Here follows part two of “Watch Your Language,” the Rev. Fredric Muir’s response to a call for a deeper religious language in Unitarian Universalism.

Part one can be found here.

Watch Your Language, part 2

by the Rev. Fredric J. Muir

The language of faith is so difficult. The challenge of faith language is one which Bill Sinkford speaks about in an email message dated January 15 [2003]. Here is some of what he said:

“I understand that there has been considerable discussion and distress over what was published in a newspaper article recently. I am writing to share with you what happened, to address your concerns, and to assure you that I share many of the concerns you have expressed. Here is what happened. Sunday, January 12, [2003,] I preached a sermon entitled ‘The Language of Faith’ at First Jefferson UU Church in Ft. Worth, TX. Following the service, I did an interview with a reporter from the local paper, an interview which covered a number of issues including the points about religious language I made in my sermon and magazine column.”

“The reporter published a story that reported things I did not say, and drew conclusions that I did not reach. In particular, the reporter’s first sentence read, ‘A former atheist who is now president of the UUA will push to put the word God into a new statement of principles.’”

“Let me be very clear: I spoke of the need to periodically revisit -– that is, to read and reflect upon –- our foundational language. I did not call for the Principles to be rewritten. I spoke of the need for individuals to consider supplementing the language of the Principles with religious language in describing their own faith. I did not call for the inclusion of the word God in either the principles or in anyone’s individual descriptions of their personal faith.”

“I understand the alarm and genuine distress that many of you felt on reading the news story and accounts of it. I have learned from these events that I need to exercise greater care in addressing the broader world, including reporters, about Unitarian Universalism language and beliefs”.

“That said, I still believe that it is time for us to have a conversation about our foundational language. This incident has the potential to lead us into a rich discussion of who we are and how we describe ourselves. I welcome that discussion.”

A challenge we must face is what Sinkford calls “foundational language,” or what I have come to think of as the lingua franca of religion, the dictionary that we have been handed because we are a faith community, a religious community. What do we do with this dictionary, other than reject it and try to invent a language that very few understand?

A little perspective might help: Unitarian Universalists are about one-tenth of one percent of the population. Internationally, we are miniscule. We are already isolated because we are so small. But then when we use the language of science or psychology or politics to describe what traditionally has been faith and religious issues, people look at us like we’re from another world: What on earth are these UUs talking about? They want to know, because we don’t use the language of religion.

I will tell you this: Many of you know that since September 11, 2001 I have been making an effort to do interfaith work. On a regular basis I meet with an imam, a rabbi, and a Christian minister, and I have been working hard at using the language of faith, because that is the language they use. If I didn’t use the language of faith, I would have a difficult time bridging some of the gaps, the chasms that exist between our faith communities. I didn’t come to that realization easily. In fact, even today there are some words that I choke on, some of those words that I have written about but don’t speak. But I will try.

Some of you may have heard me tell this story: When I first started my doctoral work at Wesley Theological Seminary (a Methodist Christian seminary), I was required to take a class in homiletics (preparing and delivering sermons). My professor was a nationally renowned Methodist preacher. The first class he lectured. The second class he gave us the liturgical calendar for the Christian church and said, “I want you to pick two Sundays, including a holiday, that you have never preached about, and you will be required to design an entire worship service around that theme.” Well I looked through it and thought, oh Lord – I can’t do it! The language was unfamiliar to me; there were Sunday observances I had never heard of before. In desperation, I called my professor and explained who I was, that I was a Unitarian Universalist minister, and here’s the way we do things, and we don’t acknowledge or celebrate these events, and I went on and on. I concluded by saying to him that in looking at this liturgical calendar, I felt like a visitor in a foreign country, and I didn’t know the language. So what did he think, I asked; could he give me a break and cut me some slack? There was silence from his end of the phone. Then all he said was, “Mr. Muir, learn to speak the language.” And that was that.

I was really angry when he said that. I didn’t want to learn to speak that language. Yet, that’s why I was there. I was there with all those Christians as the only Unitarian Universalist. Not only was I going to learn to speak the language, but I would learn how to be a functioning part of that one-tenth of one percent in a sea of orthodoxy. I learned to speak the language and eventually wrote a book about why it’s important. It’s important that we learn to translate, that we can use the word idolatry and understand that it can mean addictions. We can speak the word sin without gasping for air after saying it, and know it means brokenness and alienation. We can speak of salvation and understand that the word means transformation. We can speak about the Kingdom of God and know it means the Beloved Community. When you can separate the words from creed and dogma, the language can have new meaning for us, and we can still use the language of faith.

