Our vegetable love should grow

I love this prayer by Max Coots, the emeritus minister of the Unitarian Universalist church in Canton, New York. 

Let Us Give Thanks by Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people.

For children who are our second planting, and, though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks:

For generous friends, with hearts and smiles as bright as their blossoms;

For feisty friends as tart as apples;

For continuous friends who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we’ve had them.

For crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

For handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn, and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

For funny friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

For friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you throughout the winter;

For old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

For loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts, and witherings;

And, finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested, and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter.

For all these, we give thanks.

Many Names

Paperback, 32 Pages 

     

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Price: £5.99

A book of prayers, meditations and chalice lightings for use in Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist churches, Unitarian Earth Spirit groups, and Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans groups. These prayers reflect diverse understandings of the Divine, including Taoist, Pagan, pantheist, Neo-Platonic, and Unitarian perspectives. There are also prayers and chalice lightings on different themes and for different seasonal festivals.

What to call you?

Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, where are you?
In the sky song, in the forest, sounds your cry.
What to give you, what to call you, what am I?

– Norbert Čapek

So who or what is "God"? For me, the Divine (as I prefer to refer to it) is not a person, not a thing, and probably not an energy. For me, the Divine is an experience.

In Pagan religions, deities have specific names. Some people regard them as energies, some regard them as archetypes; some regard them as individual people. This gets complicated by issues like whether Odin and Woden are the same person. And then what about Thor, Perkunas, Jupiter, Taranis, or even Yahweh - they are all thunder gods, but maybe they are distinct from each other (they certainly are culturally distinct).

In monotheist religions, there are plenty of arguments about whether the "one true god" (TM) is the same as someone else's "one true god". Are the gods of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Sikhism the same? What about Brahma in Hinduism? What about the Spirit of Life worshipped by many Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists? How far does your concept of "God" extend? If it does not include other deity-forms, should you enlarge your concept? Desmond Tutu has recently written a book, God is not a Christian, making the point that Gandhi's God is the same as Tutu's God.

When I address the Divine in a Unitarian service, I am not addressing Yahweh, or the god of Abraham, Jacob et al (except insofar as subsequent tradition has identified that view of the Divine with the ultimate divine source); I am addressing the Neoplatonic Divine Source, which as far as I am concerned precedes and transcends all other deity-forms.The divine source can be addressed in many ways: "Spirit of Life", "Source of All Life", "Ground of All Being", "Genderless Engenderer", the Tao, "Mother Spirit", "God", "Goddess", "Divine mystery at the heart of all that is" etc. There is even a Unitarian hymn addressed to the God beyond God. These kind of terms can include pantheists, "soft" polytheists, polymorphists, monotheists, theists, Unitarian Christians, non-theists, atheists, agnostics, and maybe a few other theological positions I haven't thought of.

In all of this, I try to keep in mind that the Divine does not exist; it is existence itself, and it's not a person or a thing, but an experience.

I would not use Pagan deity names when leading a prayer in a Unitarian service, because it's not part of the tradition, and because many people join Unitarian churches because they want to get away from viewing the Divine through the lens of personality, whether it's the personality of Jesus or the personality of a Pagan deity. And also, I think it would be difficult for some Unitarian Christians if prayers were addressed to Pagan deities. However, I have addressed prayers to the Shekhinah (the Jewish name for the feminine Divine presence), and read Thunder, Perfect Mind (a Gnostic hymn to Sophia).

I have privately communed with Pagan deities in a Unitarian service from time to time, when I was not leading the service. But mainly, I like the fact that Unitarian liturgy addresses a vague and undefined Divine mystery, and not specific deity-forms. I do think it is important to include feminine imagery as well as masculine and gender-neutral imagery, though.

Does it matter? I hear you ask. Well, it matters to me what I am talking to; and it matters to others, too. I think it is all too easy for people from a monotheist tradition to gloss over these differences.

Lent and Borrowed

Many people are now celebrating Lent, a period of time commemorating Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness before starting his public ministry.

In some ways, his time of testing in the desert resembles a Native American vision quest.

The traditional Western Christian practice during this period is to give something up, usually a luxury. It is a period of penitence.

Pagans and Unitarians have always been a bit suspicious of the notion of penitence - especially when Christianity is so fixated on sexual sin. But perhaps we do need a time of self-audit.

Maybe there is a period in the Pagan wheel of the year, or in more traditional festivals such as those celebrated by Religio Romana, when a period of self-examination would be appropriate. After all, Pagan ethics is all about the cultivation of virtues, rather than the following of commandments, so sometimes the garden of virtues might require a little weeding and pruning. One possible Pagan festival that might serve our purpose here is the Roman festival of Tacita (18 February), sacred to Tacita, goddess of silence and the halting of unfriendly speech and hostile tongues. Just the thing for the internet generation.

