The first time I remember experiencing the comforting power of religious gathering and symbolism was when I was 10 years old. My gerbil had just died. I thought, perhaps I could have been to blame -- turns out I wasn't -- it had a disease. The gerbil was in my care and it died...not hit by a car or of old age...it was in a cage, in my room....Devastating. I was never really into dolls, and stuffed animals were fine but not my favorite. Pets were my true intimate companions and I took taking care of them seriously. So I felt loss, shame, confusion, fear.
I needed closure. Something. A way to honor the life of my gerbil, a way to do my best to say goodbye. A way to go on past the pain....though seemingly relative, very real to a ten year old. My first palpable witness of death.
Some months back, Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I watched the funeral procession on the television. A casket drawn by horses, people marching, solemn, on a long walk in respectful silence. I was moved. Impressed. A couple months before that, I joined y mother in a silent walk in downtown Princeton to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.. I knew this ritual meant something, honored the dead and gave the people something important to do.
We had a big living room when I was growing up. I had some plastic horses. I found a box and small cloth and gathered a number of stuffed animals. Distinguished guests -- all welcome to honor the passing of my gerbil. The procession was slow and respectful, full of tears and regret. When I reached the other side of the room I sat in a chair and held the wrapped gerbil -- the procession hadn't quite been enough -- nothing ever really is, perfectly, enough...but I had had closure enough to be convinced to go on and bury my pet. I did.
This is much like a story told me by a Methodist minister back in seminary. When she was around ten. She was so impressed by the power of communion, that the minute Church would end, she used to rush home, grab some wonder bread and grape juice, take it to her room, smash the wonder bread down and then in little pieces and administer communion to herself and her stuffed animals.
The power of ritual -- poignant ritual that speaks to our needs at important times in our lives. Rituals that last through other times when the needs arise again. As they always do. Rituals that help the process of passing through the struggles -- to heal. As we always can. Rituals that tell us where we have come from and help us focus on where we are going.
What I and my colleague were doing at age ten was trying to articulate the seriousness of our feelings and our understandings of life. We realized, if only subconsciously, that there were ways to signify, to express our feelings and hopes formally. That made them important, in fact, it made us important, because we could honor the connections we made and affirm the devotion we had. We could make what was hard to express somehow real and solid. We were important because we could contribute our own heart and soul to something we witnessed as important to others, now and in the past. We understood with a religious sensibility that we were a part of things. That we belonged and could take part in expressing our lives. We understood, as best we could at age ten -- but then again it's ever remains difficult to understand -- that we are connected with something larger than ourselves. That our experiences are rooted in human history and the feelings we have are just as much ours as anyone else's. And what we do with those feelings is our statement.
So my first remembered religious sensibility did not happen in a church. It does not necessarily have to. Religious sensibility is the impulse to be intimately connected to the power and wisdom of life -- however it touches you -- and to be bound in reverence to its truth -- however it calls you.
Psalm
Unitarian Universalism affirms that there is no one way, one guide or series of edicts that encompasses all the religious sensibility possible in the human family. In fact, embracing truth as it breaks into our lives is a highly personal and relational awakening. The power of life can be known within the quietude of our own soul and amongst the activity of relationship with others, with the world, or the mysterious beyond -- known in many ways and by many names.
And it is in the power of relationship that Unitarian Universalism finds its footing. It functions within a covenant: promising how we will strive to be with one another. It is fueled by the belief that the larger truth is known from the gathering of smaller truths. It is inspired by the conviction that each person who walks through those doors has something to teach. It grows in the understanding that the joys and sorrows of life must be shared in order to heal, in order for us to become wise, in order for us to realize justice. It is grounded in the claiming of community: embracing each other in our varied stages toward the grander vision of a just and compassionate world: rooted in where we have come from and inspired to go forward into what we can become.
The hymn "Spirit of Life", written by Carolyn McDade has become quite a popular hymn in our denomination:
"Spirit of Life -- come unto me
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea, move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice
Roots hold me close. Wings set me free. Spirit of Life. Come to me. Come to me."
Many would say this could not happen in church. Many would insist that any kind of power corrupts and religious communities cannot transcend the greed and selfishness and grandiosity and foolishness and fear within human endeavors. I think of this as a challenge to church life -- not an epitaph -- a challenge that needs to be met....and soon. Cultivating faith, the courage to love, to express our inner longings and risk connections is the stuff that will bring us out of the cynicism and despair that, ironically, has been fortified by experiences of religion corrupted by power and the need to control. Aspects we are all capable of.
Most of you are probably familiar with that famous passage of Alice Walker's, spoken by Shug, a very spiritual unchurched character in The Color Purple:
"Tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God."
That's how the Christian "church" was first conceived in the first century of the common era -- that is the era after the mark of Jesus' death. "Church" in the New Testament is the translation of the Greek word ekklesia, meaning "assembly" or "gathering" ( it had been used at times, also for "synagogue" which means "assembly of people"). In the New Testament the mention of church describes a group of people, either all the Christians in the city or a group gathered in a particular house. It did not refer to an actual building. Wherever two or three gathered, the spirit of the faith, known by the collective church would be realized.
