John Lennon, famed author of the song Imagine, used to tell a story about the first time he had a sense that Yoko Ono, the woman he later married, was, what he described as his soul mate.
He went to an art exhibit of hers at Dunbar's Indica Gallery in London. When he walked in he observed a room, practically empty, with only a few pieces. There was a ladder in the middle of the room. He could see a small placard on the ceiling right above the ladder. So... he walked over to the ladder, climbed it and read the placard, which had one word on it:
yes
The connection was immediate.1
This exhibit communicated simply: Find the yes. Strive for it, bring your whole self to it, and give it room.
This is easier said than done. It is hard to bring our whole selves to anything. We are distracted by worries and ambitions, we are regimented by our "to do" lists and the messages in society that we are not enough. Self doubt infiltrates our choices, past missteps keeps us from trusting.
It is far more common to keep our focus on what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with ourselves, what's wrong with our lives. We convince ourselves we are sophisticated if we are aware of imperfection, wise if we maintain that we can do better, be better, find better activities, live better lives. We convince ourselves right into a sense of emptiness. Love gets blocked by fear, and life then becomes a chore, or battle, or burden. All of us experience wilderness moments. Times when yes is nowhere in sight, or, we feel, nowhere near our territory. We all have times of a crisis of courage, when we feel unable to take that next step or find our way up the ladder. We all have slogged through worry and doubt, suspicion and loneliness. It's a part of our journey, a part that we can pass through, a part that can teach us new strengths if we find our way towards hope and reconciliation with the strength that is within us.
There are other times, of course, when our lives are in full bloom. Times when we have found our stride and strength. Times when praising life is a natural part of our song of being. Times when we've tapped into the yes of life
Unitarian Universalism is inspired by the yes of life. In our worship, our service to the community, our religious education we claim a life-affirming theology. We do this by embracing a living faith, one that welcomes new ways of getting at Truth, new understandings, new perspectives, while honoring the wisdom and experiences of our forebears, stories of faith understanding and sacred writings from traditions throughout the world.
We share a resonance, a common sense of things, in our faith journeying together by affirming seven principles, which describe an ethos, a way of relating to each other, so that we can come to that wisdom, that powerful yes response to our being. We do not tell each other what we must believe, we encourage each other toward a discipline of life affirmation that fosters the love of truth, beauty, awe and justice. In short, we strive to engender a place where the individual expression of what some may call god, the creative essence, is made manifest in our lives.
The principles are framed by two corresponding faith claims that support our work together. The first principle, "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" and the seventh principle, "the interdependent web of all existence in which we are a part." We have individual worth and responsibility toward one another because we are intricately connected in a web of existence. We each influence the whole of our existence together. The strength of the web depends on both our individual claim of being and the ways we strengthen the strands of connection between us. If we severe the ties that bond us as a species, we weaken the network of human being. Life is a gift for us to cherish and care for, a chance to claim our unique signature of being, knowing that we could not be here without an intricate system of choices and chance that came before our birth, and a network of support that exists during our lives.
So let us look at the first principle: "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" to get a glimpse of the heart of the Unitarian Universalist faith. Again, this does not convey the whole of our Unitarian Universalist way of life, but it gives a solid way to enter in.
This first principle is a straightforward affirmation and seems quite simple at first. When entering our doors we are greeted with an assumption that we are uniquely valuable, that we have worth and dignity, that we do, indeed, belong in this life, that we are a blessed gesture of creation. To some it is a welcomed change, having experienced a first regard in terms of sin or deprivation. Instead of promoting our religion as something that will correct all that's wrong with you or fill you with what is missing in your being, we welcome you as another signature of being, someone whose sacred knowing can inform our lives, enliven our ways and add perspective to the larger truth.
Now it is true that people enter churches feeling empty, lost or needing to get on the right track in their lives again. None of us are fully realized beings who don't need to learn or lean on others. But it is the approach, the assumption of your worth that begins the conversation. It is hoped that you will feel changed by the experience of dwelling in Unitarian Universalist communities, but it is not our mission to change you. You have everything you need within you. You just need to figure out how to make that wonder essence that is you live and move and have being. That's where the discipline of our faith community comes in.
So, we enter this faith charged with our own calling, to come to our best selves, which we believe is basically good. Sometimes that feels like a free pass at first until we dwell in community for awhile and realize that everyone in the community is on their own path to claim and honor the wisdom within, that each and every one of us has worth and dignity. Even the one we can't stand.
This, by the way, is an essential truth in any faith community worth its salt. There will be at least one person who rubs you the wrong way and who, against your first impulse is of equal worth. Now that phenomenon is a gift from the Greater Spirit in which we all dwell. That person who you can barely stand is a gift to practice loving your neighbor as yourself ... honoring the inherent worth and dignity of the other. You see, there is a myth that in church communities you have to like everybody—ain't going to happen—not if there is any depth in the relatedness as a whole.