Unitarian Universalists have suggested the idea of trying to develop a spiritual practice during this time, or to engage in social justice work.

Danny Crosby has a wonderful reflection on Lent, using a Native American story to illuminate the whole concept.

Alain de Botton, in Religion for Atheists, points out that one of the useful things about religion is that it puts dates in our calendars to remind us to focus on specific aspects of life. I would suggest that Lent is an example of this, in that it reminds us to prune back on excess (whether excess busyness or excess consumption).

I have often joked that I celebrate the festival of Borrowed, but I have just realised that this could be taken seriously to highlight the idea that we do not own the Earth and its finite resources, we only borrow them, and share them with all other life. We would do well to remember this, and to build in times in our lives when we cut back on the excess.

A friend of mine has given up Facebook for Lent - which is an excellent idea, but I just can't quite manage it. So instead I have resolved to slow down and take some time for meditation every day.

What is mysticism?

 I like to think of mysticism as the art of meeting reality, or the art of richer and deeper awarenesses. ... It is an experience that comes unbidden ... [It is] a very special experience ... of that Oneness, a rare and wonderful realization of what always is but of which we are seldom aware, flooding in to overwhelm the illusion of aloneness, separateness. ... There are moments when life seems vivid and resplendent, when a more than mortal splendor breaks in, when there is a touch of grandeur and of glory in just being alive. ... In our experience ... of those moments when we're rapturously one with the wonder of all that is, we have some indication of what has been meant by the mystic experience. 

Jacob Trapp was a Unitarian Universalist minister who served congregations in Salt Lake City, Denver, and Summit, New Jersey, he was the editor of Modern Religious Poems and author of the hymn, “Wonders Still the World Shall Witness.”

Prayers by Jacob Trapp

Tradition and particularity

There is a peculiar tendency in Western thought (probably introduced by deists) to assume that

there is "behind", "underneath" or "at the back" of everything something that is the really real, the real truth, the essence of religion/philosophy etc

as my friend Andrew Brown wrote in a comment in reply to me (and he is rightly critical of and resistant to this tendency).

I think it is possible to draw parallels between, and gain illuminating insights from comparing, different religious traditions, without saying that they are the same or that there is an essential underlying truth which they both fall short of. For instance, it is fruitful to compare Christian contemplative prayer with Buddhist meditation, without saying that they are both imperfect expressions of some lost original. However, I do think that all these practices and ideas are grounded in some actual psychological experience which is common to human beings because we are finite entities in a physical world yearning for epistemological transcendence. I have tried to draw such comparisons in a previous blogpost which was a reflection on a paragraph from his previous blogpost.

I think I still failed, and still fell into the trap of assuming an underlying reality to which different traditions point, though. It's easier to make a distinction between practices than it is between abstract ideas.

However, I know that you can't simply transfer symbolism from one tradition into another. For example, the Unitarian interpretation of Hanukkah seems rather different from the traditional Jewish view of it. Similarly, someone once asked me to "do a service about Wicca", and I found that it was impossible. You can't understand what Wicca is like and why it is attractive without actually participating in it fully, and that means being initiated and really immersing yourself in the symbolism, the mythology and the seasonal festivals. Anyone trying to experience a taste of Wicca through the medium of the Unitarian hymn sandwich would come away sadly perplexed; and if you tried to do a Wiccan ritual in a Unitarian church, you'd end up watering certain things down to the extent that it just wouldn't be Wicca any more.

I get different things out of being a Wiccan than I do out of being a Unitarian. Both are necessary to my spirituality, but in very different ways. And you can't translate the one into the other. In order to enjoy Unitarianism, you have to be immersed in its symbol-systems and assumptions about how the world works. You can find places where Unitarianism and Wicca overlap; you can use ideas from one to illuminate the other - but they are not interchangeable.

Similarly, you can't assume that the Runes are a "Norse version of the Tarot". The Runes are a symbol-system in their own right, with their own cultural and historical background, which is very different from the cultural and historical background of the Tarot. It might, however, be interesting to do a rune-reading and a Tarot-reading on the same issue, and see how the two systems described it.

So I do agree with Andrew - we should not assume that all religions are imperfect views of the same underlying mystery. They are each unique and beautiful symbol systems, and it reduces them to something less than they are to try and shoehorn them into a "Theory of Everything". That's not how religious language works; it is metaphorical and embedded in its particular context.