This is not going to be easy to do. Not only will it be hard, but those who listen to us might also find it hard, and they will ask us questions just as the friends of Unitarian Universalist Philip Simmons asked him when he was writing Learning to Fall. They wondered why he used the language of faith. And he said, as we might: “Because it is with religious language that human beings have most consistently, rigorously, and powerfully explored the harrowing business of rescuing joy from heartbreak.” (xiv)

It’s religious language that has been used to talk about the human condition in depth. Only now, it’s time that religious liberals and freethinkers deepen this language by liberating the language of faith from the tyranny of orthodoxy and fundamentalism. And isn’t this what Unitarian Universalists have been doing for centuries? We have gone about our business by examining the way that Trinitarians reduce the Holy (the Godhead); but Unitarians speak a language not of reductionism and incompleteness, but of unity and harmony, of putting things together and not separating – as in the interdependent web of all life. Universalists speak not of separations between people, but of the love and inclusiveness of God and how no one is denied transformation (except the word salvation was used). As UUs we have tried to separate language from the restrictions of orthodoxy. We need to continue doing this. We need to renew our efforts to speak the language of faith.

One thing I have noticed about our church life is that most of the people who have been coming in the last five years (as we have been growing at around 10 percent per year) — and many of these have been 35 and younger — have no difficulty with faith language, as long as it is not tied to creed or dogma. It’s people of my generation and older, the people who came of age in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s – or who perhaps grew up in a Unitarian Universalist church and experienced the humanist-theistic debate that eventually gave away the language of faith – we’re often the ones who are stuck and can’t get rid of the baggage of the language barrier. The baggage is so heavy it’s stopped us in our tracks.

We have to move on. We have to engage each other and the community with religious language, and come to terms with what those words mean when they are not attached to creed and dogma. There is power in the language of faith, and we need to talk with each other and we need to talk with other faith communities.

If we expect to grow beyond one-tenth of one percent, if we expect to become a meaningful, viable part of the wider religious world, we must embrace the language of faith. I challenge you to begin doing this, meeting the challenge of faith language; pushing aside the creed and dogma that has so long been attached to religious words. Then begin sharing the language of faith as you describe our gospel of good news, the gospel of Unitarian Universalism.

Source: “Watch Your Language” by Rev. Fredric Muir, who serves the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, Maryland, preached February 3, 2003.

A number of years ago, Rev. William Sinkford, the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, made a statement about the lack of religious language in our movement, calling for an exploration into a “language of reverence.” Tucked away on the UUA website is a page of sermons that stemmed from that call, reactions on all spectrums.

This one, by the Rev. Fredric Muir, is particularly thought-provoking. Writing in 2003, Rev. Muir speaks to a continuing issue in our movement — how do we utilize religious language inclusively, without dogma, and without alienating individual theological positions?

Rev. Muir serves the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, Maryland, and will lead a worship service tomorrow morning before Plenary (business meeting) here at General Assembly. I have broken the sermon into two parts, the second of which will appear tomorrow.

Watch Your Language, part 1

by the Rev. Fredric J. Muir

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
— Madame Bovary

Language is important. How we understand the words we speak, how others hear the words we speak is very important.

In his essay, “The Speaking and Writing of Words,” Frederick Buechner recalls a vacation trip to Versailles — his first trip there — and how excited he was to see firsthand sights which he had only read about or seen in pictures. What eventually proved hard for him was having no one to share the experience with. Maybe a similar kind of thing has happened to you; I know it’s happened to me. I can think of times when I’ve been watching a movie, or television, or I’ve been to a place that is so unbelievable, and I wish there was someone there to share the event, to listen to my words of excitement or disappointment. I remember the first time I went to the Caribbean and went snorkeling, it was like being in a National Geographic Special. I kept shouting to those around me — whenever we’d return to the surface — “Can you believe this?” I couldn’t imagine doing it alone; it wouldn’t have been the same. Or the first time I went to the Philippines, it was incredible. And everybody around me didn’t speak English: I wanted so much to speak my words of excitement and astonishment. It was similar to what Buechner experienced; it was as though speaking the words to a companion was the only way to make the sights and events a reality; as though the words were performing a “midwifery function,” as he says, “by making what you see to be real.” The language we use, the words we choose to use, are so important. Sometimes we just take it for granted.

(Read on … )

Today in Fort Lauderdale, before the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly gets started, the ministers and other religious professionals are meeting for C.E.N.T.E.R. (Continuing Education Network for Training, Enrichment and Renewal) presentations. This morning’s keynote speaker was Old Testament scholar Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, and a response was given by Unitarian Universalist minister and scholar Rev. Alice Blair Wesley (in abstentia, as her flight was delayed, unfortunately).

