Archives for 2018

In late January I spent a week at an event called the “Center Institute for Excellence in Ministry” hosted by the Unitarian Universalist Ministerial Association (UUMA), to which I belong. The focus of the institute is just as its title says, “Excellence in Ministry,” and it goes about the work in unexpected ways. If there is something ministers do not typically get it is regular occasions to be in worship, to have other ministers hold onto us with their words, music, and liturgy, so we might be nourished in our religious lives. The week at the institute included, besides seminars and classes to learn and renew ministerial arts, a full worship and vespers every day to immerse oneself within. Being a retreat of ministers by ministers, our worship was full of exploration and revelation, and too many moments where a phrase or word made one pause in reflection, or tension, change, and renewal.

One of those phrases that held me was this: “worship and liturgy is not a “sit and soak” gathering.” I do not specifically remember what words came before or after except that it generated this phrase in my notebook as I reflected on the them:

Worship and liturgy is not a “sit and soak” gathering, but the work of the people to become and build what they wish for themselves and the world.

The work of the people to become. 

This means you, and me (and other worship leaders) working on a Sunday morning to make something new…  the work of the people to become. How does this happen in worship? Aren’t we just “sitting and soaking” in words and music?

Worship in UU is to raise up our highest ideals for examination and renewal – to bring the meanings of our Principles and Sources to our attention, and hold them up to our personal and public lives. It is a complex dance as well, because not all of us are in the same place at the same time. Among others, there are the social justice warriors who are carrying the fire of change in their heart, there are those hurt by life, by economics, by relationships, who needs to be held in community for strength and comfort, and those who look for communal inspiration for UUFF to be a place of change for themselves and the society around them. 

Our Mission Statement holds all of this: 

As a diverse, accepting faith community, we promote justice and service while seeking personal and spiritual growth.

At the Institute I witnessed worship that gathered us together as a people, raised us up in solidarity, called us into right relationship, and held us accountable for the ideals we hold. We sat and soaked, we stood and sang, we listened and thought, and most of all, we knew that we were Unitarian Universalists together on a mission to become something better, all the time, and drag the world along with us as we were able. 

One of my goals this year is to open Sunday worship to this kind of experience, to hold onto each other as UUs, to highlight our mission of Service for Justice, and open space to find personal and spiritual growth. What I gained from the Institute is that Sunday is not about one person dragging everyone along, but about us working together towards a “hot tub of UU,” soaking in the shared energy, to accomplish a goal. Our Chalice Team’s planning, Choir Accompanist and Director’s holding of musical/emotional space, and our Welcome Team’s (greeter/ushers/service coordinators) ability to integrate everyone to UUFF on a Sunday morning are vital to the shared story and message of the service. Your understanding of who you are as a UU, what our mission is as a Fellowship is and sharing it as a congregation is the soak that makes a difference. The service is a catalyst, the invitation to jump into the water, but you my dear congregation, you are the water, the energy that makes the work towards change happen. 

I, and others who minister to you on a Sunday, will invite you to the tub, will provide the bubbles, the jets of thought, music, and contemplation in worship. It is the work of the people to build community in worship, revitalize and energize each other with your presence, to go out into the world refreshed and renewed spiritually, ready to do the work and build what you dream of. Dreams of personal growth in a world that is about justice and peace, and worth and dignity.  

Peace, Rev. Jim Parrish

PS: I share with you one of the songs we sang constantly at institute… that tied the week together. Enjoy.

 Poem and Song “Breaths” 

Well, I’ll just say, it is a New Year and Happiness is ours to find in it… and I do hope you find yours!  (I’ll help if I can).

So let’s start the year with some religious thought in the vein of “what is this that we do” as liberal religionists.

I recently read an article that posited putting walls around the definition and sources of the word “Philosophy” defeats its usefulness. Definitions that hold philosophy to be strictly historic/academic versions like Stoicism, Euro-centric, or Greek, etc., without a dialogue between the many public versions humans create (Malcolm X, African Ubuntu, Wendell Berry, etc.), makes the practice of philosophy limited and incapable of being useful for ultimate human good. For example, if the philosophy of life found within Rumi’s poetry is rejected by academic “philosophy” because it is foreign and (shock!) poetry, then it is not a wholly useful definition, but an orthodoxy – an approved form that rejects all others. 

I’d replace the word “philosophy” with “religion” in the same argument. When a religious body claims ultimate truth by placing walls around it, then its capability of holding humanity in all its complexity, in all of its needs, is lost. This can be demonstrated by every “ultimate truth” Christian sect formed to replace the former “truth” sect that didn’t get it just right, so people go and form a “better” sect. The walls put up invite the need for continual “reformation.” This happens in other religious groups as well, even in Unitarian Universalism. For example, some UUs would reject some of our stated Sources of religious thought/truth as being irrational, even though the source has a historically long and successful meaning in human development, therefore has a rational reason for existing (and being reformed as well). Something in every source we name has social evolutionary meaning, so maybe the best thing to do is to learn from the thought so it is not lost, or help in the dialogue that makes it and us up to date with our personal and cultural needs. 

