Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
BEGINNING AGAIN, AGAIN A Meditation on the Why & How of Liberal Religion

BEGINNING AGAIN, AGAIN A Meditation on the Why & How of Liberal Religion

Last updated on: September 15, 2013 at 2:03 pm by James Ford

BEGINNING AGAIN, AGAIN A Meditation on the Why & How of Liberal Religion 2013-09-15T14:03:48-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

BEGINNING AGAIN, AGAIN
A Meditation on the Why & How of Liberal Religion

15 September 2013

James Ishmael Ford
Senior Minister
First Unitarian Church
Providence, Rhode Island

Text

We have seen Yitzhak Perlman
Who walks the stage with braces on both legs,
On two crutches.
He takes his seat, unhinges the clasps of his legs,
Tucking one leg back, extending the other,
Laying down his crutches, placing the violin under his chin.
On one occasion one of his violin strings broke.
The audience grew silent but the violinist didn’t leave the stage.
He signaled the maestro, and the orchestra began its part.
The violinist played with power and intensity on only three strings.
With three strings, he modulated, changed, and
recomposed the piece in his head.
He retuned the strings to get different sounds,
turned them upward and downward.
The audience screamed delight,
applauded their appreciation.
Asked later how he had accomplished this feat,
the violinist answered
It is my task to make music with what remains.
A legacy mightier than a concert.
Make music with what remains.
Complete the song left for us to sing,
transcend the loss,
play it out with heart, soul, and might
with all remaining strength within us.

Harold Schulwies

As you may have heard, we Unitarian Universalists are notoriously difficult to define, both for outsiders and even by ourselves. As an example there’s that famous joke about the three children standing together in a playground talking about their religions. One child says she’s Catholic, the second he’s a Jew, while the third pauses before saying, “I’m not sure, but I think we’re League of Women Voters.” Of course, that’s the UU. I can add from my own life an overheard conversation at another congregation from a few years back. Two sisters were walking down the hall, as I recall they were around eight and ten, the elder saying to the younger, “No, no. We’re Una-tarians, we can eat meat.”

The problem for many is that this tradition of liberal religion is not based so much in any particular belief, but rather is a covenant of presence. Rather than having a check-list of beliefs we sign off on, we embrace a style of living, a way of life. Our way is that covenant of presence, bringing attention, consciousness to reality, and within that living our lives.

In that spirit I want to address two things, which may at first seem a bit disparate. I want to talk about Yom Kippur, the great Jewish holiday that was observed this past Friday. And I want to discuss that nineteenth century Unitarian assertion about “salvation by character” that I find so important as a spiritual pointer. I suggest in fact these two things wind together into a thread we can follow through all sorts of situations and conditions, right through to a whole and even holy life.

First let me lay the ground. If you walk into a Unitarian Universalist congregation as a stranger it is immediately obvious we’re culturally Protestants. Our Meeting House is a grand example of New England congregationalism, the robed ministers, so many of our musical choices, and even the weekly Order of Service found in most UU congregations betray our Protestant heritage. Indeed if one came to most UU Sunday worship services pretty much anywhere across the country and didn’t pay close attention to what’s said one might think we were Congregationalists or maybe Presbyterians.

But, then there is that what is said. As most here know, somewhere along the line, I’d say before or at the latest shortly after the Second World War, following a long evolution we in fact shifted from being a liberal Christian church to being a liberal church with Christians. While we owe much to our Christian heritage, and indeed continue to be a viable home for many liberal Christians, as a living spiritual community and despite our appearance as a protestant church, we have become something different, a resting place for the birds of heaven. We now include among us, as us Christians and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, humanists and pagans, theists and atheists.

Ours is a way of life. This way is marked by reason, freedom and tolerance. I repeat: reason, freedom and tolerance. This marks a way of life that is predicated not upon the revelation of scripture, but through the evidence of our human senses rendered through the furnace-like fires of engaged hearts and minds. Through that process we discern that mysterious reality where the individual is precious and unique, but whom, we also see, exists only within the undulating currents of the natural world. Looking large, looking clear, we discover how we, each of us, rise and fall within each other’s arms, and within the embrace of the world itself. Our way teaches how we, and all of nature, are one. Outsiders who consider us closely would say we are humanists, or, perhaps even more accurately, naturalists. Personally, I think our greatest spiritual exemplar could be Henry David Thoreau.

We live fully in this world, not as passers through, but as part and parcel, and with that we find our spirituality here, and within presence. Of course this doesn’t mean we can’t continue to learn from the traditions that gave us birth and which are still so precious to so many of us. Christianity and Judaism contain much that is valuable. We can look to aspects of Christianity, particularly the moral teachings of Jesus and such scriptural texts as the Epistle of James, or within the vital and compelling Jewish Wisdom tradition enshrined within such texts as Ecclesiastes, Proverbs and most notably Job; and find the sources of our way. Also within such engagement we find challenges and, if we really pay attention, the possibility of corrections. If we engage them both critically, and with humility we can find the traditions of Judaism and Christianity pushing us toward our own destiny.