I think the metaphor of religions as languages is helpful here. Sometimes it is possible to translate from one language to another, but sometimes the metaphor and symbolism is lost. Some authors cannot be translated from their original language because the imagery is lost thereby. Sometimes there is a word or expression in one language which has no satisfactory equivalent in another language. This is because its network of connotations and denotations is different. This is even true for closely-related languages like English and German, and is even more true of distantly-related languages like English and Sanskrit. Words used for complex concepts in Buddhist and Hindu thought have often been mistranslated or poorly expressed in English. The same thing happens when you try to import a practice or a concept from one religion to another. Especially if one of those religions is a conscious attempt to recreate an initiatory mystery tradition, and the other is an heir of the Enlightenment impulse to de-mystify everything. Even if you try to translate the concept of the real presence in the Eucharist, or different models of the atonement, from one form of Christianity to another, confusion and miscommunication can result. In order to understand a concept or practice thoroughly, you really do need to be immersed in the tradition from which it comes. That's not to say that a reasonable level of understanding cannot help to illuminate one's own practice and theology; but we should beware of facile borrowing just for the sake of innovation or "being inclusive". Some attempts at including elements from other traditions can seem patronising or inept, or just plain fluffy. (I've seen this happen.)

Golden heresies

Having said in the previous two posts that Unitarianism has its roots in Christianity, we must ask: in what kind of Christianity does it have roots?

It is the heir of Renaissance humanism; of Anabaptists, Socinians, Arians, Lollards, Universalists, Arminians, and other liberal and heretical schools of thought. And it is the child of Enlightenment Deism, and of Enlightenment thought generally.

In ancient Greece, a haeresis was a school of thought, and diversity of ideas was considered valuable; it was only in the Christian era that a definitive version of truth was thought desirable and so heresy became anathema.

The Renaissance humanists were the first to campaign for education in the humanities (grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry and moral philosophy), and to improve the understanding and translations of Biblical and early Christian texts, as well as translating classical pagan texts. Unitarianism has, for most of its history as a  movement, been keen on biblical criticism, and using one's reason to work out what the texts mean (not relying on external authority for an interpretation).

The Arian heresy, first propounded at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, is the view that Christ is not "very God of very God" - he is either God's son by adoption or by creation. The Arian concept of Christ is that the Son of God did not always exist, but was created by — and is therefore distinct from and inferior to — God the Father. This being so makes him no longer unique, and also has implications for other Christian doctrines.

The Socinians held an Arian view of Christ, and it is arguably they who discovered the principle of tolerance which is such an important part of Unitarian values. At one of their earliest church councils, they discovered that they could not agree on several theological points — so they agreed to differ, rather than create further schism. The Socinians emerged from among the Anabaptists of Northern Italy in the late 16th century; Fausto Sozzini, their founder, had read the works of Servetus on the errors of the Trinity. When they  arrived in Poland, the Socinians started a printing press at Rakow (which town was subsequently razed to the ground by the Catholics) and from Rakow, Socinian and Unitarian ideas spread to England and Transylvania — where, in due course, the Polish Socinians fled, as Poland was caught in the grip of the Counter-Reformation. In due course the Unitarians of Transylvania became a church which still survives today, and Unitarianism was founded in England by Joseph Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey.

The Lollards do not, as far as I know, have any direct connection with Unitarianism, but they are interesting as the first group to have translated the Bible into English, and to have looked outside the Catholic Church for the source of religious authority. Some of them were thought to have been non-trinitarians.

The Universalists never formed a formal church in England (although the General Baptists, who were much influenced by Arminianism, did reject the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and most General Baptist churches joined the Unitarian movement and retain a distinct identity within it). However, the idea of universal reconciliation was popular in England, and was held by many Unitarians, who also rejected vicarious atonement.

Many early Unitarians believed in "salvation by character" and so were interested in books like The Imitation of Christ. So it seems that they drew on mystical and contemplative forms of Christianity as well as the liberal and rational Protestant forms mentioned above. Many Unitarian churches started out as liberal Presbyterian; others were Independents.

But the most important aspect of Unitarianism for me is that it is reasonable, and tolerant, and honours diversity. The famous Unitarian values of freedom, reason and tolerance are said to have emerged because people wanted the freedom to reason about what the Bible meant; but then they found that different people came to different conclusions about what it meant, so then they had to tolerate each others' different opinions. Unitarians have never burnt anyone at the stake or killed them for their beliefs. On the contrary, Unitarians have frequently been killed or burnt for their beliefs.

Another massively important aspect of Unitarianism is its positive attitude to other faiths, which stems partly from the idea that Jesus is an exemplar and not a saviour — if he is not a saviour, there is no need to convert people of other faiths to Christianity; and because Unitarians  believe that the Divine reveals itself to different peoples in different ways, other religions are respected (though might be criticised for harmful practices).

