How To Have Trouble Successfully

January 21, 1968
Plainfield

How To Have Trouble Successfully

Did you see the “Peanuts” cartoon, January 9th, when Snoopy in his Walter Mittyish role as the World War I flying ace is singing, “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile?” The last panel of the strip shows snoopy looking quite confused and depressed, saying, “How in the world am I going to get my troubles in a kit bag?” Haven’t you felt like that many times, perhaps even this week? Life can put us in a vise!

Some troubles are of our own making:

debts that outdistance our financial capacities;

telephone calls that we failed to make; tasks that we did not do, although we had the time but lacked the inclination;

little ways of wrong behavior that we permitted to become deeply rutted habits, discovering too late that climbing out of the rut was a Herculean labor and that we didn’t have the strength of Hercules;

our fears, anxieties and insecurities that block us from being thoroughly honest and open with others.

Some troubles happen, not of our making:

the wrong behavior or attitudes of someone else which cause difficulties for us which we cannot feel we were responsible;

the cultural inheritance and requirements in a society which present situations in which persons do not get equal treatment, do not receive a fair deal, although they deserve equal treatment and a fair deal;

Social structures that by their nature make us marginal, uncomfortable, not fitting in. We may possess serious doubts or utter cynicism about the social ways, the accepted values that the majority accept. If we are realistic, we become aware that it is painful and difficult to separate out from the social customs and political attitudes that most people accept without bother or difficulty. But possessing such awareness, the old and comfortable ways will not entirely do for us anymore. And when we are marginal in this sense, we are troubled by the pains and price of such separating out.

Then there are troubles for which neither ourselves, others, nor human society are to blame. An earthquake kills hundreds of persons, as in Sicily this week. A great storm at sea swamps a sturdy Dutch ship. A rockslide may crush out the lives of a camping party.

When one considers the variety of sources from which disturbances come, ourselves, others, and the mysterious feelings of the forces of the Universe, it should not be surprising that troubles in the personal and social order are constant companions of our ways of living in this world.

Furthermore, although the troubles of some persons are obvious to others, the troubles of many are not always recognized beneath the facades of outward controls, seeming happiness and apparent freedom from heavy burdens. But only the rare person is free from trouble. Many crosses that are shouldered are not seen. And a great many have asked themselves Hamlet’s question:

“To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd....”

Job is the literary masterpiece of the Bible because it deals so matchlessly with man confronting trouble. In Job’s case, the suffering was undeserved, seemingly. But deserved or undeserved, the sufferings that occasionally or persistently touch the human condition can cause inner anxiety and upset. Persons torture themselves with the question, why? Why must I endure this trouble? Why did it happen to me? If God is good, he would not do this to me. Job cried out (3 20/26), “Why is light given to him that is in misery....”

Trouble can make us feel hedged in. Whether we believe that God has hedged us in, or whether we believe that troubles arise in an unfeeling Universe, a constellation of forces and causes impervious to the human condition; or whether we believe that the shorelines of knowledge will always be less than the oceans of mystery, trouble can hedge us in. The perpendicular dimension of life (hope, progress, fulfillment) becomes crossed with the horizontal slash of pessimism, regression, and frustration.

The unexplainable illness, why? The strange accident, why? The disastrous turn of events, why? We look for life to go along evenly and then trouble tilts the expectations.

Automobiles break down, sometimes when we have maintained proper care. Cancer happens even when we’ve had those regular check-ups. The market goes down when we were sure it was going up. The sons and daughters develop severe problems in spite of efforts of parents to provide love and proper nurture. Why?

As Snoopy said, how are all these problems to fit in the old kitbag? How can we handle trouble successfully? What do we do when life crosses us up? That famous 19th century Unitarian minister and orator, Edward Everett Hale had a sentence deserving a place on the kitchen bulletin board or corner of the desk pad: “Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds: all they have ever had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.”

Some people bear all the trouble they ever had. Every mistake they made or all the ill fortune they ever met remain heavy burdens they can carry. on the whole our past mistakes and bad luck should be foundations of learning whereby we become more competent masters of present experience.

We need the past. Destroy the memory bank and we are no longer persons. Yet one of the benefits provided by various psychological therapies is the marvelous insight that we need to know our past, not for the purposes of blame and guilt, but for self-understanding. Just as a fair-minded person condemns others less as he understands them more, so a person will not torture himself with needless guilt when he has confronted his past openly and candidly, seeking clarification of feelings that have been clouded.

There are things we can do about troubles that are past; right an old wrong, take a new direction, look upon the unpleasant past as a learning experience. But simply to be burdened down by mistakes that are past is a failing way to handle troubles.

Omar Khayyam was wise to remind us that the moving finger writes and having writ, moves on and all our tears will not wash out a word.

We fail to handle troubles successfully if we try to bear all the troubles we expect to have. Some people are hypochondriacs, neurotically obsessed with interpreting every twinge, blush, and itch as the signal for some inescapable, loathsome, or fatal disease. And my uninformed guess is that such morbid diagnoses are as thoroughly in error as the consequence that the feelings create anxieties that need not be.

Some persons shake with dread and anxiously face the floor when daughter, son, fiancé, husband, or wife are five minutes late or fail to call. Terrible possibilities capture feelings – death, accident, misadventure. These crowd out normal thoughts and halt usual activities. Have you heard such fears expressed as, “I just know something has happened to him.” Have you ever known the pain of such apprehensions?

Others fear the future of the nation with fearsome forebodings. War will wipe everything out; pollution will strangle the city-dwellers; criminals in the streets will bring in a rule of mayhem, assault, robbery, and terror.

For most of us, the future is veiled. There may be rare persons whose hunches prove to be true more often than mere chance would provide. Jean[e] Dixon is not so easily explained away as most people assume. In ways generally misunderstood, or now unknown there may be such a phenomenon as fore-knowledge.

Certainly we must plan for the future. When John Gunther was in the Soviet Union collecting material for his book, INSIDE RUSSIA, he saw a road marker on the outskirts of Smolensk. One side bore these words, “Napoleon with 400,000 men marched through here on the way to Moscow.” The other side of the sign, facing West, had the inscription, “Napoleon with 9,000 men marched through here on the way back from Moscow.”

If Napoleon had made more reasonable, informed plans and had had fewer delusions of grandeur, he might have decided to avoid that disastrous military adventure. Of course planning is necessary. Unless peace is planned for, war will put an end to us all. Unless pollution controls for water and air are strengthened and maintained, we may be poisoned by poorly controlled wastes. Of course we must plan to come to grips more strongly with the causes as well as the control of law breakers.

But when we have done our best to plan, whether for our individual hopes or national and international goals, we should let the troubles of the future await the future.

My experience is that most of my worries about future troubles were misdirected. The troubles I feared never came about; the troubles which cam I had never really anticipated. After all, if worry about future troubles provided some true information about the future, one could get rich worrying about the stock market, for example, knowing when that decline was going to occur. So, in my more normal moments, I’m going to worry was little as possible about the things I know nothing about and therefore can do nothing about.

One can handle future troubles successfully by planning as best one can, anticipating as many obstacles in the way of one’s dreams as can be foreseen – but then refusing to be burdened by troubles unknown and still to come. One of the most comforting aspects of the future is that it is going to unfold one minute, one hour, one day at a time. As Jesus reminded his audience (Matt 6/27), “And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to the span of his life?” Or as a homely Dutch proverb has it, “When I go to bed I leave my troubles in my clothes.”

But what about troubles in the very real present? As Edward Everett Hale said, we cannot bear well three kinds of trouble, past, future, and present. If we can place past troubles and future troubles in perspective, we have a better opportunity to have trouble successfully in the present.

Now nothing is more aggravating when trouble is authentic and present than to have someone assure us that it is only imaginary. In my view only a special kind of person can stand the shallow “Pollyanna” types. I react with some resentment when someone slaps me on the back and says, “Buck up old boy, everything’s going to be all right,” when the facts are formidably persuasive that everything’s not going to be all right.

One cannot have trouble successfully by refusing to face it. If you are somewhere near my age, you may recall a particularly inferior song of 30 years ago, or so,

“Let’s take a trip to Niagara
Let’s go and visit the Falls
Let’s take a powder to Boston for chowder
Let’s get away from it all.”

We do need vacations, of course, not to escape from reality but to be strengthened by rest and change to face troubles boldly and honestly. Among the poorer ways of living is to run away from present troubles. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote,

“If I had a formula for by-passing trouble, I wouldn’t pass it around. Wouldn’t be doing anybody a favor. Trouble creates a capacity to handle it. I don’t say embrace trouble. That’s as bad as treating it as an enemy. But I do say, meet it as a friend, for you’ll see a lot of it and had better be on speaking terms with it.”

The emotional pains and the physical upsets are signals from our inner self warning us to deal with present troubles. The self is seeking to overcome. We grow more in real wisdom and stature if we take hints, face our troubles, accept and try to understand the pain and grow by seeking truer knowledge and a better way.

There’s an analogy in the Christian scripture of Luke (19/1 ff). As the old legend goes, when Jesus was passing through Jericho, Zaccheus, described as a rich tax collector, was a little man and could not see Jesus because of the crowds. So Zaccheus climbed a tree. Not only did he see the man acclaimed as the Messiah, but Jesus saw him. They became friends and Jesus was a guest at Zaccheus’ house. Now varieties of theological interpretation are attached to this charming anecdote. The point made by Christian theologians is, I guess, that rich tax collectors are by nature among the sinners for whom redemption is most unlikely, but that even they can be saved. Well, maybe there is some enduring truth to the temptations of tax collecting, judging by the Internal Revenue scandal this week in New York, but I like Zaccheus. He’s the kind of guy who though short, climbed a tree when he couldn’t see.

