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.

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As we approach Memorial Day, a reading from the Rev. Kathleen McTigue, senior minister of the Unitarian Society of New Haven, Connecticut, along with photographs of memorial gardens at Unitarian Universalist churches across the country.

They Are With Us Still

by Rev. Kathleen McTigue

In the struggles we choose for ourselves, in the ways we move forward in our lives and bring our world forward with us,

First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York

It is right to remember the names of those who gave us strength in this choice of living. It is right to name the power of hard lives well-lived.

Murray Unitarian Universalist Church in Attleboro, Massachusetts

We share a history with those lives. We belong to the same motion.

They too were strengthened by what had gone before. They too were drawn on by the vision of what might come to be.

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, Iowa

Those who lived before us, who struggled for justice and suffered injustice before us, have not melted into the dust, and have not disappeared.

Towson Unitarian Universalist Church in Lutherville, Maryland

They are with us still.
The lives they lived hold us steady.

First Parish Church in Weston, Massachusetts

Their words remind us and call us back to ourselves. Their courage and love evoke our own.

We, the living, carry them with us: we are their voices, their hands and their hearts.

Unitarian Society of Hartford, Connecticut

We take them with us, and with them choose the deeper path of living.

Source: “They Are With Us Still” by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, senior minister of the Unitarian Society of New Haven, Connecticut, Reading #721 in Singing the Living Tradition, the current Unitarian Universalist hymnal. Photographs from the websites of the listed churches.

One of the pillars of foundational religious thought that Unitarian Universalism rests upon is that of “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” (from the Sources, which are part of our Association’s bylaws). Dictionary.com defines humanism as “any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity predominate,” or “a variety of ethical theory and practice that emphasizes reason, scientific inquiry, and human fulfillment in the natural world and often rejects the importance of belief in God.”

But what does that look like in practice? The Rev. Dr. Kendyl Gibbons, who serves the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis, Minnesota, explores a “Humanist Identity” in this sermon from September of 2006. Rev. Gibbons is a member of the board of HUUmanists, and co-dean of The Humanist Institute.

from “Humanist Identity”

by the Rev. Dr. Kendyl Gibbons

Whether we are considering the exercise of leadership in this amorphous and sometimes fractious larger movement of humanism, or examining what is distinctive in our approach to the celebration of community, or bringing the voice of this congregation’s unique perspective into conversation among local Unitarian Universalists, many of us carry with us, as I do, the label of humanism. And as we approach the celebration of our 125th year as an institutional participant in the faith community of Minneapolis, it is worth asking again, what does it mean to be humanist? When we subscribe to that identity as a congregation, what are we claiming for and about ourselves? What resources does that identity offer us, and what kind of accountability does it ask of us? Of course, these questions do not have pat answers –- indeed, they have engaged the attention of some very fine minds for a century and a quarter right here, and I do not expect to dispose of them neatly this morning. Nevertheless, I think there are at least four things we can be assured of about what it means to embrace a humanist identity. It means, first of all, that we own a history together. Second, it means that we affirm a certain set of core values, specifically freedom, reason, and respect. A third implication is that we are engaged in a process of ongoing inquiry. And finally, it means that our conduct in all settings and circumstances, will be seen as representative of how humanists generally think and behave. Let’s unpack each of these four elements a bit.

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Today, many Unitarian Universalists and others are celebrating the ruling of the California Supreme Court, overturning that state’s ban on same-gender marriage. This is an issue that the Unitarian Universalist Association has been actively involved in, promoting the rights of any two people who wish to make the commitment to marriage to do so. Many Unitarian Universalist clergy have refused to sign marriage certificates for any couple until they are legally allowed to sign them for all couples who come before them.

This sermon (PDF), by the Rev. Sue Phillips, offers an inside perspective on the issue, written just after same-gender marriage was legalized in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Rev. Phillips won the 2005 Skinner Sermon Award for this piece, and is currently serving the First Parish Church of Groton, Massachusetts, as their Sabbatical Minister.

On Being an “Issue”

by the Rev. Sue Phillips

I spent months preparing this sermon. I read books on the history of the institution of marriage and how dramatically it has changed over time. I reviewed countless articles in the mainstream press assessing the political and social implications of same-sex marriage. I read and re-read the statements of religious conservatives who assert that opening marriage to gay and lesbian people would diminish the institution they hold to be the thread of our nation’s social fabric. I saved reams of articles that would have helped me offer a spirited political defense of gay marriage. I spent hours trying to understand the historical context out of which the public policy debate about marriage emerged. And I developed impassioned arguments about why gay marriage is an essential civil right. If I were straight, I would have preached about this issue long before I actually did.

But I’m not straight. I’m joyfully, abundantly, thoroughly queer. And so I have to talk to you about what’s ranging around in my heart. This means, of course, that I can’t with any integrity offer reflections on gay marriage as a social “issue,” no matter how much political and historical homework I have done. If I used that kind of intellectual analysis this morning I would be hiding. If I placed the authority for my reflections outside of my own experience it would feel like an act of cowardice, somehow, that keeps me hidden from you. And so it is from my personal experience that I want to speak with you.

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Rev. Sean posted this lovely poem back in February, and I saved it for this month’s “poetry-palooza.” Poet Ellen Bass, who writes and teaches in California, captures the necessity of seeing the sacred throughout our daily lives, an important concept for Unitarian Universalists.