The Unitarian insistence on building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth also appeals to me. And of course the fact that it is inclusive of LGBT people, and has always campaigned for the education and emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, and social justice generally, is really important.  And so is its positive attitude to science. Charles Darwin was the son of a Unitarian, and his wife Emma was a Unitarian as well. Unitarians were probably among the earliest to accept evolution — certainly Barbara Bodichon (Unitarian and Pre-Raphaelite) had accepted it, as she painted controversial geological views of cliffs.

Modern Unitarianism has also been profoundly influenced by Transcendentalism, which grew out of 19th century American Unitarianism, and also influenced the Pagan revival, and much of American and European life and literature. I have written elsewhere on how Ralph Waldo Emerson, and hence Transcendentalism, was influenced by the translation of the Upanishads into English by Rammohun Roy, founder of the Brahmo Samaj and campaigner for the education of women and the abolition of sati. The Transcendentalists believed (among other things) in an ideal spirituality that "transcends" the physical and empirical and is realized only through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions.

So these are the kind of ideas of which Unitarianism is the heir — not the narrow and pessimistic doctrines of Calvinists, Evangelicals and scholasticism, but the broad and tolerant strains of the Reformation, which sought freedom and tolerance. The systems of thought which were the forerunners of Unitarianism were optimistic about human and divine nature. They were not world-denying, but world-affirming.

Roots hold me close, wings set me free

Roots hold me close
Every religious tradition needs roots. We need the forebears who shaped our traditions and our thinking. If we were not proud of them, why would we want to be part of our tradition? We need the spiritual practices, rituals and symbolism of our tradition - these are the things that transform us, and help us to cohere as a community.

How does ritual effect transformation? By allowing us to symbolically represent the inner processes of our individual and collective psyche, and change their relationships to each other.

What are the rituals of Unitarianism? There's the hymn sandwich (yes, it is a ritual), the Flower Communion, the Water Communion, the lighting of the flaming chalice.  There's communion. We need these rituals because they are part of our identity as a worshipping community.

But we also need personal spiritual practice, which we have the freedom to choose from many different traditions. However, our roots lie in the Christian tradition, and if we chop off our roots, the plant might die. We can learn about lectio divina, prayer beads, contemplative prayer, and liberal and mystical Christian theology.  All of these practices and traditions were developed by people who were rooted in the same culture that we are, and they fit in with our cultural background. We also have roots - albeit further back - in the pre-Christian polytheist traditions of these islands, and these inform many of our folk customs and festivals.

Of course there's nothing to stop us from learning the spiritual traditions and practices of others, but let's be careful to avoid a shallow engagement with them, one that is not rooted in the philosophical outlook of the tradition being borrowed from. It's worth reading this critique of Pagan UU rituals, which points out that they are often engaging with the fluffy end of Paganism, rather than the full depth of Pagan theology. I have 20 years' experience of Pagan rituals, and they have considerable transformative effect and powerful resonance. I also practice Buddhist meditation (specifically Metta Bhavana), which I find really helpful.

Wings set me free
So I am not by any means arguing that Unitarianism and UUism should only use Christian practices - it could be argued (by those who do not view us as Christian) that this is also a form of cultural appropriation, depending on whether you see Unitarianism as post-Christian, universalist, interfaith, multi-faith, or something else. What I am suggesting is that we should feel free to explore Christian mysticism alongside other spiritualities, and that whatever tradition we are drawn to, a pick and mix approach, or a shallow engagement with it, will most likely not be conducive to spiritual growth.

I think we need to be aware of what we are doing when we borrow any practice, whether it is Pagan, Christian, Buddhist, or whatever. What is the underlying theology and philosophy of the practice? Is it compatible with our values, theology and philosophy? If we adapt the practice to fit our values, theology and philosophy, have we taken the soul out of the practice and made it into something else? If this is the case, should we rename the practice?  If we are going to engage with Buddhist or Jewish or Pagan practices, we need to do so in a mindful way, with an understanding of the underlying philosophical tenets of Buddhism, Judaism or Paganism.

Given the way that the Christian ritual of communion has developed, is it valid for Unitarian communities to practice bread-and-wine communion? (I'd say yes, because we have always done so with our own interpretation of what it means, which is not so far away from other liberal Protestant groups.)

Unitarianism has also developed its own special rituals and symbolism, which help us to form our identity. These are our wings, if you like. Many religious traditions have their own special rituals and prayers and symbolism that make them unique (the Druids have the Awen and the Druid's prayer; Wiccans have cakes and wine; Quakers have Meeting for Worship; Anglicans have their liturgical traditions; and so on). Different Christian denominations do communion differently, and with a slightly different underlying theology.

