The Angle and the Source

March 6, 1966
Plainfield
The Angle and the Source (Canvass sermon)

The angle is this church building; the source is faithfulness of persons whose interest, time and support have created, maintained and strengthened the facilities and programs of the First Unitarian Society of Plainfield. Organized in 1889, the Church section was constructed first. Together with the later additions of the Parish Hall and the Educational Wing, the building complex is in the shape of a 90° angle after making certain allowances for the necessary design jog at the construction junction of the Church and Parish Hall.

Within the extensions of the angle the in-church activities of our Society occur. As we gather in worship here, the children and young people occupy the other extensions of the angle. Under the guidance of teachers, they search for understanding and the illumination provided by the light of other times and faiths. The religious education program is based on our belief that every person should have a faith of his own within the inclusive boundaries of a free faith. Furthermore, we believe that to have a faith that is authentically one’s own, the person must acquire understanding through instruction, experience and reflection in ways that will both encourage the mind in its solitariness and create mutuality through fellowship with others.

Within the angle last night, talented members of the Parish Players performed the last showing of production splendidly-staged and joyfully-received. In another part of the angle, an organization conducted its regular bi-weekly meeting, counting on the fellowship of common acceptance, suffering, and interdependence to generate the strength for difficult moments and harsh testing. Within the extensions of the angle the lights burn nearly every day and evening – music, conversation, study, organizational details, decisions and assignments, individual conferences and group growth.

This is the season when a large number of the members of the society devote thought, time and effort to make sure that members and friends of the Society know the needs of the angle and the source. This is the time of the Annual Canvass for pledges to sustain the Society for another year. The continuing needs of the angle – that is, the physical properties – are never-ending. These needs are obvious when one considers natural wear and unexpected repair. A roof leaks; a small amount of ground caves in, wiring deteriorates, paint becomes dull and never is plumbing infallible. No one in our age would seriously question the need for such maintenance or fail to recognize the rising costs of competent craftsmen. Detailed proposals will be made available to you so that you will know the needs of the angle and the source.

Just one proposal from our needs will illustrate how sharpened awareness creates a consciousness of new demands. We are a Unitarian society; and although there are no creedal requirements for membership, it is rather unlikely that convinced Trinitarian would choose to be a member. But as far as the heating system is concerned, we have a trinitarian arrangement, for there are three furnaces in different parts of the angle. The need has been recognized for an alarm system which will make a proper racket if the temperature rises beyond the safety degree in the vicinity of any of the three furnaces. Just like paper cups, chairs and the lighting bill, the alarm system is going to cost money. Therefore it is one of the needs that you should know about along with the many other good reasons for asking for your support.

The only substantial flow of funds come from the Source – the Society. The Society is the body of persons, members and friends, held together voluntarily by a common rule. We assemble to share convictions, to attempt mutual persuasion, to set directions for action. We see a fellow Unitarian not only as another person whose beliefs are not limited by an imposed creed, but also see him as a person whose convictions and hopes represent an interdependency as well as independence. A Society should know itself not only in the lateral profiles and the back-of-the-neck views of pew seating, but also and more vitally, in face-to-face mutual involvement.

At the risk of making an out-of-context reference, I have been considerably interested by news stories about the Reverend William H. DuBay, a Roman Catholic priest who was suspended from functioning as a priest by Cardinal McIntyre, Archbishop of the RC diocese of Los Angeles. Father Dubay incurred the displeasure of the Archbishop because Dubay supported the idea of establishing a "labor union for Catholic priests and the establishment of collective bargaining procedures for relations between hierarchy and the parish clergy...." Refusing to submit to usual censorship procedures, Father DuBay’s book, THE HUMAN CHURCH, has been published without the imprimatur – without the approval of the hierarchy. One paragraph quoted by the New York Times is relevant for our theme, "The Church is not 100 percent human. But it should be. Whatever in it that is not human is not of God, The Church was founded to be a model of humanity for man." In our Society, then, the Source is no one fixed point of power and renewal like a single geyser in Yellowstone, but the Source is a changing stream fed by many tributaries. The people [are] the Source.

The persons in our Society who consider, decide, commit, and act represent no permanent line of portraits in an unchanging gallery. Thornton Wilder’s play, OUR TOWN superbly presented the temporary nature of individual lives and the permanence of the human family. Wilder captured the glory and the pathos in the lives of average persons, not much different from you and I. When we are at our best, we too sense the transience of the trivial and the persistence of that which is worthwhile.

