Racism and Spiritual Death in the United States of America

This sermon was delivered at the Unitarian Universalist Society: East (Manchester, Connecticut) on January 15, 2006, by Rev. Joshua Mason Pawelek. Used with permission.

Please read this for the next few sessions of Building the World We Dream About.

———————————————————————————————————–

When you were born—if you were born in the United States—and if someone filled out a birth certificate on your behalf, in order to fill out that birth certificate completely, they were required to indicate your race.

Every ten years when the Census Bureau mails out its questionnaires, in order to answer question #6 you must indicate your race. Some might argue that the 2000 census was different because there was a box for “other.” But the question is asking for your race; the box actually doesn’t say “other.” It says, “some other race.”

If your children attend public school, at some point in the enrollment process you must indicate their race. Every public school system in the nation is required by law to keep track of academic performance by race. If you refuse to indicate your child’s race, the school will have no choice but to do it for you. If you want admission to a college or university, or if you’re seeking financial aid to attend a college or university, it is not mandatory to indicate your race on the application, but in many instances checking the racial identity box makes a difference in your chances of being accepted and in the amount of your financial award.

You no longer have to indicate your race to get a driver’s license, a passport, a mortgage, or to register to vote. It is illegal for corporations, governments, and many other institutions to discriminate on the basis of race. But statistically, your race will and does play a role when you are looking for a job, seeking a neighborhood in which to live, attempting to sell a house, expressing an opinion in public, getting an education for yourself or your children, interacting with police, defending yourself in court, facing the death penalty, trying to hail a cab, purchasing insurance, searching for decent healthcare, calculating your expected life span, getting access to and compensation for the natural resources on your ancestral lands, calling 911 for an ambulance, searching for clean air to breathe—even in deciding which house of worship to attend. Race will impact your psychological well-being, your sense of self-esteem, and your overall outlook on life.

Race will and does play a profound role in all aspects of life in the United States of America, which is an extraordinary realization when we pause to remember that race, biologically speaking, doesn’t exist. For hundreds of years scientists assumed race was a biological reality because people look different to the naked eye: different skin color, different hair texture, different facial structure. There must be different races! But literally hundreds of scientific studies in the last forty years have demonstrated there is no significant genetic difference between human beings regardless of differences in skin color, hair, and facial structure. Yes, not all questions about human differences have been answered; some are still under debate. And yes, there are still scientists who contend they can demonstrate race scientifically and that innate racial inferiority and superiority can be proven. Nevertheless, the commonly accepted conclusion in the scientific community is that there is no biological evidence to prove the existence of race.

Yet there it is on our birth certificates, on our kids’ financial aid applications, and within those red lines figuratively drawn around certain urban neighborhoods in the back rooms of banks, insurance companies, and supermarket chains. If you’ve lived in Manchester [Connecticut] for the last forty years and someone says to you in hushed tones, so only you can hear, “this town ain’t what it used to be,” more than likely you’ll assume they’re talking about Manchester’s changing racial demographics. Race may not be real in terms of biology and genetics, but it is nevertheless very real in our lives.

In the United Sates of America there are a number of racial categories: Caucasian, African American, Native American, Asian American, Latino or Hispanic and—certainly since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if not before—Arab American. Some of these categories are under intense debate as to whether they are truly racial categories (which makes me laugh, since none of them actually exists from a biological standpoint). All of them, and a few more, are listed in Census question #6 pertaining to race, although “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” gets its own separate question, #5. You can choose how you want to answer Census question #6—or anywhere else the racial identity question appears. You can choose to write in “none of the above.” You can choose to say “human race.” But let’s be honest: we don’t choose our race. Do you choose your racial identity? “I think I’ll be a white person.” “I think I’ll be brown.” “I think I’ll be black.” Sometimes we wonder what it’s like to be a different race, but choosing a racial identity is not something we do in the United States. It is done for us. We have no choice in the matter. And because we’re usually very young when this happens, it doesn’t take long for us to accept our racial identity as a fact of life and to internalize the positive or negative messages society tells us about our racial identity.

This is what Lillian Smith was talking about [in her book] Killers of the Dream. “A moment before one was happily playing,” she writes, “the world was round and friendly. Now at one’s feet there are chasms that had been invisible until this moment. And one knows, and never remembers how it was learned, that there will always be chasms, and across will always be those one loves.”

I call this sermon “Racism and Spiritual Death in the United States of America” because, although race is not a biological reality, it is a spiritual reality, and it is spiritually deadly to everyone. Unitarian Universalists, I believe, are well situated to hear and understand this message. We are people who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We are people whose hymns proclaim “we will all do our own naming.” We are people who believe in free will, in choice, in the sacredness of self-definition, in the holiness of self-reliance, in the value of being self-directed, in the political right and the spiritual necessity of self-determination, in the integrity of the individual, in the inviolable rights of all people to make decisions about who they want to be, what they want to believe, and how they want to live. For us, that is what it means to be spiritually alive.

But we didn’t choose our race. We weren’t part of that decision. We didn’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll live my life out of an identity based on flawed scientific data and assumptions.” We didn’t wake up one morning and say, “I think I’ll be part of the privileged racial group” or “I’d like an appearance that invites negative racial profiling.” We did not define ourselves racially. We were defined racially. More accurately, racial identity was imposed on us by a power larger than us, a complex power I call demonic. And as long as we continue to live our lives out of an imposed racial identity, we live in a state of spiritual death. In each of us there is an unseen self beyond race, a truer self, a more authentic self, a whole self entirely free of the limits of race. We don’t know that self. We don’t know what we might’ve chosen had a choice been offered. We don’t know how we might be living today had a choice been offered. When we live as if race were real, we cannot know fully who we are. We live, therefore, in a state of spiritual death.