We can interpret  rituals and symbolism differently from others, but we should be aware of their history and origins, and not lift them out of context without considering the theological and philosophical implications.

Unitarians and UUs cherish our freedom, but let's not use it for a shallow engagement with spiritual practices. Let's use it to engage meaningfully with theology and symbolism and ritual, and to enrich our understanding of both our own tradition and others. If you are not rooted in your own tradition, it's difficult to engage meaningfully with other traditions.

Religions are like languages - you can speak more than one language, but if you don't know the grammar of your own language, it's difficult to learn another one.

I've practised Wicca for 20 years, so I would say that I speak the language of Wicca really well. But I was brought up as a Christian, so I speak that language too. Whether I like it or not, Christianity informs my thinking to a certain extent (even if I am reacting against some aspect of it). Over the last three years, I have immersed myself in Unitarian history and thought, so I would say I speak that language pretty well too. I also see it as a distinct language, rather than as a dialect of Christianity.

One of the things that I really value about Unitarianism is that it allows me to speak in all three languages, and to offer translations between them - as well as bringing in concepts from other religions which may shed some light on the ideas being discussed.

I also find it helpful to interpret and critically evaluate ideas from all three traditions in the light of ideas from other religions. The ideas of Sufism (which was partly derived from Neoplatonism and Gnosticism) are particularly helpful for understanding what Jesus was talking about. The ideas of Hinduism are really helpful for developing a deeper engagement with Pagan theology and philosophy.

Is Unitarianism Christian?

There has been much debate recently about whether Unitarianism (and Unitarian Universalism) is Christian, post-Christian, universalist (in either the modern sense or the 19th century sense), or something else.

In our insistence on being non-creedal, have we adopted an "anything goes" approach?

Many Christians would claim that Unitarianism is not Christian, because most Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity and the doctrine of vicarious atonement. But not all Christians believe in vicarious atonement (at least not in the penal substitution theology version of it). The Orthodox Christian view of Christ's role and function is quite different from that of Western Christians. Early Christians did not believe in the Trinity; the doctrine was finalised at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. So neither of these beliefs are essential to Christianity. It might be argued that certain values (such as forgiveness, social justice and compassion) are unique to Christianity, or promoted by Christianity more than by other faiths - but in fact Roman polytheism listed compassion as a virtue. It is difficult to define any religion by listing its beliefs and values, because religion is about identity and community rather than beliefs and values.

Many Unitarians would claim that Unitarianism is not Christian, sometimes for the same reasons that some Christians would make that claim, and sometimes because Christianity is viewed as exclusivist (in the sense of regarding itself as the sole possessor of truth) - but many Christians take part in interfaith dialogue and study other faiths in a spirit of humility which avoids cultural and theological imperialism.

My own view is that Unitarianism has Christian roots (and that the tree is made of the same wood). We use the Bible in our services. We are rooted in a Christian culture (whether you like it or not, Western Europe has been Christian for centuries - and yes, that religion was imposed by the sword, but it's still part of our culture, rather like the way that British law and morality is part of the culture in post-colonial countries). The values promoted by Christianity (and by other traditions) are still widely valued in our culture, and by Unitarians. We still celebrate Christian festivals, together with all the Pagan trappings that come with them (who doesn't like Christmas presents, Easter eggs, Christmas trees, and all that?) We still think Jesus was a good bloke.

And yet... Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism include some unique traditions of our own: Transcendentalism, Deism, Universalism (in both senses), the Flower Communion, the Water Communion, the flaming chalice. We have the writings of our Unitarian and Universalist forebears. And, inherited from Servetus, some Unitarians have a pantheist understanding of the Divine that was partially informed by Neoplatonic and other hermetic writings, which has fed into the Pagan revival via Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists, and made room for Pagan spirituality in the 20th and 21st century.

So it is true that Unitarianism is both Christian and non-Christian, depending on your understanding of what "Christian" means. Given that mainstream Christians can't agree on what it means, it's hardly surprising that Unitarians can't either.

I think the key to defining whether a group or an individual fits into any particular category is, in the end, about membership and identity. What do you identify as - and do the other people with that identity agree with your self-identification?

I do not identify as a Christian, but I do identify as a Unitarian, because I am accepted as a member of a Unitarian community; I share the views of the majority of Unitarians about the value of the Bible and the Christian tradition; I espouse the values of Unitarianism; and I am pretty well versed in the history and culture of Unitarianism.

But there's nothing to stop a Unitarian from identifying as a Christian. Unitarianism does after all emerge from the Christian tradition, and there's much to value in the Christian tradition (as well as much to criticise). And if we reject the Christian tradition outright, we reject much that is of value.

