Thealogy of the Chambered Nautilus

Last updated on: September 19, 2016 at 5:00 am by Guest Contributor

Thealogy of the Chambered Nautilus 2016-09-19T05:00:36+00:00 Guest Contributor

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.

(Rev. Shirley Ranck is one of the founding members of CUUPS and served on the board for its first decade of existence, stepping down in 1996 to serve as it’s first Executive Director. She is the author of Cakes For the Queen of Heaven which is an women-honoring UU Religious Education course which examines pre-Judeo Christian cultures that may have worshiped the female as divine. This course has been used in approximately 800 of the 1,050 UU Congregations. She is also a retired UU minister who served congregations in Alabama, California, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Washington and British Columbia, Canada. This is an excerpt of her keynote talk at the CUUPS 2016 Convocation held this August in Salem, MA.)

Chambered Nautilus. Photo by Michael Bentley (cc) 2011.

Let me introduce you to a most wonderful creature of the sea. The chambered nautilus is found in the western Pacific Ocean at depths of 165 to 325 feet. It is characterized by internal subdivision of its shell into successive chambers. The walls which separate these chambers are laid down by the animal during its growth and have at their center a hole through which the mollusk, while occupying the last chamber, remains in contact with the previous ones.

I would like to suggest some theological analogies that can be drawn from the nature of the chambered nautilus.

It seems to me that Unitarian Universalism, like the chambered nautilus, has as its developmental task the creation of new chambers—new visions, myths and environments for nurturing the life of the human spirit. We can live no longer in the chambers of the recent past, however appealing they seem. And we can deny no longer some distant chambers of the past, however strange they seem. Like the nautilus we are destined to create new chambers whether we like it or not. Unlike the mollusk we can choose what kind of chambers we attempt to create.

The first theological implication of such an analogy is that the divine resides in the natural world as the shape of growth and creativity. Life keeps creating new chambers, new events and at each stage, in each event there exists the possibility for novelty.

To perceive the divine as growth and creativity immanent in all the world means that the insights of one individual or of one community of faith will not suffice. We can no longer afford to divide the world into armed camps of competing gods and ideologies. We need to look for the common human themes that will enlarge our experience, widen our identities, cause us to grow. In order to discover those universal themes we need to be aware of the unconscious assumptions which are being made by all parties or religions, assumptions which few in any of the groups are aware of.

Chambered Nautilus in Glass. Photo by K. Kendall (cc) 2009.

Thus the second theological implication to be drawn from the chambered nautilus analogy is that we carry with us into the present all the chambers of the past, both positive and negative, even as we live in a new space and time. A tiny hole connects each chamber with the one before it. In this way the animal remains in contact with all of its previous chambers.

Let me cite one glaring example of the way in which our assumptions prevent us from being truly universal. Until now we have thought that by giving intellectual acknowledgment to all the major world religions as worthy of respect, by reading occasionally from their scriptures, we were doing all that was needed to express our universal outlook. But because the symbolism of Judaism and Christianity as we have known them is almost exclusively male, and because we assume that male symbolism is the only kind possible, we have failed to understand that the symbols and practices of all the major world religions tend to denigrate half of the human species. If we set all those traditions aside for a moment and look at the innocent chambered nautilus, we are brought back to the universal truth that divinity resides in the growth and creativity of all of life, in the growth and creativity of women as well as men.

As a human community we have also accepted a very biased view of history. We have had to learn that American history looks very different when described from an African American or Native American perspective. It is the same with women. For many thousands of years, in historic times as well as in prehistoric times, human beings imagined the divine as female. We have been taught by male historians that the religions of the great goddesses of the ancient world were mere primitive fertility cults. But the archeological evidence of recent years does not support that view. We find instead hymns and liturgies which ascribe to the goddess the power of mighty counselor and the highest demands of love and justice. When we open ourselves to female as well as male experience in history we choose to honor those distant chambers of our human past when the divine was imaged as female. We are creating new chambers for a new life.

Nautie. (cc) 2006. This is Norman the chambered nautilus that Jackie knit for me using the pattern here: www.knitty.com/issuespring06/PATTnautie.html

A third theological implication of the chambered nautilus is that in seeking a balance between our ties to the past and our openness to the present, we can create something new and beautiful. It is one of the paradoxes of growth that as we take the risk of maintaining creative tensions, we discover new harmonies. In our own psyches, acknowledging our deepest wishes and fears is the first step toward a resolution or constructive use of those forces. In our close relationships a crisis in which resentments are expressed may be the beginning of deeper understandings. In our communities and in the world at large we often seem to lack that kind of trust.

We need desperately to explore new patterns of behavior at all these levels. The spiral of chambers created by the nautilus comprises one of the great patterns repeated in our universe, in the stars and in this creature of the sea. It is necessary to return to the cycles of the past in order to grow. It is also necessary to spiral out beyond these circles into new experiences in order to be truly creative; and the shape of each new chamber is something more than the sum of all past chambers, something truly novel.

Unitarian Universalism

Previous Post

September 16, 2016

Mabon: Exploring the Autumnal Equinox

Next Post

September 20, 2016 Senses of Autumn, Senses of Home

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Current Events CUUPS Press Release Interfaith liturgy Media Review podcast Religious Education Seasonal Reflection Spiritual Practice Summary Uncategorized

Select a Month July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 January 2026 December 2025 October 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 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

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz