Tag: Unitarian Universalist

We Are Here

.Reading time 10 minutes.

Chalice FlameWe are here.  We are here as friends, as strangers, as teachers and students.  We are here, united in one word…seminarian.  A word that speaks of the “seed” of life.  We are the seeds of life of our united Unitarian Universalist movement.  We come from all over the country, all over the map theologically, culturally, economically.  Yes, we are here.

But remember, we won’t always be here.  There will come a time when we will no longer be able to call ourselves “seedlings” but rather we will bud as flowers, trees, shrubs, forests…our ideas and our efforts will have taken root, even in small ways and we will carry the direction of our shared faith as leaders, ministers, chaplains, counselors, activists.  We will not always be here.

So for as long as this lasts, as long as we are germinating and stewing in the process of formation, and as long as we are together in this shared space over these few days, let us give thanks and presence to the fact that we ARE here and able to grow side by side in the rich soil of community, that holds the nutrients of mentors, and educators, funders, family and friends…a seedbed embrace that drinks deeply of the fountain of love. 
– Call to worship for CGUUS 2013

“What was that?” I find myself asking. The first Continental Gathering of Unitarian Universalist Seminarians (CGUUS) over the weekend of October 11 – 13 was a group of about 50 people ranging in ages, races, orientations and social locations that descended like a tsunami on Harvard Divinity School and First Church Boston where we shared and learned and taught and explored many of the various sides of where we are headed as future Unitarian Universalist ministers.  Then just as quickly, we all left…headed back to our individual and unique paths.  I am writing this on a crack of dawn flight back to San Francisco where I will spend the rest of my day at work and then attempt to make my 7:30pm pastoral care class, because that’s what we do.  We left in our wake a trail of upended archetypes, broken barriers and the fragments of the ‘old school.‘  If this tiny but mighty storm of energy is truly representative of the body of nationwide Unitarian Universalist seminarians, it is clear that we see ourselves and our faith evolving into something completely unlike its past and different from how it looks even today.  In fact, a vision for change may be one of the strongest uniting factors we have.  For unlike other faiths where tradition and the ‘institution’ may require that one must be ‘called’ by the diocese or display encyclopedic amounts of Biblical reference knowledge or practice extreme self sacrificing piety or possess a family pedigree in the church, the only thing that Unitarian Universalism seems to ask of its future clergy is that we be completely different from one another and have thoroughly contrasting needs and goals.  That, and a bottomless pit of love in our hearts for people, the world everywhere and the work of ministry.

The weekend blew by.  We delighted in a spirited world cafe kickoff, workshops with UU theologian Rev. Thandeka and newly installed minister of First Parish in Malden, MA,  Rev. Christian Schmidt, discussions about the purpose, shape and direction of the Unitarian Universalist movement and the next CGUUS gathering.  This was all woven together with exquisite and moving worship and carefully and lovingly planned meals which meant that Friday evening until Sunday morning was very full and fast paced.  Maybe too full.  This was a first for all of us where we had the opportunity to intentionally meet and exchange face to face with people from other schools and other parts of the country and experience our differences first hand specifically as seminarians.  I have lived on the West Coast and in the South for much of my adult life but I grew up in the Boston area surrounded by Unitarian churches.  Yet, I was still unprepared for how different from “Bay Area UU-ism” “Boston Unitarianism” looks and sounds from the student perspective.  There were lifelong UUs, recent converts, ‘Evangelical’ UUs, Pagan UUs, Christian UUs…I heard conversation about the depth of the commitment to Humanism that permeates some of the midwest and learned that Canadian UUs regardless of their school affiliations are proudly united as Canadians above all, which was a great lesson in American-centric UU regionalism.  There was so much to experience with each other and we all wanted more time together to learn and explore.

But there was also specific work to be done.  Originally, the Reverend Thandeka had been invited to lead a weekend workshop at Harvard Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Students (HUUMS.)  The focus of the event grew and evolved into a broader vision that ultimately became CGUUS, but Thandeka was always intended to be a crucial part of the experience.  She brought a grounding and a connection to those who are already established leaders in our field and a sense of mentorship that gave the weekend an important context as it looked to the future of our faith.  Her work and perspective, which can be deeply inspiring for some and challenging for others, was a reminder that we come from an expansive history of exploration and deep thought around liberal and/or progressive religion.  She was the perfect reminder that although we have innovation and change on the brain we must take time to pause…for many reasons, if not to actively engage the powerful visionaries who have come before us.  You can’t really go anywhere if you don’t know where you’ve been.

This was just a beginning.  There have been other UU seminarian led efforts in the past (Zero, Aspire) and we come from a tradition of placing importance on the education of seminarians.  It was fitting that we started this at Harvard where some of the luminaries of our tradition began their journeys.  Still, the transitory nature of our status as seminarians presents challenges.  But today, we are uniquely positioned through the combination of how our faith looks in the modern era and our access to many, many modes of communication and interaction to build on what we’ve begun.  The best example is how the planning committee for CGUUS 2013 was spread across the continent including Canada the West Coast, East Coast and Mid-West (and yes we looked to include the South, Southwest and even the Caribbean to no avail…next time!)  Yet, we managed to communicate through Google Hangouts and email and telephone calls.  We coordinated logistics, website registration, financial arrangements and even some pastoral care for one another, without ever being face to face as a group.  Truly, when we did realize that we were all in the room together for the first time, it was more like a reunion than anything else.  This thing has both living and digital legs.