Want to have a robust and capable Religion or Philosophy? (Aside: I use these words interchangeably sometimes, defining them as instructives on “How We Live,” because both terms contain the effort to explain or define how we live our lives: some of the “how we live” coming from the instruction of a religion/philosophy, some coming from parental culture, some from education, some from experience, and some from many other sources, etc.) So, back to the question, how to have a robust Religion/Philosophy? Using the definition argument above, to have a robust religion/philosophy is to open it up to broad study of human thought and culture for the possibility of reformation. Open the definition so as to invite new revelations, and celebrate the many small truths humanity has discovered for living a peaceful, capable, interconnected, and full human life. Learn ways to live and be whole with instruction from wise individuals and a diversity of human experience. Glean wisdom from many cultures and societies, and from study and connection to our natural world, its plants and animals and how they live. When we become entrenched in labels and ideologies as our focus, from liberal to conservative, we’re probably as stuck as someone we are tut-tutting about. 

In Unitarian Universalism we tend to hang onto our Principles as our communal “golden rule” ideals that make us UU. We are fortunate that they are malleable, so as to not become “creedal,” but in the end, they are not enough to make us UU, or keep us from orthodoxy. This takes more, takes a place of tension that we learn in. I believe it is dialogue within our stated Sources that we UUs can be “saved” from orthodoxy, the very piece of our covenant that we tend to ignore. The UU Sources hold our richest mine of human endeavor for peace and justice, religious/philosophical instruction as well as freedom from definitions that wall us off from the rest of humanity. I also believe they are, like the Principles, not complete.

Our Sources range from recognizing that humanity has a spiritual side with a common sense of awe and wonder about the mystery of who and where we are in the cosmos, to recognizing various religious and rational stances in understanding life, to holding sacred our relationship with the universe, the earth, and the circle of life that we are interconnected within. I believe we can read into our Sources much of what I speak of above; permission to an open search of human, natural, and cosmic sources of wisdom and knowledge so we do not become entrenched in our walls of orthodoxy. But this is where I think we UUs are like many other religion/philosophers, we tend to be comfortable in our place of belief, our personal line of Source that we hold onto tightly. I can understand this, as a life story takes work, a consistent narrative to hold us together, and keeping an open edge to our Source(s) takes energy that our society does not afford us easily. It’s a wonder Unitarian Universalism exists (and that has brought on another thought about classism for another essay), but it thankfully does, so you and I, and hopefully many others, figure out that its Open Source way of religion is truly a salvation for humankind.

Our recent foray into #MeToo, and the underlying power structures of our society built on sexual violence, is an example of being able to step away from the orthodox narrative and recognize the reality we live within. UUs are free to formulate ways to change us and society for the better in ways other religions and philosophies are not. We listened to feminist philosophers beginning in the 60s, building on our Suffrage legacy out of the 1800’s, to grow and change. To be a bit self congratulatory, UU recognized the sexual power imbalance decades ago, and began reformations that are recognized today as cutting edge. We have more than 50% female identified clergy in our denomination, with a substantial percentage of LGBTQ clergy and leadership as well. We began advanced assessment and training for seminarians about appropriate sexual boundaries before it became a crisis with the Roman Catholic Church revelations. And we have (with UCC) Our Whole Lives sexuality and relationship programming along with advanced programs for multicultural training. All coming from listening to Sources outside the mainstream.

But I still see congregants divided by their Sources, and we need to work on this. As a longtime Humanist myself, I was pleasantly surprised by the scientists (evolutionary biologist Ursula Goodenough for one) who, in the last decade, joined with Humanist and Theist theologians to bring several sources together into Religious Naturalism (RN). Religious Naturalism is an old idea having a resurgence with the need for religion and science to find relevancy for generations who live in both worlds. RN is still finding its way, but the dialogue it brings between science, rationalism, earth spirituality, and an evolving theism is fascinating and full of boundary crossing potential. RN is the result of rejecting orthodoxy for synthesis, and has the potential to bring humanity closer together. I see a lot of growth that RN needs to do, but its potential is vast. (RN website)

So… here is our personal project as a Unitarian Universalists (Invitation to others too!): to review our Sources of being, and ask which you resonate with, then ask for our community UUFF, to help in exploring the sources in greater depth! I would love to have this conversation, this dialogue! It is how we’ll be even more free in our religious life. I would even like help developing a new Source… one that celebrates the individual in community, each one of us in our diverse glory, and what we bring to the dialogue that is life.

So goes my beginning of the year essay… let’s see where it leads.