To Be Born Again

The course Remember Universalism into Life by Raymond Nasemann and Elizabeth Strong raises an essential, enduring question: “Can you be a member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation and not be a Unitarian Universalist, and not know it?” Most of the people participating in the discussion when I led this course responded, “No.” For me, the answer was and is, “Yes.” Is signing the membership book and entering into a covenant with the congregation sufficient to become a Unitarian Universalist? Is something more required? This raises the issue of conversion.

A “religious problem” that led to the Great Awakening of 1740-43 was an inadequate number of religious conversions. During that period the revival meeting became a means of re-creating a sense of the power and immediacy of the Holy Spirit: An emotional, ecstatic experience produced a conversion and testified to the presence of divine power. Our forbear, Charles Chauncey, thought that the revivalists corrupted religion. He, like the Unitarians to follow, believed in a gradual process of conversion which involved understanding and judgment and will, as well as an emotional and spiritual component.

Ironically, a contemporary religious problem for Unitarian Universalism is the absence of conversion, gradual or otherwise. This is not a new problem as various essays by James Luther Adams attest. In his Berry Street Lecture in 1941, he spoke of the necessity of conversion because religious liberals were “largely an uncommitted and therefore a self-frustrating people.” To solve this lack of an ultimate commitment, he believed, “We need conversion within ourselves. Only by some such revolution can we be seized by a prophetic power.... Only by some such conversion can we be possessed by a love that will not let us go. And when that has taken place, we will know that it is not our wills alone that have acted....”

Conversion in our tradition (correctly understood as a gradual and continuing process) historically involved entering into a covenant. The vertical dimension of this covenant connected the individual to a transcending, ultimate reality, commitment or value. Given our theological diversity, the terminus of the vertical dimension has included God, Goddess, nature, the good, ultimate concern, reverence for life, life force, philosophic truth, and humanity. The horizontal dimension of covenant encompassed the gathered congregation (and defined a relationship with the larger society). These two axes play different roles in the transformation that occurs when a person moves in a new direction spiritually. The vertical terminus may change, or a previously absent (or latent) vertical dimension may emerge. This dimension involves “turning to” that which is transcendent, while the horizontal dimension involves “turning with” the members of the congregation. Conversion may require moving further in a specific direction or a change in a new direction, a change in heart, mind, and soul. Conversion is the process by which one’s identity, will, and action become increasingly informed by the obligations of covenantal relationships and religious depth.

The process of conversion weakens when it becomes more implicit than explicit, or as Tillich would say, more latent than manifest. The absence of an explicit process of conversion in Unitarian Universalism is particularly problematic because we are comprised largely of “come-outers,” people in search of religious commitments more authentic and reliable than the ones with which they were raised. Our initial appeal to the come-outer is our commitment to freedom of belief. This is often translated into an invitation to “come as you are,” with more emphasis on “freedom-from” than on “freedom-for.” But seldom do people join a congregation because they are fully content with “who they are” or with the direction in which they have been traveling. To be a seeker is to be discontent. Conversion is the path of continuing deepening. It is not a result of coercion, but of generous invitation. It is not the imposition of belief, but the challenge and support to build one’s own theology.

Transformation

We end up living on the surface of life pursuing this trinket and that bauble. We forget to go deeper and may end up eventually saying—with so many needs unfulfilled—“Is this all there is?”

Our religious communities exist to meet deep needs involving meaning and significance, care and connection, compassion and justice, forgiveness and courage, and love and longing.

This brings me to two questions: First, what need(s) brought you to church? This is not an easy question to answer, especially if we wonder whether or not the needs in the deepest part of our selves can ever be met. Second, what do you need of your church? To be sure, you want certain things in a church if you are to participate in it and support it. But articulating our needs of the church is to encourage us to collectively look, not so much at the breadth of our programming, but at its depth. It is important to remember what brought us to church so that we stay focused on meeting those needs. As May Sarton wrote in her poem Gestalt at Sixty, “Lovers and friends,/I come to you starved/For all you have to give,/Nourished by the food of solitude,/A good instrument for all you have to tell me,/For all I have to tell you./We talk of first and last things,/Listen to music together,/Climb the long hill to the cemetery/In autumn,/Take another road in spring/Toward new lambs./No one comes to this house/Who is not changed./I meet no one here who does not change me.”

Our congregations have as their work transforming lives. They need to become centers of transformation. To be sure, this involves personal growth, but the religious community also has the task of transforming the world.

Robert Grudin has written, “What we understand best, we understand by renewal—by looking at the same thing again and again in different ways, looking at it internally and externally, walking around it, turning it in our hands, participating in it until some strange abstract spirit of its being rises from the complexity of effort and detail. And what we have best, we have by renewal—by chronic challenges never refused, by danger of loss, by repeated cherishings, and by love remembered.” His words remind me of what it means to participate in religious community over time. The community becomes more meaningful as experience after experience become part of a treasure of connection and memory. And, in the end, we are transformed.