If you doubt this claim, if you find it off the mark, if you find it too big, too provocative, too audacious, perhaps even overly dramatic and unnecessarily inflammatory, I ask you to reflect on it more deeply. And I challenge you to choose for yourself an identity that is free of all traces of race. It cannot be done at this point in our history. This thing, this scientific falsehood, this immense lie used to separate people, used to exploit some and privilege others, this complex, demonic power that has been telling Americans who they are since Europeans first came to this continent has us so deeply in its grip we cannot choose an identity beyond it. How would you sustain such a choice? What would you need to say to people every time they laid eyes on you to communicate to them that you don’t have a race? We don’t have free will in this matter.

Can you imagine white people walking into retail stores or banks or waiting in line anywhere just to be served and saying, “don’t treat me like I’m white; go ahead, serve someone else first because I’m not white; feel free to follow me around as I shop because I’m not white; I no longer identify with any of the people I see in the majority of television shows because I’m not white; don’t have high expectations for my child because he’s not white; you’ve pulled me over officer, I assume, because I’m not white?” Can you imagine white people walking into people of color communities or churches saying, “I know I look white, but I’m not white. Please don’t treat me as white.” It sounds ludicrous and it is ludicrous. The opposite scenario for people of color would seem just as ludicrous except that it is normal, everyday experience. People of color have asked for centuries not to be evaluated based on the color of their skin, not to be pre-judged, not to be discriminated against, not to be profiled, not to be lynched, not to be run off their lands, not to be stereotyped, not to be deported, not to be segregated, not to be exploited, not to be invisible—they have been asking for the very thing I’m talking about—for a social, political, and economic identity beyond race—and it hasn’t yet happened.

No white person can take off white skin. No white person can give up the various privileges that come with white skin. No person of color can take off black or brown or red or yellow skin. No person of color can completely overcome the historical and systemic disadvantages perpetuated by institutional racism. The demonic power of race is a power larger than us. How we see ourselves turns out to be irrelevant. Racial identity has everything to do with how others see us, how society sees us. It is an imposed identity with immense power over us; we can’t just choose to get rid of it. And when we can’t make choices about who we are, about our deepest selves—when our relationships with others are guided by falsehoods no matter how genuine and honest we are—we are living in a state of spiritual death. Race and racism are responsible for spiritual death in the United States of America.

There are, of course, many people who believe they are spiritually alive in the United States—people of all denominations. There are many people who claim to be spiritually alive because they are living a life they believe God has called them to live. I suspect they would be upset and angry at my suggesting their spiritual life is mortally wounded by race. But none has yet convinced me my claim is wrong. Show me in the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Christian New Testament, or the Muslim Koran, or the Buddhist Sutras, or the Taoist philosophies, or the earth-based traditions where it says God calls each of us to take on a racial identity or that racial identity is somehow inherent in the human condition. Show me in any scripture where it says white, black, red, brown, and yellow are distinct human categories intended and ordained by God. In those scriptures I see God creating or acknowledging linguistic differences, cultural differences, national differences, ethnic differences. Nowhere is the idea of racial identity consistent with any scriptural prescription for spiritual wholeness. Race and racism do not appear in the Bible. Racial identities are modern identities. People did not start identifying by race until it became embedded in colonial American law during the 1600s. Some of my Christian and Jewish and Muslim colleagues—certainly some of my UU colleagues—will still protest: “My relationship with God is profound!” “My connection to the sacred brings depth and meaning to my life!” I do not mean to suggest that spiritual practice, spiritual endeavor, worship, prayer, and meditation are worthless. In fact, I think the way beyond race and racism in the United States of America is a spiritual way. Nevertheless, I need to ask my colleagues and others who protest, who is it that has the relationship with God? Who is it that has the connection with the sacred? Our false self—our racialized self—has a relationship with God, a connection to the sacred. Our true self beyond the falsehood of race has no such relationship because we cannot access that self. Our true self beyond race is hidden, buried, dead, in profound need of resurrection.

I long for my true self. Lillian Smith said, “There will always be chasms.” I don’t believe that. I believe we can overcome the demonic power of racism that tells us who we are and strips us of our capacity to do our own naming. I am deeply hopeful. I note the lyrics from “Ol’ Man River” … . In the midst of racism, that river, “He must know somethin’, but he don’t say nothin’ / He just keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along.” The flowing river has always been a metaphor for hope, whether in Broadway show tunes, black spirituals, literature, or poetry.

But let’s be precise in our hope. How, precisely, must we approach the problem of race? Clearly, denial of race will not work, for it leads to a denial of racism—and you can’t address a problem if you don’t think it exists. Likewise, living beyond race—as much as that is an ultimate goal and a way of coming alive spiritually—will not work in this time and place.

I hope this sermon has demonstrated how deeply the lie of race holds sway over our lives, and how it is not only premature, but impossible at this point in United States history to live as if we can set our racial identities aside. So the only honest and useful option I see—the only way to begin bridging the chasms that separate people—the only way to tap into the river of hope—is to acknowledge the truth that race holds all of us captive, to acknowledge the truth that our nation, though driven by the promise of liberty and justice for all, still rests on a foundation of white supremacy that steals our birthright and commits spiritual murder by telling us who we are rather than letting us be who we are. Let us proclaim to the demonic power of racism, “We will not stay dead. We will strive to reclaim our full humanity. We will become spiritually alive.” And to say this means we will learn, together, the strategies we must develop and the actions we must take to weaken, subvert, undermine, and ultimately destroy the demonic power of racism and the institutional structures that comply with it… .The way back to spiritual life in the United States of America is to make ourselves accountable for dismantling racism so that it can no longer tell us who we are, so that it can no longer prevent us from naming ourselves, so that it can no longer diminish the inherent worth and dignity of all people as it has been doing for 500 years in the western hemisphere, so that we can know the true meaning of freedom in this life in this country.

Amen. Blessed Be.

