Celestial Lands

You might have noticed that Celestial Lands has calmed down (less blog posts) over the past week or so. That is because my mom came to Chicago to spend a week with us and hear me preach on Mother’s Day. It was the first time she has come to visit us (we have been to visit her) in over seven years. It was a wonderful visit, not only for touring Chicago but also for just spending time with the woman who gave me birth, over 35 years ago.

Now, my mother is a Pentecostal Preacher and minister. She describes herself as having “come out of the womb speaking in tongues”. She is as mystical a woman as I have ever met, with a charismatic personality, a mystical understanding of the Bible, and a compassionate heart. And, for the second time, I let her loose on a Unitarian Universalist Congregation on a Sunday morning. My mother was surprisingly reserved…

One of our church attendees, a fellow seminarian at my seminary, asked my mother if she was a Unitarian. It was just the opening my mother was looking for. There was a look of shock in my fellow seminarians face when my mother announced to the small crowd she had gathered that she was a Baptized in the Spirit Pentecostal Preacher of the Gospel. My seminarian friend then asked if she was upset that I was a Unitarian Universalist and not a Pentecostal. My mother responded with a story she had been told at a ministers conference a few years ago.

At this conference, which consisted of clergy from all over the world, the worship leader preached about the “Witnesses” in the gospel. Now, my mother, and many of the other ministers from America took the word “witnesses” to mean those who had actually witnessed the life and teachings of Jesus… the apostles, the disciples, those who had been healed by miracles. But many of the African clergy who were in attendance took the word “witnesses” to mean their ancestors… those who had walked the path of the African church before them, preached and pastored congregations.

One of the leaders of the African delegation and the minister who had preached the sermon argued the point endlessly over the next several days. The debate went from this one point into many different areas of theology, and they began to see how differently they each saw the Gospel.

At a point of frustration for the American minister, the African minister took his hand and said “Thank you for this conversation. We must have these conversations my brother in Christ, else we each end up serving our own tribal gods.”

It is too easy to spend our time in conversation with those who either agree with us, or who come close to doing so. We can spend our time in the circles in which we are comfortable, discussing and debating with those with whom our differences are minor. We can find deep affirmation in those conversations, but if those are the only kinds of conversations we are having, we end up serving our own “tribal”, or “denominational” gods.

We need to be comfortable enough in our faith to go out and have engaged and open conversations with those who disagree with us radically. We need to enter into those conversations willing to be changed by them… not converted, but changed. We need to see that the world does not all agree with us, nor will it ever, nor would we want it to. What a boring, static world that would be.

A parishioner said it best, in responding to my mom. She said that in her work she often spoke with people from very different religious and societal backgrounds, and it had profoundly changed her and continues to do so. She is a stronger Unitarian Universalist for having spoken with the African American women with whom she works. She has learned about her faith, and deepened her own understanding by sharing it, and by having it challenged by others.

I found the same situation was true when I attended the Army Chaplain School with over a hundred ministers from many denominations, all more conservative that I.

We have to find ways to move beyond tolerance of other religions, into active engagement with other ways of thinking. Respect is not enough, it is an easy out. We have to have these conversations with each other, my sisters and brothers, or we all end up serving our own Tribal Gods.

Yours in Faith,

David

Tolerance is a word that gets used a lot, often by people who have not thought through the implications of the word. When we say that we are tolerant of someone, or that we practice tolerance, or that we believe in religious tolerance… what we are really doing is reinforcing our own dominate position over others, and dividing ourselves from them.

Tolerance is a word of repression, not of equality.

When I say that I tolerate something or someone, what I am saying is that I have made the decision, for my own reasons, to allow something or someone to continue in my presence. It places me in a paternalistic role, and expects that the person or entity that is “tolerated” be grateful for my magnanimity. If I truly viewed the other through a lens of equality, there would be no way for me to tolerate them… they would have an equal right to exist, as I do.

A practice of tolerance sets up dependencies, in which the person granting the tolerance has all of the power… but is able to hide that grab for power behind a cloak of good intentions, sometimes even from themselves. Others fully understand the use of the word “tolerance” and have made of it a cynical practice of justifying racist, classist, and theocratist power structures within a veil of liberalism.