That is one of the better ways to handle trouble successfully – do something about it. Sometimes we need help. If the lowest branch was rather high, maybe someone had to give Zaccheus a boost. We need help in trouble some times; many times we can climb for ourselves. Unconfronted trouble is always more dreadful than the trouble we have met head-on.

In conclusion, let me suggest that we handle trouble successfully not only in the ways suggested, but also remembering always that life is worth loving. There are times when this seems not to be so, as Hamlet and Job expressed for us. But when we come to ourselves, when we are at our best, we know that life is worth loving, and therefore worth living.

Such a point of view allows a sympathetic interpretation of words from a speech of Eliphaz, one of the contenders with Job:

“For affliction does not come from the dust,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground;
but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.”

Or perhaps the Promethean myth suggests the human condition more sensitively – Man stole fire from the gods – and was provided not only with the means of warmth and light, but also with the danger of being burned.

Because man is a self with feeling, able to focus thought on his experiences, he cannot avoid consciousness of troubles. Sparks fly upwards and the human condition is to be aware. When one is aware, then human experience provides trouble as well as benefit, sorrow as well as joy, difficulty as well as ease, irritation as well as comfort. These are experiences to most, to wrestle with and out of such arduous confrontation to emerge more fully grown in the direction of the fulfilled selves each of us may one day be.

Goals for Unitarians

January 7, 1968
Plainfield

Goals for Unitarians

Once there was a belief that Unitarians believed in salvation by character. Now there are those who have a hunch that Unitarians believe in salvation by survey.

The report on the Committee on Goals of the Unitarian Universalist Association comprised two sections; the first part consisting of three specific recommendations. The second was a series of 70 tables indicating the results of a survey about:

a) Personal beliefs and attitudes concerning such traditional religious ideas as God, prayer, worship, immortality, evil, Jesus.

b) Social beliefs and attitudes revolving around such questions as domestic social issues, the Vietnam War, the draft, civil disobedience, the standards for sexual and marriage morality.

c) What Unitarians and Universalists believe their churches should be and do, teach, and preach.

d) Then a series of tables attempted to identify Unitarians and Universalists by profession, origin, religious background, age, income, etc.

I don’t know how many persons have read the Goals Report or are at all familiar either with the survey materials or the recommendations made by the committee. In several previous sermons, I have tried to relate the comments to the material printed in the Goals Report. Drawing lightly or heavily on the report, I have tried to define what religion is; who the Unitarians and Universalists are, the future trends of Unitarian and Universalist belief, and a month ago, my view on what the Church should be.

Unitarians should feel the importance of self-study. Our Adult Programs committee held a number of discussions from which a summary report will come. In our discussions, as I understand the reports, most of the interest, comment, and criticism centered about this local society, its program, its personnel. The Goals of our Continental movement, the U.U.A., were touched on only here and there. There seemed a minimum interest only in our larger movement. This is understandable. Strong and continuing enthusiasm for the Unitarian Universalist organizational structure beyond the local Church is pre-empted by the programs, problems, and necessities of the local Society, not to speak of unlike degrees of involvement on the part of members. Furthermore, there are those who wonder if we have not spent more than a sufficient amount of time contemplating our own navels – self-study, self-analysis, sometime self-punishment. “Let’s get on, we can’t turn back the clock or change what was to what was not,” is the assertion of some. There is something to be said for such impatience, with going round and round on the same issues.

Nevertheless, there is a wider Unitarian Universalist movement than the boundaries of our own membership lists. The recommendation made by the Goals Committee were offered with the intent that they should be discussed by member societies in the 50 states and Canada. At the Annual Meeting of the U.U.A., scheduled for late May 68, a considerable block of time has been allotted for discussion of this report. The U.U.A. has asked for reactions from societies before February 1, and I hope there will be at least some discussion here in order for comments to be an influence.

I would like to comment on the three recommendations; then try to stimulate you to think of goals you believe worthy of your convictions as an individual Unitarian Universalist; and goals worthy of the Unitarian Society of which you are a member.

The recommendations of the Goals Committee were not based on the tables shown in .... The recommendations were formulated by the Committee quite separately from the interpretation of the survey result tables. These recommendations of the Goals Committee concerned the schools for the training of our ministries, communication, and a suggestion for continuing, creative development of our ways of religion.

1) Believing that a primary concern is a learned, dynamic ministry, the Goals Committee recommended that the denomination support a single, professional graduate school, located in a major metropolitan center and affiliated with a major university.

The reasons for this recommendation cluster around the reality that, based on present and expected financial resources of the U.U.A., we can support only one school. Other possible advantages would be the gathering in one place a community of scholars and a community of students who by their combined presence would provide a center for diversity, creativity, scholarly arts of our movement.

Disadvantages include the fear that one school would produce only one type of minister, thus inhibiting the creative interchange which has characterized the different emphases that, up to a short time ago, five schools were producing.

There are other flaws in the recommendations. Our remaining graduate schools, Meadville and Starr King are independent corporate entities and will not necessarily dissolve because of denominational attitude or budgeting. The halting of U.U.A. financial support will not necessarily be a death blow to either school. Both Starr King and Meadville have each accumulated a cluster of supporting loyalties, not only from alumni and in all parts of the Continent, but also from Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships in their respective areas, the Pacific Coast and the Middle West. A separate finance campaign on the part of either or both might well succeed, and in its success cause a reduction of support given to the Unitarian Universalist Association.

One thing more, there is no law like unto the laws of the Medes and the Persians to ensure that the professionals of our ministries – parish, education, executive – must be trained in our denominational theological school. Already a substantial percentage of our ministers received their graduate training in theological schools of other denominations.

More than that – why any theological school as such? The Stevens-Gesner Committee is considering a program where a person training for our ministry would seek a graduate degree in some specialized social science such as social psychology, political science, sociology. In the process he would range widely in the many areas of human relationships, the arts, the sciences, thus confronting many disciplines and expressions which are inevitably relevant to a modern ministry with impact. Frankly experimental, this program deserves encouragement and attention. You will hear more of this, I believe.

2) A second recommendation by the Goals Committee is the establishment across the Continent of Metropolitan Centers where the ideas and methods of liberal religion could be tested and developed, then applied to the concerns of the time. Ministers and laypeople would come to these Metropolitan Centers to study, work, and celebrate together. The Metropolitan Centers would bring together the resources and the talent to do on an area basis what individual churches would find it impossible to do for themselves. Staffed by experts and scholars, the Metrocenters would program seminars, workshops, demonstrations in a wide variety of subjects: preaching and worship, art and drama, ethics and theology, social-action, fund-raising, leadership learning, church administration, adult and child education. They would be places of learning and research.

I have two objections, at least, to this recommendation. First, the financing of such centers is not feasible in the near future. There are too many more pressing priorities.

Second, the nucleus and potential for such Metrocenters already exists in the District organization. Here in New Jersey, we have witnessed in recent months the increasing relevance of the Area Council and mounting interest in what the 18 churches and fellowships comprising the N.J. Area Council can and could do together. The Area Council and the District can function as a Metrocenter and to some extent already is so functioning.

Resources are being shared (Bordin Orrin Fleck David Frost Roger Hall) – while the money is neither available nor within sight for what the Committee calls “experts and scholars.” Furthermore, this emphasis on Areas and Districts would be a flow of ideas and influence from the grass-roots, that is the local churches and fellowships, rather than from the top down. Involvement and interest will surely be greater when the local societies are the creative source. More and more we need to discover that the experts do not always live out of town.

Of course every society should be a Metrocenter. This is what our worship committees have been doing and doing well for several years. Not from the top down, but right here in this Society can we expand and enlarge such efforts so that we can (quicken) the “vitality of the religious life ... improving programs, increasing worship and sources of support, and presenting liberal religion to the whole metropolitan community in a fresh, dramatic, and appealing way.”

3) The third recommendation of the Goals Committee is to improve communication in the broadest sense of the term. The Committee suggests three possible ways in which there might be movement:

a) a serious first-class journal of liberal religious thought and opinion.

b) Publications program should include the development and production of worship materials that are uniquely appropriate for Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships, families and individuals, including a constantly growing body of ceremonies.

c) Much more exploration with the arts which not only speak to us but can speak for us. Life can be celebrated in paint, in sculpture, in dance, in film, in poetry, drama or music ....

I for one question both the need and feasibility of a first-class journal of religious thought. A serious journal always has a limited appeal – requiring a fairly high price, a substantial subsidy, or both. Financing for such purpose seems low in our priority list at this time. Then, too, we have several journals, all of which have limited reading audiences (“Register Leader”, Respond”, “Readout Zygon”, Journal of the Liberal Ministry”). No one would say all are “first-class” but most who see them would believe that each deserves a wider audience than it now possesses.

Then too, the possibility of more paper communication emphasizes the reality that much more of the constant printed paper blizzard which seems never-ending would probably result in fewer persons reading less, rather than more persons reading more.

More important is the recognition that the arts represent ways of potential communication which we have not used in any significant degree. We still rely too heavily on the spoken word and the printed word to communicate the sense of what is vital and timely. Let me hint about conversations I’ve had with Roger Hall which may lead to some attempts to experiment and communicate using kinesthetics, aesthetics, and ethics to communicate the art of worship.

This should be made clear: the communications made – one theological school, Metrocenters for development of religious ideas, practices, programs, services, etc., communication through journals and the arts, are not goals in themselves for an individual or the Unitarian Universalist as he is a member of the society. These recommendations are methods – and while the method may be the measure, as Angus MacLean wrote (long before Marshall McLuhan became the most famous and least understood authority on communications).