Toward Diversity

The 1960s civil rights struggle has had a lasting impression on our congregation. It has affected our institutional identity and in some ways is symbolized by the shape and look of our mission and even what we and visitors see in our church building. I will discuss some of the history of UUCJ, focusing on issues of diversity. I will present survey data from several periods to give you a sense of the thoughts members had on social justice/action, diversity and related issues. Then, I will discuss where we are based on a recent survey many of you completed. Finally, I will suggest what all this means to us in terms of a path forward.

History

From the beginning, people and organizations made life hard for UUs in Mississippi. Our church even had an infiltrator. In the early 1960s, UUCJ had a “long-standing” member who was feeding information to the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. As late as 1961 he was the building and grounds person on the executive board. In January 1962, he resigned his post and later on wrote a number of red-baiting and racist columns for the Clarion Ledger. The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission’s online archive has a number of electronic files (letters to the commission, UUCJ orders of service, etc.) that the member submitted.

In 1963, the UUA was pushing congregations to open services to everyone, regardless of race. We agreed with the UUA. As a result, about 25 to 33 percent of the members left the church. Later that year Reverend Donald A. Thompson began his ministry at UUCJ. Reverend Thompson, and Power Hearns, a long-time member of the church, were actively involved in the Mississippi Council on Human Relations, a closely-surveilled organization.

In 1965, Florence Newman, a founding member, initiated the first integrated head start program in Mississippi. No doubt the church and particular members were discussed at Citizen Council and Klan meetings. Also in 1965, Reverend Thompson was shot by racists thugs and severely injured. The congregation urged him to leave Mississippi for his safety and that of his family. With the Thompsons’ departure there was another decline in membership. This led to the formation of a dedicated core of civil rights oriented members. According to Gordon Gibson, minister to our church in the late 1960s and also in the early 1980s, the church demonstrated “an exhibition of openness: openness to out-of-state civil rights volunteers, openness to housing the Council on Human Relations, openness in membership policy when other Jackson churches were calling in the police to enforce racially exclusionary attendance policies, openness to ‘radical’ members like Bill Higgs (a white attorney who handled some civil rights cases until he too was driven from the state), and so on.”

Our stance on civil rights wavered a bit with our proclamation against the James Meredith march in 1966. The UUA and many of its member congregations supported the event. Maybe UUCJ members were battle weary. How did members feel about the church and facets of church life in the 1960s? Some information is available from a 1969 UUCJ survey administered during the tenure of Reverend Gibson. Five of seven respondents mentioned the liberal/free aspect of UU faith as being most significant for them. Other aspects mentioned were fellowship (especially inclusive fellowship), arts/music, recreation, and solving problems. Diversity, social action or justice was not mentioned.

In a 1971 survey, the magic wand question was asked: ”You have just been handed a magic wand with which you can make the [UUCJ] just what you want it to be. Tell us what you come out with.” One member mentioned having “enough of a black core group would have been attracted so that white members would no longer need to feel that they had to plan outreach to blacks while at the same time there would be no question that the life-problems & life styles of the black community would be represented by the group.” Another mentioned just having “100 paying members who could join together to act as a strong, unified body to attack the problems we face in Jackson in police misconduct, racism & poor schools, low quality newspapers, etc.” In the other camp, however, one member felt that social action was hurting the church: “Listening to the church members and in some cases non-members stress Social Action when the apparent intent is “Help the Blacks,” as if this is the only problem in Mississippi and disregarding the fact that the church came to its lowest position in its history for doing this very same thing.”

In the early 1980s there was some conflict around the issue about providing financial support for the release of Eddie Carthan and a group known as the Tchula Seven. Carthan was the first black mayor of Tchula. One month shy of completing his first term he was accused of assaulting a police officer. This and other subsequent charges, including one that accused Carthan and seven other leaders of corruption, were trumped up. Rallying support from around the nation, the Tchula Seven and Carthan eventually were acquitted. Our congregation’s social action committee voted a motion down to show our support for Carthan and the Tchula Seven.

Given our past, maybe we decided to keep our heads low. In a 1981 survey, 64.1 percent of UUCJ respondents disagreed or held little agreement with the statement “I think that we need greater emphasis on social concerns.” Perhaps as a testament to the way questions are constructed, when the question was worded as support for “social problems in the community” in a 1982 survey, the percentage of members who strongly agreed or agreed was 88 percent.

Addressing diversity from another front—spirituality, one respondent in a 1987 survey wrote “My spiritual feelings and my husband’s astrological beliefs are not acceptable in the local group so I had to refrain from expressing them and get understanding and support otherwise…Since you haven’t paid attention to former surveys I see no need for answering this one.” Twenty one percent of respondents felt “social concerns” were among the more important interests for them.

In terms of church interests, intellectual stimulation and personal friendship (fellowship) topped the list with 22 affirmative responses in a 1991 survey. Religious freedom or religious alternatives ranked 13—the same place as arts and music. Action on social causes, while not at the bottom, ranked at 11. The bottom choices were building and grounds (4) and guidance in daily living (2). Those who did write comments, however, did tend to list topics dealing with “different religious ideas,” “a wide variety of spiritual thought and paths,” and social issues. On a positive note, according to 2011 UUCJ survey, we have a higher regard for social action than during any prior period surveyed.

Other Data

It is important to see if we as a congregation are changing over time. In other words, does the church change as people rotate in and out of the church? Here again we can look at survey data to help piece together a picture of who we are. Focusing on marital status, education, occupation, and theological identity, there are a few noteworthy changes to report. In terms of marriage, the easiest way to explain the declines represented in the table is to suggest that there is an increasing tendency to be in some form of a relationship other than single, married, or divorced. Always high, our membership has gone about as far as possible in terms of education. Approximately 96 percent of our congregants in 2011 had a BA or higher. By comparison, BA or higher respondents in the Baylor Religion Survey of 2005 who identified themselves as “theologically liberal” were a little over 69 percent and mainline Christians were nearly 60 percent. Looking at occupational change, I noticed two things: 1) the sharp decline in science/engineering and 2) the increasing dichotomy between professionals and respondents in other occupational categories. It is also worth noting that in 2011, we have a sizable number of retirees. Finally, we remain heavily humanistic in orientation. Christianity, never a high-ranking choice in the congregation, slid farther down the list in the latest survey. Conversely, agnosticism and atheism have increased in appeal.