When I hear the word “tolerate” it screams to me someone who is either deluding themselves, or seeking to delude others. There is nothing liberal about tolerance. Tolerance is a conservative value.

And we dare to act surprised when the “tolerated” dare to rebel against such benevolent tolerance.

Liberals are called in this world not to practice and promote “tolerance”, but rather to learn a practice of engagement with others. Engagement is to meet someone, assuming an equal footing. Or for the more radical among us, the practice of radical engagement is to view yourself in a lesser place than those you engage with. Paul of Tarsus was referring to this kind of radical engagement when he called upon the members of the early Christian church to “be subject to one another.”

To enter into engagement with another person, three things are required. First, you have to step away from any feelings of superiority you might have. Second, you have to listen deeply to their stories, their feelings, their experience, and privilege those stories, feelings, and experiences as much as you do your own. Third, and most importantly, you have to accept that such engagement will change who you are, sometimes at a very deep level.

Allowing GLBT persons to attend your church is tolerance. Listening to their life stories, letting the church change to meet their needs, and giving up on feelings of otherness in regards to them is to practice engagement.

Click here to read the other essays in the “Defining Religious Language” series.

Some words have so many meanings that they become near incomprehensible, and almost unusable. When I use the generic word “meditation”, I usually mean Zazen meditation, or sitting on a cushion and following my breath. But “meditation” means about a thousand different things, from concentration on a passage of scripture to leaving the body behind and traveling in “other realms”.

Multiply the thousand different meanings of “meditation” by a thousand, then add about twenty zeros, and you might begin to come close to the many different meanings of the word “God”. I doubt there is a word that has more individual, personalized meanings than the word God. Part of this comes from our individual and unique experiences of what is divine and holy. Part of it comes from the human tendency to want to see the divine as a manifestation of ourselves. Part of it comes from our individual projections of our deepest fears and desires. Part of it comes from the changing nature of human experiences as a whole. Yet, wherever it began, that three letter word signifies one of the most complex concepts in human existence.

We throw that particular three letter word around, signifying our personal understanding and relationship with the divine, and assume that everyone else shares that individualized understanding. We hear the word, interpret it through our own lens of its meaning, and assume that the person who used it understands it the same way we do. We become shocked and offended when we realize they don’t. This does not only occur between religions, but also between adherents of the same faith.

Each of us has a deeply personal, individual relationship with “God” … even Atheists. Deciding that you don’t believe in God requires that you have formed a personal opinion as to the meaning of that particular three letter word. In my experience, Atheists have often thought longer and deeper about the nature of God than most Theists.

All of this is a prelude to introduce to you what I mean when I use the word “God”. I will discuss the wisdom of using that particular three letter word in another essay.

Though out my life, I have experienced the occasional sense of connection with everything around me, beginning (as far as I can remember) with the experience of watching a mound of ants rebuild their home when I was a child. I had knocked over that mound with a stick, and then I sat and watched in awe as they repaired their home. As I sat, I began to wonder what it was like to be an ant. In particular, I picked one ant, and I watched him move and work, pretending I could see with his eyes. In that moment, a connection existed between myself and that ant, and I could sense that connection.

That connection was God.

I remember as a young man, studying narco-trafficking and insurgency in Latin America, how the individuals who were involved with growing or moving the drugs, or in the rebel movements in Columbia or El Salvador seemed like Klingons to me. I just could not understand their mindset, what brought them to do such things. In some ways, they were less-than human to me. Then a caring colleague took me to a bar, where I met some former guerillas and I realized they were just like me. Had my birth and life been theirs, I could well have done those same things. I felt a connection with them deep in my soul.

That connection was God.

I remember one day, while sitting Zazen meditation, the self I knew fell away, for just a moment. I felt a deep connection with all around me on a level I cannot describe in words. It was as if I was rooted to the earth, and connected through those roots to all. I was everything, and everything was me. The moment I tried to put words to the experience I was having, the connection left me, like being bounced off a trampoline. For that moment, I experienced a conscious connection with the interconnected nature of all things.

That connection was God.

