances Manly, who ministers in Niagara Falls, New York. Frances has written a poem which is a blessing, in every sense.

For me, it embodies not only the humanist spirit but the spirit with which we try to honour the world's mothers, every one of whom is human, oh so human! Frances says:

May these things come to pass:
May your life be filled with questions,
and your heart strong to follow where they lead;
May your days be filled with children,
and your heart sing with the freshness and wonder of childhood;
May the obstacles in your path become your stepping stones,
and your arm strong to steady those who stumble;
May you be a lightning catcher in the inner sky,
and the light of your soul a steady beacon to all you meet ......

So may it be, and a happy Motherís Day to all of you, however you spend it.