October 2001
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be
saved by hope.... Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished
alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
What Must I Do to Be Saved
by Stephen D. Edington, minister, Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua,
New Hampshire
Many years have passed, but the memories remain vivid. The visiting
evangelist would end his sermon, I knew, as soon as he offered the
"invitation." The invitation was to come forward to the front of the church
and be "saved." The closing hymn was usually "Just As I Am." Sometimes we'd
sing it through several times, as long as the evangelist and the regular
minister, standing at the front of the church, were convinced that there
were still people who needed to come forward to the altar. To this day I can
still sing all four verses from memory.
Being "saved" in this setting meant that you stood before the church,
acknowledged that God-through Jesus' life and death-had redeemed you from
your sins, that you would henceforth live as good and clean a life as you
could, that you were ready to become a member of the congregation, and that
you would be baptized the next time the ceremony was held. Sometimes it got
pretty emotional with people crying about their lost state and about how
joyful they were to be redeemed from it. After the service nearly everyone
else present came forward to offer greetings and support. This could get
pretty emotional too, with hugs and tears.
As I kid I watched all this with a mixture of awe and fascination, along
with an edge of discomfort, wondering just how many more rounds of "Just As
I Am" we were going to sing. My own "route to salvation" was a comparatively
sedate one at age 11. I had a few talks about what it meant to "follow
Jesus" with our rather calm and mild-mannered minister who, at the close of
a regular Sunday service shortly thereafter, introduced me to the
congregation saying I was a "candidate for baptism" and a new member of the
church. That was pretty much it, which was fine with me. Even at age 11 my
innate reserve was taking hold. I certainly wanted to be saved, but I
preferred having it done with as little
emotional fanfare as possible.
These scenes are from the late 1950s. Cut now to the mid 1970s, which was a
very "in-between" time for me. I was somewhere between liberal Christianity
and religious humanism; and between the American Baptist ministry and the
Unitarian Universalist ministry. I was also quite taken at that time with
the humanistic psychology movement, especially the work of Carl Rogers and
Fritz Perls. I spent parts of a couple of summers in the San Francisco area
being trained in Gestalt therapy as fashioned by Dr. Perls.
More vivid memories: Fifteen people or so sitting on the floor of a thickly
carpeted room with a lot of pillows scattered around. People take turns in
the "hot seat" in the center of the circle. They talk about personal matters
they want to change, and what it is they see about themselves that is
blocking them from their real, true, expressive selves. Painful events may
be recalled; desires for greater self-acceptance and personal peace are
voiced. Sometimes it gets very emotional, as the facilitator draws the "hot
seat" occupants further and further out-or into-themselves. After some
measure of catharsis has been achieved, the other group members move in to
offer emotional support and affirmation by way of "group hugs." Even while
being a part of this scene I'm also thinking, "Haven't I been here before?"
Haven't I've seen this same dynamic at work before, just with radically
different language and faith assumptions? Yes, here too I'm seeing people
facing the broken parts of their lives and reaching for some deeper means of
personal reconciliation and levels of meaning. It seemed as if it were
Baptist revival time again.
I remember after one such session, taking a long, late-night walk up and
down San Francisco's hilly streets and thinking to myself, "I guess
humanists, in their own way, want to be saved as much as anybody else." My
participation in those workshops during those Bay Area summers was very
valuable to me. I faced some personal issues I'd long ignored and made some
telling career decisions as well, one being to leave the Baptist ministry
and become a Unitarian Universalist minister. Those experiences also let me
know that my basically reserved nature was still intact. I had no more need
nor desire to sob my guts out in a room full of humanists than I did in a
church full of Baptists!
My sermon title comes from a biblical passage I heard quoted during those
revival times about as often I heard "Just As I Am" sung. It's a legend
recounted in the Gospel of John, in which an erudite and learned gentleman
named Nicodemus pays a call on Jesus, in the manner of a seeker approaching
a guru, and asks, "What must I do to be saved?" Jesus gives a rather cryptic
answer, "You must be born again." From there the evangelist would take off
on his own interpretation of what "born again" meant. More often than not he
'd do it in such a narrow and damnation-threatening way that only a few
short years later-during my college days-I dismissed the whole passage.