The persons in our Society are like the people in OUR TOWN. A child is born; with gladness he is welcomed and the group counts one more. Man and woman choose to walk together henceforth; and the ceremony of marriage adds one more to the families in whose hands is such a major portion of our organization and program. A man dies in his bed, or far from home. We count one less and know the tug of sorrow. Our minds are anxious with unanswerable questions when tragedy strikes; our roster is lessened by an aching omission. A family moves – we live in an age of mobility – we are glad for their more important and rewarding assignment, but sorry that an interested, needed family has gone beyond the immediate circle of our Church life. A new family arrives – we are glad because we need talent, interest, support. We need the bracing, yeasty ferment of new ideas and fresh strength; and we need the added happiness created by new friends. But because we are human and hurried, we are sometimes tardy in our greetings or reserved in our welcome.

The Source: the persons in our Church are a moving, changing pageant, never the same today as yesterday; and no tomorrow will be just like today. We journey together on the road to an unknown future. Sooner or later everyone of us will drop out along the way. But if we have walked with good will, understanding and mutual help, we will have been stronger individuals and a happier company in our journey together.

But to maintain and improve the Angle and to elicit the best from the Source, we must keep organization effective. In the fine series of books, RIVERS OF AMERICA, Henry Beston described the geography and culture of the areas bordering the great St. Lawrence River. Beston wrote, "formlessness is a primordial quality or a part of death; it is the achievement of form which is life." Then writing of a unique quality of life in French Canada, he went on, "like an old room warmed by an open fire, the little society was warmed by that sense of human oneness and ultimate equality which the religious temper alone can give." (p.93, THE ST. LAWRENCE)

The campaign organization for our Annual Drive for funds is put together because both the Angle and the Source require business-like procedures. Now there are always those who feel some sensitivity when business affairs explicitly intrude on the so-called "spiritual" life of the Church. But there is nothing awry or gauche in an orderly, informed campaign to raise money for the Church. In the current musical hit on Broadway, ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, one of the more amusing characters is a Greek multi-millionaire shipping magnate, who in the course of the unfolding of the plot, visits the clinic operated by the hero and his brother, both psychologists. The millionaire keeps referring to "who runs the business here? Who manages the business?" and so on. The psychologist, sensitive to his professional qualifications, keeps assuring the millionaire, "this is not a business; this is a psychological clinic." The shipping magnate stares and asks, "You take in money?" "Yes." "Well, its a business."

In that frame of reference, this Society is a business, too. Money is taken in because when a button is switched, you expect the bulbs to light; you expect to be warm inside and untouched by falling plaster or rain from a leaky roof. You have decided that persons who have been trained for the professions of the Church – the ministry, music and religious education, shall remain among you in order that their training, full time and personal resources may be of help to persons individually and the enterprise generally. The government still requires postage on mail and the secretary must be paid. For this and for much more your commitment is asked: support of programs designed by Committees and Boards.

Support of our Unitarian Universalist Association and its many services to the Society through the Metropolitan District and through specialized departments. Strength and support for our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and its far-flung efforts to help people, undergirded by the belief that people, when properly started have the innate ability to help themselves eventually; support of the activities that you the people decide relevant to Unitarian Universalist faith and works, and important to the wider communities, near and far. For all this, money is received - it's a business!

But remember that in this "business" the members are the management. In the Annual Meeting of the Society the members make the binding choices for the allocation of money from the pledges of the members. You pick and choose. In this connection, stimulated [by] the wonderful evening as a member of the audience at THURBER CARNIVAL by the Parish Players, I was reminded of an anecdote from James Thurber's THURBER ALBUM, an anecdote not included in the CARNIVAL. Grandfather William Fisher was a successful merchant in Columbus, Ohio. Thurber wrote, "When Grandpa got to his office, he would put his hat on the desk - he usually wore a black derby – and keep it there all day, although there was a hat rack on the wall. It was a device of his to get away from bores or talkative friends. As the door opened, he would automatically reach for his derby, and if it was somebody he didn't want to see, he would rise and say, ‘I'm sorry, but I was just about to leave.’ He would then walk to the street with his visitor, find out which way the man was going, and set off in the opposite direction, walking around the block and entering the store by the back door."