So, the next time you are in the presence of a person you can barely abide, you can think to yourself, thank you. Thank you for reminding me that I don't quite have this community thing worked out. Thank you for helping me see that I have more to discover, more to understand in order to see the worth of this person. I may not be able to come to that bit of knowing in my lifetime, but that is simply my failure of imagination. I need not immediately like you, but I thank you for reminding me of the need to continue to evolve, and, too, to be myself as best as I can, even when it means constantly disagreeing with you. That's okay, that's how it is at this time and the place is big enough for both of us. And, if I really think about it, you probably have a bit of the source of the universe that I am having trouble embracing. If you aren't being abusive or disrespectful of life, then it is a bit of the universe that I probably need to take a harder look at. So, thanks....
Inherent dignity is not just a truth to lead us to feel good about ourselves, it is also a truth to compel us to engage our fully worthy selves with others, for therein lies the strength of the world. It's also not about accepting any behavior. It's about calling ourselves and others to account for the responsibility to help shape this world and practice opening our hearts to the other who may be very different than ourselves.
Like... "Joe the Plumber." "Joe the Plumber" became an icon overnight this week during the final Presidential debate of this election season, when the candidates invoked his image a dozen times to demonstrate to their viewers that they understood the economic plight of "Joe" and that they had his best interest in mind. The media frenzy followed suit and we were subjected to the image of "Joe the Plumber" from every News station to the front page of the New York Times within 36 hours.
Is any one else sick of the story of "Joe the Plumber" at this point??? May I have an Amen!
Now this is "inherent worth and dignity" on steroids: it may temporarily enhance the muscle of affirmation, but with the intention far more focused on winning over others rather than authentic engagement with others, it will eventually damage the body politic. We have the natural ability to embrace the worth of another, but when we pump it up for personal gain, we compromise our integrity and eventually reverse its effects. Twenty-four hours after the self-congratulatory uplifting of "the average Joe," with reporters and pundits scrambling for a moment's connection, he becomes the target of vetting. Soon Joe's unpaid taxes and a lack of a plumber's license is aired for the world, souring the good heart campaign and bolstering our cynical tendencies against good causes and authentic community.
A good rule of thumb in the discipline of affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every person is to ask yourself, "what am I seeking to gain in this endeavor?" If it is for any kind of power surge or material gain or status building or avoidance of personal responsibility, then you are blocking your natural ability to come to a place of knowing the true worth of being in yourself or another.
In short: am I lifting up someone to put another down, or am I affirming the other to enhance all our lives?
This is a difficult principle to abide by in day to day living. It requires the discipline of self affirmation, forgiveness, trust in the source of all being and the courage to not know everything.
You know the saying: "There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think they are right." (That's the end of the saying.)2
To honor the worth and dignity of another, we must develop the courage to not know everything. We must take a leap of faith into the unknown. We must embrace mystery.
For it is when we realize that as individuals we can learn from what is around us, that we open ourselves to the day we are given. When we add the understanding, as well, that, although we do not have all the answers, we have within us the capacity for all knowledge, then we can also discern what distorts and distracts us from our soul's wisdom.
It took me a long time to be able to say "I don't know." I was attached to my knowledge. I treated it like a competition. I thought it was what gave me worth. I thought it was what kept me from loneliness, from rejection, from being left out. I had no idea how freeing it was to admit that I did not know something that I assumed I "should" know.
Three conditions are needed for this to happen. You have to be open to the mystery, to whatever you will learn. You have to believe you are worthy of this knowledge, that it is a part of you. And three, you have to accept that another can inform your life just as you can inform theirs. Inherent worth and dignity of every person.
In this way the expansion of knowledge with the universe is available to you, because the dignity of all that is, is in you. You are the salt of the earth.
This is why we emphasize self-discovery, cooperation, creativity, exploration and reverence for life in our religious education program for children and youth. Coming to a sense of the strength and beauty of life by having the experience of mutuality, of inherent worth and dignity, of the healing and helping power of community and of a sacred wisdom or presence that we can know in our lives and name many ways, provides the foundations of courage and humility to enter each day with gladness and a readiness to participate in the celebration and healing of the world.
Because in order to create a world generated by justice, equity and compassion—a peaceable realm—what some may call the "kingdom of God&uot; or heaven on earth, we must all manifest our inherent worth and dignity, we must all come to our wise being and full loving, we must all recognize, cherish and encourage, the light of the divine within the other. There is a Sanskrit greeting and farewell used in South Asian cultures and amongst Hindus, Jains and Buddhists named "Namaste" which is most commonly translated as: "I respect that divinity within you that is also within me," or "the light in me honors the light in you." This is exactly what Jesus meant when he said to all who were listening: "you are the light of the world."
Loving your neighbor as yourself, which is an underlying faith claim of our first principle, will never be effective or long lasting without self-respect. And no true communication can occur without acknowledging the worth of another. There must be an acceptance of the shared potential to understand and believe in one another.
It takes courage to claim our own voice.
It takes courage to welcome new perspectives.
It takes courage to make room for the other.
It takes courage to welcome the unknown.
It takes courage to climb that ladder, make the effort, and find the yes.
But once you reach that "yes," the strength of the world is evident, if only for a moment, and you are that much more sure of when to say no; "NO" to that which does not affirm life. The more you walk with your yes, the more you will identify what disempowers you, the more you will see what blocks your light in the world.
And once that light is known, it will suddenly be present in so much more of your surroundings and in so many more of your acquaintances. This is the sacred work we can do together.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2008 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.