Ironically, it wasn't until I became a humanist, beginning with my
introduction to humanistic psychology, that I decided Nicodemus
was actually asking the fundamental human question and Jesus was
offering a basically correct answer.
But if the Christian Scriptures don't resonate all that well with some of
you, try approaching this idea of salvation in a more contemporary vein. In
The Road Less Traveled, the author and psychiatrist, Dr. M. Scott Peck
writes: "We all have a sick self and a healthy self. No matter how neurotic
or (even) psychotic we may be, even if we seem to be totally fearful and
completely rigid, there is still a part of us, however small, that wants to
grow... [that] is attracted to the new and the unknown, and that is
willing to do the work and take the risks involved in spiritual evolution.
And no matter how seemingly healthy and evolved we are there is still a part
of us, however small, that clings to the familiar, [is] fearful of any
change or effort [and] desires comfort at any cost and the absence of pain
at any price." Peck continues, "In this one respect we human beings are all
equal. Within each and every one of us there are two selves, one sick and
one healthy-the life urge and the death urge, if you will. Each of us
represents the whole of the human race..."
When Peck describes moving from the sick self to the healthy self, he is
referring to a contemporary, psychologically based version of salvation.
Stripped of its baggage, the term salvation essentially means deliverance
from one state or condition into another-from a less-than-healthy or broken
state to a more healthy and holistic one. In traditional terms, salvation is
the deliverance from a sinful or fallen state into a redeemed or "saved"
one. Most religions, including the Judaic and Christian ones, have as part
of their story or mythology an account of human beings living in a perfect
state; in a state of complete oneness with themselves, with Life, with
Creation, with God-however understood. Then something happens to rupture or
pollute the relationship. In the Garden of Eden myth it's Adam and Eve being
expelled from paradise after disobeying God. The goal of religion,
therefore, is to restore that broken relationship to wholeness again-if not
in this life then in the next. How this goal is attained depends upon the
religion itself: Accept Jesus Christ as your Savior; follow the Buddhist
path to Enlightenment; work; observe certain laws, practices, and rituals;
follow the Twelve Steps, and the like.
Dr. Carl Jung had an interesting interpretation of myths about a fall from
grace or oneness, and the subsequent desire for restoration. He maintained
that they all ultimately originate in a universal human longing to return to
the womb. The various Edens we tell stories about are drawn from our
collective memory of the pre-birth condition when we lived in an unbroken
state of immediacy with our entire universe (i.e., the body of our mother).
The fall from grace was birth, or the breaking of that perfect relationship.
The quest to be "saved," is really the quest to recover that seeming state
of perfection or grace.
What this Jungian angle-and I generally accept it-tells me is that feeling a
degree of alienation from ourselves and dissonance with our larger world is
simply a consequence of our being born. In some individuals this alienation
and dissonance is more pronounced than in others, but it's a rare person
indeed who always lives in complete congruence and harmony with his or her
world. I doubt such a person exists. From this perspective, the term
"original sin" even makes sense. Stripped of all its guilt-inducing
overlays, the term "sin" means separation. This, I dare say, is a state we'
ve all experienced to greater or lesser degrees. We do not always feel,
maybe we don't even usually feel, completely congruent with ourselves. We,
each and all, on occasion, experience alienation from ourselves and others.
We know there are unhealed parts of our lives, and we know we live in a
terribly broken world.