Just as Grandfather Fisher had a way of deciding with whom he should spend his office time, so the members of this Society have ways of deciding by shared wisdom and corporate vote how the funds shall be spent. It's a business, but a democratic one, where the members individually abide by the will of the majority when all have had opportunity to plead a cause or discuss the issues.

But unless the Society and its individuals represent more than the matter of taking in and paying out funds, then the Angle and the Source will not be supported strongly or taken seriously. The Angle and the Source must have purpose. Again, assuming a certain amount of artistic stylization, the Angle is a 90 degree angle, a right angle. I hasten to add that the right angle is not a proper symbol when interpreted as right versus left, but it is a proper symbol when taken as right versus wrong. Our angle is on the square when we seek truth, beauty and goodness based on the foundation assumption that every person is a creature of innate worth and deserves the full dignity due humanity. I read that scientifically, "man can now be defined genetically as six feet of a particular molecular sequence of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous atoms." (National Science Foundation, quoted in NEWARK STAR LEDGER, 2/7/66)

Because we believe that that the person is more than molecular sequence, we covenant together to maintain the value of the person and to seek the ways, individually and together, to support the issues which will create increasing recognition of the surpassing need to labor for freedom, fellowship and human dignity. This is the purpose for which we gather as a united Source. We differ among us as to how we shall describe God or whether we shall even attach any meaning to the idea of God. We interpret the experience of religion variously. We seek to deepen our faith by openness to the conviction of others whose witness for faith may be based on differing intensities of experience and unlike interpretations. We may disagree on whether or not there is a future world of individual human consciousness, but generally we do share the conviction that whatever other worlds may or may not bring, this world is of first importance and our conduct and convictions in this world deserve our highest priority of commitment. I like the way the late George Santayana expressed the thought, "There is only one world, the natural world, and only one truth about it; but this world has a spiritual life in it, which looks not to another world but to the beauty and perfection that this world suggests, approaches and misses." (quoted by Huxley, ESSAYS OF A HUMANIST, p. 114). Together we would seek closer approaches to the highest values.

In efforts to work for the values of personal worth and human dignity, of course there will be criticisms and disagreements, particularly when we are known for our beliefs and act publicly for our goals. In Enid Bagnold's play, THE CHALK GARDEN, Maitland the Butler says to his employer, "You know I can't stand criticism. Every time a word's said against me a month's work is undone." Mrs. St. Maugham replies, "We all make mistakes, Maitland. But nothing should be said about them. Praise is the only thing that brings life to a man that's been destroyed."

In a faith such as ours, it is as difficult to follow Mrs. St. Maugham's advice as it is easy to develop Maitland's fear of being criticized. Yet if our purposes have merit and are worth our support; if man is more than a molecular sequence, then not only will there be support for our financial needs but also moral support for our congregational principles and decisions.

I hope this hasn't sounded overblown, for we would be impossibly vain and totally unrealistic if we presumed religious liberals in our Society were the only ones seeking intellectual honesty and pursuing a better, more meaningful life for all human beings. But also we would be considerably meaner than our heritage if we failed to ask ourselves, "If not us, whom?" Van Wyck Brooks wrote of William Ellery Channing that Channing was "Responsible for half the great dreams which stirred nineteenth century Boston." Should we not assume a portion of responsibility for some of the great dreams that will stir the last two-fifths of the twentieth century in Plainfield, N.J.?

In conclusion I would like to quote a paragraph from a book by an English writer. Although he writes of more ancient churches in different settings, the feeling he expresses is one to which we might well aspire (NURSLINGS OF IMMORTALITY, Rayner Johnson, p.151): "After twenty years abroad, I recently revisited England, wandered through her little hamlets and sat down at times to feel the quietness of many an old village church. There on Summer mornings, with no sound filtering through the deepset glass windows, except the occasional rustle of wind through the leaves, the church clock with its leisurely tick-tock reminded me of the tale of centuries. To this place, while thrones had tottered, dynasties fallen, country folk had trudged through winter snows and summer sunshine. Here had been brought the human burden, and here it had been lightened. The grey walls spoke the ancient tales of birth, marriages and deaths through immemorial years. Even though in that hour a little sentiment may have coloured the mind, who would not pray for such a place – that its years may not fail and its comforts may not cease?"