I AM A UU

I've been away for a few days.  Hub and I went to our faith tradition's annual General Assembly -- a nationwide gathering of Unitarian Universalists, this year in Portland, Oregon.  "Portlandia" is the perfect spot for UUs to gather.  Very progressive and PC and earnest -- and a little whimsical.

I love our Unitarian Universalist heritage.  The faith started out in the Judeo-Christian tradition but split with the Christian church around debates of doctrine.  Unitarians (formed in 1793) couldn't wrap their rational minds around the idea of a Trinity and believed instead that there is ONE God.  Jesus was a messenger, a prophet, a teacher, but not God in human form.  The Universalists (formed in 1825) couldn't wrap their loving hearts around a punishing God.  They saw God as a loving, saving, and unconditionally accepting force for good who would not condemn humanity to Hell, believing ultimately we are all saved by grace.  Both faiths were persecuted by the Christian church.  Yes, we have our imprisoned and executed martyrs who died for UU beliefs.  

There were Unitarian churches and Universalist churches for a long time, then in 1961 they merged and now we are the very big mouthful:  Unitarian Universalists.  Along the way the Humanists also played a defining role in the tradition and questioned whether we needed to bother with God at all and this is still a subject of some debate in the faith.  What we do all agree upon is that we draw inspiration and wisdom from many traditions and don't hold one above the rest.  We are all called to find a spiritual path that speaks to us; we are all called to social justice; we are all called to belonging in Beloved Community.  

I may have gotten some of this thumbnail sketch wrong -- UUs love to debate and disagree, so even my UU friends will likely read this and tell me..."Nope, that's not how I see it."  Well, so be it.  Plus I'm a "new" UU -- only 23 years into it (after drifting through the Methodists, the Lutherans, and the Congregationalists (UCC).  If you want to know more about UU, go to the source:  the Unitarian Universalist Association http://www.uua.org  Be sure to click on the Principles and Purposes  and Sources of our faith -- that's pretty much us in a nutshell.  http://www.uua.org/beliefs

Anyway, the UU-GA was something to experience.  Five thousand UUs gathered to worship, take care of business (we select delegates from each congregation to hammer out our bylaws and policies and elect boards, etc -- very democratic and messy), attend classes and workshops on a wide variety of topics, witness for social justice, and take inspiration from each other and an array of speakers who called us to action.  

UUs are known for our social justice work.  We are the organizers, protestors, and "speak truth to power" crowd who have historically supported a zillion progressive causes.  I thought more than once that if T-shirts could change the world, we'd be in fine shape at the General Assembly.  I also wondered why the T-shirt concession companies cannot make any other than those ill-fitting men's sizes crew neck T's with the baggy sleeves and boxy shapes that make everyone look like Sponge Bob Square Pants.  Not a good look.  Anyway, I took to jotting down some of the slogans I saw -- this is only a sampling:  

The Price of Peace is Economic Justice for All

Be the Change

Coffee Farmers Can't Live on Beans - Support Fair Trade

Co-Exist

Celebrate Diversity

Black Lives Matter

Standing on the Side of Love

Death Penalty Makes Us All Killers

Plant Justice - Harvest Peace

Nearly 1 Billion People Don't Have Clean Water

College of Social Justice

Corporations Are Not People

Love is Love  (in rainbow colors)

And, of course, every congregation seemed to have a T-shirt identifying themselves with their church name and city.

Looking around one might conclude these are just a bunch of aging hippies still tilting at windmills and not getting very far.  That would be wrong.  While the demographic at GA skewed a bit on the older side (we have the time and the means to go away to a conference for several days), there was also a large contingent of youth and young adults.  And all, to a person, has an abiding desire to see a better, more equitable world for all.  And we are willing to study, organize, and work for it.  We're known for being sorta smart and politically active.  Indeed, political action is paired with a spiritual (or, OK, humanist for some) ethic that demands no less of us.

Given that, you can imagine the Supreme Court ruling on Marriage Equality, in the midst of our gathering, was met with great jubilation.  UUs have worked for GLBT rights for decades.  A "win" for our GLBT friends is a win for all.  

Other justice issues were highlighted this year too.  On Saturday we held a huge public witness around climate change, with speakers from local Native American nations.  

Later we went to a reception where Rep. John Lewis, renowned for his civil rights work with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was interviewed. What an inspiration!  

And that same night the firebrand, outspoken, challenging, surprisingly funny, sincere, and insistent racial justice intellectual and activist Dr. Cornel West was the keynote speaker.  People were on their feet more than once, cheering his call to action.

Those were highlights for me.  And equally so were the enormous worship services full of creativity,music, and  inspiration.  UU congregations tend to be on the smaller side.  There are several big city congregations of several hundred, but most are not that big.  Ours has 160 members and we struggle sometimes to get people to step into leadership, sing in the choir, greet visitors, and set up coffee hour.  So, to gather with 5000 of our tradition, to sing the familiar hymns in unison with a choir of 200, to see a beautiful flaming chalice lit (the symbol of our faith) on a huge stage flanked by big screens where the proceedings were projected so that even those in the very back could see -- well, it was moving.  More than once I had tears in my eyes.