This is not a philosophic discussion of ends and means. Are the means justified by the ends? Briefly, both the methods and the goals must measure us to the difficult requirements of fellowship, freedom,and human dignity.

In the days of the advances of the Norsemen in the stormy Atlantic, when a Viking force led by Einer Thorgeirsson landed in Iceland about 1000, the sea-farers set in the ground an axe, an Eagle, and a Cross. These pagan-Christians placed the land they were claiming under the protection of three gods – Thor, symbolized by the axe, Odin represented by the Eagle, and Christ symbolized by the cross (MYTH AND RELIGION OF THE NORTH, p. 84).

We are not likely to have as goals a trinity of gods, whether axe, eagle, and cross, or father, son, and holy ghost, but we do have the power to fix our eyes on goals toward which the journey proceeds.

We would be wrong in accepting the answers of antiquity. But into the ancient goals of truth, beauty, and goodness, we can both develop our individuality and develop as fellows together in a religious society in a setting for cooperative, serious deliberations and joyous friendship.

Truth is not the truth discovered once and for all by the saints and seers of old. Truth is a flowing stream, not a pool locked in by authority based on age. If we match the demands of our age, we will recognize that truth is more than logical propositions in linear, printed lines on left-to-right pages. We will seek to understand the truths that intertwine with our body motions, voluntary and involuntary; the truths that tug at our feelings seeking expression and interpretation, truths that come not alone from the individual in his inmost solitariness but emerge as a consequence of that unique and enduring self-wrestling with the world of trials and triumphs; the world of exciting times and boring routines; the world of creative achievement and frustrating delays.

Beauty is not alone a Grecian urn or Michaelangelo’s David or Andrew Wyeth’s “Christmas World”. Beauty is modern man and woman seeking to identify the aesthetic values of a city street today; the aesthetic values of a new design; the response with brush, note, chisel, draftboard drama to the ebb and flow of the human spirit today. Beauty is helping us understand our confusions, brutalities and hopes today, because we are human spirits who need more than official, printed pronouncements in order to live well. There was a time when people designated “religious” aspired after the beauty of holiness. This is not enough for us, because in a world of rush-in, brush-off and freak-out, we have greater need to feel the holiness of beauty. We, too, need the beautiful as distinguished from the practical.

Goodness is not alone a set of thou shalts and thou shalt nots spelled out in ancient commandments or puritanical codes. Not that the past should be ignored in the evaluation of what we ought to be and do. Santayana was right when he wrote that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

But our age is one of such hazards that unless the behavior characteristic of social groups changes markedly, then catastrophes unequaled ever in history will occur.

Goodness is not a catechism to the learned in Sunday School. Goodness is not listening to a sermon, whether it is dull or interesting, mediocre or superior. If goodness is to be important and redemptive to the fellowship of the human family, to the freedom of the human family, to the dignity of every member of the human family, then there must be much wider recognition that people are “made” good and grow through social participation. They grow and perform good acts or regress and perform evil acts through the human process of human relations with others in selling, buying, voting, building and changing institutions, deciding to what degree they will try to make the ounces of their weight count in issues that to them are vital, timely, and undecided.

Whatever sophisticated definitions can be given to goodness or a code of ethics, there is no effectiveness to goodness unless there is strength in the winds of change that may influence the better legislation or the improvement of attitudes that cause people to suffer and die in war, that cause people to be deprived of goods, identity, and hope in the stifled cities or the poverty-stricken rural areas. The Science Editor of a newspaper wrote not long ago that to judge from weather-satellite pictures, there is no life on earth. These satellites are in orbit sufficiently high that the pictures provide no detail which would enable scientists to come to conclusions that there was life on this earth if they did not know it was there. At that orbit, a satellite from another world might not take pictures which would demonstrate that there was life on this earth.

The goals for the Unitarian Universalist movement in the world and this Society in this area might be part of the effort to put enough truth for today, enough beauty for today, enough goodness for today together to the end that a few years from now a close-in camera will still be able to photograph life on this earth. More than that, that a visitor from space may find a better and happier life on planet Earth for many more persons than now is the case.

Old Worlds and New Beginnings

December 31, 1967
Plainfield

Old Worlds and New Beginnings

On a day such as this when we contemplate the man-made calendar defining the end of an old year and the beginning of a new, I would direct your thoughts and feelings toward Old Worlds and new Beginnings. The human condition seems to be a dynamic tension between the values we have prized in the past and the hopes we cherish for a different order of things in time to come. The human family wavers between believing that the Golden Age was in the past and, contradictorily, that the Golden Age is in the future. We sing “should auld acquaintance be forgot,” while making New Year’s resolutions to change our ways.

Some of mankind’s oldest myths deal with old worlds and new beginnings – Paradise Lost and Heaven to come. Because the myth is much more than usually assumed, understanding is to be acquired from searching out the meanings of myth. Furthermore, because Christian theology fixed at a wrong level the meaning of the myth of Adam, Eve, and the eviction from eden, I would suggest to you that that myth is one of growth and hope, not of regression and despair.

When considering the nature of myth, one can be guilty of either of two fallacies. One is to accept the myths of one’s religion literally and unquestioningly as the disclosure of God’s will. This mistake is made by the orthodox in all religions, but particularly it is an error committed by those who stand rigidly for Christian dogmas. About the turn of the third century of the Christian era, Tertullian, a Roman convert to Christianity, was an influential and controversial theologian. His pronouncement concerning the total body of Christian mythology is still quoted as a defense of unquestioning faith: “I believe it BECAUSE it is absurd.”

Unitarians are quick to reject such irrationality, and rightly so. But it is just as unthinking to dismiss blithely or cynically all the myths of the human family. More than that, to look upon the mythology of man either with wry distaste or obstinate hostility may impoverish our understanding of ourselves and others.

Myths have sometimes been called primitive science. Pre-scientific man, who had no technical knowledge of biology, evolution, or other scientific disciplines, tried to explain the events that happened to him. On this level of definition, the Garden of Eden myth was the attempt of [an] ancient folk [culture] to answer such questions as:

Why snakes have no legs
Why women suffer pain when giving birth
Why people must work hard
Why death comes to people

If mythology represented only the “why” stories of pre-literate, non-technical, scientifically ignorant, or intellectually naïve people, then myth would long ago have lost power, at least in Western culture.

But there is more to it. Myth is also that “which never happened but is forever true.” (John Courtney Murray). Adam and Eve were not historical persons. But the relevant meaning in the myth has nothing to do with the reality that Adam and Eve were not historical persons, as you and I are persons in history. The ancient folk-tale gathers into myth many of the loose ends of human experience in an artistic expression that helps us to understand ourselves and others. The fallacy of Christian dogma has been to insist that the symbolic be believed literally. Christian theology insisted that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they disobeyed God, became guilty of sin, which was transmitted to all their descendants. The old story of salvation proceeds with the notion that this congenital sin could not be removed by man’s own efforts. Man could not save himself. Therefore God could save people from his own punishment only by supernaturally impregnating a peasant girl, some 2000 years later, whose child was the God incarnate. The plan developed that thirty years after that, God planned to be executed in an atoning death in order to descend into Hell, in order to rise from the dead three days later. Such an artificial salvation scheme can have neither truth nor guidance for us here.

But as C.G. Jung, the founder of analytic psychology, has pointed out, and as many others have understood, all enduring myths have more than one edge of meaning. Myths are levers with which we can pry open the door to more complete knowledge of ourselves. Myths, like dreams, can be interpreted many ways. I like the manner Henry Bamford Parkes wrote, “the great social myths by which a society is animated, are imaginative projections of man’s sense of membership in a larger whole, and of his belief in the objectivity of moral, political, and aesthetic values. If take literally, they are by rationalistic standards always untrue. Yet they convey truths that the human mind cannot apprehend directly, and as long as they meet human needs and do not lead to the denial or suppression of any important element of human experience, they should not be dismissed simply as illusions.” (GODS AND MEN)

It is in such a spirit of search for meaning in myth that one can think of Adam and Eve, not as the Fall of Man into “sin and corruption” but as the myth of the New Beginning when an old world was gone.

For me, it is not acceptable to believe Adam and Eve’s “sin” was that of sexual relations – that eating of the fruit of the tree referred to awareness of sexuality. Only the guilt-filled attitudes of Christian believers in many centuries allowed such an erroneous concept to become fixed and to prevail in theology and social attitudes.

It is of passing interest that the Adam and Eve myth, like most myths, has roots deeply buried in prior cultures. There is a similar myth in the earlier Sumerian culture but with some difference. For example, in that early myth from Sumer, eight fruits are forbidden, not one; and the animal that does the tempting is not a snake but a fox.

Neither can I accept a more sophisticated interpretation of Adam’s Fall which proposes that the myth symbolizes man’s rebellion against God. As this variety of interpretation goes, God protected Adam and Eve from death, pain, and the necessity to work laboriously, just as long as they obeyed God’s instruction not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. When they disobeyed, God punished them with death, pain, work and inflicted them with congenital “sin,” to be inevitably inherited by all their descendants, including you and me. A god who would set such unremitting punishments in operation would be a strangely inconsistent and vindictive deity who, I suppose, could be worshiped out of fear but not adored with love.

I believe we should think of this old story from Genesis as the myth of Adam’s growth, the myth of a new beginning, the myth of the emergence of conscious, deciding persons who are growing toward freedom and more complete self-realization. Adam, for me, becomes Everyman becoming aware of himself as a person. Animal behavior seems for the most part to be instinctive or conditioned. But one of the unique characteristics of the person is a consciousness of the opportunity to be deliberate and decide, not restricted to stimulus and automatic response.