Rev. Blair Wesley, now retired, has been a strong voice for the importance of covenant in our congregations, delivering the 2000-2001 Minns Lectures on her ideas. This sermon was delivered in April 2005 at the First Parish Norwell Unitarian Universalist Church in Norwell, Massachusetts.

It Matters Most What We Love

Rev. Alice Blair Wesley

We sometimes say that self-determination and independence are our basic values. Well, self-determination and independence are very important. Yet, consider this: Have you ever heard anybody say, “I choose today — or I chose last week or I will choose next Tuesday — to love my children”? Or, “I determined, after studying the facts, to love ice hockey rather than baseball”? Or, “I decided at age 25 to fall in love with the person I married at 26″?

You never heard any such thing. Especially in the realm of romantic love, we celebrate love as something that happens to us. We say ours was “love at first sight.” Or, “One date and I was swept off my feet.” About a sport, or a favorite author, we might say, “One game — or one page — and I was hooked.” Sometimes people even say of our churches, “One service and I knew I was at home,” meaning, “One service and I loved these people and this institution.”

At its outset, and also in its renewal, there is a crucial element of passivity in all love — whether we’re talking about the love of friends, or love of our work, or sports, or nature, or learning. For love is a response to the charm, the beauty, the worth, or the potential worth of something outside ourselves. To see and feel that charm we have to be open to impressions we can receive only if our attention is “captured.” We don’t act in order to love; rather, when we are acted upon, we love in response.

(Read on … )

Here follows part 2 of “Why Worship,” by the Rev. Alan Taylor from Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Oak Park, Illinois, one of this year’s Breakthrough Congregations. Part 1 can be read here.

Why Worship, part 2

by Rev. Alan Taylor

While every place where we walk is holy ground, there is something especially holy about the space where we come together, open our hearts and minds, and here reflect on our deepest concerns.

So much more is possible in a group because we are relational beings. Worship points us beyond ourselves. By coming together we open up possibilities unseen and not yet imagined.

Worship therefore offers hope, hope of healing, hope of reconciliation, hope of transformation, hope of overcoming the brokenness in our lives. Worship helps us remember there is more to our lives than our various concerns, struggles, and frustrations. Worship is an embodiment of the truth that we are not alone and that we as human beings are enough, that we have the spiritual resources to get through any challenge no matter how awful or trying.

(Read on … )

Every year, several member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations are designated as “Breakthrough Congregations” and recognized at the General Assembly. Each congregation is invited to give a presentation during Plenary, the business sessions, and a separate workshop to talk about their programs and effective growth. This year, the Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Oak Park, Illinois is among them.

This sermon by the Rev. Alan Taylor, delivered November 28, 2004, demonstrates one of the great strengths of the congregation — the worship life. It is very long, so the second half can be read here.

Why Worship, part 1

by Rev. Alan Taylor

When I was growing up, my family attended the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bakersfield, California. The congregation called itself a fellowship and were quick to point out that they were not a church. They seemed non-religious, even anti-religious. God and prayer were spoken of only in contempt and jest. And I remember distinctly noting that they called their meeting, ‘Sunday Services’ not ‘Worship Services.’ And so when I re-discovered Unitarian Universalism in a church that emphasized the centrality of worship, it was a new and wonderful experience. In time, worship became essential to my own life.

In answer to the question “Why worship?” I offer you my answer in a nutshell: Worship brings us together; worship offers hope; worship invites transformation.

Worship brings us together—in community. As a congregation, what ultimately defines us is not our building, nor the minister, nor even our beliefs or principles. The central aspect of our congregation is the people who come together week after week. You, who consistently come together, are the core of this congregation, and this is a dynamic entity that changes little by little with every new person who comes. When one among this core departs, a change also occurs. The tapestry we call community, the interweaving of the many relationships is what serves as the foundation.

(Read on … )

Blogger Peacebang recently reflected on the Lord’s Prayer, and I found the words coming into my own mind recently on a Sunday during the time of silence after the sermon, so I did some Googling on Unitarian Universalist approaches to this traditional prayer.

The Rev. Roger Fritts, senior minister at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Maryland, preached this sermon on December 15, 2002, regarding his own personal interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. I think his approach is extremely thoughtful, on both an intellectual and spiritual level.

An Interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer

by Rev. Roger Fritts

Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our trespasses (or debts)
As we forgive those who trespass against us;
(or: As we have forgiven our debtors)
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
(For thine is the kingdom
And the power
And the glory,
Forever.)