What does all this mean? In some ways, we have changed and that change will force us to gradually think about diversity in different ways as our demographics continue to shift, even if the change is slight in some ways. Furthermore, what are the implications in terms of dialogue, problem solving, and even recruitment as we become more concentrated toward the higher end of the spectrum on a number of status factors?

Diversity

Turning our attention more specifically at the issue of diversity, how do our members feel about the issue? In a set of questions about various facets of church life, the question “How important to you are the following aspects of attending services and meetings at our church?” Openness to social diversity had the highest average positive response (2.76) followed by intellectual stimulation (2.74) and fellowship (2.61). Group experience of participation and worship had the lowest at 2.16. In another set of questions, we thought diversity was highest with our friends, then our city/town, our workplace, and lowest in our neighborhoods. We tended to agree or strongly agree to “Diversity in schools is important for a good quality education.” and “America’s growing religious diversity has a positive influence on individual religious beliefs.” Finally, a higher percentage of respondents give the church low rather than high marks in dealing with issues of diversity.

The value diversity brings to the congregation was expressed in a number of ways by respondents. One of the most favored views about diversity was that it broadened the horizons for both the individual and the church. One respondent wrote: “It challenges us to see the world in a larger and more complete way. It enables us to be more in touch with the full range of humanity of which we are a part.” Another touched on how diversity made life richer using an example from art: “I see it as the difference of a colorful painting vs. a black and white pencil drawing.” Or my personal favorite: [Diversity] is like Baskin Robbins, the more flavors, the better.”

Tokenism and dissension/Balkanization were two major ways that respondents saw diversity as a weaknesses. Said one member about Tokenism: “we need to be aware of the potential to highlight the pleasure of seeing diversity in our congregation to ensure we don’t make a particular member feel like the ‘token’.” Another wrote: “Diversity that merely makes those in power feel good about themselves is not real diversity; real diversity breaks down systems of homo-social promotion, changes the power structure of the congregation, and makes its culture vulnerable to transformation.” Other members felt that diversity could slow down consensus and maybe even weaken the “forcefulness and effect of the group.”

Discussion/Conclusions

When I was first asked to talk to you about diversity, I wondered how I would deal with such a broad, fuzzy topic. Sociology as a discipline looks at diversity through a number of different lenses—race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender, religion, etc. For many people diversity is squarely centered on race or gender. It is not that easy. I’ll give you a quick example. A year or two ago, two men (one white, the other black) found their way to my doorsteps. They asked to see Mckenzie. Both were in slacks, short-sleeved shirts with ties, and looked quite honestly, like Rush Limbaugh. Both asked what church we attended. I told them if they had anything to ask Kenzie they should ask me. I let them know that religion, to me, was a private matter and it was not definitely not something to discuss in the doorway with complete strangers. After returning the religious tract they offered me, they turned to me and said: “Well, we’ll see you in heaven…maybe.”  The fact was that both men were the same in their millennialistic and very exclusionary belief system.

What about classism? Is it a strength or weakness that we have such highly educated congregations around? Our faith has a long history of class friction with the Universalist siding with the common man and emotions and our Unitarian heritage relying on reasoning and being reserved. Are our high levels of education and occupational prestige a blessing or a curse? Our humanism? Our spirituality—oh that is a topic for another time.

I think one of our biggest problems has been commitment—by congregants, friends of the church, and even those in the wider community who would benefit by what we have to offer but for one reason or another do not come. The philosopher Josiah Royce originated the concept of beloved community. In his view, loyalty was at the root of beloved community, and especially loyalty to something greater than ourselves.

Commitment among members is particularly troublesome. In the hundreds of documents I have studied dealing with this church, I have noticed that we tend to be very touchy and are quick to find issue with others. And when we find evidence, and we will surely will, quite a few of us bail ship. In the 2011 survey, most of the statistically significant differences are between respondents who consider themselves members or friends. Those committed enough to be members value diversity higher than do those who identify themselves as friends. Why? And does this mean the more we are committed to social justice and diversity, the more likely our numbers will decline? Especially when we move from passive forms of change (studying/reading/talking) to more active paths?

We do not need to wring our hands, wail, gnash, and put on sacks and ash. We value diversity—some of us think we can do more. They are right. Most of us could do more by enlarging our circle of associations within our towns, neighborhoods, workplace, and among our friends. In our church, we should be more ecumenical and more public. I think that might attract a larger number of more diverse people. We need to highlight our history here in Jackson. I don’t know where the local ACLU and other organizations would be if UUCJ were not here in the 1960s. Why aren’t there more Rainbow Food people here? Why did we cede our liberal heritage? Was it too hard to maintain? Apathy?

To me, church is more than me, it is us. I think we do okay with diversity. Twenty-nine percent of members and friends who thought UUCJ was doing poorly on increasing its racial/ethnic diversity. What do these respondents offer as solutions? Furthermore, would they be willing to spearhead diversity initiatives? Its all about action, not talk. When I looked at the UUA webpage entitled “Congregational Stories About Justice & Diversity,” I did not see stories about how people just complained, sat, or studied diversity. Those UUA stories were about action-not blind action, but action guided by the congregation’s covenant. I read stories about activities that actually lead to diversity. Diversity is enhanced when we pinpoint needed changes to our congregational culture that foster transformative dialogue and action (First Parish Cambridge video, 2011).