I have since found reflections of this experience in may different cultures and religious traditions. I believe scientists may be trying to describe it as they explore the idea known as “String Theory”. In my Southern Baptist past, we tried to describe this experience of the Divine as “The Holy Ghost”. Some Hindu faiths might call it “Indra’s Web”. Some Buddhists might call it “Dharma”. In our Unitarian Universalist Principles, it is reflected as “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”.

But however we try to describe it, I have touched it… always briefly, and always lightly, but I know it is there. When I try to grasp it firmly, it bounces me away. Sometimes, the experiences of my life lead me to a moment where the self falls away naturally, and through awe, or joy, or love I reach beyond my enclosed self to touch something beyond me, beyond us, between us, all around us and in us.

The only way I have found to intentionally experience the same connection with God has been through Zazen, although I can see how others might reach the same place through ritual or ecstatic prayer, or through the “Centering Prayer” in the Catholic Trappist tradition, or through running, or through walking in nature, or through naturalistic ritual.

This connection with God is deeply personal for me. Activities that promote a concentration upon myself, upon my own desires, fears, and thoughts prevent this connection. It took me years to understand why I never felt I connected with God through petitional prayer (or asking God for things) of my youth. The reason is that such prayer reinforces the self.

I have found myself, since beginning a practice of meditation, having those unexpected moments of connection with God more often… not just on the cushion, but in life. My teacher said once that “We practice to live, not live to practice”. I have begun to see the world around me in a different way, neither separate from me nor separate from God, but all one. All the same. This is just a beginning, always a beginning, that only comes in moments that bounce me away as soon as I try to grasp it, codify it, or rationalize it.

Through the experience of these connections, I have found new and deeper truth in some of the phrases about God from my past. “God is with us always”. “Accept God into your heart”. “Prayer will transform”. I understand what it means when a prophet could not long look upon the face of God. I understand now how someone can have a personal relationship with God. I understand why the experience of God is so different for each of us. I understand that my understanding of God is no less bound by my own experiences than anyone else’s.

Understanding is of the self, and God is beyond the self. I cannot explain God, I can only touch it, lightly, meekly, and with a humility I once thought I did not posses.

Click here to read the other essays in the “Defining Religious Language” series.

Yours in Faith,

David

I believe in giving credit where credit is due. I want to thank and congratulate Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the decision to change the wording of the infamous “Question 21″ on the Questionnaire for National Security Positions. For those of you not familiar with the military, this is the long form that you have to fill out about your life to begin the process of obtaining a security clearance. Changing the wording on a form may not seem like much, but its impact could be of profound importance in the lives of many of our servicemembers as they return home from combat.

For years, this form has asked servicemembers if they have received any kind of psychological counseling in the last 7 years. If they answer yes, they then had to detail that counseling.

Knowing that they need to maintain their security clearances to keep their careers, and believing (rightly or wrongly) that they could lose their clearances for admitting they were receiving counseling or therapy, servicemembers have often chosen not to seek therapy or counseling to deal with psychological combat trauma. Many who did seek such counseling did so from civilian therapists at their own expense, and then were less than truthful on the form.

I will admit that I have made decisions about my life with question 21 in mind, such as choosing to enter into spiritual direction instead of seeing a psychologist. Those decisions have worked out well for me, but I was not in as great a need as many servicemembers returning from current combat operations.

Now, servicemembers will not be required to disclose treatment they receive for general combat stress, or for common Battle Mind Injuries (of which PTSD is one). This is not a magic wand in encouraging servicemembers to seek help when they need it… there is still much in the military ethos that can prevent a servicemember from seeing a counselor or a therapist… but it is an amazingly good start, and one I congratulate the Defense Department on.

So, Secretary Gates, I send you a loud and thunderous AIRBORNE!

 Click here to read an article on the change, and other issues in caring for returning veterans.

Yours in Faith,

David
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A couple of weeks ago, in a conversation with a fellow Unitarian Universalist, my friend said “Won’t the world be better when everyone becomes a UU?” She seemed a little shocked at my “Never gonna happen” response. I guess it did sound a little defeatist, though I certainly did not mean it that way… but it is true. If you are holding out hope for a world composed of Unitarian Universalists, I have three words for you: Never Gonna Happen.

