The opening words of our service this morning acknowledge that we're gathering back together as a community at a time of beginning and a time of ending.
In the evenings, the crickets are chirping their little hearts out, signaling the passing away of summer into fall. This is one of only many signs, of course, of an ending: There are the touches of red and maroon on the foliage, and the sharp rise in the pace of life. Summer is indeed ending.
And for many of us, there may be other things going on in our lives that are entirely unrelated to the season, and yet which also signal endings.
Yet we also come together at a time of lots of beginnings. Simply being together today signals the beginning of what is a fairly significant endeavor: our shared life as a church community, launching a new year.
So let's just breathe, and remember, this is not a job . This is a journey, personal and collective—a journey of the spirit, and the heart, and the mind, and the conscience. We're on a journey of learning, learning to be in relationship in an increasingly open-hearted and conscious way.
One of the values of taking some time away—although admittedly many members of the community have remained quite involved all summer—still, one of the values of taking a bit of a hiatus from the full formal worship and the Sunday school classes and some of the committee meetings is that when we come back together in this season of beginnings, we have a natural opportunity to look again, with fresh eyes, at what this, what we're doing here, is all about.
Because it is so easy to become consumed in the details of projects, it's important to return to square one periodically, return to essential meanings, essential purposes.
John Cyrus, in his passage on why he became a Unitarian Universalist, lays out a series of discoveries that he made as a newcomer, and discoveries that he is still making. I thought I would try to flesh out some of those ideas as a way of thinking about what we're doing here, why we come together. I'm expressing my own understanding, of course, and not his, but I like his categories.
He says he learned a new kind of seriousness about religion and a new kind of humor about it; that he learned how to speak and listen more openly, and to think critically, and he learned the religious value of doubt.
Toward the end, Cyrus gets to the essence of things by saying: "There remains a Self to be known, a more significant communion with others to be entered into, a world to be explored, and working beliefs to be won."
It's here that I'd like to focus. "There remains a Self to be known, and a more significant communion with others to be entered into."
Many years ago I lived in a spiritual community, working, eating, studying, and doing spiritual practice in close communal life with others, and I remember being in the community kitchen one day, working alongside my friend Merlin, who had been living there for much longer than I. True to his name, Merlin had a kind of elfin mischievousness and playfulness about him that made heavy things seem full of light, and yet he was very serious about spiritual work.
As we were chopping vegetables together, he was telling me something about his understanding of the incredible power and opportunity of living in community as a spiritual path in itself. How being embedded in this community with other seekers provided an accelerated path toward self-awareness.
He said something like, "There's really nothing like living in community to show you your own BS! Every time you get into a conflict, someone ticks you off, or you tick someone off, well, there you go—a fantastic learning opportunity!"
He goes on: "Every morning I get up, and I say, Spirit, I'm ready. Please show me what I need to know today, help me discover what I need to be aware of in myself, help me see myself and others more clearly, so that I can become more the person I want to be—more open and present and loving and aware."
Something like that … but what has stayed with me all these years was his full acceptance of the fact that community life is not all lovey-dovey, but that it can be really, really hard sometimes, really painful or confusing, can turn you upside down or really stretch you, can get you frustrated and worked up, can be disappointing and hurtful.
It will show you things about yourself you'd rather not know or see, and things about others you wish didn't have to deal with, but—well—here we are, connected, and there's no escaping it.
It's all these things, because it's human life and we're human beings, and being a spiritual community doesn't make us suddenly saints or transport us to utopia.
But the difference of an intentional spiritual community, such as a church, from many other contexts is that we are freely choosing, every time we come together, to hold ourselves and one another accountable to shared spiritual and relational and ethical values—such as deep respect, compassion, personal responsibility, non-violence, fairness, curiosity, right-relationship, and authenticity.
We are choosing to take upon ourselves work—not only external work but internal work—that is deep, and high, and worthy, and therefore difficult, and also rewarding and transformative.
Those moments of conflict that occur now and then, those can be the watershed moments. They are the moments that call us into deeper communion, not retreat to shallower ground. They nudge us to turn toward each other, rather than away.
I hope we can embrace the fact that life in community is hard and hurts sometimes, and not take the stance that this should never be. If we can accept the living truth, we will be liberated to see so many possibilities for growing in love, in connection.
John Cyrus's last statement is that "there are working beliefs to be won." I think this is a great way to restate, in more purposeful language, what is meant in the fourth principle of our Seven UU Principles and Purposes: The fourth principle affirms the value of "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning."