GLBT Luncheon at MC Law School

This is an historic first! Today, February 3, at 11:30 a.m., MC Law School held a luncheon with a guest speaker (an attorney who works on GLBT legal needs in Mississippi). Thanks to Andrew S., a student at MC Law, MC Law School must sponsor these student-organized luncheons on GLBT issues and concerns. At first, MC Law refused to hold the event. After a push from the American Bar Association, they changed their tune. Then they said they would not pay for the lunch. After conversations with UUCJ’s President (ME!), I told Andrew that I personally would find a sponsor to pay for the lunch. In the end, MC Law said they would pay (it is standard that the law school pay for these lunches). Andrew also applied for a Unitarian Universalist Association grant to sponser these events in the future (UUA did not award us a grant this year).

This is a feather in our cap–that we have, once again, supported the furtherance of GLBT equality issues in Mississippi. A special congratulations to Andrew S. for his continuing work in the GLBT community!

Jan 30th–Tom K’s Talk

I loved Tom Kersen’s presentation on diversity! It was interesting to see how our congregation answered various questions on the survey we took online.

Now, to the chase ~~ I am going to post a number of quotes (or close to what I heard) for the sake of conversation.

Here is number one: “Our relationships are less about race than about culture: how we talk, how we treat each other, how we do things.”

So, let’s see what direction our dialogue will take. Tom K–I would love to see your notes on this blog–could you place it under the “Toward Diversity” category? Thanks!

Touching Deity: Are You Experienced?

Here is a recent service I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Jackson. I borrowed many ideas and insights from other UU ministers who had presented on the same topic, so much of this has just come through me to be shared at our congregation. In any case, I hope that it helps you explore your own spiritual experiences and the meaning you make.

Stacy Callender

———————————————————————————

Reflections on our first source:

Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.

I was recently invited to speak at James Bowley’s religious studies class at Millsaps College to introduce them to Unitarian Universalism. After sharing some information from our New UU class, including a little history, theology, and our principles and sources, he opened the class up to questions. There were a few timid questions offered. The final one was a young woman who asked, “What are your sacred texts?” I replied, “All of them.” Confused she replied, “no, but I mean…,” as I quickly added, “Yes, really, all of them. We welcome wisdom from wherever we find it.” I repeated this several times, but I’m not sure I convinced her.

But indeed, we welcome wisdom wherever we find it—and we find wisdom everywhere! We have listed six specific sources. The first five were written in 1984 and the sixth was added in 1995. Recently, as required by our bylaws, the UUA has considered revisions to our principles and sources. This is not to suggest that there is anything wrong with them. Instead it is our intention to ensure we stay current and relevant—not trapped under the tyranny of history.

The results of the proposed revision left our principles largely unchanged; however, they suggested major changes to the way our sources were described. Instead of the current list of sources, the revision suggested that we change them to a few descriptive paragraphs. The proposed revisions generated much discussion about the relative merits of adding more description compared to the slightly more poetic language we use now. After great discussion and division, the measure was narrowly defeated at General Assembly, our faith tradition’s annual national gathering where congregates gather to make decisions about our future direction. Despite the defeat of this proposal, I’m sure the denomination will continue to explore future revisions to determine the best way to articulate our principles and sources, so it is particularly relevant that we understand them as they are to be able to better contribute to that process in the future. To help us become more familiar, I will be doing a series on the sources to allow us to explore them in greater detail.

I have a second story to describe why I think this is important. Some of you may not remember a former member, Ronni Mott; however, most of you probably read the Jackson Free Press. In a recent issue, they focused on religion and in that issue Ronni Mott made comments about her experiences and in particular the depth in our beliefs:

In 2006, I took an Internet test on a whim: “What religion are you?” Fully prepared for even this innocuous test to pass judgment on my lack of Christian faith, I was surprised when it revealed the answer: 74 percent Unitarian Universalist.

“Well, well,” I thought, and immediately began my due diligence. I had never heard of Unitarians outside of “A Prairie Home Companion,” where Garrison Keillor often makes gentle fun of the sect and its preference for sheet cakes. What I found was a Christian-based denomination, which advocates tolerance for all faith traditions and a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”

I began spending Sunday mornings at the little church on Northside Drive, politely making my beliefs known, and politely listening to others. The church made it a point to bring in speakers of diverse faiths, from Judaism to Buddhism to atheism and humanism, and its congregation didn’t refrain from taking stands on social-justice issues including a woman’s right to choose and the death penalty.

For about a year, it was engaging and fun. Then, it began to feel a bit flabby. I wanted to debate theology, not to simply nod my head in polite acquiescence to viewpoints I didn’t agree with. My questions felt more and more strident, and I grew frustrated with the UUs insistence on civility above all else. I felt like Barbra Streisand in “Yentl,” wanting desperately to know “the truth” but prevented from a rousing debate with other believers.

About the same time, I began a yearlong yoga teacher-training course, and something had to give. What gave was my participation with the UUs.

Now I take issue with her characterization. I don’t take it personally that she did not find what she was looking for here. And to be honest, her complaint about us being “too civil” is a pretty rare accusation to have ever been made against us. I myself can remember a time when no one would have said that about us. In this day of great incivility, I am somewhat honored by the fact that we have learned to speak our truth without an argument. Furthermore, I wish her well on her journey, as she seems to have found herself in the yogic tradition. We have been fortunate to allow many people to come here, ask questions, and find answers for themselves that draw them onward to another path. We are pleased to offer this possibility to the community. However, her main contention was that we did not have a strong theological position of our own. Rather we talked nicely about any and all perspectives. I couldn’t disagree more strongly—our statements of principles and sources do have very definite and thoughtful theological underpinnings that are unlike other systems of beliefs and help us understand how we approach the world and come to our personal theologies. A great deal of effort went into the writing of these statements, and they decidedly wanted to express our unique perspective as a questioning rather than an answering faith tradition.