One teacher has suggested that the serpent was not a seducer but a giver of good advice. Most older religions have had taboos – experiences forbidden because [the] sacred would be violated if the acts were committed. The giver of good advice said, “Don’t be fenced in by taboos. Eat the apple and discover for yourself if the experience is one of growth.” In this sense, the snake was a benevolent influence because Adam and Eve experienced the desire to know. It was an experienced-centered curriculum, if you will.

B.D. Napier, an Old Testament scholar, has some appropriate poetic lines about Adam’s awareness:

Read
Quote, “Come sweet death”
p. 16-17

“The road O Lord, I have to know the road,
I need to go and come and go again.
Your garden is a prison – or a tomb – without a road.”

A luxurious prison is a prison still. And Eden, without freedom, is Hell in the midst of comfort. As Tillich wrote somewhere, man alone has a complete self and a whole world. That is, where food is given, exemption from pain is granted, and eternal life is provided, the whole world is given. But without a self to be aware, to suffer the pains of growth and death, one is not a person. (STI 258)

In the TEMPEST, Shakespeare has Caliban renounce Prospero and become the slave of a new master. Caliban sings, “Freedom, hegh-day, freedom-high-day, freedom.” For in New Beginning, Everyman’s growth is accompanied not only by the satisfaction which arrives when we have wisdom, but also by the pains which are the consequence of our follies.

Help toward greater fulfillment as persons in society requires not the rejection of the great myths of man, but a fuller understanding of them or new interpretation. Myths are not contrived; they are not easily manufactured as one can fabricate a gear or wiring assembly, Perhaps man can no longer create myths which universalize both the cosmic and human condition.

But whether one can accept, appreciate or respond to ancient mythologies, it seems clear that salvation in this world resides in accepting the requirements of responsible personhood:

To be able to accept the pain and uncertainty which accompany the freedom to choose alternatives;

to accept the consequence of one’s decisions, including the labor necessary to bring the decisions to completion; and

to exalt in the joys and suffer the sorrows which flood in when one opens the tidal-gates of imagination.

It is far better to be a person knowing irritation as well as comfort, experiencing defeat but occasionally knowing victory, than to be in complete ignorance of possibilities which await the acts of persons who have deliberated and decided.

In summary, the myth of Adam and Eve charges us to be persons who are persons and not just organic responses to whatever stimuli may have acted on nerve endings.

Such an attitude toward Old Words and New Beginnings is to be recommended. For grow we must as persons and as members of a social order or we perish. Goethe said it well in “Noble Be Man:”

[Editor’s note: the rest of this sermon is missing]

The Art of Following Stars

December 24, 1967
Plainfield

The Art of Following Stars

There are many ways to acquire wisdom. On this December 24th, why not permit your imagination to respond to the possibility that what makes wise men wise may be the art of following stars? Matthew’s gospel describes the legendary visit of the Wise Men from the East. The factual basis for this legend can be discussed in a minute. But deserving of much more time than alloted today is the rich suggestiveness of the story as a source of wisdom for living.

Books of astrological predictions abound. Astrological forecasts are regular features in many newspapers. there are still many people who believe, or have a teasing intuition, that the heavens not only declare the “glory of God” but also chart or influence our individual destinies. Astrology is one of the most ancient belief-strands. The legend of the wise men who brought gifts to the baby Jesus may have gathered around several traditions of ancient folk-lore. First, Matthew’s gospel emphasizes the Christian belief that Jesus was the Messiah whose coming had been long awaited by the Jews. There is a specific reference to an old scriptural prophecy from Numbers, (24/17), where it was predicted that,

“a star shall come forth out of Jacob,
and a scepter shall arise out of Israel.”

There is a story in Roman history which records the visit of three Eastern magicians to the emperor Nero, to bring him gifts and to salute his sovereignty. This visit to Nero may have been an influence on Christian traditions, because the birth stories about Jesus in the gospel of Matthew were not a part of the gospel until long after the time of Nero. Furthermore, the birth legends of both Matthew and Luke were probably not attached to these gospels until much later than the other parts, possibly as late as 115.

Astrological calculations represented a powerful influence in the old Persona religion of Zoroastrianism, a religion at least six hundred years old at the beginnings of the Christian era. In addition to the Jews, there were many other Near-Eastern and Asian peoples longing passionately for a Messiah who would free the oppressed people from foreign tyranny. There could have been many journeys by Persian astrologers following directions derived from interpreting the rhythm of the night skies.

There is no way of substantiating whether the legends about Jesus’ birth have some literal truth or not. Moreover there can be little expectation that we will have more substantial historical authority for any facts about the Wise Men. But there is an abundant help for our human situation in the imaginative resources of the wonder-full old story. Christmas is an appropriate occasion for the free play of imagination.

Those three men were wise not because of special knowledge derived from their astrological charts, but rather from a correct perception of what was good and what was bad in human events. They came from the East seeking a king they might worship. To locate a king, see the old king, so they sought out Herod. This was natural enough. The ancient and accepted ways prescribe that royalty mixes with royalty; that royalty descends from royalty, with succession of being established by direct blood lines, usually.

But the kind the Wise Men were seeking was not known to Herod. Herod’s crown rested uneasily on his head, for he knew the rebellious temper of oppressed people who would unite in revolt when the Messiah should come. When Herod summoned his advisers, they told him where the centers of insurrection might be. Herod’s secret service knew the Hebrew scriptures, not so much for inspiration but as the documents of subversion. So they quoted the prophet, Micah (5/2) to Herod:

“And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah,
Art by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from thee shall come a ruler
Who will govern my people Israel.”

Seemingly, Herod did not want to spring the trap prematurely. Bringing the Wise Men again into his presence in order to direct them to Bethlehem, he said, “When you have found him bring me word that I too may come and worship him.”

With this advice and request, the Wise Men left behind the royal court. They made their way to Bethlehem where the star came to rest over the place where the child was. Greatly rejoicing, the astrologers brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and prostrated themselves in worship before mother and child. Then, “being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.”

To take another way is an expression of the art of following stars. The Wise Men had been disciplined by an encounter with evil and they had been inspired by an experience of creative good. One learns to sort out the good from that which is evil, or less good, by a readiness to seek new directions; a willingness to re-interpret meanings when reason, or sometimes, intuition, suggests such need.

The Wise Men also were not deceived by Herod’s crafty attempt to use them as tools in the betrayal of the baby. What the old legend refers to as “being warned in a dream” may be that – a warning contained in a dream. It also may be a poetic way of reporting conferences. Insights and revised plans based on shared opinions. Perhaps they had agreed to keep open minds on what they might discover in Bethlehem.

They must have been wise enough to recognize Herod’s motives. The Wise Men did not yield up the objective of their journey. They followed the brightness of their star in the heavens and ignored the dazzle of Herod’s power. The Wise Men brought their gifts to the child; then they went home another way. Modern analytic psychology might find that the image of a child in a dream indicates the beginning of a new life taking form in the self. Wise Men found a new life and went back another way.

What do you do when confronted with the enthronement of wrong? The Wise Men have taught that one can go over, around, or even through an obstacle and still not lose sight of the goal for long.

If you have ever seen the desert, you know that footprints which could be guides, swiftly disappear, covered by shifting sands. The Wise Men had to develop the art of following stars, because there were no footpaths in the desert. But then too, there were no wheel ruts either.

The deserts of difficult choice do not provide easy paths, and ruts should be avoided. It is an art of human experience to become aware that one need not be stymied hopelessly behind a barrier, even when the obstacle is entrenched power. One can climb, side-step, or dig a tunnel. Just as a sailing vessel must tack, approaching a destination obliquely when certain winds prevail, so we need flexibility in charting directions, wherever one’s Bethlehem may be.

Perhaps most important to the art of following stars, when the Wise Men encountered evil in their human experience, they changed directions, but did not sacrifice the goal. There are times when the toll highways are not the best way to the destination. There are occasions when even the very learned, or the very obstinate, or the very angry, should dream of other answers because the old ways may not be the best ways anymore.

The taking of another way was not only the result of being warned and disciplined by evil, but also was the result of being inspired by the experience of the good. With the jewels of their crescents sparkling like the flame they worshiped, the splendidly-robed Magi brought their gifts – where? To the tent of a wealthy caravan merchant? To the throne of Caesar? To the court of Herod the Syrian king? To a learned astrologer? No, to none of these.

They brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to a pungent stable in a cave where a young mother shared her gladness in her new son.

Joseph and Mary’s son in Bethlehem, the Bernadone’s boy infant in Assisi, Thomas Lincoln’s biblically named baby in the Kentucky wilderness – how many of us would have guessed the potential? Yet we perceive in our more responsive and imaginative moments that there is something in the fresh presence of wanted babies in the world that makes better people of most of us, at least for awhile. Sometimes it is the experience of parents; sometimes it is the daring and charming possibilities that we feel are potential for the human family. Theodosia Garrison in some lines from her poem, “The Star,” poetically suggested the universal appeal of new life on earth:

“Some only dreamed who followed it,
Some, knowing, bore rare gifts and bright,
And some, poor souls and lack of wits,
But followed where they saw the light;
Yet all were led (by Jesu’s grace)
By the same star to the same place.

“There are many roads to love
as paths above the world may stray.
Some dip below, some wind above,
Yet one star shows to each his way;
And dreamer, king, and lack of wit
(By Jesu’s grace) may follow it.”