Churches, in fact, were first known as shelters from persecution and isolation. The people gathered in small numbers in the midst of hostility. They were forced to withdraw from practices connected with the worship of the Roman deities. Unfortunately, this isolation became institutionalized, and slowly Catholics gained an tremendous amount of power, turning the historic hostility against them into their own tyranny against others by the middle ages. All this means is that power can indeed corrupt...we are all capable of such tyranny.
By the 15th century, the Unitarians were now part of the persecuted, forced to withdraw from practices connected with the worship of the trinity. This was most profound with the Polish Brethren -- Unitarians of both sexes, though not so named. They gathered in their houses in the same manner as first century Christians and shared of their lives, their ideas, their hopes: demanding freedom of religious life, separation of church and state, risking oppression and death. By their constant gathering and common cause, they created a mission statement and catechism beginning with the preface: "We do not think that we ought to be ashamed if in some respects our church improves." This was a direct hit against the stagnancy of the established Catholic church and government.
We owe much to the Polish brethren, for they established the first organized Unitarian structure, one that stayed with them after being completely exiled from their land in the 17th century. The faith, the memory of the community, was shelter from the storms of bigotry and tyranny and was passed on to other regions by diaspora, pockets of peoples seeking articulation of similar visions. The most prominent and effective formed in Kolosvar Transylvania. Freedom of religious belief, the pursuit of truths in the lives of the people was encouraged and kept vibrant by the devotion of those who would not let go of their faith. This happened because they gathered and encouraged one another to believe over and against fear and to allow their gifted selves to emerge. Roots and wings.
There are many aspects of church life that can enhance this journey. There is the corporate work to bring about social change and transformation, through modeling, vigilance and joined voices of purpose. There is the civic heart and mind -- to be in dialogue with existing social and economic institutions that support the work toward freedom and responsibility. There is the evangelistic voice, which speaks the good news of the community's worth. And there is pastoral presence, providing consistency and familiarity, symbolic expression and shared concern. There is the giving of friendship, encouragement and surprising consolation. There is the power of being vulnerable with one another.
Recently, I officiated a wedding in a couple's backyard. They had taken some years to come to this avowal of life-long partnership and chose to symbolize their covenant by a simple ceremony at their home in the witness of their immediate families. There is some acreage of woods directly behind their house. The witnessing community and couple were facing those woods, 15 yards away from the patio. The presence of joy and hope was palpable. During the giving of rings, a deer ventured forth from the woods to see what was going on. The deer approached this group of people and watched for a moment. The couple had never seen this before -- the deer was actually checking out what was going on. The timing was perfect -- the upstaging poignant. I had no choice but to incorporate the deer in the following prayer, since, after all, it was listening too. I have no doubt the deer sensed something important was happening; drawn in by an aura of gratitude for life, I think.
For one of the things we do in religious gatherings is provide a mutual focus on the moment, and the fullness therein. We invite a deeper listening. Ritual is the intentional movement toward a shared moment of heightened awareness. It is protected time -- an effort toward sacred knowing, found in relationship. The power of that knowing can be used to heal or to harm.
Some may say the deer smelled food and paused, perhaps looking at a color in one of the outfits worn. A sound may have intrigued the deer, or perhaps, another smaller animal not seen by us. But the consensus amongst that celebrating community was that it paused because it sensed the fullness of the moment.
If we speak aloud our gratitude, share in silence our thankfulness or intentionally focus on our sense of truth we create an energy about us -- a hopeful, compelling energy.
Last summer, I led a healing circle every Sunday for a cherished colleague who was undergoing stem cell therapy treatment for cancer. Many members of this primarily humanist congregation came religiously to stand outside, hold hands, center their thoughts on their minister and on healing. They came for love, they came to do something to stay their sense of helplessness, they came to connect and feel the energy of the gathering -- to heal and be healed. And whether or not the energy of the circle passed through the atmosphere to touch their senior minister or whether or not their prayers were palpably felt at the time of the gathering, the purpose was compelling. At the very least, the prayers embraced the givers and receiver, the love was communicated, and the power of relating given substance, given form, given hope.
Church, first and foremost, is its people. Church, in order to be relevant, has to be a living institution -- an institution of faith, tradition and daring that is embodied by its communities. Congregations are what perpetuate the faith -- they are the impulse, the reason and the answer for coming together. Institutional branches serve as interconnecting conduits for the people to serve, teach and share with each other. Institutional grounding is important to remind us of the larger picture and to have a larger overview, constantly reminding us of others. But, the people are what make the faith -- and respecting their contributions, their gifts, their processing wisdom is the key to finding our wings. The key to feeling fully alive.
I am often humbled by the weekly ritual of gathering in one place. It is a discipline that never ceases to amaze me, a discipline members of our communities take on and cherish, a discipline I hope we never take for granted. For in this protected time, so much can happen. So much can be communicated, challenged, opened and felt.
In whatever situation we may find ourselves, whatever struggles we are in, whatever opportunities we enjoy, may we find and form moments of togetherness and of gratitude. It makes a difference, not only in our outlooks, but in the substance of our living and the energy we convey.
What I needed when I created that plastic horse and stuffed animal procession was to take my sense of connection seriously, to honor it and fell more complete by giving it time, attention and substance. Church communities can do this and do this as long as we pay attention to where we have come from and what we hope to become.
So may it be. Amen.
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