First, our theology is represented in our seven Principles which describe how see ourselves in relation to others, to truth, and to the universe. They bridge from the individual to the ultimate on how we are with other beings. Specifically, they are written in a mirrored format with the first three principles discussing us as individuals within small, interpersonal relations while the last three deal with us in our larger societal relations encompassing the whole universe. The first deals with how we view every individual, as having inherent worth and dignity. The second addresses one-on-one interpersonal relationships, with justice, equality, and compassion. The third looks at how we are in congregations, accepting one another—not just tolerating them—and encouraging them to grow. And mirroring back the fifth addresses how congregations relate among each other and with and within other groups to which we belong, using a democratic process and respecting individual conscience to guide us. The sixth addresses how we relate as countries and nations, having a goal of a world community with peace, liberty, justice for all. The seventh, the flipside of the first which deals with the micro, deals with the macro of how we view the whole of the universe as an interdependent web of which we are a part. The fourth, and central point of our principles, describes a free and responsible search for truth and meaning – it is our central task, it is what we do in the world. There is a wonderfully, rich theology bound up within those principles, crafted with great care by our predecessors.

Likewise, our Sources share how we view the world. Instead of relations, our Sources share how we view the evolution of theological history. They proceed through the pathway that people have come to know truth over time. They begin with individual’s attempt to grapple with the mysteries of life through direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, which some call God and others don’t, but is affirmed in all cultures, and which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. Then some individuals came to unique insights, or prophesy, that they shared with those around them, moved by passion and courage to share words and deeds of these prophetic women and men challeng[ing] us to confront powers and structures of evil not with anger or violence but with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love. Over time, the teachings of prophets have become codified into religions, attempts to answer the questions of life and to guide people on how best to live—wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life. We then turn to the specific religions—Judaism and Christianity—that Unitarians/Universalists come out of which still are foundational to our understanding of the world and our approach to it—Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. In the twentieth century, our growing emphasis on rational and scientific understanding led us to embrace the wisdom of Humanists—teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit. At the end of the twentieth century as our science helped us better understand the world in which we live and the historical values of our ancient past, we gained a growing awareness of our interdependence with nature and developed a hunger for meaningfulness that led us to a new spiritual awaken based on nature and informed by science—spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. This awakening of spirituality based on the natural world leads us back to our original source as we grapple with the mystery of life. Indeed there is much to be gained from digging deeper into the ways that we come to know.

Today, I would like us to dig a bit into that first Source, the most basic and personal way that we come to awareness—Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. So what does this first source mean to us? It is the most confusing source to explain. The short and glib answer—God. It reminds me of a joke I once heard:

A Unitarian is stuck by a blinding light. The booming voice of God asks, “And who do you say that I am?” The Unitarian replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed.” And God said, “Say what?”

But really if you look deeper, it is rich in meaning. Direct Experience has to do with who has authority of religious experience:

Rev. Laura Horton-Ludwig wrote in her sermon on this source:

“Going all the way back to Emerson and the Transcendentalists in the 19th century, our liberal tradition has said personal experience, what we feel in our own hearts, the struggles that we live through, is the most important authority in religion. If religious scriptures say one thing but our heart says another, we go with our heart every time. If a religious leader, like a minister preaching from a pulpit, says one thing but we find we can’t accept it, we go with our understanding of the truth, every time. You don’t have to believe everything I tell you. This is the spirit of freedom and personal responsibility which we have inherited, and which I hope will always be at the core of our faith.”

Rudolph Gelsey wrote about the choices we make as Unitarian Universalists:

“If there is a conflict between religious dogma and individual conscience, individual conscience comes first.”

The starting point of our spiritual understanding is always what we feel and believe in our deepest self to be true because it has come out of our life and our experience. The movie Shadowlands chronicles the life of C.S. Lewis from a secluded and comfortable don at Oxford writing about Christian life and how to grapple with the faith to a man, confronted with a loving relationship in all of its messy wonder, with a brash New Yorker who spoke her mind and upset his English calm, to her slow and tragic death from cancer laying waste to his life. At her funeral and again at his faculty gathering, he is confronted by the typical words of supposed comfort from his religious tradition, some he even wrote. He rails against the hallowness of them—the inability of them to match up to his personal experience. He is quoted as saying “Experience is that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” That is the experience to which we refer, the kind that smacks you with a power beyond your daily life and forces you to examine your deepest beliefs about life.

Transcendent Mystery & Wonder is a nod to our deeply personal mystical and spiritual understanding. William James says the characteristic of mystical experience is that it resists being put into words. You can’t describe it fully, not really. But still you can try.

Now, many here may reject this notion of mysticism. In fact, I’ve heard more than once, people declare “I’m not spiritual.” Well, maybe that’s because they have a very limited definition of what “spiritual” is. Being spiritual doesn’t mean going into a trance, although that may be one way someone has had a spiritual experience. There are many other ways that people have encountered and can encounter the spiritual in life—watching a sunrise, looking at a newborn, watching someone die, seeing a smile on the face of a friend, seeing a new shoot break forth in a garden, looking at a work of art. Rabbi Michael Learner defined spirituality as: “an experience of love and connection to the world and to others…awe, wonder, and radical amazement in response to the universe and a consequent unwillingness to view the world merely in instrumental terms”. Mystical, spiritual, or “peak” experiences, visions, moments of awe, inspiration, wonder, whatever we choose to call them can be common occurrences if we are open to them.