From the rising of the sun

Praise be to the source of all life.
Praise, all beings who come from the source, praise the source of all life.
Blessed be the source of all life from this time forth and for evermore.
From the rising of the sun until its setting, praise the Name that cannot be named.
The source transcends nations and boundaries, and its glory is beyond the heavens.
Who is like unto the source of life, which dwells in the deep,
The source that becomes like the earth
  to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!
The spirit of life raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the dunghill;
And sets them with princes, even with the princes of their people.
The life wells up even in the barren, and makes them joyfully bring forth life.
Praise the source of all life.

(A NeoPlatonist / Taoist / Unitarian version of Psalm 113)

Words of inclusive love

A prayer

Source of all life and love,
We give thanks for the beautiful diversity of love,
The glorious rainbow of sexuality,
and the myriad ways to give and receive love.
We give thanks for the love of lesbians, gays, heterosexuals, bisexuals, transgender, chosen celibates, whose souls are aflame with eros and agape.
We give thanks for the love of friends, families, companion animals, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts and second cousins once removed.
We give thanks for the random acts of kindness shown by strangers to each other.
We give thanks for our beloved community.
May all these loves be strengthened and renewed
by wisdom, patience, tolerance, forbearance, forgiveness and courtesy.
May all these loves recognise and rejoice in each other
as part of the great tapestry of love.
May all beings be filled with loving-kindness,
and may justice roll down like waters
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amen.


A Benediction

Let us embody the values of the rainbow flag of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Red is the root of spirit, found in beloved community,
Orange is for Eros, the fire of spirit, the experience of erotic connection,
Yellow is for self-esteem, the strong core of spirit,
Green is for love, the heart of spirit, the verdant growth of the soul,
Blue is for self-expression, the voice of spirit, calling out for justice,
Purple is the eye of spirit, which sees inwardly with the eye of wisdom.
And all the colours together form the crown of spirit, the experience of spirituality.


(These could be used for a Bridge of Light celebration)

food blessings

Rev Naomi started a conversation on Twitter about blessings for food. If you want to see it, the tag is #tablebless. It's a great idea for integrating spirituality with daily life, so I'm really interested in what people come up with.

I suggested the Pantheist Grace and a Pagan Grace by Isaac and Phaedra Bonewits. I also came up with a Lolcat blessing: "Hallowed be thy Noms".

Other offerings include:

• "We thank every being that brought this food to our table. We are all a part of the web of life" (by me)
• "Blessed be God who is our bread, may all the world be clothed and fed" (by chickpastor)
• "Thanks for what we receive! With joy, may we give far more than we receive and bless the world." (by Rev Naomi)
  
• "Rejoice in what gifts upon this table lay! Nourished here, may we go forth and feed the world." (by Rev Naomi)
  
• "We give thanks for the life that sustains our life, and the web of which we are all a part." (by TrulySocial)
  
• "For those who grew this food, those who made this meal, and for life that sustains us all, we give thanks!" (by Rev Naomi)
  

There's a collection of prayers before meals from various faith traditions at BeliefNet. Many traditions seem to have the impulse to honour where the food came from and to wish that everyone else will be fed too. For example, this Pagan prayer and this Buddhist prayer do that, and so does chickpastor's prayer (above).

Please add your ideas in the comments. Brevity is of the essence here - it needs to be easy to memorise and not make the food get cold!

prayer for liberation

O deep and ineffable Silence
That speaks from the depths
O space carved out by suffering
That is inexplicably filled with joy
You are the inspiration of our going forth
To connect with others
Move our hearts to compassion
That we may genuinely lift up the poor
Move our hands to action
That we may lift the burdens of the oppressed
Fill our heads with inspiration
That we may behold the vision of a just society
And work to bring it into being
Amen.

(inspired by liberation theology)

Embracing darkness

There's only one thing that annoys me about Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist theology. In fact, it really really bugs me. It is the use of light as a symbol for good, and darkness as a symbol for evil. Clearly Unitarians and UUs have inherited this from the Christian tradition, and failed to examine what's wrong with it.

In my hymn Freedom, Love, Reason, I wrote:

When reason sings in harmony
With intuition's tune
And light the darkness shall embrace
In deep soul alchemy
Then shall the Earth with freedom ring

The third line means, "when light shall embrace the darkness" but I had to invert it to fit the metre. It certainly does not mean that light will light the darkness.  It means that the conscious mind will embrace and accept the Shadow, bringing unconscious and repressed aspects of the self to the surface and working with them.  We descend into the darkness to find the lost treasure – creativity, and memory, and dreams.