By saying "there are working beliefs to be won," he emphasizes the challenge of that search, that it involves, for each of us as individuals, some personal effort, a certain amount of exertion. What we're seeking is a working belief, a faith that works for us in life, that is applicable, relevant, and alive.
Not armchair beliefs, but strong, muscly beliefs that can actually lift heavy stuff! Not snack food beliefs that we nibble casually when we have a vague hankering or are avoiding something, but substantial beliefs that feed us real sustaining spiritual food when we most need it—and when we most need it is when we are in pain, or in confusion, or have received a blow, or are grieving. We need it when we are called upon to respond courageously—to injustice, or to situations that feel particularly daunting or threatening.
Many folks who attend UU churches do not feel comfortable with the word "faith." Perhaps because they equate it with superstitious beliefs, or a childish belief in a paternal god who is in control of everything, or perhaps because it suggests a piety that UU's find embarrassing—as John Cyrus admitted.
Personally, I believe faith is completely essential to an energized life and a grounded life.
Yesterday morning we held our teacher orientation for those members who will be serving on the religious education teaching teams, working with the children this year.
And I expressed my own personal understanding that what we are trying to do is help our children find and build their own faith. I don't mean we're giving them a set of conceptual precepts—although precepts such as the seven principles can be useful navigation tools at times.
But by faith, I mean helping them develop a core confidence in life and in living: a confidence in themselves, in the truth and existence of goodness and joy, a confidence in the support of relationships and community, and at a more mysterious level, a sense of the freeing energies of the spirit.
By faith, I mean inner resources that will enable them to negotiate the difficult things that they will face as they grow and encounter the world.
By faith, I also mean a language by which they can name something about who they are, and what they think is true or important.
I'm not saying we can give them all those things, but we can help them, even in small ways, to claim them. And an important part of how we help them is by getting grounded, each of us, in our own faith, and by clarifying our own beliefs, and by demonstrating how our faith and our belief are at work in our lives.
So when John Cyrus says "there are working beliefs to be won," he's acknowledging a crucial premise of Unitarian Universalism—that no one is going to hand you a doctrine or a prefabricated set of beliefs. Each of us has to construct a real faith by active searching, questioning, naming, and knowing who we are and what we believe to be important and true.
And you thought church was hard work because of all the committees, and because the building needs repairing, and the worship service needs to be planned, and because the Sunday school session needs to be prepared, and because the kitchen needs to be organized. And here I've gone and added all these huge, existential processes to your plate!
Some of the first things John Cyrus mentions in his piece is that he discovered a new seriousness about religion and a new humor about religion, that he learned new ways of listening and of speaking, that he learned how to think critically about ideas and beliefs, and that he learned that there is a place for doubt, because it leads to greater honesty.
The processes of coming to know the self, of growing into deeper communion with others, and of winning working beliefs— these all involve all of those other elements: the seriousness about religion, the new ways of listening and speaking, the critical thinking, the doubting as a path to truer knowledge.
And through all of this, we become more truly individual ourselves, and allow others to be more truly their individual selves, while growing into fuller relationship.
But this congregation also knows a lot about the humor of religion and the joyful and playful side of being in community, of working together and celebrating together, eating together, learning together, creating together.
And this summer we did in fact learn something about how many Unitarians it takes to screw in a light bulb—or at least how many meetings and conversations it takes before it can actually happen, but look how much brighter it is in here!
It is a privilege to be a part of a free church, a community of searching hearts and minds. Welcome all, to a new beginning, and to another passage in our journey together.
May it be so.
Closing Words:
Out of wood and stone, out of dream and sacrifice,
the people build a home.
Out of the work of their hands and hearts and minds,
the people fashion a symbol and a reality.
May this house be truly a place of meeting:
meeting in warmth and joy and openness;
meeting in courage and love and trust.
May all who enter here trust one another so surely
that they may share the deep fires
that burst into anger
as much as the sweet spring waters
that swell into laughter;
the slow erosion of wounded tears
as much as the soaring song.
May these walls know silence
as a hundred hearts search inward,
each for its own small spark of hope
that might otherwise be snuffed out in the noise.
May these rafters hear the voice of the child
as surely as that of the orator,
and the sound of the lute,
and the clack of the [computer keyboard],
and the swish of the broom,
and know that all are as holy
as the shout of a million stars.
May the rain fall lightly on this house
and the sun shine warmly
and the winds blow softly
and bless it
as a place of joy and peace.