Stories and metaphor are essential to any religious language, but perhaps even more so to Unitarian Universalists who are not bound by creed. Stories give us an opportunity to speak about larger things, using a broader vocabulary than we might in our every day conversations.

Religious educator Rev. Sophia Lyon Fahs (1876-1978) understood this importance, particularly in the realm of teaching children about religion. In this introduction to her Beginnings of Earth and Sky: Stories Old and New, she talks about the very evolution of stories of creation, and the human desire to explain the world around us.

Around Campfires

by Sophia Lyon Fahs

Long, long ago around a campfire in the evening twilight, a tribe of shepherds sat talking. They looked out across the valley — and over the hills — at the changing colors of the sky — rose and orange beams spreading overhead — pink, fleecy clouds floating among them — golden light coming from beyond out of the nowhere — or was it out of the everywhere?

There was too much greatness all around for anyone to speak. These shepherds of old felt themselves a part of something very large and high and wonderful.

At last someone asked, “From where has this great beauty come?”

Then another asked, “And how did it all begin at the very beginning?”

(Read on … )

The balance of science and religion, of the work of humanity versus the ineffable, can be hard to describe. This lovely song by Catherine Faber, set to images by Vu Trong Thu on YouTube, does a beautiful job of speaking to the complexity of the world we live in and seek to understand.

The word God in this piece may cause some readers pause — how do you hear this word in this context? Personally, I find it well in keeping with Rev. Michael Dowd’s treatment — god as the whole of creation, constantly growing and changing.

The Word of God

by Catherine Faber

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strike-slip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline…
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd, long-vanished creatures and their tracks & shells are found;
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the rocks.

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when torture broke the remnant of his will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars.
We may watch and study or may shudder and deny,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the sky.

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were.
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
These tiny, humble, wordless things — how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts; no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Remember, should you have to choose between them in the strife,
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote life.

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.

Source: “The Word of God” by Catherine Faber, video from YouTube by Vu Trong Thu, and poem/lyrics from Echo’s Children. Hat tip, Ms. Kitty.

Today is May Day, Beltane, a celebration of spring for many people, especially including those who choose the path of earth-centered, or pagan, religious traditions. This creation story comes from Lady Abigail, high priestess of the Ravensgrove Coven in Greenfield, Indiana, and was taught to her by her great-grandmother. It strikes me as a story that would be most welcome in our Unitarian Universalist circles as well.

Mother Earth and Sister Moon: A Beltaine Story of Creation

by Lady Abigail, remembered from her great-grandmother

In the beginning, there was no land and no water, no stars and no sky. Only a great void filled with all that could be. Living within the void was creation, not yet by name for no words had yet been spoken. Silence was the void.

Then like a whispering wind gentle on a summer night, a sound crossed the great void. Our Grandmother of the Night called to the Grandfather of the Day. “Grandfather, do you see we are alone and have no children; our sky is empty and our hearts alone.”

Suddenly, Grandfather Day spoke in a deep thundering voice. “Then we shall have Children: daughters, two daughters.”

(Read on … )