In 1995 I found Unitarian Universalism. I've been an infrequent Sunday service attendee, but it feels right when I go and I'm always glad I joined the Williamsburg Unitarian Universalist community. Lately though, events have conspired to make me a more regular service-goer. As I grow older I feel my mortality, I think about my reasons for living, and a faith community supports looking inward in the presence of others who share my world view.
By coincidence, I've wanted to join a book discussion group, so when the minister invited us to join her for a discussion of God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age I jumped on it and placed my Amazon order right away.
There is no doubt in my mind that this book came along at just the right time for me. The author put into much more eloquent words than I could some facts I've felt for a long time. Like him, I left a more rigid religious background. Like him, I couldn't accept paying allegiance to a supernatural being, a form of religious focus more suitable to an earlier age. I couldn't accept the Bible as anything other than history, in which many stories relayed messages of universal truth and goodness. No, I couldn't go to a Christian church and pretend to believe 100% in stories that were written for a pre-scientific age. Although it felt good to go to church from time to time due to aspects of the community and ambiance that are transcendent, it became harder to do so because I knew the dogma was irrational.
The Unitarian Universalist Church offered me a community similar to the church community I knew as a child, but there was no kidding ourselves about an anthropomorphic God or belief that one had to think like us or else. Unfortunately, though, in the Unitarian Universalist Church it is often easier to say what we don't believe than what we do believe. Yes, beliefs are stated in the creed and such, but I suppose that my lack of regular attendance attests to the fact that I hadn't studied our belief system in more depth.
God Revised has helped me along this path and I look forward to further discussion of the book with the minister later this month. The author, Galen Guengerich, moves through what we don't believe to what we do believe in prose that I know I'll want to go back and reread again and again. Yes, traditional church is losing us slowly but surely because it is not evolving. Civilization settled on the truth that humans are not at the center of the universe centuries ago, yet some still cling to traditional religious language as the Gospel (pardon the pun) even though it rings decided weird in the ears of modern people. Let's move on. Why community? What is faith? How do we show it?
Guengerich gave me more. We have faith in the belief that the world is a wonderful mystery. We are part of the flow, both physically and as a result of our experiences or interrelationships with one another and all things in the universe. This is God: the movement of all things in relation to one another, both physical and experiential, from the past and into the future. Our religion is our faith in being part of the whole and we seek community in which to express our gratitude for this connection. We express gratitude by recognizing that as part of the whole, we are ultimately responsible for the well being of one another and for the well being of the environment that sustains us.
Each year as Christmas grows close, I think about the gathering that runs from fundamental Christians to atheists around our table. Each year the default is to let one of the Christians say the prayer. Each year I wish one of the non-traditional sorts would take the lead and offer up pre-meal thanksgiving. This year, though, I have found the words to give that thanks myself.
"As we gather here in the quiet moments before dinner, let's close our eyes and think about our faith. Yes, we all have faith that the world is a wonderfully mysterious place. We believe that love is divine. We acknowledge that our past has made us who we are today and for that we must be grateful. Let us show our gratitude by taking responsibility for the well-being of each other and the earth that sustains us as these give us hope for the future. May it be so."
