This piece was written by Sara Robinson, a journalist and Unitarian Universalist, in response to the events in Knoxville, Tennessee this week.

You can still donate here, and attend a vigil in your area if you feel so moved.

Of Madmen and Martyrs

by Sara Robinson

We are an odd group, we Unitarians.

Conventional wisdom says that we’re soft in all the places our society values toughness. Our refusal to adhere to any dogma must mean that we’re soft in our convictions. Our reflexive open-mindedness is often derided as evidence that we’re soft in the head. Our persistent and gentle insistence on liberal values is evidence of hearts too soft to set boundaries. And all of this together leads to a public image of a mushy gathering of feckless intellectuals that somehow lacks cohesion, backbone, focus, or purpose.

You can only believe this if you don’t know either the history or the modern reality of Unitarian Universalism. The faith’s early founders, Michael Servitus and Francis David, were executed for the radical notion that belief in the Trinity — which excluded Muslims and Jews — should not be a requirement for participation in 16th century public life. Four hundred years later, in the same part of the world, other Unitarians died in concentration camps for having the courage of their humanist convictions. Viola Liuzzo, a 39-year-old mother from Michigan who was killed by the Klan in the days following the Selma march in 1965, was one of ours, too.

(Read on … )

Sometimes it is important, spiritually, to let go of our individual control. Unitarian Universalism places a great value on the individual search for truth and meaning, but also on the value of conducting that search in community. We realize that sometimes, we are weary and just need to rest.

This hymn for an Evening Service, from the 1917 Hymns of the Church: With Services and Chants, published by the Universalist Publishing House, recognizes this need. The tune, Lux Benigna, was written by the Rev. J.B. Dykes and the words by Rev. Dr. John Henry Newman.

Lux Benigna, for Evening Service

words by Rev. Dr. John Henry Newman

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene: one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path: but now,
Lead thou me on.
I loved the garish day; and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long thy power has blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Source: Lux Benigna, tune by Rev. J.B. Dykes with words by Rev. Dr. John Henry Newman, from the 1917 Hymns of the Church: With Services and Chants, published by the Universalist Publishing House, page 7, via Google Books.

How do we as human beings reconcile the essential dichotomies of hope and fear, of change and security?

Quoted in this December 2007 sermon at the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., today’s selection addresses just this question. It comes from a now out of print meditation manual from 1983, To Meet the Asking Years, edited by Gordon B. McKeeman. Author Ida M. Folsom is a long-time Universalist who was on the Universalist Church of American Extension Board from 1946-48.

The Waters of Life

by Ida Folsom

There are times in the lives of all of us when the greatest and most imperative need is for a sense of security and confidence that cannot be shaken by the winds of chance.

The waters of life never run smoothly. Every day has its darkness and its light, its bitter and its sweet, its pleasure and its pain. There are always unfulfilled promises, hopes that fade into the mists of years, the dreams from which we rudely awaken. It is in moments like these when we feel the futility of dreams, the cruelty of promise and the wastefulness of hope.

One of the great song writers, who understood life, challenges us with these words: “Unless you have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?” and we might follow his thought by asking: “Unless we have a hope, how can we find courage for the road, and unless we have a goal, how shall we know when we have arrived?” Dreams with purposes, hopes with purpose, aspirations with purpose, are the “everlasting arms” that bear us up and make sure our confidence in ourselves when the current seems to be running against us.

I will say to my soul: “Thou shall not be shaken by the exigencies of life, for all experiences are necessary to thy shaping,” and I will look hard at the hammer and anvil that shape them.

Source: “The Waters of Life” by Ida M. Folsom, from To Meet the Asking Years, edited by Gordon B. McKeeman, as quoted in this December 2007 sermon at the Universalist National Memorial Church in Washington, D.C.

Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810-May 10, 1860), a contemporary of Emerson and Channing, among others, served the West Roxbury Unitarian Church in Massachusetts beginning in 1837. Now known as Theodore Parker Church Unitarian Universalist, the congregation still celebrates and wrestles with his legacy.

Parker is credited with being a pivotal figure in bringing Unitarian theology beyond a purely Biblical basis, and was in fact denounced as not practicing Christianity, after delivering A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity (The Works of Theodore Parker, volume 4, pg. 1) at an ordination in 1841.

For a brilliant account of Parker’s life and writings, see Dean Grodzin’s Book, American Heretic: Theodore Parker and Transcendentalism, excerpts of which are available on Google Books.

This prayer, published in 1864 in The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker (p. 39), illustrates Parker’s holistic view of god and his sense of the constant reaching, stretching, deepening that human beings attempt in order to be closer to what he called the “Absolute Religion” in his famous sermon in 1841.

Prayer

by Rev. Theodore Parker

O Thou eternal One, may I commune
With Thee, and for a moment bathe my soul
In Thy infinity, Mother and Sire
Of all that are? In all that is art Thou;
Being is but by Thee, of Thee, in Thee;
Yet, far Thou reachest forth beyond the scope
Of space and time, or verge of human thought
Transcendant God! Yet, ever immanent
In all that is, I flee to Thee, and seek
Repose and soothing in my Mother’s breast.
0 God, I cannot fear, for Thou art love,
And wheresoe’er I grope I feel Thy breath!
Yea, in the storm which wrecks an argosy,
Or in the surges of the sea of men
When empires perish, I behold Thy face,
I hear Thy voice, which gives the law to all
The furies of the storm, and Law proclaims,
“Peace, troubled waves, serve ye the right—be still!”
From all this dusty world Thou wilt not lose
A molecule of earth, nor spark of light.
I cannot fear a single flash of soul
Shall ever fail, outcast from Thee, forgot.
Father and Mother of all things that are,
I flee to Thee, and in Thy arms find rest.
My God! how shall I thank Thee for Thy love!
Tears must defile my sacramental words,
And daily prayer be daily penitence
For actions, feelings, thoughts which are amiss:
Yet will I not say, “God, forgive!” for Thou
Hast made the effect to follow cause, and bless
The erring, sinning man. Then, let my sin
Continual find me out, and make me clean
From all transgression, purified and bless’d!

Source: Prayer by the Rev. Theodore Parker (August 24, 1810-May 10, 1860), published in 1864 in The Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker (p. 39)