While the notion of "original sin" could make sense if seen in this light,
the reason it doesn't is that certain theologians took the idea of original
sin and, well, from our point of view, went bonkers with it. John Calvin,
one of the principal leaders and theorists of the Protestant Reformation
wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Faith: "Original sin appears to be
a heredity depravity, diffused through all parts of the soul, rendering us
obnoxious to divine wrath... infants themselves, as they bring their
condemnation into the world, are rendered obnoxious to punishment by their
own sinfulness..." and so on. Calvin took this universal condition of our
completely human feelings of incompleteness and occasional self-alienation
and transformed it into something for which we all deserved nothing less
than eternal punishment by God-unless, that is, God "elected" to save a few
of us. Now enter the Unitarians and the Universalists. They countered the
concept of Calvinist depravity with what they called "salvation by
character." It was the Unitarians and the Universalists who believed that we
have the resources within ourselves, the strength of character, that is, to
deliver ourselves-at least to some extent in this life-from alienation and
brokenness. The 19th century Unitarians and Universalists usually kept this
idea of salvation by character within a liberal Christian framework. They
held Jesus up as the model, as someone sent by God, who showed what it meant
to live out one's life on the strength of one's character. I think the idea
of salvation by character is one still worthy of regard for us today. It's a
very positive expression of human potential and human possibility. It's an
affirmation that we carry within ourselves the wellsprings of courage and
hope that allow us to be re-born any number of times during our time on
earth.
Let me quickly pass on to you, then, three things that I think "being saved"
means for religious liberals, whether we choose to use the term or not.
First, it means coming to know self-acceptance or self-validation. I don't
mean that in a smug or self-satisfied way but rather having the wherewithal
to look at, in Peck's language, both the healthy and the sick parts of
ourselves and say "yes" to the whole thing. There is a certain kind of
freedom and deliverance to be found in not demanding or even wanting
perfection in oneself, of being able to say, "Yeah, there are some parts of
me that aren't altogether complete or whole or healed and that's OK." This
does not mean that you want to, or will, stay stuck in your brokenness or
alienation. It means we move in the direction of our healthy selves by first
confronting and acknowledging where we are, and giving ourselves permission
to be there. To make that move, and take that journey, is to know a certain
kind of human salvation; and each time that journey is made it is a journey
of rebirth. It is not always an easy journey. I have to agree with the first
three words of Peck's The Road Less Traveled: "Life is difficult." I will
say that the self-affirmation or salvation of which I speak has its best
chance of being realized within a supportive and redeeming community-a
community that is committed to affirming the inherent worth and dignity of
every person.
A second component of this humanistic salvation is to live with a sense of
being a part of something greater than yourself. Personally I'm not much
interested in the sort of theist/humanist debate that occasionally crops up.
But it seems to me that there is something of a Unitarian Universalist
consensus that, above and beyond such debates, is a common affirmation of
the presence of a Life Force or Spirit of Life all around and within us, and
within which we live and move and have our being. To put it in more personal
terms, I feel no need to be in a relationship with a Supreme Being, but I
feel the need for relationship nonetheless. My personal health and wholeness
is bound up in my feeling of relationship with a larger Whole, the Whole of
Life itself, which contains me within it. So a sense of relationship with
the Whole of Life is another component of what I call "being saved" from the
perspective of a religious
humanist.
Finally, religious liberals seeking a humanist salvation must be able to
recognize the working-out of a greater purpose that will outlive their own
time on earth. They must be able to see that purpose in even the smallest
attempt to improve the human condition or in the least effort to bring love
and compassion to it. Fred Small, a New England-based folksinger and
songwriter who has now entered the UU ministry, has a wonderful song called
"Everything Possible." Its recurring line states, "...the only measure of
your words and your deeds will be the love you leave behind when you're
gone." With these words, Fred makes a contemporary restatement of the old
Unitarian principle of salvation by character. What better saving message
can we offer to ourselves and our children than the belief that our words
and deeds over the course of our lives do matter and will count, and that
some measure of the love and compassion and caring we show for one another
and for our wider human community and world will indeed outlive us?
This in closing: Nearly five years ago a young Unitarian Universalist
minister named Dan O'Neal died following a struggle with cancer.
A few weeks prior to his death, on Thanksgiving Day, he wrote this short
meditation:
"Thanks for this day, a day in my life. Thanks for the stars, the earth.
