One inspirational quote that I keep in my inner voice library is that of Thurgood Marshall, when he commented in an interview about his career: I did the best I could with what I had.
As the first African American Supreme Court Justice, who helped broaden the national understanding of equality for all and welcome of 'other', I'd say he did every bit of what he could, overcoming great odds and constant resistance to his self-claiming and service to this country.
What I like about this motto is that it's simple and can apply to anyone. It illustrates one aspect of a meaningful life: I did the best I could with what I had.
What he had
was a particular signature of being—a voice, a response to the life he was given. Was he perfect? No. Likeable? Not by everyone. He simply followed through on the convictions that unfolded in his life, finding the teachers, the opportunities, the experiences that would help him shape the life he led. With this sentiment you don't hold onto or amplify regrets or resentments, you don't proclaim superiority or inferiority, you don't compare your fortune or misfortune with another's. You simply meet the day fully, however, wherever you are on your journey. You let the gesture of creation that happens to be you come to life.
This is much of what Unitarian Universalist Religious Education for all ages encourages. The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own;
(William Ellery Channing)
You don't have to be famous, or excel in society or impress your neighbors. It is not what others think about what you should do with your life that counts. It's about finding the truth of your life and developing an ease, an authenticity in being with and for one another. When you do this, you contribute to harmony of Being and help realize the earth made fair and all her people, one.
(Hymn: Turn Back Old Man)
Religious Education in Unitarian Universalism is grounded in a basic trust in Creation and the spark of life within each of us. There is an ultimate blegoning to Life – a worth, a dignity in our being that, although shared by all, has never been quite expressed by anyone else through all time. We are a comment, a response, a note in the Song of Being. The marvel, the mystery, the miracle of life is in our spiritual DNA, if you will.
The great end in religious instruction …is not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs;
What we do, in our curricula—which is not only in our classes and workshops, but in the entirety of our congregational life, is to draw out the wisdom, the truth about us, with humility, curiousity, bold affirmation and persistent love.
The good news about ultimate belonging is that we are not alone—we are connected. We are held in an interdependent web beyond our understanding yet ever present. We cannot be lost, ultimately—we may feel lost – but we are a part of it all.
The challenging news about ultimate belonging is our response ability. Our free will. What we do with our lives becomes the experience of our lives. We live our lives not only to express the gesture of creation within, but in and amongst others: a shared endeavor of being that can be lived well or not. It's your choice, no matter what befalls you. One way to live is to live merely for yourself, chasing conquests and justifications for the life you think you earned or deserve. Another way is to join into the enterprise of being with others and know that each day is a gift -- not a reward, and how you live is influencing how all of us live.
So to ground this approach of religious education, focused on inspiring a deep and abiding engagement with life, the learner of any age is encouraged to develop an understanding of one's own experiences in the context of a larger life.
This approach to religious education is relatively new. Though William Ellery Channing articulated the theological vision of religious instruction in the late 19th century, it was given shape in the early twentieth century by the innovations of Sophia Lyon Fahs, teacher, writer, theologian and education advocate. Ms. Fahs helped to revolutionize American children's religious education simply by arguing that the wisdom of life's worth and truth is already within the child's. Religious education, then, was meant to draw out that individual wisdom through creativity, dialogue, shared experiences and open-minded study of scripture.
From 1937, when she was 61, Fahs moved into Unitarianism from her Presbyterian roots and became an instrumental voice in "The New Beacon Series". Drawing on anthropological and psychological research, the children's books were dedicated to one goal: "We wish children to come to know God directly through original approaches of their own to the universe."1
Consummate mentor of liberal religious education Fahs wrote in 1945: We are resolved to protect individual freedom of belief. This freedom must include the child as well as the parent…The freedom for which we stand is not freedom to believe as we please; not freedom to live in a world of fancy, not freedom to evade responsibility, not freedom to pretend good is bad and bad is good -- but freedom to be honest in speech and action, freedom to respect one's own integrity of thought and feeling, freedom to question, to investigate, to try to understand life and the universe in which life abounds, freedom to search anywhere and everywhere to find the meaning of Being, freedom to experiment with new ways of living that seem better than the old.'
2
The Unitarian Universalist approach to religious life has two essential expressions: mystical, which speaks to the integrity of each person's soul and his or her knowledge of what is holy -- and ethical, which acknowledges that all human insights are partial, so it is essential to be in meaningful relationship with one another.
During my research this week I came across some notes about a job interview nearly twenty years ago to become Education Minister at the UU congregation of White Plains. I was pregnant with our oldest child, Sarah, at the time.
One of the questions was what I wanted for society in 20 years.
I was reading this in the back seat of the car while Sarah was driving to Brandeis University for her freshman year. She'll be turning 20 next year.
My answer was framed with UU religious education in mind, so I answered the question envisioning my hopes for her generation and what we can do as UU's to help them come into their own.
I offered three aspirations that, I think, remain relevant today, as they are important aspects of UU theologies. I do believe that some of what I hoped has, indeed, come to pass in small ways and other hopes remain more vision than fact. The first was the celebration of difference.
These are the words I wrote 20 years ago: I hope, first, that Sarah will know more freely, from the depth of her being, that diversity is survival; not only because society is becoming more and more global, but also because diversity, to paraphrase UU minister Bill Jones, is the hallmark of divine ingenuity. I hope that she will cherish difference as a wellspring of knowledge and wisdom about life. I hope that diversity will fuel her wonder rather than kindle her fear. I hope that she will not have the same immediate prejudicial responses that I have been subtely trained to have in a society still sick with racism, sexism and homophobia. I hope she will not have to translate learned judgmental impulses as I still do about aspects of myself and others.
The legacy of our struggle as Unitarian Universalists to better embrace diversity would enable Sarah's generation to be more in touch, intuitively, with the folly of hatred and bigotry. And this would be a gift of growing freedom: greater freedom to be curious, wider freedom to embrace experience, and deeper freedom to be who she is as she takes pride in her life.'
I would add the hope that her generation would see the value of community so that we stay vibrant with diverse ways of being and honor the unique contribution of each person, whether it be a lesson in positive ways of being or energy-draining ways of being.
The second wish I had was for a deeper and wider understanding of interdependence. In order for us to survive as a species, we need to move from a single cell orientation to a multiple cell organism. We need to move from competition and comparison to cooperation and co-creation. I hope that Sarah's generation would know more readily'
, I wrote, that we are in this together, and that we must help one another in order to help ourselves.'
This has to do with being ever more sophisticated with the spirit of democracy, something that can be experienced, innovated and manifested in our faith community.
And the third aspiration, informed by my upbringing in UUsm, was to recognize the glory of creation and our cooperative calling within it. I hoped that the pompous assertion: save the world'
would be understood as folly: that, indeed, the world would carry on with or without us. I hoped that future generations would understand the partnership we have been gifted to sustain earth. With climate change, I believe our young leaders will understand the relationship that must be fostered for all peoples to thrive in this world. UUsm can foster such insight and vision.
It is important to foster a spiritual sensibility that will support the praise of diversity, the humility of interdependence and the conviction of stewardship of the earth. I offer another reading by Sophia Lyon Fahs. Feel free to follow with me in reading #657 in the hymnal:
Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged. Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction. Other beliefs are like wide gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness. Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world. Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.' (Sophia Lyon Fahs)
Watching my daughter move into her dorm room for her new adventure, I thought to myself, she has her whole life ahead of her. And my second thought was: that's true for all of us. We have our whole life ahead of us. May we honor its wonder. May we engage its beauty. May we bring ourselves fully to its unfolding.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2013 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.