And I call myself an Evangelical Religious Liberal. If I wasn’t, I probably would not put the time into writing these online essays.

I am a Unitarian Universalist, but when you get down to it my faith is actually Religious Liberalism. My faith rests in the belief that I can continue to live my life in the knowledge that I do not have all the answers. My faith rests in the belief that I can continue to live my life knowing that the answers I do have are temporary suppositions that must regularly be tested, and changed. My faith rests in the belief that I can continue to live my life even though the questions I ask are constantly changing. My faith rests in the belief that the choice to live an ethical life does not, for me, require that I live in fear of divine punishment or in lust for divine reward. My choice to live an ethical life comes from within, and finds its motivation in this time, in this world. My faith rests in the belief that there is much for me to learn from many different religious traditions, and that I have to take what I learn and seat it firmly within a practice of religious liberalism.

In discussing my faith with a Southern Baptist colleague (one of the good ones who was comfortable with his own faith), he described my religion as “Religious Post-Modernism”. It’s a fair description. Funny, considering his seminary had sent him out to “destroy post-modernism and all its works”… At least he smiled as he said it.

The conversations I had with this particular Southern Baptist minister over the following weeks were enlightening. It was he who pointed out to me that Religious Liberalism is a tough path to follow. Its not that Religious Liberals do not have answers to life’s great questions, it is just that they change those answers from time to time. Its not that Religious Liberals have no scripture to guide them, its just that there is so much than can be considered scripture that it sometimes hard to fathom. Religious Liberals have no creed, not because they don’t want one, but because the life experience of each Religious Liberal is different enough that the answers they have come to are all different and changing. In my experience, Religious Liberals are constantly seeking a creed that can never really be grasped.

What Religious Liberals have in common is not the answers they find, or even the questions they ask… but rather the way they have committed to seeking those questions and answers, and in some cases how they live with each other and in the world. That second part about how we live in the world is, for me, Unitarian Universalism.

The person who says, “I don’t know, and I don’t care” is not a religious liberal. Religious liberals care deeply enough about knowing that they dedicate their lives to it.

The person who says, “I know for certain” is not a religious liberal, for certainty alleviates the requirement that we continually test the questions and answers we come to.

I think back to a class on Zen Buddhism taught by James Ford, in which he introduced the concept of four-fold logic. In traditional western society, there are two acceptable answers to a question… yes or no. In a world that requires certainty, there can be no other answers. To say “maybe” is to admit weakness… perhaps even sin.

In the Buddhist four-fold logic system that James introduced, the possible answers were yes, no, neither yes nor no, both yes and no. Each of these answers carried the same validity, the same weight… and were all subject to constant revision based upon experience and circumstances. This is, I believe, the core methodology of religious liberalism. The answers are just as important as the questions… but both the questions and the answers are constantly changing.

As I discussed this with my Southern Baptist minister colleague, he turned to me and said “How can you live like that?” There was no judgment in his eyes. He was not trying to convert me. If anything, there was just a touch of awe in his gaze. To him, it was as if I had just said that I could breathe underwater, or live without food, or perhaps had just arrived from Alpha Centauri. The only answer I had for him was “I can’t live any other way… I’ve tried.”

It was at that moment, sitting in a field at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, that it really struck me that the whole world would never become either religious liberals or Unitarian Universalists. Part of that I already knew… enough run-ins with “Convinced Atheists” within Unitarian Universalist congregations had already shown me that not all UU’s were my kind of Religious Liberal. It helped me begin to see that what binds Unitarian Universalists is not religious liberalism (as I understand it), but rather a commitment as to how we will live together and with the world.

My Southern Baptist colleague, whom I respect greatly, who is just as intelligent (or more so) than I am, needs a religion that gives him firm answers about this world and the next if he is to continue to cope with life. My kind of religion just would not work for him, and might even do him a world of harm if he were to try it. If I were to say that his religion, based upon both ancient and modern answers to persistent questions was “false” or “invalid”… then I would be guilty of the same kind of literalism that I have in the past subscribed to others.