Thanks for the illness... Thanks for death, which makes life so precious
and so vibrantly alive. Thanks for it all, No exceptions..."
The Rev. O'Neal was not one to romanticize or sentimentalize death. He would
not want any of his colleagues to do so either-and I won't. But what is
offered in these brief words is an affirmation in the face of the cruelty
that life can visit upon us. To be able to say of one's life, "Thanks for it
all; no exceptions..." is the mark of a saved life, and of a life that
has no doubt known many moments of rebirth.
I hope our UU congregations, however constituted, can be "saving
communities" for all who come seeking a greater measure of wholeness in
their lives. And may our words and our deeds be a true measure of the love
we share with one another and that we leave for all who come after us.
Quest October 2001 Contents
Rating the Top Ten
by Emily Gage, minister,
Universalist Unitarian Church of Joliet, Illinois
They're part of our tradition. At times, they seem to be everywhere. The
content varies widely-everything from movies to weather is covered-but the
format is always the same. I refer, of course, to the top ten lists.
I admit it, I can't stay away from them. I love to read them, see if I agree
or disagree, and see if the compiler has anything worthwhile to say. All
this has led me to my own 10 discoveries (or rediscoveries) about life.
1. Making lists is an important cultural ritual. As a culture, we are not
particularly reflective. We are not encouraged to spend a lot of time
thinking about why we do the things we do. And yet we engage in this
reflective practice of creating top ten lists. This tradition seems
particularly modern. We didn't used to quantify things nearly as much as we
do now. But it is reflective of the way we now desire sound bytes of
information rather than long explanations. Russell Ash, compiler of a book
titled The Top Ten of Everything 2000 notes: "Lists of all types are
becoming an increasingly prominent feature of the 'Information Age' as we
are bombarded with information-from newspapers and magazines, radio,
television, and the Internet-lists provide a shorthand way of presenting
what might otherwise be an impenetrable mass of data." But lest you wish to
dismiss this list-making as a trite, cultural device, I challenge you to use
it. What were the top ten events of your past year? See? It's not such an
easy task, and it can be a good,
introspective tool.
2. Top ten lists are about our search for truth. Perhaps you've heard this
story about the origins of the Guinness Book of World Records. The book, the
introduction tells us, "was the brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing
director of Guinness Brewing. In 1951, after a day of game-shooting in
Ireland, Beaver and his shooting party were involved in an argument about
whether the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird. Beaver could not
find the answer in any of the reference books in his host's house. Three
years later, the dispute flared again. Unable to find the answer a second
time, Beaver thought that there must be numerous such arguments going on
nightly in pubs and inns throughout the British Isles, while patrons partook
of his employer's brew. He decided to produce a book that would settle these
disagreements. Beaver commissioned Norris and Ross McWhirter, editors and
statisticians in London, to compile a book of records."
It immediately became a best seller. Beaver was, in other words, trying to
create a source for truth-a place where the definitive answers could be
found. This is what our top ten lists attempt to do; they attempt to create
an easy reference of the ultimate in any particular category. Of course, not
all are based on facts, though they are often presented as such. They do
create a body of information to be remembered, to be referenced, to serve as
a type of truth. Things that don't make the lists may well be forgotten but
things that do, will be archived for future generations.
3. Truth is subjective. By far, the most interesting coverage on top ten
lists to my mind was in, of all places, USA Weekend, a little magazine that
comes with the Sunday Joliet Herald-News. They asked people to rate the top
ten stories of the century. Nothing earth shattering. But then they broke
the list down by various demographic categories. More men, for example,
chose the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945 as their top story. More
women, on the other hand, chose the 1928 discovery of penicillin. Eric
Newton surmised in an accompanying article that, in general, "Men are
impressed by news stories about war and technology, but women name stories
about medicine and social issues as more important." He also reflected
that, "Civil rights dominates the choices of black voters but does not make
it into the top 10 for white voters. Younger voters tend to be more
influenced by the popular media. And, for the most part, people seem to
define 'history' as the events they lived through." In other words, we
recall and honor the events that we feel have most affected our lives. Now
this is no revelation, especially for Unitarian Universalists. We notice
regularly that even those we love see the world differently. But it is
always important to remember that every action and thought is framed by a
person's experience. That there is a story behind everything. That
everything deserves to be questioned.