So here we are now, looking at next steps.  All of the participants are on fire with the potential that has been unleashed.  Whether this continues as just a stand alone event, or whether it blossoms into regional gatherings; whether we emphasize education or networking or if we simply become a foundation for support and collegiality; or if we become all of the above, the Continental Gathering of Unitarian Universalist Seminarians is now a reality.  We are here.

God or “whatever”

.Reading time 9 minutes.

I have frequently heard liberal preachers speak of religious inclusion and at some point in their discourse, they offer up a list that goes something like this: “whether you believe in God, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever.”

Whatever? I know many Christians who would take issue with anyone who called Jesus a “whatever.”  There is a great deal of privilege that goes with being able to reduce every faith expression from the vast expanse of unnamed, or personally unfamiliar in the Western religious experience down to a “whatever.”  It is the same impulse I believe that lets the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” actually have traction among the some of the religious “nones” (those who are unaffiliated despite acknowledging a spiritual force.) Now, as a writer, I fully understand the casual grammatical placement of the word “whatever” here, but I’m more concerned with the intention behind the use of the word and the telescoping in a list like this from familiar to foreign.  I believe it is worth asking ourselves if we really are committed to inclusion if we’re not willing to complete the list…or at least to try.

Monday night, I was in Pastoral Care class at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, listening to a great lecture and interaction with our esteemed professor from the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Herbert Anderson.   Class was focused around how stories fit into our idea of pastoral care and what story telling, particularly the God story can mean in the pastoral context.  As a Unitarian Universalist who is in no way exclusively bound to the Bible, I was acutely aware of the Christian framing of this whole scenario: God, Jesus and the Bible applied in a deliberate way for healing, but regardless of my own spiritual framework, I still got a great deal out of the class.  I explained to a classmate afterward that I took this as just one mechanism for applying communication in a pastoral way.  I may or may not use Biblical scripture; it may or may not come when someone is in crisis.  No matter what, having the ability to help someone connect a shared human narrative to a lived experience can be a valuable tool.  But I was also reminded by another classmate that in some other traditions, this business of “pastoral care” is not something that one needs to learn or do as a separate skill.  In many ways (as it has been communicated to me by some of my Jewish colleagues) religion is the story; God is the lived experience; ‘pastoral care’ is entirely what it means to be a religious leader.

Whatever

My broader point may not be entirely clear yet.  This class was, by the professor’s admonition, Christian focused and framed.  But even in stripping away the Christianity, we must be mindful of where this understanding of a religious practice comes from because it may sit completely outside of the way and purpose of another faith tradition.  This is the ‘whatever.’  It would be so easy to say of pastoral care practices that they apply to all religions, Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, whatever…when in fact that is not the case.  But then our modern sense of ironic, tongue in cheek, media scripted humor says that we have an ‘out’ when we get to the end of our specific knowledge and our bulleted lists: Whatever. I say that if we reduce each other, even those we do not know about to ironic, witty or worse, snarky reactions and careless dismissive bucket phrases, we are as good as saying to them “you don’t matter and I don’t care.”  We face a similar dilemma in the LGBTQQI2S world; in an awkward attempt to create inclusion, we have created a trap for ourselves by attempting to reduce our beautiful tribe of gender fluid, sexuality affirming humans to a labeled container that will always be too small.  Coming back to religion, I’m well versed in the origins of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I’ve all too often heard liberal religious folks use it as a bucket to mean “all those other faiths that I don’t have time enough to find out about or are too ‘out there’ for me to wrap my head around but I think they should be mentioned somehow because I want to protect my liberal cred.”

So what is the solution?  First, we in the progressive/liberal traditions need to take our religion more seriously and not be afraid of asking those around us who may not believe our way, or may not believe in anything at all to give us the respect of acknowledging that we do take it seriously.  We’ve all heard the talk of “recovering Catholics,” “bitter ex-Baptists” and “former Mormons” and their situations and feelings are real; but so are our feelings about a life that is shaped and guided by our faith in positive ways.  Common respect.  Second, we need to be careful of making light of those who come from more conservative camps than we do.  Although I think teaching creationism in school is dangerous work, particularly if it is the only thing being taught, I do not think parodying it is the answer.   All parody serves to do is bully the ones we don’t agree with into submission.  We will get much further in coming up with real solutions to keeping schools out of the battle over religion by understanding and being able to actually communicate with those from whom we differ.  We don’t have to learn how to be Evangelical or Pentecostal, but we do have to learn how to live along side those whose beliefs differ from our own.

Finally, I would ask that we make a commitment.  A commitment to real inclusion where when we get to the end of the list we acknowledge that our experience is limited…or better yet, that we don’t speak in lists at all.  Rather, we speak always of the greater body of faith traditions and expressions and that we don’t single out our personal practice as somehow standing above or first in line.  Real inclusion means everyone is at the table and that miraculously, no one is served last.

I will take your faith seriously and not mock your faith in any way whether it be by exclusion, assumption or dismissiveness or invalidation.  My faith is not yours…even if we share the same practice and tradition…nor is your faith mine…our faiths are personal and our experience of community and spirituality are unique…as are each of our stories and each of our lives.  We all own the freedom to live our faith as we feel necessary.

I will take time and care to speak of all spiritual practices with sensitivity, awareness, intention, Grace…whatever.