In an address about Samhain and All Hallows, I wrote:

Pagans do not see darkness and death as evil, but as part of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. If there was no death, there would be no growth, no change, and no birth. If there was no darkness, the seeds could not gestate in the warm darkness of the earth; if there was no night, there would be no sleep, and no stars and moonlight. If there was no winter cold, there would be none of the beauty of autumn, the seeds would not germinate, and germs would not be killed by the frost. Darkness is the Yin spoken of by the Taoists – one half of the divine dance of the cosmos.

In another address on Darkness and Epiphany, I wrote:

Fear of the dark is civilisation's fear of the forest and the wilderness. The denigration of the dark is one of the foundation stones of Western civilisation and even the Enlightenment – so it is difficult to unravel it, to find out where it came from.

It is the connection of darkness with the feminine, nature, and wilderness that gives us the key to explain why it is so denigrated for most of Christian history. In patriarchal culture, the assertive female is regarded as dark, dangerous and malevolent, and characterised as a witch.

When we say that darkness is evil, we create a split in ourselves, for we consist of both light and dark aspects. Carl Gustav Jung (the psychoanalyst) said that the psyche consists of Anima, Animus, and Shadow – the Shadow being the unconscious aspect, the parts of ourselves that we fear and repress. We need to bring these into the light in order to transform them into healthy aspects of ourselves – not slaying the monsters, but harnessing their power to work for good.

When we say that darkness is evil, we project that idea onto others – the terrorist, the witch, the deviant, the stranger. Racism and sexism and homophobia have their roots in this fear of the other, the fear of our own unconscious impulses that we project onto others.

There are many positive things about darkness, and they are celebrated in many different spiritual traditions. Darkness is the time when contemplation and meditation are most effective; it is a time of intuition, inspiration and communing with the inner reality. The darkness of God is a metaphor frequently used by mystics to describe the unknowable and ineffable aspects of the Divine. So please, stop denigrating darkness!

What is liberal religion?

What is liberal religion? Some have derived the word religion from the Latin word religare, to reconnect; others have derived it from relego, to re-read. I like both these meanings, as the first implies compassion and connection, and the second implies the living of the examined life, the interpretation of experience, and the pursuit of knowledge. Religions have been compared to languages, in that they are embedded in particular cultures; even when a religion claims to be universally applicable, it is still modified by each new culture that adopts it. A religion is a set of shared practices, values and narratives that make the world meaningful for its adherents. Most of the world’s religions are not based on shared beliefs in the same way as Christianity, but rather on a shared worldview.

Even in the traditions that have codified beliefs that their adherents are supposed to subscribe to, individual interpretations of their creeds can and do vary wildly. Many Liberal Jews are atheists. Also, Jews (Orthodox and Liberal & Reform) say that there are many different interpretations of the Torah - they really enjoy debating them in the schul / yeshiva attached to the synagogue. In Christianity, there are 17 different models of the Atonement, and in practice, individual believers do not all believe the same things, even if they pay lip service to the idea that they should do. Even though Islam has a fixed set of beliefs, there's still room for interpretation of the Qu'ran. Surprisingly, the word fatwa means an interpretation or an opinion. So if you are unsure about what to do about a particular thing, you go and ask a mullah or a qadi for an interpretation of the Koran. So it is not assumed by most Muslims (except Wahhabis) that there is only one possible interpretation of the Qu'ran. (Personally I'd just do as I saw fit.) Even in evangelical Christianity, there are a variety of opinions about being gay (there was a study of this by Kirsten Aune, a sociologist).

There is religion as it's officially supposed to be according to the doctrine of the tradition in question; and then there's the reassuringly messy, fuzzy and human way that people actually do it. The problem is that no-one apart from liberal religionists will actually admit that the fuzzy messy human way of doing it is actually the best way.

In liberal religion, where the "divine" is usually viewed as immanent in the world, or as so diffuse that it's not a person, the source of authority is viewed as the self (as in one's conscience) and not a "higher power". Fundamentalists and orthodox types believe that God is the source of moral commandments. I do not believe this. There's an excellent book by Richard Holloway called Godless Morality which explains exactly why God being the source of moral commandments can't possibly work even if you actually believe in God (which he doesn't). The reason is this: because we cannot be sure what "God" wants, or even if s/he exists, we cannot claim in our moral pronouncements to speak for God. If two people both claim to be doing what God wants, but do exactly the opposite, how do we decide between them? By using ordinary evidence, reason and compassion to decide.