Affirmed in all cultures speaks to the universal nature of belief. Anthropological evidence shows that humans have been spiritual for at least 60,000 years, clear back to the Neanderthals. A recent book by Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into our Genes, proposes that religious experience is integral to our species. Using the measure of transcendence and genetic studies, he explores the link between spirituality and our genes. The “Self-Transcendence Scale” find three essential components of spirituality (self-transcendence) including: (1) self-forgetfulness, which is the experience where you lose track of time and space, (2) transpersonal identification, which is the ability to feel a unity with all things, and (3) mysticism, which is the fascination with things that cannot be easily explained. He examined what people report as peak spiritual experiences and found that people report similar sensations: (a) a sense of wholeness and unity with the universe—a connection to everyone and everything, (b) transcendence of time and space including a loss of the sense of boundaries of the physical body, (c) an openness to emotions and an overwhelming positive mood such as a deepened sense of joy and/or peacefulness, (d) an appreciation of nature and the environment, and (d) an increased tolerance for others, for change—a willingness to try new things and a shift in values. Although his results are controversial as to their scientific merit, his conclusions may have the truth of literature. He finds that spirituality has much to offer us as a species. For example, by blurring our sense of self, spirituality allows us to become members of a cohesive group. Spirituality also provides us with an innate sense of optimism. It alleviates anxiety and gives us a sense of purpose beyond ourselves. This can keep us from being incapacitated by the thought of death, and drive us to want to keep on living. His findings fit with several studies that have shown that spiritual practice actually improves health and extends life. The implication is that spirituality just plain makes us feel good. If we feel good, we are more likely to reproduce; thus, this gene or genes would have been evolutionary advantageous, and would have been selected for. Viewed in this light, being spiritual is uniquely human, and spiritual experience is as ancient as our species. Of all the creatures on earth, we are the only ones who can find meaning in anything from the most mundane to the most complex. What a gift—while other animals outperform us many ways, our specialty is to be the makers of meaning.

But as Hamer noted, “Our genes may predispose us to believe, but they don’t tell us what to believe in. We must distinguish between having certain beliefs and the act of believing. That act of believing, the ability to believe, is the great gift of human kind.”

Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s book Fingerprints of God sought to take this further step. Her purpose was to find evidence—or fingerprints—of the Christian God in scientific studies of the brain. She concludes that science might be pointing to a God who hard-wired us to be able to communicate with him; however, Hagerty, steeped in the notion that Christianity is the ultimate and only truth, struggles mightily with the inescapable conclusion of the brain studies she uses as evidence: spiritual experience is strikingly similar across cultures. The brains of Buddhist monks, Franciscan nuns and Sufi mystics all look the same on scans. Hagerty ultimately admits that “Genetics—and science in general—cannot referee between Christianity and Islam, or Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.” Again, as Hamer stated, “Our genes…don’t tell us what to believe in. …the ability to believe is the great gift of human kind.”

A renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life. The upholding and valuing of life is particularly important to our faith tradition as we do not necessarily hold any promises of an existence beyond the life we know. Those who know me well, know I am usually late to everything. In fact, I am usually a reliable 10-15 minutes late to everything—everything, that is, except movies. It may be because of the power of stories for me. They have been good friends since my childhood. But I think it may also be the very limited timing of access. I just cannot watch a movie if it has already started. The limits, then, give meaning to the experience. Likewise our awareness of the limits of our life…our awareness of our impending death gives meaning to our present life. As a child, I was often reminded of the saying: Life is like a quarter. You can spend it anyway you want, but you can only spend it once. We may believe many different things about what happens when we die, but we know we are alive and we know we will die to our present form. That makes this life significant. It is our direct experience of this human condition that compels us toward that which transcends our own lives and gives us a sense of meaning about what happens to us here. We can find answers to the questions in life from any of our sources; they provide answers about evil and suffering, happiness and purpose, but none are as powerful and transformative as those insights we come to ourselves—like a thunderbolt, a crystallizing moment when all things come into perspective and we see ourselves and the world and all of humanity and our place within it. In the words of Richard Gilbert “In this fragile moment of time is the culmination of all that has been and the promise of all that shall be.”

These experiences create a transformation in us that in turn makes us more alive. As Rev. Buehrens said:

“Each of us has transforming moments. Not all of them are soaring. Many are painful, breaking through our defenses to raise challenging questions of us, just as we so often have questions of life. In such moments, we can sometimes receive life once more as a gift, not as a given. When we do, when we are more open to life’s unfolding questions of us, then we can identify more deeply with others, with those who are also challenged. We can commit (or recommit) ourselves to join with them to serve justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly together before the Mystery that gives us all life—and to do so even in the face of death.”

I have experienced these personal transformational experiences. At the age of 19 years, I experienced what some might call a religious awakening or a rebirth. For me, I experienced this as a casting off of the religious beliefs I was given as a child. Up until this point, I had struggled for years with the frustration of failing at the rules that I had been given, which I believed I must follow to be acceptable in the eyes of God. Walking across the lawn of my college campus, I once again questioned, why do I continue to fail to follow the rules I had been taught? Like a thunderbolt, the answer came: If I do not live it, it is because I do not believe it. If I believe it truly, deeply, I would follow it. But if I am constantly having to remind myself of it, it is not a part of my core beliefs of how I am in the world. Not once have I ever had to remind myself, “Now today, when I go out, I need to remember—don’t kill anyone.” Probably because that is part of my core beliefs. Some of the other, stuff, maybe it just wasn’t all that true for me. This realization helped me shed years of guilt and an oppressive view that led me to undervalue myself.

I have recently found, at the age of 38 years, a growing awareness, another spiritual awakening, a new rebirth. This time it is more of a taking on of religious beliefs. This has been more of a gradual process, but I indeed, I again have had a crystallizing moment. This one came not from a specific question, but more as a phrase that has come to me during my meditations. It is that we are all children of God making our way to perfection. As a person that considers myself as a non-theist, I don’t even really know where that phrase comes from or exactly what it means. But it encourages me to see each person even those who piss me off as a person of value, a person of worth, that I should treat with the dignity and the compassion that a child of God deserves. More is the realization that I can’t expect perfection, completion, wholeness from someone on the path, in the middle of her/his journey—as long as we are on the path, the meaning of our lives are not set and there is always room for growth and transformation. It tells me that my role is to help them get better and for me to accept their role in helping me be better.

Each of you have your own experiences, I know, which are just as significant and beautiful and powerful. As we come to the end of this service, I’d like to invite you into a time of silent reflection on the moments in your own life when you have touched mystery and wonder, when you have felt renewed and deepened and opened. These are your gifts, and they are holy. Let us be in silence together.