Caterpillar Dreams

Eric Carle tells his story of The Hungry Caterpillar like a magician. We are so captivated by all the hungry little caterpillar is eating, that we think that this is what the story is about. It is not until the last page, that we realize that it is a story about transformation. We attend to the outward action, unable to imagine, just like the caterpillar, that our destiny, if we pay sufficient attention, may be the winged life. And this is the larger reality; it is not a story just about caterpillar transformation, but about the possibility of our own transformation.

Like the hungry little caterpillar, Eve ate the apple and nothing has ever been the same since. She gave birth to human possibility. So, what is it that you hunger for? How will you feed that hunger? And by feeding it, how will you be transformed? Be careful. These are provocative and essential questions, and we get the answers wrong most of the time. We feed the wrong thing in the wrong way, and become addicted to things that betray our humanity. We spend too much time feeding the body and not enough time feeding the soul, forgetting that if we truly feed our souls, how we treat our bodies would profoundly change, as would the way that we live our lives.

It is just a simple children’s story, yet we would be wise to ponder its deeper meanings and higher aspirations. The caterpillar, from the moment it hatches, is on an incredible journey that it cannot imagine and the same can be true for us, or not. The journey is simply this: from no-life to caterpillar-life to cocoon-death to butterfly-transformation.

Once we read The Hungry Caterpillar for the first time, every other reading has us transfixed by butterfly transformation. It is, after all, quite a miracle: incredible beauty and the ability to fly. But ask yourself this, “Which is more miraculous, leaving the cocoon to fly or leaving the egg to enter the world as a caterpillar?” Choose life, and then choose transformation.

As you think about your own life, ask yourself again and again: “In this moment, am I a caterpillar or a butterfly?” And expect that the answer will keep changing. If we compare our life span to that of a caterpillar, we literally have hundreds of lifetimes, with the possibility of being transformed again and again. Transformed into what, you may ask? And there is the mystery. No one knows. A caterpillar looking at a butterfly is oblivious to the fact that the butterfly is the caterpillar’s mirror. Ask yourself in any cycle of time, perhaps a month or a year, is this caterpillar time, cocoon time, or butterfly time?

Now, I have already made the case for the miracle of emerging from a cocoon to become a butterfly, the transformation from being earthbound to flying, as well as the birth from an egg to become a caterpillar, the transformation from no-life to life. Neither of these, per se, requires much of us. They are outcomes of processes that we cannot control. The leap of faith, the act of courage, is to accept the fact that our caterpillar life is ultimately not adequate to our dreams, and to begin spinning the silk thread, building the cocoon, and undertaking the hard work of transformation, which is usually hidden from everyone else’s eyes. Most of the time, we refuse the cocoon life, unwilling to die to our present self in order to be born again, unwilling to rely on faith and patience as tools of transformation.

In addition to the fear that prevents us from creating and entering the cocoon, there is the fear of leaving the cocoon. There is what I would call the existential caterpillar decision: Will we choose to “soar immortal, outlasting the sun and moon, or lie forever unwakened in our blind cocoon?” I hope that we do not remain captive to our fear, afraid of change, but choose to become, as one of our hymns has it, “architects of our faith.” As we learn to negotiate the caterpillar transitions of our lives, we will learn to soar higher and higher in our butterfly aspirations.

The Necessity of Covenant

Covenant is essential to Unitarian Universalist congregations. It is created by the promises that we make with each other, with the world, and the divine. Alice Blair Wesley says we are “promising creatures.” I love that phrase and its double meaning. We are people of great promise and people who make promises. Jewish theologian Martin Buber reminds us that humans are “promise-making, promise-keeping, promise-breaking, promise-renewing.” Without promises it is hard to conceive that we could even imagine a future, let alone bring it into being. Through promises, we create a future, and by the keeping of those promises, we bring the future into the present. If we lived in a utopia with all needs satisfied, all social ills redeemed, and all injustices made right, there would be no need for promises. We do not. There are chasms that separate us from the world we would create. Promises are one of the tools that we use to build bridges to that world. But not all promises are kept, or can be kept. A French writer, Francois duc de la Rochefoucauld, said that, “We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.” Better to perform according to our loves.

Individualism in Unitarian Universalism is either our original sin or our idol, a false God. Without covenant, the needs of the individual will always trump the needs of the religious community. We have mastered individualism, but not individualism in community. Covenant teaches us, as we practice it week-in and week-out, how to be an individual in community. It invites us to surrender some of our individual needs to the greater good of the congregation. Covenant calls us to be in right relationship with each other, and when those relationships become frayed, as they inevitably will, to repair the relationship.