Now if the Wise Men’s experience could not also be ours in some sense, all this would be trivial chatter. But we too encounter the good and the bad in our travel toward our goal-stars. Like the Magi, we will be affected by the evil we encounter. Like they, we can be transformed by the good we meet in all varieties of human experience.

The Wise Men saw skies teeming with stars, even as on clear evenings still, the blue-black canopy of night is jeweled with uncounted millions of sparkling gems. According to the old story, the Wise Men plotted their course guided by a star which led them to Bethlehem. They chose the star that would lead them to the place they wanted to go.

This is our continuing opportunity too. Which star is the one to follow? To move from poetry to practicality, which of many goals are you going to choose? Life can frustrate us rather thoroughly unless we are skillful enough in the art of following stars to pick the one that illuminates the way to our best fulfillments.

But to make the Wise Men’s choice, we must admit to our minds and hearts enough warm light to illuminate the cold, dark places of our pride. The Wise Men had to leave a monarch’s glittering palace to find authentic royalty in a rude stable – emergency housing for a peasant family.

Carl Sandburg told a story of Lincoln which illustrates that the achievement of goals may require the dispensing with a certain amount of personal vanity. When Lincoln was an officer in the Blackhawk War, he “was a beginner and once couldn’t think of an order that would get the two platoons endwise, two by two, for passing through a gate. So he commanded, ‘This company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of this gate.’” (THE PRAIRIE YEARS, p. 62)

This not only was an example of a clever mind, but also in a military setting it was honestly humble – and an omen of the creative leadership that Lincoln would one day bring to the nation. He knew the art of following stars – the courage to take another way, even though he might lose face in the opinion of an expert drillmaster.

The wisdom of taking another way is one of the enduring experiences that can come to us as the light lengthens, as human hospitality warms us, as the love of children who are loved casts a magic glow on the human scene. The wisdom of the ancients was glorified by the light of a child’s face. This was as it should be ever, for the living creations of love and labor are both the means and ends of a life that is worthwhile.

The Right To Be Human

December 10, 1967
Plainfield

The Right To Be Human

The nature of the human condition is such that it must possess rights. The American Revolutionists spoke of the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Beyond such generalities, I would suggest (with Bettleheim and others) that the human self is not just a mechanism molded and directed by external conditions determined by the accidents of birth in a particular family, in a given culture, in a specific period of time. Unique and independent, the self operates in the external world, working out its activity guided from within. We all have the basic creative inner center of direction, but this can be smothered by oppression and hopelessness.

The authentic human self must have power to exert some effect on events in the world in order to be truly and fully human. The power to influence is a uniquely evolved quality of being human. The human self is developed through awareness of one’s powers; and the experience that one does have power.

If this is the human condition, then social forces which destroy the influential self or restrict its despotically are the social forces which must be understood, challenged, and eliminated.

Recognizing such unalienable human rights as proper goals and standards for all the peoples of mankind, the General Assembly of the United Nations, with no dissenting votes, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on December 10, 1948. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the General Assembly of the United Nations has proclaimed 1968 as International Year for Human Rights.

Today I would seek to remind you of some of the international standards which have begun to have some influence as a consequence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then, because I believe there is an essential linkage, I would summarize the meetings between the “Black Caucus” and the Board and Trustees of the U.U.A.

There are nine conventions and two covenants which have been adopted by the United Nations – 4 by the United Nations and 4 by the ILO. Here is a brief review of these because never in human history have international organizations spoken so clearly about the rights of persons and the obligations of governments to respect these rights:

1)The Supplemental Convention on Slavery outlaws not only slavery but also practices similar to slavery – prison for debt, serfdom, purchase of brides and child labor, as well as slavery itself.

2)Genocide – defined as committing certain acts with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. All who are guilty would be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials, or private individuals.

3)Political Rights of Women: This provides that women shall have equal rights with men as regards voting, election to publicly elected bodies, the holding of public office, and the exercise of public functions.

4)Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination: Condemns racial discrimination and undertakes to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding. Among other goals, integrationist multi-racial organizations [are] encouraged and anything which tends to strengthen racial division is discouraged.

5)Abolition of forced labor: Attacks and discourages forced or compulsory labor as a means of political coercion or education, as a punishment for expressing political views, as a punishment for striking, or as a means of labor discipline.

6)Discrimination in employment: Promotes equality of opportunity and treatment in employment with a view to eliminating discrimination based on race, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, or social origin.

7)Equal pay for equal work: Seeks equal pay for men and women workers for equal work.

8)Freedom of Association: Workers and employers shall have the right to establish and join organizations of their own choosing.

9)Discrimination in Education: Administrative practices, equality of opportunity and treatment. Parents free to choose private education for their children.

10)Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Consideration of communications from individuals who claim to be victims of violations of civil and political rights.

11)Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – Right of self-determination to work, to strike, to social security, to protection and assistance for family, for adequate standard of living, to education, to participate in cultural life and enjoy benefits of science.

In preparation, but not yet adopted, are conventions on the elimination of religious intolerance and to promote freedom of information.

These become more than fine-sounding statements only when they are signed by the representatives of governments; and then ratified by the particular parliamentary body. In the United States, it is the Senate which can ratify the articles. Of the eleven which have been adopted by the U.N., the United States has ratified only one – the Slavery Convention. Four others have been signed, but not ratified by the U.S. Senate: racial discrimination, genocide, forced labor, and political rights of women.

One of the appropriate ways that 1968 can be properly observed as the International Year for Human Rights is to encourage our Senators to ratify the articles before it and to encourage the consideration of all other conventions.

Thus the international community we know as the United Nations has set standards of achievement, and by consent of some nations, established goals in the form of laws which may help substantially to establish the right to be human where this is denied; and will help protect the right to be human where some of these rights have been established as moral standards.

Of course, when we celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we need to look at our own nation as well as others.

If the right to be human requires that a person be aware that he is not just a mechanism to be conditioned, but a self with the joys and pains of awareness; a self with some power to influence one’s own destiny, then the prejudices and discriminations which nullify or ruin this awareness and prevent this oppression of influence, deprives the person of the right to be human.

When a person in our community is prevented just by his color from purchasing a home, for which he has the proper deposit and has met the requirements of the mortgage, then he is being robbed of the right to be human because he is prevented from exercising the power of self-choice of freedom of movement and association.

When a person in our community is denied a job because of his color, he is being blocked from maintaining his right to be human. He is robbed of power.

Until there is much more general recognition of the relationship of self to being accepted as a person with all a person’s rights, including the right to be an influence, to have power to determine one’s own destiny in some authentic measure, then more troubles and turmoil cannot be averted. Hopelessness and despair drain the self-powers of the human condition. Inhuman consequences surely follow.

If you were here when Roger Hall and Roger Guthrie communicated their understanding of the findings and feelings expressed at the Emergency Conference on the Black Rebellion in New York, you probably have some impression of the difficult position of the white Unitarian Universalist.

The tensions and mixed feelings they felt at that meeting have increased, denominationally, as a consequence of the meeting between the Steering Committee of the Black Caucus and the Unitarian Universalist Board of Trustees. Following their meeting, the Steering Committee of the Black Caucus was vehement in denouncing the U.U.A. Board position.

My present views are that I still believe in an integrated social order, in integrated Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships. I hope I understand the feelings of Black people. The reach for Black identity, Black organization, Black control, is directly related to the right to be human. To be human is to be able to exert influence, to be able to lead in the determination of one’s destiny.

So I can understand the wish for Black separatism, but cannot endorse it, because even though integration in our churches may be a “liberal fantasy,” as Henry Hampton wrote, I still believe integration in our societies and parallel organizations to be the best possible condition from which to make longer strides in shorter time toward full recognition that all person are of worth and dignity and deserve equal opportunity. Unless I have been badly misinformed through the years, this has been one of the causes for Negroes joining our churches – that we believe in the superiority of an open society – open to all.

Therefore, I believe that the U.U.A. Board takes a position with which I can agree. I would make this reservation: If the February Conference of the Black Unitarian Universalists, subsidized by the Commission on Religion and Race, should make it clear that the prevailing conviction among Unitarian Universalists generally, not just the 30 members of the Black Caucus at the N.Y. Meeting, is that there should be a Black controlled, Black membership organization as one of the affiliate agencies of the U.U.A., then I believe that such a movement should be recognized and accepted. I would maintain, still, that given the U.U. context, as well as the context of the minority groups, one could predict that such separatism would not endure. But if such organization proves to be a strongly-felt need, then this will emerge as one of the results of the forth-coming February conference.

One thing more, I can understand the feelings which led the Black Caucus and the Black Steering Committee which came to make peremptory demands – accept or reject, without debate, etc. I think I can understand the impatience with the tedium of the parliamentary process. But I cannot support the view. The process of affirmation and opposition; the right to argue against a proposal as well as support – these ways of information and decision are not just temporary expressions of our U.U. movement. One can deride or berate Roberts’ Rules of Order, or scold those who prolong floor debate. However, the procedures are not trivial, but the product of at least a thousand years of due process. I do not see how we can fail to protect the right of dissent. I have been a member of minorities frequently enough – and protected by the right of dissent – I cannot believe we can lightly jettison this hard-won procedure in democratic relationships.

Certainly we have failed to eliminate discrimination and prejudice. Certainly we have been too ready to believe in automatic progress without personal sacrifice and pain. But the most enduring values that have grown and among the better human resources of hope is the establishment of the rile of law and the democratic process in our religious societies, in our nation, and slowly, but increasingly, in our world. This may sound hollow to those who have not received anything like equal treatment. If I were a member of the minority burdened by centuries of prejudice and cruelty, I might not believe any more in the functioning of due process, of orderly procedures which allow for dissenting arguments and negative votes. But, as I see it, no one could gain much and everyone could lose much more from an abolition of the due process by which groups make decisions following the assertions of those who wish to be advocates of their cause.