Different kinds of people have different kinds of relationships with the religious impulse within humanity. I sometimes think that the relationship to religion is more important than any particular religion. Fundamentalist Christians, Fundamentalist Atheists, Fundamentalist Muslims, Fundamentalist Humanists, and Fundamentalist Wiccans all have an amazing amount in common. Each has found TRUTH, which means (in a two-fold logic system) that all other beliefs are FALSE. Each seeks to confirm their own TRUTH by conversion of others. Something within this kind of person needs that solid rock on which to rest, to build a fortress. Each will spend the rest of their days, to paraphrase Mark Twain “patching it, caulking it, propping it up, praying that it will not cave in on them”.

I understand the need for that fortress, the world is indeed a frightening place. I understand the desire to bring more people into the fortress with you. It is the connection with religion that I grew up with… it is just not my connection with religion, with the divine, with God.

There is a kind of elitism that can occur in the way that someone connects with the religious impulse within humankind. Part of my growth in this last year has been to realize that I am not inherently better than anyone else because of my religious liberalism. I just connect with the religious impulse differently. Just as I would rebel against someone trying to drag me into their “fortress of faith”, so should people rebel against any attempt by me to take that fortress away from them.

Even if I do understand that most of the work of making this world a better place occurs outside of these particular fortresses, not within.

The Evangelism of Religious Liberalism that I believe in is three-fold. First, I believe in building sustainable congregations, open to all, and based around the core ideas of religious liberalism, to alleviate what has for centuries been the price paid for being a religious liberal… community. Being a “heretic” (or one who questions and chooses) has often in history meant loosing the communities to which one had belonged, with nothing to replace them. Providing communities for religious liberals is a part of my commitment to Unitarian Universalism.

Second, my evangelism is about making it known that it is ok to be a religious liberal. This is an amazingly tough task, in which the fires of hell or the end of being are attached by many to the commitment to live life as a religious liberal. For years I thought that there was something inherently wrong with me… that I might even have some kind of mental illness, just because I could not stay within the “fortress of faith” in which I was raised… because my answers, and even my questions, kept changing.

Third, my evangelism is, since I am out of the fortress, to do good works within the world. Military tacticians know that the weakness to a fortress mentality is immobility. Moving our world to a sustainable, pluralistic, and open-hearted “kingdom of God” rests in the hands of those who live in an ever-changing, ever growing universe. We are called by the very nature of liberal religious faith to works in the world. Part of that work is to create enough of an acceptance of religious freedom that we are less likely to ever be marched into one of the “fortresses of faith” at the point of a sword… or barrel of a gun.

If we wait to do that work until we are joined by everyone else, then we have misunderstood the complexity of human nature. If we wait until everyone becomes a Religious Liberal, or (even more unlikely) until everyone becomes a Unitarian Universalist, we will be waiting forever. Our faith calls us to work for the salvation of the world now, and by so doing save those in the fortresses as well as ourselves.

Yours in Faith,

David

I do not usually cross-post to other blogs here on Celestial Lands.  I use this blog as my public pre-writing for sermons and other essays… to clarify my own thoughts, to get them down in written form, and to do so while practicing my public, prophetic voice. 

But as many people have linked this blog for anyone who is interested in Unitarian Universalism and Military issues, I want to call your attention to an article by my friend Rev. Matt Tittle on his blog “Keep the Faith”.  The article references SPC Jeremy Hall, an Athiest serving in the military, and his lawsuit through the Military Religious Freedom Foundation based upon discrimination against him because of his faith. 

I am one of the Chaplain Candidates that Rev. Matt Tittle supports by his service on the Committee on Military Ministry.  I want to thank him for the wonderful article about his experience of religious discrimination during his military service, and for continuing that service in a different way today… 

 Airborne sir…. Airborne. 

 Yours in Faith,

 David

Social Action, Social Justice, and Social Witness… forms of Social Engagement

These three phrases are used interchangeably by many in Liberal Faith, but to me they are very distinct kinds of engagement with the social problems of the world.

Social Action is the effort to address the direct needs of people. Examples of social action are running a soup kitchen or a pantry, rebuilding homes after a hurricane, raising money for a charity that provides this kind of direct assistance, volunteering at a battered woman’s shelter, etc. There may be a component to this kind of social engagement that is aimed at changing policy, or witnessing the lives of others, but the primary purpose is to provide direct assistance to those who need it.