4. Our world is an amazing place. There are always new things to discover.
In the Top Ten of Everything 2000, I found these weird facts about the
world: The Koala is the sleepiest animal-it sleeps 22 hours a day. The
number-one name for goldfish in the United States is Jaws. The number-one
phobia is a fear of spiders. The most common street name in the United
States is Second Street. The top employer in the U.S. is the U.S. Postal
Service. The most-landed-on square in Monopoly is Illinois Avenue. And so
on. The world is a wacky place. There's always something new to be
discovered. It is a gift to be surprised over and over again. May we all
always have eyes of wonder.
5. Lists can help keep things in perspective. There are certain things we
like to believe about the world. For a long time, most Americans perceived
Russia to be an evil country. Therefore, I was surprised to learn that
Russia was the first country in the world to abolish capital punishment in
1826. I also like to believe that the United States is on the cutting-edge
of promoting human rights. I was appalled to learn that the U.S. didn't even
make the list of the ten first countries to give women the vote. It is
always a good thing to have your stereotypes shattered. It expands your
sense of the universe.
6. Each item on a list is dependent upon others. Lists don't allow us to
acknowledge complicated relationships. But most important, lists fail to
acknowledge that we live in an interdependent web. TIME Magazine and CBS
chose Albert Einstein as the person of the century. TIME also considered
Franklin Roosevelt and Adolph Hitler. The fascinating thing is that Einstein
probably would not have had the same effect on the world without Hitler and
Roosevelt. It was because of Hitler that Einstein stayed in the United
States-the Nazis seized his property in 1934. And in 1939, Einstein wrote to
Roosevelt warning that Germany could be repeating American experiments with
uranium and suggesting that Germany could produce a powerful bomb. FDR then
pursued the atom bomb. I can't help but think of Barbara Pescan's words in
our hymnbook, Singing the Living Tradition: "Because of those who came
before, we are; in spite of their failings, we believe; because of, and in
spite of the horizons of their vision, we, too, dream."
7. We celebrate the negative. I don't believe this to be true about each of
us, but it is true about our mass media. I agree that the top ten stories
about our world don't have to be positive. They should simply be the most
influential, the most life-changing. But I would bet that you could name,
without difficulty, the top ten headline news stories of the past year. Now,
count how many of these are positive stories. Not many, right? If each of us
were to list our personal choices for the top ten world events of the year,
however-bad events included-I would guess that our lists would not look like
the headline stories. Why is it that disaster, crime, and scandal make up
the largest percentage of the news?
8. Numbers are powerful. I don't need to remind you of this, after all the
hoopla a couple of years back about Y2K. Still, numbers have a great
legitimizing power. When we know how much, or what time, or how long, we
understand things better. I can't help but recall, however, the words of
Benjamin Disraeli, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and
statistics." In other words, don't believe every number you hear.
9. Top ten lists speak to our quest for immortality. I took a brief survey
in my office. It was unanimous. The two of us decided that people aspire to
set records and make top ten lists to achieve immortality. Publicity and
fame are pretty powerful forces. And so is the notion of a legacy. I found a
book titled Weird Wonders and Bizarre Blunders, which provides helpful hints
for getting records published. The author, Brad Schrieber, writes: "To get
into the other record books, you have to break existing records. To get into
ours, you can do that too, or you can attempt to do something no one in his
or her right mind would do. If it's weird enough, you just might earn
yourself a place in history." Even the Guinness Book of World Records has
some rules and directions if you're considering being immortalized in the
categories of pushups, golf-ball balancing, or running a marathon while
tossing a pancake. I think we all engage in some quest for immortality and
hope to be
remembered for something.