Living in covenant is not easy for we must ask, “What does love require?” Our doctrine of love requires intention and skill, discipline and risk, trust and forgiveness, connection and care, listening and more listening, humility and the presumption of goodwill, compassion and sympathy, valuing diversity and practicing radical hospitality, honesty while speaking the truth in love, as well as the work of justice and spiritual maturity. It requires that we share our stories so we can enter into the depth of each other’s lives and see each other, not with the hard eyes of judgment, but with the soft eyes of respect.

Living in covenant is not easy, but it has the power to transform. We must be willing to practice seventy times seven, to fail seventy times seven, to forgive seventy times seven. Eventually, we will learn how to do it and as more and more of us live in covenant, we will be transformed and transforming.

A covenant is dynamic, inviting those who share in it to new possibilities by taking risks that seek to expand and deepen the beloved community. Preston Moore, a Unitarian Universalist minister, concludes that, “The measure of this openheartedness is the magnitude of the risks accepted, the surprises welcomed,” the successes achieved, and the failures endured. No one intends to fail or let another person down, but sometimes, despite our best efforts, that is precisely what happens. If the covenant cannot endure failure, then we must question its power as well as our commitment to it. Covenant rightly understood and rightly lived takes into account human imperfection and failing, as well as generosity of spirit and our capacity for goodness.

We are a covenantal religion, not creedal. Covenant is the center-point of our congregations, but for too long we ignored this reality. After the Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1961, we seemed to lose our way. Again and again there were programs designed to articulate a Unitarian Universalist identity. We grappled with the challenge of what we held in common since we were not gathered around shared belief. We forgot that the glue was covenant. We found ourselves gathering because we were like-minded. Our churches felt like a liberal oasis in an illiberal desert, a desert that we found antithetical to our deepest sensibilities. While we would have rebelled at being told what to believe, we found respite in this like-mindedness.

An aspect of this like-mindedness was a fierce individuality, which we struggled, often unsuccessfully, to balance with the idea and ideal of community. The weak force of community could not achieve equilibrium with the strong force of individuality, and many of our congregations failed to thrive.

Looking back it becomes clear that like-mindedness was never adequate to bind us together. Too often disagreements would emerge, polarities that could not be managed or resolved: theist versus humanist, rational versus spiritual, collective social action as a congregation versus social action by individuals outside of the church. Our congregations cannot thrive if we are only like-minded, for we will always find sources of disagreement. More is needed. Since love is the doctrine of our church, we must become like-hearted in order to flourish.

For Unitarian Universalism, covenant is the alpha and the omega.

Within Native American traditions, the drum is used in ceremonies because the rhythmic beat of the drum symbolizes the heartbeat of the tribe. Covenant is our drum.

The Torah within Judaism is sacred and portions of it are read each week in the Sabbath service. It illuminates the ancient covenant between the people of Israel and Yahweh. Covenant is our Torah.

Islam is built on five pillars which include surrender to Allah, daily prayers, charity, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Covenant is our pillar.

Buddhists pursue enlightenment by committing to the eightfold path, which includes right intent, right action, and right mindfulness. Covenant is our path.

In Taoism, the Tao is the experience of harmony and is often called the “way.” Covenant is our “way.”

Hinduism understands “atman” as being the divine spark within each individual, which is related to Brahman, the godhead. Covenant is atman.

Finally, Unitarian Minister A. Powell Davies said, “The purpose of life is to grow a soul.” The purpose of covenant is to grow the soul of a congregation.

Covenant is a promise to love, to care, to walk together, to work together, to do justice together, to pray together, to learn together, to grow together, to laugh and grieve together, to build the beloved community together.

Covenant Lost

While the concept of covenant goes back to the ancient Israelites, its relevance to Unitarian Universalist churches is rooted in two events. The first was the founding of Unitarianism in 16th century Transylvania when Francis David said, “We do not need to think alike, to love alike,” which recalled the words of Jesus and his call for a radical and transforming love as the basis for the kingdom of God. With those simple, but profound words, David said we will gather as religious communities based on love, not intellectual propositions; on covenant, not creed; on orthopraxy or right practice, not orthodoxy or right belief. The second event was the arrival of the Puritans in America in the 1630s, who organized their free churches around covenant, which we inherited.

The idea of covenant as the organizing principle for a church was and continues to be radical. Unfortunately, it was slowly lost by a series of circumstances as Alice Blair Wesley explains in her 2000-2001 Minns’ Lectures, entitled Our Covenant.

First, as the religious fervor of the Puritans, complete with ecstatic experiences, was not experienced by their children and grandchildren, the radical idea of covenant was replaced with the notion of a Half-way Covenant that did not require an ecstatic experience in order to make their descendants members of the church.

Second, as the idea of covenant got tangled up in New England with the notion of a divine contract, with some predicting the Second Coming of Christ, the idea of covenant began to disappear from liberal religious discourse.