-Roman Catholic version with
Protestant changes or additions in italics

According to a 1992 study published in Newsweek, about eighty-eight percent of the people in the United States pray. According to a study of Unitarian Universalists conducted in 1987, fifty-seven percent of us say that we pray occasionally or often. I fall into this group of fifty-seven percent.

During difficult moments of my life I pray. I know that my silent, private prayer will not change the unchangeable. Nevertheless, in moments of doubt and fear my short, silent prayers give me comfort. They help me cope by calming me and soothing my emotions.

Some might say that my prayer is a form or regression. They might suggest that when I pray I am discarding my rational, logical side; I am setting aside what I have learned from science, and returning to my early childhood superstitious beliefs in God as a Santa Claus who will grant my prayer, if I say the right words in the right way.

(Read on … )

For summer services last year, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City, Iowa invited lay members to reflect on their beliefs as Unitarian Universalists. This is excerpt by Karen Fox, delivered on July 22, 2007, shows the natural progression of personal beliefs to the saving message of our movement. Many of the talks presented in the series are also available on the UUSIC website.

from This I Believe, what inspires me

by Karen Fox

Through reading, asking, listening and observing I have forged my own belief system that honors the vastness and wonder of nature and the Universe. I believe in that which is greater than all and yet a part of each; but that, for me is not an external god. I believe that if there is a God it is the energy of life and all of creation. I believe that that energy is what I am –what each of us is, so we are all a part of that God. I believe that we each decide our own purpose in being here, in being alive. There is no god in the sky deciding what we should be doing with our lives. Our purpose is what we each decide it is within our own being and understanding. I also believe that we are all one — part of that independent web of existence, part of that all encompassing energy, and that what we do, say and think has an impact on all other begins. Therefore compassion, striving to understand, and kindness are essential to healing humanity.

(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.

This lovely prayer was written by Elizabeth of “Elizabeth’s Little Blog.” It’s a great reminder that even in the little doings of our daily lives, there are beauties and miracles that can so easily pass us by.

Prayer by Elizabeth

all of all

love of all love, peace of all peace, depth of depth

so often, in the midst of all we do, as we are washing dishes… sending email… going to work… and doing all the things we do day in and day out,

we can forget that our time here on this earth is both a gift and a miracle.

do not let us forget.

because sooner than we think, a tomorrow will come and it will be our last tomorrow and we will have missed the miracle. we will have emailed, and worked, and complained, and watched tv through the miracle.

we will have let the sunrises, the fresh air, the warmth of a bed, the taste of our orange juice, the first snows, and the cricket chirping slip by as we go about doing all of our so important things.

we will have let our pain and struggles and our tasks and achievements and our accumulation of things obscure the enchantment and richness that can be life.

love of all love, peace of peace, depth of depth –

let us find the holy in all that makes up our life.

let us slow down. stop doing. and learn to simply be.

may we find the holy in our coffee, in the spider whose lovely eight legs carry her effortlessly over her web, in the kiss goodnight, in the hot meal, fuzzy blanket, and in the chill of the dark night air. may we be seekers and makers of the holy.

amen and blessed be.

Source: Prayer by Elizabeth of “Elizabeth’s Little Blog,” posted April 8, 2008.

To finish up National Poetry Month, this poem offers a glimpse of eternity.

Its writer, the Rev. Robert T. Weston, was a Unitarian minister for many years, serving the First Unitarian Church of Louisville, Kentucky, and helping to found Second Unitarian Church in Omaha, Nebraska. His son now serves as the consulting minister for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Hillsborough, North Carolina.

The poem can be found as responsive reading #530 in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition.

Out of the Stars

by Robert Weston

Out of the stars in their flight, out of the dust of eternity,
here have we come,
Stardust and sunlight,
mingling through time and through space.

Out of the stars have we come,
up from time.
Out of the stars have we come.

Time out of time before time
in the vastness of space,
earth spun to orbit the sun,
Earth with the thunder of mountains newborn,
the boiling of seas.

Earth warmed by sun, lit by sunlight;
This is our home;
Out of the stars have we come.

Mystery hidden in mystery,
back through all time;
Mystery rising from rocks
in the storm and the sea.

Out of the stars, rising from rocks
and the sea,
kindled by sunlight on earth,
arose life.

Ponder this thing in your heart,
life up from sea:
Eyes to behold, throats to sing,
mates to love.

Life from the sea, warmed by sun,
washed by rain,
life from within, giving birth,
rose to love.

This is the wonder of time;
this is the marvel of space;
out of the stars swung the earth;
life upon earth rose to love.

This is the marvel of life,
rising to see and to know;
Out of your heart, cry wonder:
sing that we live.

Source: “Out of the Stars” by Robert T. Weston, reading #530 in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, and also published online in many places.