10. Lists can't even begin to get at what is really important. Ellen
Goodman, a syndicated columnist, debated about choosing a woman of the
millennium. She pondered a few choices. Certainly there were plenty of
candidates. She wrote: "But most women never got a shot at 'greatness.'.
They were making the meals and having the babies." In the end, she
announced: "I hereby anoint the Woman of the Millennium: Anonymous. Or if
you prefer, Anonyma. My Anonyma is more than the sum total of the unknown
female creators of the millennium. She also represents the forgotten mass of
women who took part in all the movements that literally moved women forward.
I also chose Anonyma because she reminds us that the entire Great Man or
Great Woman view of history is cockeyed. There is an idea that one person
stands alone, on his or her own feet-the Great Person as individual without
connections to the past. But Galileo, Marie Curie, Nelson Mandela, did not
spring full-grown from the head of Zeus. As Woolf wrote, 'any great figure
of the past... is an inheritor as well as an originator.' What we have .
. . are lives built on the sum total of the people who came before us. A lot
of them were women standing on the shoulders of their predecessors just high
enough to reach the next rung and pull up a few more. Most of them were
anonymous."
And so it is in our lives. We are propelled into the future with lives
touched by an unknown number of people, part of an intricate, interdependent
web. We have no idea how many and whose lives we have touched and have
touched our own. Our greatest acts will never be captured on a list. They
are acts of love and hope and faith. They are infinite and they reach into
eternity.
Quest October 2001 Contents
 From Your Minister
by Rev. Jane Ranney Rzepka, minister, CLF
An old Egyptian myth teaches a valuable lesson about joy and the
purpose of life. After death, Egyptians believed they would be confronted by
the god Osiris with a quiz that had to be answered honestly. After forty-two
routine questions concerning how the deceased had lived, Osiris asked a
crucial two-part question: First, did you find joy? And second, did you
bring joy?
Note that the emphasis is not on what we produce or on our possessions, not
even on our creative talents or our good works. The purpose of our earthly
journey according to Egyptian religion is simply this: Did you find joy and
did you bring joy during your earthly sojourn? The petitioners couldn't lie
to Osiris, and much was at stake. If they answered these questions
affirmatively, they were returned a measure of continued existence. If not,
they were taken away and forthwith eaten by a hippopotamus.
Freethinking Mystics With Hands: Exploring the Heart of Unitarian
Universalism, by Tom Owen-Towle, pp. 78-79. |
|
One of the forbears in our religious family tree is, of course, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Unitarian minister and essayist. He was one of those kids who
learned Latin at the age of six, and I've read that he studied the word
"affirmation" at some outrageously early age. He came to believe that
affirmation, "to strengthen for good," was the cornerstone of a meaningful
life. For Emerson, God existed in the divine spark found in every human
life.
Emerson's affirmation and Osiris's focus on joy go hand in hand.
Affirmation. Joy. Both cornerstones of our religion.
First, we try to be an affirming people-to help strengthen one another for
the good. We tell our children that we respect their thoughts and feelings,
and we put that into practice. We govern ourselves democratically; each vote
counts as much as another. We do our best to understand and respect the
religious beliefs of others. We want to offer dignity to people whether they
feel they deserve it or not. And while we understand that awful things
happen in the world, we do not base our religion on sin (original or
otherwise), or guilt, or the flames of hell. We are astonishingly
affirmative in our theological viewpoint.
When affirmation works, when we're feeling full, healthy, worthy, and
grateful, joy is easily available. October's apples taste fresh and
flavorful, candy corn is somehow fun to have around, and in the southern
hemisphere at this time of year, the sweet smell of spring has you humming
those touching love songs, or singing raucous rock oldies at the top of your
lungs. We have a religion that approves of joy, that encourages joy. Just as
Osiris does.