As a really solid example I want to speak briefly to one of the greatest of the Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah and specifically of Yom Kippur. As I said, Yom Kippur has just passed. I think it should be easy to see how this ancient holiday season casts light on our Unitarian Universalist way. In part this can be inspiration, and in part a correction, showing some of our own shadows in high relief. And don’t doubt it, we have shadows; they come with being human. But if we pay attention we can see how an open hearted engagement helps us to clarify our work and our goals; pointing to our own true destiny, our deepest call and purpose.

Probably it would be wise for me to give the quickest review of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: As the majority of us know it is a week long observance of the New Year in the Jewish calendar, and as I said, has just concluded. What is most important for our purposes is how it is a time of reflection and renewal. As my friend and colleague Joel Miller succinctly puts it “Traditionally, this week is a process of self-evaluation, acknowledgement of guilt, then of repentance, and finally a plea for forgiveness.” Here we are at the formal beginning of our own church year. And I suggest it is not a bad time for some of that clear-eyed assessment, owning up to things, and starting anew.

We need to notice our hurt, our wounds, our shadows. To deny them is foolish. In fact to not notice and deal with these things is dangerous, leading us to impulsive behaviors that can leave much hurt in the wake of their expression. But, even more importantly, we can’t change if we don’t allow ourselves to see who and how we are. And here’s where I want to bring in that old Unitarian chestnut “salvation by character” to our reflection.

As I’ve raised these words “salvation by character” at various times over the years I’ve found people have expressed, how shall I put it, strong reactions. Some years ago someone did a Unitarian Universalist values survey. In this survey a sample population was asked to order rank such terms as peace, love, beauty, truth, wisdom and salvation. As UU minister Richard Fewkes commented on this survey “salvation was ranked the lowest of all the values and some even wrote it in the margins at the bottom of the page upside down and said it was a negative value…”

While the dictionary meaning of salvation has to do with healing, there is little doubt in many of our minds that the word really stands for going to a hypothetical heaven that some significant majority of us simply don’t believe in. And associated with that all sorts of control over people hoping for that heaven by hierarchs and other emotional terrorists. I get that. But, also, I think the term has real value. We are hurt, and we do need healing, and I think we make a serious mistake if we drop that term salvation from our spiritual enterprise. There is a hell, and it is here in this world. As is heaven: right here. And our salvation will not take us somewhere else, but more deeply into this place.

I suggest also at least some of our resistance to the term salvation is found in a pride that blinds us to this possibility of avoiding the hells often of our own creation, and finding the heaven of lives dedicated to intimacy, to knowing the connections, and living from that place. This is, ultimately, a spiritual enterprise, and the language of spirit, for all its faults, is, I believe, the right language.

I suggest we find this quest of salvation, of healing, as an uncovering, a re-discovery of our essential at-one-ment – that magnificent pun we find in the English word atonement, atonement, which is the essential aspect of Yom Kippur. This really is simply calling us back to our own true selves, to our essential nature, intimate beyond words, with everyone and everything in the world, and actually with that entire universe that lives within our own hearts and minds.

When we surrender our pride and allow ourselves to be full within our own hurt and woundedness; the work of healing truly begins. And so to return to that line salvation by character: We must work on our own character, looking honestly at our shortcomings, foolishnesses and even how we are complicit in various evils. Gloriously, our attention to how we act in the world, how we step up to the plate, how we give ourselves to the matter at hand is the secret hope of the world, and its healing.

We need to engage at a number of levels. I need to assess how I’ve failed myself, and my friends. How have I failed as a minister as a husband as a human being? What do I need to do to repair various hurts? Each of us needs such personal assessments every now and again, and this week is a particularly good time to do something like this. But this evaluation also needs to extend beyond our private lives. We are woven out of each other and the world itself. We are inextricably connected with everything that is going on, in our community, our city, our state, our nation, on this planet.

This deep self-examination and full engagement with the world is a central part of a way of life that says healing, indeed salvation, is found within how we live our lives. Reflection is critical, and then it must lead to action. We look, we repent, we act.

Then do it again.

I think I can describe what happens if we do this. Well, not me. It’s contained within a poem by Rabbi Harold Schulwies collected in Miriyam Glazer’s book Dancing on the Edge of the World.

“We have seen Yitzhak Perlman/Who walks the stage with braces on both legs,/On two crutches./He takes his seat, unhinges the clasps of his legs,/Tucking one leg back, extending the other,/Laying down his crutches, placing the violin under his chin./On one occasion one of his violin strings broke./the audience grew silent but the violinist didn’t leave the stage./He signaled the maestro, and the orchestra began its part./The violinist played with power and intensity on only three strings./With three strings, he modulated, changed, and/Recomposed the piece in his head./He retuned the strings to get different sounds,/Turned them upward and downward./The audience screamed delight,/Applauded their appreciation./Asked later how he had accomplished this feat,/The violinist answered/It is my task to make music with what remains./A legacy mightier than a concert./Make music with what remains./Complete the song left for us to sing,/Transcend the loss,/Play it out with heart, soul, and might/With all remaining strength within us.”

This, my friends, is our work within this place.

Our way.

And there is no better time to begin, than now.

Amen.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 14, 2013

Pavlov's Cat

Next Post

September 17, 2013 Religion and Violence, a Brief Aside in a Larger Conversation

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which country has the most Protestant Christians by number?

Select your answer to see how you score.

United Kingdom Brazil Germany United States