Pray for Peace

by Ellen Bass

Pray to whoever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or marble or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the Bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah, raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinhah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

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April is National Poetry Month, and so I will devote the rest of this month’s postings to poetry that is either written by Unitarian Universalists or that expresses ideas one might find in our worship services and spiritual discussions.

This is probably my favorite poem ever, written by Wendell Berry. I first heard it in a Unitarian Universalist worship service all about poetry.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

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The Rev. A. Powell Davies (June 5, 1902-September 26, 1957) was remarkable in the way he could say and write deeply profound ideas in just a few, well-chosen words. This short piece is from the collection of his writings edited by Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion by A. Powell Davies. In it, an affirmation, and a challenge.

Is This Your Religion?

by Rev. A. Powell Davies (June 5, 1902-September 26, 1957)

We are the consummation of thousands of years of religious history. We are thousands of years that have stripped off superstition and battled with tyranny; thousands of years that struggled to take fear out of religion–to take it right out of human life; thousands of years that have marched, sometimes joyfully, sometimes in agony, toward spiritual emancipation. We are indeed the consummation of something.

Yet in this world of blood and sorrow it is scarcely important, hardly worth mentioning, unless in addition we are the beginning of something, unless our religion is new–the religion that has always been new in every prophet who died rather than forsake it; the religion that has been buried over and over again in creeds and rituals and sacred sepulchers and yet has always come to life; the religion that today is new all over the earth, stammering itself into utterance in every language known to humankind.

The religion that says freedom!–freedom from ignorance and false belief; freedom from spurious claims and bitter prejudices; freedom to seek the truth, both old and new, and freedom to follow it, freedom from the hates and greeds that divide humankind and spill the blood of every generation; freedom for honest thought, freedom for equal justice, freedom to seek the true, the good and the beautiful with minds unimpaired by cramping dogmas and spirits uncrippled by abject dependence. The religion that says humankind is not divided–except by ignorance and prejudice and hate; the religion that sees humankind as naturally one and waiting to be spiritually united; the religion that proclaims an end to all exclusions–and declares a brother-and sisterhood unbounded! The religion that knows that we shall never find the fullness of the wonder and the glory of life untl we are ready to share it, that we shall never have hearts big enough for the love God until we have made them big enough for the worldwide love of one another.

As you have listened to me, have you though perchance that this is your religion? If you have, do not congratulate yourself. Stop long enough to recollect the miseries of the world you live in: the fearful cruelties, the enmities, the hate, the bitter prejudices, the need of such a world for such a faith. And if you still can say that this of which I have spoken is your religion, then ask yourself this question: What are you doing with it?

Source: “Is This Your Religion?” by Rev. A. Powell Davies, as presented in Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion by A. Powell Davies, Edited By Rev. Dr. Forrest Church.

A video today, created by the Rev. Michael McGee, lead team minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA. Rev. McGee has made four videos titled “Two-Minute Timeouts,” in which he gives a short reflection, with imagery, on Unitarian Universalist spiritual life. This is the first.

Two Minute Timeout

by the Rev. Michael McGee

Source: “Two Minute Timeout” by the Rev. Michael McGee, lead team minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, VA, as published on YouTube. Hat tip, Shelby Meyerhoff at the UUWorld’s “Interdependent Web.”

In a religion that draws from many sources of inspiration and learning rather than one chosen scripture, it is the stories that we tell that communicate our Good News. This 2005 message from the Rev. Dr. Kenneth W. Phifer, now minister emeritus of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor, Michigan, gives us four of those stories:

The Stories of Our Lives

by the Rev. Dr. Kenneth W. Phifer

Is there anything more compellingly interesting than a story?

Is there anything of greater importance to our lives than the stories we tell and the stories we listen to and the stories in which we invest our faith?

Life-like or fantastic, ancient or modern, short or long, poetic or prosaic, musical or visual, written or spoken, filmed or signed, stories are a vital part of the human scene. Epics, comedies, tragedies, novels, short stories, grand operas and plays, soap operas, situation comedies, even advertisements, and dozens of other forms of stories fill our lives.

One storyteller observed, “so much of living is made up of story-telling that one might conclude that it is what we were meant to do.”

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One of the challenges in a faith that does not profess a specific system of belief is the ultimate question of good and evil. How do we judge moral behavior without a supreme moral authority outside of ourselves? How do we live our values?

The answer is of course multi-layered, and open ended. This excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882) gives us a place to start in an ongoing dialogue.

Emerson is seen by some as the quintessential Transcendentalist, a true “father” of modern Unitarian Universalism. Although he graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was ordained as a Unitarian minister, he left the official ministry after just three years in the parish due to theological and philosophical differences.

He spent much of the rest of his life lecturing and writing, and much of his writing is now online. This snippet comes from one of his earliest sermons, collected at emersonsermons.com, before he left his parish, probably written in the late summer of 1827. His text is a phrase found in I Timothy 5:4, in the King James: “let them learn first to shew piety at home.” His own records show that he preached this message no fewer than 27 times!

As with any material from this time period, you’ll want to engage your internal translator.

from an 1827 sermon numbered “X” by Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803-April 27, 1882)

It is the duty of but very few of us to command armies or rule or counsel nations. If we therefore keep our virtue in store till it find a field which we shall think worthy of its action it will wait long, or rather it will never exist for virtue exists only in action.

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