And we have a religion that promotes joy not just for us, but for all
people. We call it justice. Not everyone experiences Emerson's divine spark
within-in fact many have internalized exactly the opposite message at home,
in church, from the kids at school, from society at large: that we are
sinners in need of God's grace and our souls are corrupt, or that we're
stupid and won't amount to much, or because of where we're from or how we
talk or how we look or because we're weird somehow, we're not the successful
type. We may have been treated as though we were unworthy, or bad, or
invisible, or guilty, or never quite good enough, and need the healing that
affirmation can bring. Society encourages us to believe that we'd be better
off with whiter teeth and more megabytes. With motion sensors,
thigh-masters, and cars that could follow the mules off-road down into the
Grand Canyon. We don't, most of us, have large numbers of people marveling
at our inherent divine spark. Whether it is fellow Unitarian Universalists
who need affirmation, or folks outside the fold, our religion calls us to
notice the divine spark in ourselves and in one another, to offer that joy.
Just the way Osiris wants.
In the back of my mind, the hippos are lying in wait. I tell myself that
Osiris isn't insisting that I find joy every minute of the day-I can lock my
keys in the car, noticing just as the door slams shut; put a red pen in the
laundry with the whites without noticing; miss a glaring,
no-doubt-offensive, typo in a large mailing. I can grieve, stumble, get mad
as a hornet, dwell on something petty, and act really juvenile. I'm counting
on Osiris to understand that while joy is intermittent in the fullness of
life, it registers-it counts, and the hippos won't eat us.
The same goes for giving joy. It's enough for Osiris, I hope, that we
acknowledge the divine sparks around us, help with the healing, and do the
anti-oppression work, as best we can. It won't be a perfect day in the
neighborhood, or the country, or the world-we know that-and a whole lot of
people will not go home tonight feeling affirmed. But we will attend the
rally, or speak the words of kindness and encouragement, delight in the
children, tell the truth, give the gifts we know how to give-the soup, the
song, the manifesto, the crazy story-and hope against hope that we never see
the hippopotamus close at hand. We will strengthen for the good.
Jane Rzepka
Minister
Quest October 2001 Contents
REsources for Living
by By Betsy Hill Williams, Director of Religious Education, CLF
So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us, as
we remember them.
Roland B. Gittlesohn
When I was young, my grandmother died. She was an Episcopalian, and my
Unitarian Universalist parents gave us a choice about going to see her body
at the wake. I chose not to, and I've pretty much kept to that choice ever
since-when choice was an option. I remember my parents telling me that she
wasn't really "there" anyway. I was taught by my parents and my religion
that though death means the end of a body, the spirit lives on.
"The spirit lives on." How many times have I heard that and said that about
the sad deaths since? It's a comfort, I guess, to be told that something is
still alive. But I also remember it being an eerie, scary thought. My
childish interpretation of "spirit" was a ghost-like phenomenon that haunted
people-not something you wanted around. Many different cultures and
religions have long traditions of giving meaning to the phrase, "the spirit
lives on." What, if anything, can we Unitarian Universalists learn from
these traditions and how can we make our own meaning more clear and real for
our children?
Celts (the ancient peoples of the British Isles and France) believed that
the spirits of the dead actually arose this time of year, and visited the
living. Burial grounds were opened up and torches lit to help spirits find
their way back to their family, tribe, or clan. Extra places were set at the
table and food set out for any who had died that year. Great bonfires were
lit on hillsides, and lighted candles were carried to scare away evil
spirits.
The Mexican holiday, El Dia de Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), is a
similar, albeit more playful, celebration. Last October I happened to be in
Santa Barbara and witnessed for the first time the use of chocolate ghosts,
calaveras (small skulls made of white sugar covered with frosting and
tinsel), and skeleton toys and jewelry, which are all hallmarks of this
unique and festive holiday. For Mexicans, the Day of the Dead is both fun
and serious. In many homes, an altar is set up with pictures of relatives
who have died. Gravesites are visited, swept clean and decorated. In some
places, firecrackers start the holiday, lighting the way for the dead much
as the ancient Celts did.