Building The World We Dream About

It is our 60th anniversary year! We have bantered the theme for this year. One that people like is: Perpetua Flamma Amoris (Latin for The Perpetual Flame of Love). I like the idea. And, as we move into this year, we are going to look at the world we dream about and how we will keep our flame of love burning bright in Jackson, Mississippi.

You will note a new category I’ve just added: “Adult Forums/Religious Education” and “Building The World We Dream About.” There will be posts to the BTWWDA site as we progress through this religious education offering. Our Tapestry of Faith will be 24 sessions long, so it will run all year.

I look forward to our time together!

UUCJ INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY IN 1975

February 23, 1975 newsletter of the Unitarian-Universalist church of Jackson:

Intentional Community” Group Forms

As an outgrowth of interest expressed by several individuals at church, a group has formed which has goals of commitment, care and concern for each other, and who hope to go beyond everyday superficial relationships with honesty and sharing of varied experiences.

The group is calling itself an “intentional community” (extended family) and considers itself as a pilot for other groups which might want to form around similar goals. This group is set up to last 10 weeks and as time goes by it will be willing to share its experiences with others.

Newsletter from March 16, 1975

“The Intentional Community group (otherwise called extended family, family cluster, etc.) is progressing well through its third consecutive Saturday meeting. Members sharing leadership and decision making, and the group is limiting itself to the 12 adults (plus children), participating to allow development of better trust and sharing. (So this is why no “name to call”

is listed here). Activities have included a group-prepared meal, volleyball, and planned rap sessions, and will soon include a weekend campout.

If anyone is interested in exploring the idea of another extended family group soon, call Jonnie Noble (362-6122).

Recollections from Rev. Gordon Gibson, minister of UUCJ in 1975 and participant in the “Intentional Community” in a October 23, 2009 email.

My first thought was, “Huh?  Did something like that ever happen?”  Thinking further, I do remember the effort.  One might say that it was superficial — more “intentional potluck” as I recall than “intentional community” — but like all such things it may have had more impact on some participants than was readily apparent.

I think that we gathered in the homes of various participants for meal and discussion.  I dimly recall that I suggested that we might learn far more if we took on some social witness project rather than just do a discussion/discussion/discussion approach, but there was never any project that we could agree on.

I don’t recall who was involved.  Judy and I took part.  I think Larry and Mary Knight (who may still be in the Jackson area but long ago dropped out) were part of it.  It would have been David Noble rather than Jon (Jon being then in elementary school, but now teaching Chinese language at Notre Dame), but I don’t clearly recall them as being involved.

We may have met every week, but it could as well have been less frequent.  I don’t recall if there was a written resource we consulted.

Later that month, Reverend Gibson wrote about the March 16, 1975 newsletter selection:

That would have been Jannie (pronounced Yannie) Noble, who has now returned to the more formal Johanna.  She and her husband David were members in that era.  They now live in northern Virginia.  If you want to check with them to see if their memories are in any way clearer than mine, you might try the e-mail jdnoble@bellatlantic.net, which is the most recent I have for them.

of eating disorders and the 100 IQ

When I was DRE at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Denton, TX, I had several wonderful opportunities to attend retreats at Mo Ranch (where I also got to talk to Reverend Sinkford who changed the way I think about religion, but that’s another post).  Mo Ranch is a Presbyterian retreat in the hill country of Texas.  I’m a Floridian, so they looked like mountains to me.  We went in January.  It was beautiful.  Lots of time for personal reflection, meditation, networking, and standing in line for breakfast with Presbyterians.  “Do you know what the problem is with Unitatian Universalism is?” asked a Presb minister one morning.  I eyed him.  He looked friendly enough, but it was pre-coffee.  I braced myself.  I am only a DRE after all, and I am a guest here.  I fortify myself with an extra helping of scrambled eggs. “Um….”maybe another waffle, too.”What?”  I asked, ready to defend my religion to the death or at least to the end of the buffet line.  “You only take smart people.”  Bacon, sausage, pasteries.  Yes, more pasteries.  “Oh..well, it’s not really a requirement really,”I stammer lamely.  Where is the butter? But truth be told…. ok,  I got nothing.  It’s true.  The congregations I’ve attended are particularly well-educated.  Is that who we are?  The smart church?  We ask people to think for themselves.  That doesn’t mean they need a PhD. to do it.  What image are we projecting that personal journies are  entitlements only  to the big-brained?  Can’t anyone be a seeker?  Arguments about IQ tests aside, do we offer nothing to the left slope of the bell curve?  Or is that who we are?  Intellectuals with science and reason on our side.  Let the sheep follow the preachers, for perhaps they need someone to guide them.  Are we suffering from the sin of pride (excuse my language) that we are the church of the intelligencia?  Is that who we are?    If we believe in the inherent and dignity of all people, can we not find a way to open ourselves to yet another population who is underserved: the average?

WHO AM I?

One heck of a poet, Carl Sandburg passed away on this day back in 1967, the year of my birth. One quote of his I really like is “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud”

Below is one of my favorite poems by him, called “Who Am I?”

MY head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of
universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I
reach my hands and play with pebbles of
destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs
reading “Keep Off.”

My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive
in the universe.

Check out the website where I got “Who Am I?” if you are interested.

 

Soapbox Sunday

So, what is the word on Soapbox Sunday? Was it filled with lots of exciting commentary?

I had an obligation to attend the Episcopal Church in Newton MS this morning. There are times I have to support the religion of my partner. Their congregation sits at about 5–yes, I said 5! Today, with Freeman and myself, there were a total of five.

The dogma, of course, I just had to overlook, but a pause to have quiet time and a full service of prayer was nice.

Episcopals in Newton are not numerous–mainly Pentacostals, Charismatics, and Baptists (with a smathering of hidden atheists, non-churched, etc).

I would have loved the Soapbox Sunday–sorry to have missed it.