I'm glad I experienced General Assembly.  I came home with a renewed pride in my faith, a deeper appreciation for being part of a greater whole, a rekindled spark for activism, and the determination to work for T-shirt equality.  No more men's sizes for all people!  I know UUs eschew the materialistic, consumer-oriented culture and have little use for vanity or fashion, but c'mon, let's show a little consideration for body type diversity!

At least, that's the view from here...©

AGES AND STAGES, PART 3: I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE DIE

I don't know what happens when people die
Can't seem to grasp it as hard as I try
It's like a song I can hear playing right in my ear
That I can't sing,
I can't help but listen...
--lines from the song "For A Dancer" by Jackson Browne

I love this song.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU1rZa8Ur_Q  I want it to play behind the video montage at my Memorial Service.   Jackson Browne's poetry and music have been so often the soundtrack of my life.  And this particular song has always moved me -- especially after my older brother died far too young in 1990 and then with each subsequent death of a loved one.

I don't know what happens when people die either.  Having been raised Methodist, and having had children's Bible story books read to me, I got the message about Heaven, even saw pictures of it (artitst's rendition anyway), which looked like a peaceful place.  I would journey there after I died... IF....

It was the "IF" that scared me.  I never really believed I could ever be good enough to make the cut, and Jesus dying to ensure my spot in the clouds never made any sense to me.   So I have spent a lot of time trying to sort out the meaning of life, the reality of death, the oh so tempting desire to believe there is "something" out there, something else, something after.  It has mostly been an intellectual pursuit, a curiosity of questioning and an occasional topic of Google searches and Amazon purchases.

One of those purchases was the book, Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander, MD.  He tells in this memoir the story of his Near Death Experience (NDE) after contracting a rare E-Coli meningitis which attacked the thought and emotion centers of his brain and put him in a barely not yet brain-dead coma for  seven days, with death the only possible outcome, according to the physicians caring for him.  But, alas, he did not die, and miraculously returned to consciousness telling of realms beyond this one where he had visited and was absolutely certain existed on the other side of death of the body.  Some part of us lives on -- not only lives, but thrives, and "returns" to our soul's source.  I give credence to his account because he was such an intellectual, scientifically-trained, mostly non-religious skeptic.  Now he's not.

His new book, The Map of Heaven, explores this further, pulling in the latest discoveries from quantum physics to help explain that we know so very little about the universe and the subtle swirling  subatomic ....whatever, whatever, whatever... I don't get the science of it all.  That stuff is what Stephen Hawking has spent his amazing lifetime studying, along with other really smart people who are good at math.

All I know is that sometimes I feel like the people I have loved and lost are sitting just beside me, almost palpably real.  All I know is that when my dad had a massive heart attack, which he only survived because he had it in a hospital bed, told my mom later that he had a feeling of tremendous peace while he was unconscious and no longer feared death.  All I know is that my niece says she regularly has contact with the spirit of her dead father, my brother.  All I know is that stories of NDEs are ancient, real, and becoming more and more accepted as fact in mainstream circles,  rather than the crackpot meanderings of a psychotic mind.

When religion asks us to have faith, tells us that the unanswerable questions are the "Mystery", I actually believe that to be true.  While I don't think we've figured it out yet, I have faith that there is something (a lot) we don't know, and the "mystery" will remain just that until, and if, we ever get the answers from science -- or God.

So, here's what I believe, on faith and a bit of science:  There is a Source (God, if you call it that) from which the universe(s) emerged.  We are part of that.  Humans are pretty well evolved (for now) in that we are given the gift of intellect and emotion and the ability to contemplate our own mortality.  It's our job to do that -- to think and feel and question and learn, and then to further this gift of Creation by honoring the Source by living a life of Love and Service to this Creation.  I believe that some part of this Source lives in every part of the Universe -- including you and me, and that part never dies.  It moves between planes of existence most of us can only imagine in a Science Fiction-y way, but into which some people have gotten a glimpse.

I'm not sure this Source cares about the outcome of football games (obviously not, since my fervent prayers went unanswered in the Seahawks Super Bowl loss...still mourning) or even about each and every individual life.  I think we are sort of on our own as humans and while deep inside we are Love and Light and have all goodness (the Spark is not evil), we do end up making dumb decisions, experiencing terrible things, being awful to one another.  I believe we are big swirling blobs of energy -- not even solid according to that science stuff I don't understand -- and that energy can affect energy, so that "miracles" can happen where the energy gets shifted and something seemingly amazing happens (Seahawks win!!!).  I don't really get that part because there is so much seeming capriciousness involved in any given outcome, but it might explain (to our little human minds) the unexplainable.

At least I think so.  I don't know...I used to try to believe the Sunday School explanations.  Then I didn't really believe anything.  I guess at this stage of life, aging as I am and giving more careful thought to what lies ahead, I've formulated this rather interesting, ultimately comforting belief in a mix of science and spirit that sustains me.   I don't have all the details down.  I just hope everybody enjoys the music while watching the video of my life.  Maybe I'll be there too...right beside you. ©

At least, that's the view from here....