Social Justice consists of efforts to address systemic and policy issues. Efforts at social justice would include lobbying politicians, drafting legislation, protests aimed at changing public opinion or putting pressure on policy makers, educating people about issues, etc. This kind of social engagement concentrates on understanding and addressing the root causes of many of the issues that Social Action addresses with direct assistance.

Social Witness consists of placing ones self in situations where one can experience the situations of others, and sometimes even provide support or protection to others by one’s presence. This would include activities such as street retreats (where someone spends a period of time with the homeless), a trip to the civil rights locations in the south, going to a combat zone to serve as a human shield, or even simply taking the time to listen to someone else’s life experience. This kind of social engagement is aimed at gaining a greater personal understanding of issues, possibly sparking personal transformation. It may also include altering events simply by presence. To stand with those entering a planned parenthood clinic and provide a supporting presence for their decisions is an example of Social Witness.

All of these terms have a certain porosity to them… they blend together. Someone’s involvement in a soup kitchen (social action) might lead them to attend a rally calling attention to homelessness (social justice) and perhaps even to attend an overnight guided street retreat to understand what it is like to sleep on the street (social witness). Someone’s opposition to a war might stem from listening to veterans (social witness), causing them to write a letter to their congressperson (social justice) and then to help with the babysitting for a military spouse whose partner is deployed (social action).

Some programs might combine elements of each of these, but one will tend to be primary.

Each of these are separate parts of what I term Social Engagement. A church should have a balanced program of social engagement that provides opportunities for members to participate in all of these different areas, and to change areas as they broaden their own experiences. All of these are important to support a holistic program of social change.

Click here to read the rest of the essays in the “Defining Religious Language”Series

It has been a week since I have written anything for the blog, not for lack of material but for lack of time.   I know there have been times when I have come out of my spiritual practice of Zazen because of that lack of time… this appears to have been a week where I have come out of my spiritual practice of writing.  I am working on an essay taking a look at UU Church Social Action Committees, another on how and why we set behavioral boundaries in a UU church, and even one relating to the upcoming (should I say impending?) visit of my mother for the first time since we moved to Chicago… 

I even thought about writing this morning about the irony of my building manager having three trees around my apartment cut down on Earth Day… 

 But while I am working on all of that, I thought I would share a picture that came up from the depths of a closet I was cleaning yesterday (I did mention an impending visit from my mother;)  ).   This picture of me was taken in 2001, right before I moved to Texas.  In fact, when I left the studio where this picture was taken, I went right to a barber shop and had my long, wonderful, Fabio like hair cut off.  I had that hair for three years.  My last haircut (other than dead ends… I am confortable enough with my manhood to go to real salons and have them pamper me) had been in 1997, when I came home from Bosnia. 

Anyway, for those of you who know me, but have not seen this picture, I thought you might enjoy the laugh.  For those of you who only know me through this blog… here is my “street cred proof” that though I may look like an Eagle Scout now, I was once the long haired hippy…  Usually up in a pony-tail… but down when I was trying to look “pretty”… 

Yours in Faith,

 David

A year ago, inspired not only by my Zen practice but also by wanting to better understand a friend, I made the commitment not to use alcohol for one year. Now, alcohol has never been a large part of my life, but I have enjoyed both a professional and personal connoisseur’s attitude to wines, including selling wines and teaching wine-pairing classes. So, while it was not a huge sacrifice, it was a significant shift in my life. Kind of like giving up chocolate for Lent.

In my Zen practice at the time I was challenged by my sensei to visualize what it would be like to interpret the precept we were working with literally, which happened to be the precept against misusing intoxicants. This meant more than just alcohol (I have never used any other more illicit substances), but also anything that is used to distract someone from reality. In my life, this meant re-evaluating my use of the internet, of watching television, and even taking a look at how often I delve into my science fiction novels.

I also entered into this yearlong practice to better understand the life-experience of several friends who are in AA and AlAnon. For these friends, I noticed the way that abstaining from alcohol in church and seminary social situations set them apart, and I wanted to understand the life of our faith from their perspective.