Our Religion

Quest Monthly Magazine

In this homily from the CLF worship at the UUA General Assembly in 2009, Jane writes a primer on Unitarian Universalism, with my favorite message that beauty and fun are really important to UUs. —LD

I’m not sure I’ve ever preached about religion, exactly, which makes me wonder how I’ve been able to draw a paycheck as a minister for all these years. But I had a hankering to preach about religion this morning, what with our worship service placed at the beginning of a General Assembly that includes both an election and a rethinking of our principles and purposes. What a perfect time to step back and talk about what it is we Unitarian Universalists are doing—or trying to do—when we get together to gather the spirit and harvest the power.

In the anthem the choir just performed, poet Adrienne Rich tells us that her heart is moved by all she cannot save. And yes, as Unitarian Universalists, we feel that same pain, knowing that some people live lives of misery, devoid of respect or justice. That’s why we promote human dignity and worth ’til we’re blue in the face. But promoting dignity and worth, as it turns out, is not enough. As part of our religion, we also recognize our ability to reconstitute the world, to know and share beauty, to promote the pleasures of living life. Two inclinations then, two values, that we bring together in one religion: human dignity and worth and the beauty and joy—the fun—of life.

But really, what’s the big deal—are Unitarian Universalists that unique? I’m so aware that we’re sitting here in Salt Lake City, and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints are all around us, every bit as eager to claim dignity and worth, beauty and joy, as their own values.

Now I have to tell you that Joseph Smith, a Mormon prophet, lived in my little hometown in Ohio for a time in the 1830s—his old house was right down the street from our school. Joseph Smith and I are practically on a first name basis. If you grow up in Kirtland, you know the house where Joseph and Emma lived, that he had Egyptian mummies in there, that he saw what would be the new Kirtland temple in a vision, and that they built it with stone from down the hill in the quarry. You know that Jesus Christ appeared in and around the temple dedication, along with Moses and Elijah. After school you can run your hands along the old hewn timbers in the temple. You know about the embezzling that happened over at the bank, that Joseph Smith hot-footed it out of town, and you know that once upon a time, Joseph Smith got tarred and feathered.

You also know, if you grow up in an almost completely Mormon town, that dignity and worth is a Mormon value, and that the way you achieve that sense of dignity and worth is to forsake all evil, and dedicate yourself to the gospel under the authority of divine priesthood. The Savior Himself is in charge of it. There is no other way.

But my family was Unitarian, and that’s not the way dignity and worth happened for me at all.

When I was a little girl, I got really sick. It wasn’t unusual to get polio in those days. That’s what I got. Maybe others of you of a certain age had it too, or you remember those who did.

Even though I was four years old and thought of myself as a big girl, I spent my hospital ward days in a metal crib that had tall metal bars on the sides. Everyone who approached wore a mask and gown, and so it was a world of eyes and eyebrows and muffled voices. The unit was an isolation ward, so the curtains remained drawn around my crib and the masked people mostly stayed away. If one of them showed up, even if they brought a carton of chocolate milk and a flex straw, I knew that they were going to do

something that hurt. It was always part of the bargain, and there would be no crying. When there were toys from home—paper dolls, teddy bears—that’s what I remember, the nurses needed to destroy them, to burn them, right after I played with them because of the germs. In that time and place, to have polio was a stern invitation to buck up.

As a Unitarian kid, before I was five, I had developed a rich interior life as an existentialist.

But then, on one ordinary day, my dad showed up at the hospital. I was going home to my brothers and sisters and to my mom and dad. Mom had packed a little bag, and they dressed me up—I can still see it—the white blouse and plaid skirt with straps, and of course the dainty white socks and shiny Mary Jane shoes. Someone opened the curtains, the side of the crib came down, and it was time to go.

It was time to walk. I remember how long the hallway looked, shiny linoleum stretching and stretching and stretching toward the double doors, to the Buick in the parking lot. The grown-ups were talking, probably making last-minute arrangements, and I was on my own beside them, step, step, step. Tap, tap, tap in those Mary Jane’s. The walking was pretty hard work, I remember. And this is what went through my four-year-old mind: “Here I am, walking down the hall.” People seem to think I’m a normal person who can just put one foot in front of the other. “Here I am, walking down the hall.” “Here I am, walking down the hall.”

That, my friends, is what dignity and worth looks like. At least it is for me. Head held high, believing you have what it takes to be a human being. For Unitarian Universalists it’s not about forsaking evil, it’s not about the Latter Day Saints’ saving principles or priestly authority—that system works great for some people, but it’s not our way. For us dignity and worth is about grounding and confidence and the sure knowledge that you’re somebody. You’re somebody, and you are walking down the hall. If we were in charge of the universe, everyone on this planet would know what that feels like.

When we hear during General Assembly that we are working for justice, fundamentally, that’s what we’re working for. Dignity. Worth. The recognition that each person is a human being. You, yourself. And everyone else. Reflected in equal rights, fair wages, medical care, housing and freedom. Because, as Adrienne Rich says:

My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

But there’s more to reconstituting the world than enabling dignity and worth. And there’s more to dignity and worth than, well, dignity and worth—more than head-held-high walking down the hall. You have to have the beauty, the fun. And religion understands that. For most of us, there is something about beauty, broadly defined, that sustains us, enlivens us, that gives us joy that helps us know who we are.

When I’m thinking along these lines, my mind always turns to this stern British matron whom I met on the beach one day—she was heavy-set, properly dressed, sixty-ish. We struck up a conversation.

We talked about this and that, and before long, somehow she wandered into a saga about her dental history. So I closed the book I was reading; I could tell I was in this for the long haul.

“Bridge work,” she said. I don’t know what that is exactly, but she’d had a lot of it, and it kept popping out, or falling apart, or getting bent, or whatever bridge work does when it goes awry. Though I consider myself a trained professional (in listening, not dentistry), keeping on top of this conversation was getting to be pretty hard work, at least for beach duty.

But then she revived my attention by saying, “It’s the snorkeling that does it. My dentist told me that I have to give it up.” Her face changed then, and her voice, and she looked at me and said, “But it is my fondest pleasure.”

With that, she stripped down to her swim suit, put on her white bathing cap, carefully fastening the strap under her chin, grabbed her snorkel and fins, and headed out to the glories of the coral and parrot fish and conchs. Near as I could tell, she had instantaneously morphed from this stern matron into the zestiest person alive.

There she was, heading for the water, head held high, having some fun. There she was, heading for the water—grounded, confident. There she was, headed for the water, immersed in the pleasure and the beauty of it all.

Friends, there we have it, dignity and worth and the affirmation of living in the world’s beauty. The Rev. Patrick O’Neill looks at it this way. He says:

Don’t talk to me about how we all become worthy and dignified after we accept Jesus Christ into our lives, or after we confess our sins and imperfections…; I don’t come to church to hear about all the ways in which our imperfect humanity should be condemned; I come to church for affirmation. I come to church in praise of the gift of life…. This is the starting point in the Liberal Church, and it is the point to which we must ever call ourselves if our mission is to be true.

Isn’t that our religion? Whatever it is that opens us up to our own human worth and the majesty around us? Isn’t that our religion? Dignity for everyone and the chance to know a larger beauty? Isn’t that religion? Whatever it is that propels us to reconstitute the world?

May we live our religion, in all that is our lives.