In a recent conversation on the CLF-RE e-mail list, a member wrote
"remembrance of ancestors is extremely important in African tribal
traditions and forms the basis for the libation ceremonies that are integral
to Kwanzaa and other African and African American celebrations. African
tradition holds that as long as one's ancestors can be named, they are
remembered, and so they aren't completely dead. That's why the village
Griot, or storyteller, is so revered in tribal life-he is the keeper of
names."
In all these traditions, the spirit lives on in our act of remembering. The
DNA coursing through our veins links us physically from generation to
generation, but the spirit of a person is felt, and it is felt in the act of
remembering. We remember a love of life, a willful determination, a deep and
abiding concern for others, a passion for justice. In remembering, we bring
back to life, back to consciousness, the habits of heart and qualities of
mind that had an impact on the world. In remembering, we feel that impact
anew and we are strengthened in our own resolve to carry on despite pain, or
to love life despite its obstacles, or to work for justice despite the
indifference of others. In remembering, we bring to life the spirits of
those who came before us, be they ancestors, friends, or total strangers.
So perhaps the first lesson for us is this: the spirit lives on when we
choose to remember. It is "there" in us, waiting to be recalled. We can
choose to make our remembrance something ritualistic and customary. Or, we
can let it flow into consciousness from time to time with the characteristic
randomness of memory. Or, we can do both.
Here's one idea for creating a remembrance ceremony for your family. As
always, it will be most effective if you adapt it to fit your unique family
situation and use your own words to describe the spirit of life.
Set up an altar on a table that will be comfortable to sit around. On the
altar put photos or objects that remind you of people who have had an impact
on your life and are no longer living. Include ancestors you never met, as
well as friends, relatives, and public figures of more recent times. You
could even include pets. Place one candle in the center of the table and a
circle of unlit candles around the edge. Gather around the table and, as you
light the center candle, introduce the concept of the circle of life.
Every living thing, every person or animal or plant is born, lives for a
while, and then dies. But, when a living thing dies, something remains that
continues to live, even after that living thing is gone. Plants leave seeds
that grow into new plants; animals leave babies that grow into new adult
animals. Things like new discoveries that people make, inventions they
create, or ideas they have remain even after the people are gone. They are
carried along by the people who are still alive and they are passed on to
the next generation of people yet to be born. A person's spirit is like
that, too. It doesn't end when the person dies, it is carried along by all
the people it touched who are still alive. In remembering a person who
touched our lives, we carry their spirit along with our lives-we carry it
and we pass it on. The spirit of life is like this circle of candles-it has
no beginning and no end.
Think about the people and animals that are represented on your altar. What
do you remember about them? What part of their spirits do you carry on? Is
it your patient grandfather who fished for hours without getting a single
bite? Your funny uncle who could make anyone laugh? Your devoted friend who
stood up for you when others teased? Take turns lighting the candles on your
altar as each person names someone who has died and how their spirit lives
on for them.
Quest October 2001 Contents
UUs Abroad
Pictured here (in rays of sunshine!) are some of the CLF members who
attended the European Unitarian Universalist (EUU) retreat last spring in
Brussels, where CLF minister, Jane Rzepka, co-led a program about developing
worship services. A highlight of the weekend was the Passover Seder,
involving all ages.
Founded in 1982, the EUU is a support network and community for Unitarian
Universalists in Europe. About half of the 200 members belong to local
lay-led fellowships that share resources and programs (including Religious
Education). The remaining members are spread over most of the countries of
Europe. See: http://euu.uua.org.
EUU publishes a quarterly newsletter, the UNIfier, and sponsors twice-yearly
retreats in different countries that include a keynote speaker, workshops,
cultural/historical trips, family events, and a religious education program
for children and youth. Recent retreats have attracted up to 150
Universalists and Unitarians from throughout Europe.
Quest October 2001 Contents
CLF Begins Process to Become Welcoming Congregation
Did you know that CLF is beginning the process to become a Welcoming
Congregation? If you'd like more information, contact us by phone or e-mail
(info below) or go to www.uua.org/obgltc
Quest October 2001 Contents
Last updated June 12, 2005
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