The Celebration of Human Rights should be more than verbal or philosophic recognition of the various articles defining human rights and claiming these rights for all persons. To properly celebrate, we must feel the tension of what has been done and what must be done to advance the freedom, dignity, and equality of opportunity for persons. Circumstances do not permit the neglect of our community, our U.U.A. or our world.

We are charged not only by the developing moral awareness of the U.N., but also by the best values of our Unitarian Universalist tradition to defend and promote the right to be human; to be a conscious self, aware of the fulfilling achievement of being able to guide the direction of life – one’s own and, in a measure at least, the trend of society. There can be no real sense of individual responsibility until a person is convinced that there will be a real response to his labors, his voice, his aspirations, his assertions of his rights. If one expects responsibility on the part of others, one must be willing to be open to the response from others. This I believe is one of the true balances between self and other; this is the right to be human.

In the [Brothers Karamazov] (p. 92), Rakitin is asked to confirm the charge that if there is no immortality, there can be no virtue. Immortality is not the subject today, but his reply speaks pointedly to the right to be human, “Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find in it the love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.” Such love and the ability to so love is basic to the right to be human.

Let The Church Be ... What?

December 3, 1967
Plainfield

Let The Church Be ... What?

What holds this religious society together? What attitudes should prevail? We are various persons with unlike responses to minister, worship, denominational trends, administration, ideas, communication, action. What do you want this religious society to be? What I say this morning is a summary of my present views.

In the Unitarian church service, there are those who attend because they seek intellectual stimulation. Table 6 of the Goals Report indicates this is the prime cause of persons attending – 74.4% of those surveyed indicated this was very important, and 23.1% indicated it was somewhat important; only 2.5% believed intellectual stimulation to be not important. The desire to be intellectually stimulated outranked the desire for fellowship by 10% and led other reasons – celebrating common values, group experience of worship, music and aesthetics, motivation to serve others – by up to 20 percentage points.

One could therefore conclude that the intellectual presentation of provocative ideas is the leading justification for Unitarian worship. Certainly our traditions provide some precedence for the position that our service should be the seed-starter of dialogue, the stimulus to excellent conversation, the productive center from which the interplay of ideas results in individual growth, and occasionally, some influence on society.

In all candor, I wonder how authentic this predominant generality is? Pride of intellect, particularly if there is more form than substance to the basis for pride, can be but a well-covering arrogance. There are those who classify the ideas they agree with as intellectual and interesting. Ideas which do not interest them are labeled as abstruse, boring, or offensive. There are those among us who quite frankly say that they choose to stay away when the theme is one they oppose or about which they have no current concern. If you purr intellectually only when your pet ideas are stroked, then the Unitarian prideful claim of intellectual leadership needs more objective appraisal. There are great ideas stirring in the world which are not adequately discussed either in the U.S. News and World Report or I.F. Stone’s Weekly – or for that matter, in the Goals Committee Report of the U.U. A.

And so I suggest to you that the need for ideas has never been more acute. Furthermore, that true dialogue involves the art of listening as well as assertion. And another furthermore, an idea is not necessarily trivial or worthless because it is not of immediate and pressing interest to you.

There are those who believe that the Sunday worship service should provide comfort, inspiration, uplift. I agree. We live in a world where many times comfort is needed to mend torn feelings. The disillusions of the day require constant inspiration in order to persist with the tasks that are ours. In a world where we are put down frequently enough. we need to be uplifted to gain sight of new and fairer perspectives. We need comfort, inspiration, and uplift.

But if in reality, comfort, inspiration, and uplift are words to indicate a belief that nothing irritating or disturbing should ever be referred to in the sanctuary of worship, why then of course it is disease, not health, to want comfort, inspiration, or uplift, when these are disassociated from the social order. For it is in the social order that men, women, and children live in tears and laughter; where they are wracked by injustice; where they are shaken by evidences of man’s inhumanity to man; where they are afflicted by the callousness of others; where they are blocked by stubborn, selfish advocates of an antiquated status quo.

So it makes a great deal of difference if by comfort, inspiration, and uplift, one really means an escape from those issues of life which are uncomfortable to confront with conviction. It makes a great deal of difference if my comfort, inspiration, and uplift, one really intends to avoid that which is dirty, but real, sad, or presenting a choice to be made. When such evasion is why there is the wish for comfort in any religious society, what seems to be the perfume of sanctity will actually be the smell of decay.

Should the church be a place for friendship and fellowship? Should not our halls and rooms be the place where friendship between like-minded persons are established and cultivated? The easy answer is, yes.

I know of one of our Unitarian churches where the slogan for more than 100 years has been, “here, let no man be a stranger.” But in spite of that, many persons told me how cold was the attitude toward visitors and newcomers. One Unitarian I met a couple of years ago had moved to several cities successively. Rather uniformly she accepted the fact that when she attended the Unitarian church for the first time, she would not be greeted warmly or introduced around in the coffee hour. So she made a practice of breaking into the little in-group circles, introducing herself, and establishing her place by her own initiative, rather than expecting to be welcomed.

A colleague of mine, beginning his ministry in a Unitarian church, discovered that the social attitudes were no less cold than the New England climate of the area. The persons who gathered to worship remained detached from one another, going their separate ways, with few greetings or signs of friendship. Deciding to attempt some warming efforts, he consulted with the board chairman in an effort to get some practices established which might create more fellowship. The board chairman said, “Young man, if we Unitarians here in [B....] wanted to know one another better, don’t you think we would have done something long before you arrived on the scene?”

From some of the discussions sponsored by the Adult Program, the message comes through rather clearly that newcomers here feel that there is coldness, a deficiency in welcome, an indifferent attitude being expressed to newcomers.

This is not experienced by everyone, but certainly by some. If you are a veteran member of one month, or one generation, then you do not need any exhortation from me to decide whether or not we are a friendly church. Furthermore I don’t know any area of church which requires less organization than being friendly. This is something anyone can do. No board decisions or congregational vote is required at all.

Should this church be a place of friendship and fellowship? Of course. Can such an atmosphere be coerced by a minister, committee, or board? Of course not. Some enabling practices can be adopted, but the essential friendly spirit is either here or it is not.

Is the church the place for social action? More needs to be said at this time on this aspect of church life than about the other subjects to which I have referred. First, because the principle and nature of social action has become a vital and sharp issue in all religious institutions. Second, because of the traditional freedom of the Unitarian Universalist to disassociate himself from the commitments of other persons, the issue is central to us, both as a continental denomination and a local society.

For several years in marches, pickets, demonstrations, public stands, there has been considerable visibility of clergymen, nuns, and laymen explicitly there because of their religious convictions. The March on Washington in 1963, the Selma-Montgomery March the following year, and peace parades are instances which come to mind readily.

A news correspondent repeated the story which seems symbolic of the need among those who march and picket. Plainclothes officers were trying to gain entrance to an illegal narcotics party. “When the policemen knocked at the door, a voice inside called for identification. The answer, ‘Man, we’re looking for the action.’ The door opened and the police were welcomed.” There are those who believe that the door to authentic religion in our time is where the (social) action is.

Senator Charles Percy of Illinois, in a speech this year (Christian Science Monitor, 4/14/67) said, “‘The Church should not be timid about soiling its hands in an effort to grapple with social events and responsibilities.’ Senator Percy called upon churchgoers to involve themselves in the social and political affairs of our times. ‘The Church must lead not only in religion but in life. It must minister not only to the whole spirit but to the whole man, the whole community. It must be relevant as well as reverent.’”

In what ways was Senator Percy correct? Would you agree with the late Dag Hammarskjold who wrote in MARKINGS, “In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”

In the world of organized religion, this METHOD of action is the most debated question. A prominent Christian churchman, the Archbishop of York, wrote, “one of the most central issues confronting Christianity today is whether it should deal primarily with the saving of souls or with the achievement of social justice in the community.”

The linkage between religion and sweeping changes in the social order delights some, but disturbs many. As an example, a nun marching in a civil rights demonstration was attacked by white racists who cheered when her blood spilled on her bib. Generally, while those active in action issues are highly visible, and those who are angry at them are loudly vocal, the great majority of church people seem indifferent to the radical, social movements in which religious professionals seem over-represented.

Such meager generalizations about social action generally are only introductory to Unitarianism in particular.

The Goals Report is some indication of Unitarian Universalist feeling about social action. Table 30 indicates that 48.4% consider social action very important and 43.7% important – that is 92.1% believe social action is at least important. When Table 37 is reviewed, the statistic is that 27.8% strongly approve public stands by the congregation and 45.9% approve – a total of 73.7% of Unitarians sampled who believe in group stands by the congregation.

I agree with this majority, as I have said on more than one occasion. My belief is that there are issues important enough for a corporate group of Unitarian Universalists to say this WE believe, here WE stand. Furthermore I am convinced that a group statement has the power to influence community, state, and national attitudes and decisions. I cannot prove or demonstrate this, anymore than he who disagrees can prove to me that only individual expression and action have influence. Then, too, I believe that dialogue and debate pointed toward decision ought to be a more informed and searching interchange than discussions which cannot be concluded with an opportunity to say aye or nay, or to stand to vote for one’s conviction.