Many Unitarians prefer to emphasise shared values as the basis of religion, rather than shared beliefs. I think this is an important feature of Unitarianism, and is what holds it together despite the diversity of beliefs within it. It is there from the earliest beginnings of Unitarianism, in Francis David’s famous saying “We need not think alike to love alike”, and the tolerance of different beliefs is the basis from which our core values of freedom, reason and tolerance gradually emerged.

For myself, I see liberal religion as spirituality practised in community. Spirituality is another concept that is difficult to define, but I regard it as a sense of mystical connection with the universe and all beings within it. In feeling this sense of connection, we experience compassion for the sufferings of other beings, and empathy with their joys. We can enhance this sense of connection by finding a community with whom we can practice compassion and mindfulness; if we don’t engage in spirituality in a community setting, it can become self-centred and shallow, disconnected from everyday reality. We need the experience of actually living and sharing with others to enable us to grow and become our authentic selves. This can be done by the creation of a community of shared values, which models in microcosm the desired qualities of human community. Of course there will be conflicts and tensions, but it is in how these are resolved that the real values of the community will be tested and refined. It is only by this kind of radical openness and humility that the beloved community can become strong and genuinely inclusive.

I believe that the religious life is a shared spiritual journey towards greater communion with the cosmos, where Spirit descends into matter rather than escaping from it – but this communion does not involve the effacement of individuality; rather it is the celebration of diversity and the quest for authenticity, because the "divine" (the vision of ultimate worth) is the potentiality of all life to share in mystical communion. But we must expand our compassion to all beings, not just to those whose values we share, and we do this by engaging in social action – caring for the poor and the oppressed, protecting the environment, standing up for human rights, and promoting freedom, peace and justice.

Fundamentalist religion is often the cause of compassion being withdrawn from people whose beliefs are not shared. My ethics trump religion every time. I left Christianity when I was 15 or 16 because huge swathes of it conflicted with my ethics (it was homophobic, sexist, anti-life and believed that the only way to salvation was through Jesus' death on the cross — there are huge ethical problems with all of that). I left Paganism when I realised that it was in conflict with my ethics. I would do the same with Unitarianism if it was in conflict with my ethics. I am sure that not everyone feels this way, but I know a lot of other people who do.

Indeed, we cannot really expect others to be convinced that we are "mystical" or "spiritual" unless we put compassion into practice by helping others. The two aspects of religion go hand-in-hand: without a sense of connection there is no basis for compassion, and without the expression of compassion in the form of caring, the life of a mystic can be barren and unproductive.

Note: By "mystical" and "spiritual", I do not mean anything supernatural - I mean a passionate, poetical sense of communion with all that is. I know that atheists are capable of mysticism - e.g. Richard Dawkins describes a mystical experience he had in the introduction to The God Delusion.

Season of nonviolence

Patrick Murfin at Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout, one of my favourite UU blogs, has posted a series of reflections on non-violence:

• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 12, February 10, 2010—Groundedness
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 11, February 9, 2010—Contemplation
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 10, February 8, 2010—Faith
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 9, February 7, 2010—Dreaming
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 8, February 6, 2010—Healing
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 7, February 5, 2010—Education
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 6, February 4, 2010—Simplicity
• Season of Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 5, February 3, 2010—Caring
• Season for Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 4, February 2—Caring
• Season for Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 3, February 1—Appreciation
• Season for Nonviolence Daily Reflection—Day 2, January 31: Smiling
• The Season for Nonviolence

Advent

Two excellent posts about Advent.
Advent – A Humanist Adventure (1984) from The Sermons and Musings of Carl J. Westman, DD.

Perhaps it is a cliché to remind ourselves that the reality is that Christmas celebrations are a blend of many customs, brought not only from the legends, music, poetry and theology of Christianity, but also from the evergreens of the German forests, the pagan celebrations of Rome, and other sources. Clichés may not be new, sparkling insights, but they are frequently repetitions of truth and folk wisdom. The winter solstice has always been a drama of the human adventure, a time of celebration of nature’s reliable cycles, a time to recall the trials and joys of human liberation, a time to confront justice unfulfilled, a time to meditate on the idea of the holy family and what makes it holy, a time to re-assert hope over fear.

Celebrating Advent without misrepresentation, sentimentalism or parody (and a couple of recommended books) by Andrew Brown

The issue with the word 'coming' in this religious context is that for anyone to 'come' there has to be a 'there' from which to come and an associated divine will or desire for that someone to make the journey to 'here'.

But in the radical and skeptical liberal religious tradition to which we belong are any of us *really* able to say there exists a transcendent 'there' (heaven) from which to come and an immanent 'here' (earth) to which God (or God's representative) may arrive?

Both these articles beautifully articulate the difficulties I have with Advent, and offer constructive ways to look at it - the first from a UU humanist perspective, the second from a liberal Christian one.