Third, as the significance of what it meant to sign a covenant lost power and clarity over time and in practice, membership in a church became a matter of family connection and not a deliberate and free religious choice.

Fourth, the whole idea of conversion became controversial for liberals.

Fifth, young people no longer accepted the idea that they were of a low spiritual state because they had not experienced the religious hierarchy and persecution to which their parents or grandparents had been subjected to in Europe. The primacy of the need for salvation shifted along with their relationship to the liberal church.

Sixth, the liberal clergy who would become Unitarian ministers stopped forming new churches for some 40 years because they expected settlers to do it. This hiatus of church formation and growth of liberal churches caused the idea of covenant to be further marginalized.

Seventh, Unitarian ministers thought that our faith would grow as conservative churches became more liberal, such that they would embrace Unitarianism.

Eighth, the idea of progress that seized the liberal imagination led, suggests Alice Blair Wesley, lead to a “loss of urgency in the members’ sense of mission” as love itself came “to be taken as just natural, as needing no special communal focus or nurture.”

Ninth, the rise of the non-profit corporations in the early 1800s, in which many Unitarians became very involved, eliminated covenant as an organizing idea and ideal. As Wesley concludes, “Thus it came to be that, over time and with a curious inconsistency, when Unitarians turned their attention from governance of the local church to any good work beyond the walls of the local church, we took for granted the hierarchal structure of a nonprofit corporation, even for gathering new Unitarian churches!”

Tenth, in the 18th century, covenant became linked with “revivalism.” Thus, “19th century liberal churches kept the old, earliest covenants on their books—beautiful, simple promises to walk together in the ways of love, but the covenant was mostly not talked about, until the late 20th century.

We began talking about covenant again in the early to mid-1980s, but it has been a conversation among too few people. As Robert Latham noted in 1985, “We have forgotten that covenant is the keystone of our religious experience. This has resulted in diminishment of meaning in membership, confusion of identity, and distortion in gauging ministry effectiveness.”

Reclaiming covenant is a central task of Unitarian Universalist congregations if we are to be vibrant and powerful religious communities and agents of transformation.

From Covenant to Beloved Community

The problem in our churches is not the inevitable conflicts that emerge over time. The problem is that too many of us too easily forget our covenant and the obligations required if we are to be faithful. In a conflict, it would be far better for us to say to our opponents: “May all of your deepest desires be satisfied.” Such a wish would help remind us of their inherent worth and dignity and the other religious principles that inform our Unitarian Universalist faith.

Living in covenant takes compassion. It takes compassion to look at our own motives and behaviors in a conflict. How can it be that this person, with whom we have worshipped, broken bread, shared joys and sorrows, worked and played, has become the enemy? Objectively, it is beyond comprehension, but some understanding and clarity and reconciliation and forgiveness can emerge if we can look at our own anxiety, our own fear, and our own sense of powerlessness, and understand how we have contributed to the conflict.

Living in covenant takes courage. It takes courage to engage those involved in a conflict and ask or insist that they be accountable to the mutual obligations of our covenant. It takes courage to walk into the middle of a conflict determined to love and minister to all sides for the sake of the individuals involved, and the well-being and integrity of the beloved community. To be in covenant, suggests Tom Owen-Towle, means that we cannot remain spectators on the sidelines during a conflict, believing that we are answerable only for our own personal portion of congregational character.

Living in covenant also takes practice. M. Scott Peck suggests the beloved community emerges among “individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to ‘rejoice together, mourn together,’ and to ‘delight in each other, making others’ conditions their own.’ ”

Too often, pseudo-community, as Peck calls it, masquerades as true community. In pseudo-community, people avoid conflicts, minimize the diversity that exists within the group, and communicate superficially because they rightly lack the trust to express their beliefs and feelings. The Beloved Community is not an accidental creation. It is the result of hard work.

This Time, Fear Struck Out

Hatred is a commodity sold daily to desperate people who somehow believe that hate will justify their existence, that hate will heal the hole in their soul, that hate will provide emotional and spiritual compensation for the manifold ways in which they feel that they have been cheated by life. They believe that somehow their hate will affect those whom they hate, while having no affect on them. To paraphrase the Buddha: Holding on to hatred is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else as it burns your hand.

The other commodity that media personalities like Glen Beck, Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Lou Dobbs deal in is fear. In the end, those opposed to health care reform used fear as a bludgeon day-in and day-out to mobilize public opinion, which is why the display of moral courage yesterday by House Democrats was as rare as it was welcome.

On Saturday, March 20, 2010, President Obama met with House Democrats and said: “Every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made…. And this is the time to make true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.”

In his column today, Paul Krugman, who shared the above quote, called the vote oh healthcare “a victory for America’s soul.” He concluded, “In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck out.”