But it is clear to me that the majority of the members of this society do not agree. The majority believe that the principle of individual freedom is so precious that a group stand infringes on that right even when established by proper meeting procedures. Now I am neither dismayed by being in the minority nor chagrined that this Society does not seem to be typical of the Unitarian societies sampled in the matter of group stands and social action.

Freedom is still basic – the individual Unitarian has the right and should assume the responsibility to arrive at his own conclusions about religion, and the application, if any, to the issues of the social order. Euripides has Pylades say (from Iphigenia in Tauris, p. 51),

“Let us forget
All but the one word Freedom, calling us
To live, not die by altars barbarous.”

I can appreciate the Unitarian who asserts that he wants no other Unitarian to speak for him.

But when I assert that freedom is still basic, there is a twin freedom, of equal necessity to this or any other Unitarian Universalist society. That is the freedom of the Society to act as a corporate body in a properly called and conducted meeting. This too is as historic in our religious traditions as the right of freedom of individual belief. This parallel, equal, freedom of the right of the religious community to speak and act gives the only authentic meaning I know to religious organization. When I am in the minority in a membership vote, other Unitarians are not speaking for me. Rather, the majority speaks or does not speak as a majority.

I am not arguing that any one of you must believe as the majority sampled, that a congregation should take a stand. Rather I am maintaining that the Society has the freedom to consider, vote, or not consider, not vote on any matter properly brought before it; and that there can be no substantial objection to this freedom principle.

If such is not a valid position, then what is called in the democratic method in human relations can never be more than a scattered collection of opinions, never capable of much clear focus.

The late Teilhard de Chardin, one of the most cogent of modern thinkers, observed that even as the early Greeks believed the greatest speculative issue to be the problem of the one and the many, so the sharpest social issue of modern times is the relationship of the individual and the community. I believe that recognition of the twin freedom in the Unitarian Society – the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the Society, provides a working model for the resolution of this dilemma.

Let the Church be ... What?
The setting for intellectual stimulation? In part, but not in whole.
The source of spiritual comfort? In part, but not in whole.
The place for friendship and fellowship? In part, but not in whole.
The impetus for social action, whether as an aggregation of individuals or a congregation of members? In part, but not in whole.

All these, and more (I have not mentioned religious education) are gathered in the church as sanctuary. Let the church be sanctuary (sanctuary is a word I have always been reluctant to use, because in our Judeo-Christian tradition, sanctuary represents ideas I resist. In the Jewish tradition, the sanctuary was the Holy of Holies, the innermost chamber of Solomon’s Temple, where only the High Priest could enter. In Christian usage, sanctuary has meant the altar section where only the priest can offer the sacrifice of the Mass.) But increasingly, I have come to accept a truer meaning of sanctuary – the most sacred part of any religion – that which is sacred and inviolable; an area that may not be invaded [even] with consent.

In that sense, let the church be the sanctuary for all the hard-won ideas that the human family has achieved. Let the church be the sanctuary of hope whereby we dream and work to the end that the great ideas and goals of the human family will spread first to the edge and then overcome the center of all ills that men inflict upon one another.

Let the church be the sanctuary where we can face up to ourselves as we really are – light and shadow, commendable and condemnable; but ever persisting in the search for meanings beyond both the bouquets and brickbats of any given day. Let the skills and arts of the creative persons among us be a lighted fuse leading to such imagination which could explode with new bursts of creativity.

Let the church be the sanctuary whereby we confront the sharp edges of dissent – for freedom to hold diverse opinions is one of those hard-won ideas which we must protect and defend.

But also let us remember the idea of brotherhood – too much an abstraction and an insufficiently realized abstraction still.

Let the church be the sanctuary for the confrontation of the contradiction between individual freedom and brotherhood. For brother is a family concept – and who in a participating family can ever be wholly free?

This is the painful dilemma we face under such phrases as “group social action,” “Can the congregation speak for me?”, “should the membership take a group stand?” Two superb ideals – individual freedom, human brotherhood. Let the church be the sanctuary whereby we can reckon creatively, and as friends, with the interplay between these two great goals.

Let the church be the Creative Center whereby we guard the noblest traditions and cherish the finest hopes.

Just one caution – we must not forget. Thomas Becket’s great protagonist was Henry II, a competent king who organized many practices which became valuable institutions [and] important precedents. It was said of this notable king, however, that “he mourned the dead with a grief far greater than he loved the living.” (R. Winston, BECKET, p. 53)

We guard great values; we dream great dreams. But as we uphold these values, let us love the living in the next pew, in this membership, in our cities, and all across the world. Let us be among the human forces in such a creative center of accomplishment and search.

The Future of Unitarian Belief

November 5, 1967
Plainfield

The Future of Unitarian Belief

Irrespective of how many of us may respond to samples, trends, and projections of beliefs among Unitarians and Universalists, this above all: the religious foundation each of us needs should provide the basic strength to confront both triumph and disaster with continuing confidence in life; should give assurance that there are resources within for the conquest of fear; and should bestow a continuing attitude that no matter how gloomy at times the human condition may seem, we are given hope that worthy aspirations may ever be renewed and that decisive conduct is an option always available, if we WILL to act.

In speaking of the future of Unitarian belief, I am making observations beginning with Table 41 of the “Report of the Committee on Goals” of the U.U.A. Under the leadership of our Adult Programs Committee, discussions begin tomorrow using some of the findings of the Goals Committee as a starting point. The purpose of these discussions is not to hammer out uniformity of belief but to discover the nature of the bond among Unitarians which causes them to support a common enterprise, namely this First Unitarian Society of Plainfield. Someone recently defined maturity something like this, “I once defined maturity as the art of being willing to shell peas, but now I think it is accepting cheerfully the fact that something is always out of order.” (From STILLMEADOW CALENDAR, Gladys Taber, Lippincott) Somehow that reminded me of the Universalist Unitarian societies and organizations.

Or if that didn’t come through to you, consider this statement about Unitarian Fellowships by author Betty Mills (with the exception of such distinctive fellowship artifacts as borrowed furniture, the observations apply to established UU Churches)

“A fellowship is an island of liberalism in a sea of orthodoxy; it is a group of people sitting on borrowed chairs in preference to padded pews. It is a state of religious satisfaction amidst financial despair. A fellowship consists of people with horrified relatives and precocious children, and develops tremendous esprit-de-corps by arguing violently among themselves. A fellowship has sourdough pancakes for Easter breakfast, jazz for the processional, and Mark Twain for the benediction. It cries loudly to Boston for help, and then tells its emissaries how to run the denomination. It borrows furniture from its members, hymns from the orthodox, and ideas from everyone. It is composed of 3 parts exhilaration and two parts exasperation, and glues everything together with coffee. It is at once a risky adventure and a great adventure, and without it I would be a lost soul.”

It is with some similar blend of inspiration and confusion that many of us have examined the statistical tables and goals in the Report.

Table 41 represents the belief preferences of the sampled members of the U.U.A. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the theological hopes are divided as follows:

6.4% prefer that ten years from now we will be closer to liberal Protestantism.
4.8% prefer that ten years from now we will be closer to the ecumenical Christian movement.
36.7 % prefer that ten years from now we will be closer to an emerging, universal religion.
52.0% prefer that ten years from now we will be closer to a distinctive, humanistic religion.

Do these classifications have substantial differences? It would seem that the approximate 11% who would prefer we be closer to the liberal Protestants and the ecumenical Christian movement would look favorably on the spirit of Christian myth, belief, and practice, rather than on the rigidities of Christian dogma. But only a fraction more than one in ten prefer this trend. My guess is that this is an accurate prediction.

A surprisingly large total, almost 89%, nearly 9 in 10, prefer that we become closer to an emerging, universal religion or closer to a distinctive, humanistic religion.

Before dealing with the question of whether beliefs are trivial or vital, and the possibility of emerging universal religion, just a few lines of definition to review and emphasize some of the authentic differences in meaning that are represented by such words as atheist, agnostic, deist, theist, humanist.

An atheist usually denies the existence of any god or gods.

An agnostic holds that it is not possible to acquire knowledge of whether or not god exists. As originally coined by Thomas Huxley, agnostic indicated a suspension of judgment about ultimate issues.

A Deist believes that there is a God who created the Universe, but remains entirely apart from it. Such a God is not the source of goodness; not a moral being; and has no communication with human persons.

A Theist usually believes that God is a personal Being, both above and within the Universe and who does have relations with persons.

A Humanist is even more difficult to define briefly. Essentially, he may be deist, agnostic, or atheist as far as the idea of God is concerned, but holds that the proper focus of religion should be entirely fixed at the human life on earth; life here and now; “the proper study of mankind is man.” In another sense, the Humanist may believe that the only source of human knowledge is from human perceptions, not supernatural, natural only, individual and collective; that beliefs in Gods (like all other beliefs) are the product of human cultures, social and personal; that any religious belief is therefore always relative, never absolute.

I am aware too that many of you will not fit into any of these categories; that inevitably many of you would offer some variety of “yes, but” qualification to every definition.

There was a time when the issue of Humanism vs. Theism raged hotly in Unitarian Universalist societies. That there could or should be a vital religion without God was controversial, as some of you may remember. Some partisans were willing to erect some sort of creedal barrier in order to keep Humanists out. Some Humanists were equally outraged that there were Unitarians and Universalists who could hold such an antiquated and outdated belief as that there was a God who existed. Perhaps some of you remember the story, current a few years back, of the denominational executive who received a delegation from a convinced Humanist congregation who had fears that their theistic minister was trying to evangelize them. As one version of the story goes, the head of the delegation, a retired schoolteacher insisted quaveringly, “But Dr. X in his prayers has got to the place where he actually asks the Lord to bless us, and we can’t stand it.”

Now it seems somewhat strange that liberal fevers should have raged so hotly. Now there is cheerful acceptance of differences of theological belief. We have recognized that different meanings can be attached to the same words; and different words may have essentially the same meaning. I guess the closest current parallel would be to ask some of you to compare the depth of your feelings about the church taking social action stands and positions as a society. That today probably has much the same high emotional fever as the humanist-theist controversy ten to 20 years ago.

As the table indicates, the trend is toward a blend of Humanist attitudes and a search for creative consolidation of the enduring insights of all religions, Western and Eastern.

Should we then assume that differences in belief are of little or no account in the deliberations, attitudes, and programs of a Unitarian Universalist religious society in the 1960s? As a matter of record, not only in our societies but also in the main streams of Protestant orthodoxy and to a lesser extent in Roman Catholicism, heresy seems to have become “old hat.” This is the headline of a recent article (NYT 1/67) pointing out that even for much of orthodox Christianity, “all theological formulas are approximate” and that “theological freedom is an element of risk that must be tolerated.” Alan Watts wrote that “the standard brand religions, whether Jewish, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist are as now practiced, exhausted mines.” (THE BOOK, p. 4)

It seems no longer news that “god is dead.” Last year’s extensive coverage of this obituary, startling to many persons, has dwindled to an occasional item or article. Are such signs among the larger denominations signals to Unitarian Universalists that all theology is either imponderable or irrelevant? Should we ignore beliefs and get down to what is real – individual and collective action to set right the things which are so obviously wrong in our city, nation, world?

If so, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Unitarian Universalists, Jews, Moslems and you name it should no longer make a big deal out of their distinctions in theology, group worship, and differing organizational structures and programs. Forget traditions and beliefs; remember issues and actions! Is that the “word” for today? And is it good advice?

But however one may react to the “death of God,” whether as a somewhat exaggerated obituary or not, there is little doubt in my mind that a theology or philosophy of one’s own is necessary to a more fully-developed self and more effective living with others in the social orders of family, communities, world. I’m not referring to murky, theological generalizations redolent with the dust of obscurity and the foggy incense of dogmatic abstractions. I’m asserting the need to attach a “why,” “how,” and “where” to life – of coming to grips with the nature and destiny of this being we call the self; of arriving at some tentative conclusions about the character of and reason for this universe, our home.

The need for belief is not because the conduct of life is of lesser importance or that convictions about and actions on social issues are of minor value. Quite the contrary. We need beliefs about persons and destinies because the more we have confronted the options and chosen to believe in certain ways, the more assured and effective will be our actions.

A formidable reality seems to occur when dealing with issues that bristle with controversy. When the process of seeking social change begins, usually the approach is moderate, but the resistance of many counter-social forces causes transformation to more radical positions. For example, in the troubled cities, fundamental changes, not gradual, are called for and there is a new militant stance in the Civil Rights movement. This is a change that is now at hand. If you do not feel this sea-change in attitudes, I hope you will be here next Sunday morning when Roger Gutrie, Roger Hall, and I attempt to communicate some of the content and feeling of this change as reflected in the recent U.U.A. Emory Conference on Civil Rights.

Action and demands are going to test beliefs, perhaps as they’ve never been tested in our lives. Therefore it would be well to have belief.

We become our beliefs. William Jovanovich, a publisher, makes the interesting point that “man becomes the servo-mechanism of what he himself creates.” (American Scholar, Winter 66/67). For example, the ancient tribes of Israel formed a covenant community and bonded the covenant with the Torah, the written Law. Soon they became known as the People of the Book. The name has persisted for thousands of years. They created the Book because they believed in the Covenant, and [in so doing] became the People of the Book. This illustrates the fundamental power of belief.

Issues and troubles are testing beliefs as never before. If one has no beliefs to be tested, then he is like unto the leaf fallen from the tree, blown hither and yon by every breeze of changing circumstance. If, however, he is like unto the live leaf attached to the tree, the source of life and strength, then he is more likely to hold on even when the winds of force rise.

Achieving one’s basic, undergirding belief is not easy. Change and social pressure, along with the fantastic growth of knowledge, can easily confuse us. The temptation is great to shirk the task of achieving convictions which can be both rationally held and felt deeply. Inertia in a thing-centered civilization creates easily a state of comfortable paralysis of the will. To be a person fired by emotion, who has wrought out conviction on the anvil of experience with the hammer of thought, is to have labored continuously and arduously. Yet that labor will bring reward, not in what we have, but in what we do, and more vitally still, in what we are.

George MacLeod, found of the re-established Iona Community, said, “pray for more light, but follow the light you see.” (WE SHALL REBUILD)

For one, I believe I am beginning to see glimmers of light which illuminate belief, increase my understanding and effective action. The trend toward universalism and Humanism will continue to grow in importance as our way of understanding ourselves and others.

I think the time is past when we will grow strongly on the basis of what we don’t believe about God, Man, Trinity, Salvation. The beliefs that appeal now are positive – what we do believe, what we intend to do. How seriously do we take the difference between real and ideal. Can Unitarian Universalists act – and in what ways?

Recognizing that our perceptions of experience are the ways of our human learning, and accepting the obvious social reality that different cultures have produced different ways of believing, we will increasingly seek out the best insights of Buddhism, Hinduism, and ancient Chinese religion as enriching streams flowing into the pool of better religious insights. Furthermore, as we eventually overcome our over-emphasis of abstract thought, “rational” so-called, we will take unto ourselves some of the enriching, aesthetic expressions – color, movement, sound, touch – of those religions we have erroneously called “primitive.” This search for enriching values which have universal application will not be indiscriminate. We will discard as well as incorporate. But when we search with openness, we will find that which should be retained and valued. Alfred North Whitehead wrote, “The decay of Christianity and Buddhism as determinative influences in modern thought is partly due to the fact that each religion has unduly sheltered itself from the other.” This is an observation not limited to Christianity and Buddhism, but plies across the spectrum of religions.

In the closing minutes of this sermon, let me attempt to state my present convictions about my hope for the future of belief among Unitarians and Universalists. Given our individual freedom of belief – no other option is possible for us – my hope is that the trend toward universalism and humanism must recognize and attempt to bridge the imagination gap in self and society. I have no doubt that rationality will continued to be valued among us; it is now more important that we permit the imagination to form images of higher, more effective religious attitudes.

Many persons today live in fractured segments. They participate in an occupational culture with its rules and attitudes; they perform volunteer assignments in innumerable organizations which may provide an atmosphere in some contradiction to the work culture; political parties represent an additional fragmentation for many, not to speak of the expressed attitudes of religious organizations and leaders taking stances which may be anathema to some persons who are looked to for support of these religious organizations and spokesmen. Then there are other differing worlds – the home, the club, the leisure world, and the most underestimated of all, the expressive arts which we create or to which we respond.

The conflicts we feel between these differing worlds rip the stability of many persons because there is no stable center to which all can relate and be harmonized. This estrangement can be called “alienation” or “identity crisis.” The feeling is widespread.

The only available bridge to link these differing worlds is the ability of the self to respond with imagination. The person, the self, the individual is a unique being, unrepeatable. Our inner self, this constellation of traits kept in orbit by that deeply buried core cannot be Xeroxed or mimeographed.

This conflict caused by fragmentation of interests and commitments is not a new problem for the human family. The ancient ones solved it by having various gods for the various divisions of life – a god of harvest and fertility, a god of love, a god of travel, a god of justice, and so on. As societies achieved cultural cohesion, occasionally some God was the connecting bridge, as was Yahveh of ancient Israel.

But life becomes increasingly more complex. The god or gods of others will not do for each of us. It is ourselves which must provide the co-ordinating center, or the bridge.

Thus, as I have said on other occasions, while I believe we live in a universe of enormous force, which created us, the underlying power will not intervene from the outside to build the imagination gap for us or solve our problems. We must understand and cultivate the inner self in order to interact with others in the confrontation of difficult problems. The light I begin to see begins to make clearer that the inner self has magnetic power which can gather more closely the fragmented segments of our lives. I believe that the future will disclose this in our experience if we are alert to it and do not dismiss ourselves as accidental aggregates of wishes meeting environmental forces.

Some of the best thinking on the need to bridge the imagination gap was done by the late Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit scientist, whose books, THE FUTURE OF MAN, THE PHENOMENON OF MAN, and THE VISION OF THE PAST have created much interest and discussion.

His thought is stimulating and controversial. Because it is worth some emphasis, a two-sermon series is in preparation, not only because there are those of you who have raised questions about de Chardin’s philosophy, but also to help my own growth. Just a sample may indicate why I believe he spoke to the Imagination Gap (CJW then quotes from THE PHENOMENON OF MAN, p. 261)

In summary, the future of belief for Unitarians is humanistic with a response to and gathering of insights and wisdom from all times and places. We will recognize that no one ever had all the truth, but that most enduring religious cultures had a grasp on some portion of truth about the human condition, internal, environmental, or both.

In my view, we will seek to develop our inner imaginative self to bridge more successfully and creatively the conflicts in society. Answers to problems will not wait until everyone achieves this imaginative self-stabilized grasp of experience. War, conflict in our cities, old wrongs of segregation and discrimination cannot tolerate much more delay. This reality we should not forget. We must act as wisely, promptly, and effectively as humanly possible.

But if religious belief has a future, then its energy is that of the self, dealing creatively with its physical and social environment to the end that one can love his neighbor and himself, not in words alone but in interpersonal relations, social ethics, aesthetic creativity and receptivity, and a common, unending search for that which is good and enduring.