Five Steps to Your Story of Now

On the first Sunday in January, our minister at the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (ERUUF) gave a sermon related to the month's theme: The Practice of Story. He made the case that before one makes a resolution in the New Year, it is prudent to take a measure of where you are now. He presented this self-reflection in a very simple way: the way of five. I have used this for my own reflection as I contemplated what direction I should take this year, and I offer it to you.

Rev. Daniel explains how story helps us make sense of life, to understand it. Our own story may help us learn what we're "awake" to (or not) and what we want.   Early in the year is a good time to tell our own  "Story of Now" - how we got to this moment, what gifts we've gathered, what did we learn, and now, what is wanting to be created.

Template for Reflection

FIVE: Reflect on five key moments in your life - crossroads, enlightenment, new directions, reflection on the path not taken.

FOUR: Four Beliefs under which you operate. These are ways in which you view the world. How do you approach life? Core values. In what do you put your faith?

THREE: Three people who have most impacted your life. Why and how did they make a difference?

TWO: Two intentions for the new year. What is a gift you have that you would like to share more fully? What quality of love would you like to add to the world? Hint: Love can be manifested in many ways... listening, giving, volunteering, donating, hugging, stop doing. How can you make your part of this world a better place?

ONE: One action step you will take this week to put your intentions into practice. Every week, rinse and repeat.

I encourage you to listen to the sermon so you can pick up any nuances that speak to you. Below is the link to the full sermon on YouTube. I've bookmarked the recording so it starts at the beginning of Rev. Daniel's sermon, instead of the beginning of the service, but if you want to watch the entire service, please do.

CLICK NOW!

  STORY OF NOW SERMON.

In the comments, let us know if you thought this exercise

 was valuable for you and why.

Blessings on your day!

Go Be a Christian?

My thanks to UUnderstand, whose recent comment led to a lot of thought and this post. The question UU Christians often face is: "Why not go down the street to the ________ (fill in any Christian denomination) church? Wouldn't you be happier there?"

It's a question that we get from UUs, and it's a question we often pose to ourselves.

The first answer is--sometimes we do go down the street. In my own Christian fellowship, over time members have discovered, or rediscovered, Christianity and either have left the UU congregation for a Christian one or are exploring the Christian experience in other churches as part of their search. For years, I attended two churches--Episcopalian and UU. This is actually a fairly common practice and a good fit for progressive Christians.

When my Christian Fellowship began to take "field trips" to local Christian churches, someone asked, "What do you expect to do? Leave the UU Church?" And we decided our answer was ,"No." Because we have the second set of answers to why we don't go down the street.

• Theology. Even in more liberal Christian denominations, some tenets remain stable. Jesus is divine; Jesus died for our sins; salvation may not be universal; our reward is in Heaven. These tenets may not be overt, but discussions in the church will revolve around the religion about Jesus vs. the religion that Jesus taught. For many of us, who follow the religion Jesus taught, this conversation is not where we are in our journey.


• Orientation. This is probably more compelling, not just for Christians, but also for Buddhists, Jews, and others coming into UUism from another denomination or religion. The UCC would probably argue with some vigor at the comment that the UCC has "Christianity added". The point of Christian churches is to put Christ in the center. The point of the UU churches is to put a covenant of Principles in the center. We are UUs; we are drawn to the covenantal approach of living together.


• Religious Pluralism. Again, we UU Christians are UUs. We affirm and promote spiritual seeking and we cherish the faith diversity in UU congregations.

For illustration. A Methodist seminarian intern working at the UUA and joining the UUCF Revival last year commented that he couldn't imagine a service in which the Bible was not read. For us UU Christians, we could imagine it, we experience it, and we revel in it.

As UU Christians, we get a kick out of the spiritual conversations we have with our fellow UUs who see the One Light through a different window. We like being challenged by the UU principles and diverse spiritual paths as well as by other progressive Christians. I think we're a bit greedy--we want to have our cake, eat it, and then lick the frosting from the plate.

Some of us may choose to "go down the street", but many of us will stay right in our UU congregations, while continuing to broaden our experiences and feed our inner spirits, using every tool available to us.

May all our spiritual journeys be diverse, rich and fulfilling. Blessings!

Finding the Right Service

One year ago, I wrote about the Sunday Service and how important the service is to UU Christians who are a faith minority in the UU Church. The topic has come up again in our Christian Fellowship group. For almost 2 years we have been experimenting and creating a small group service that fills our spiritual needs. Our discussions have illuminated that our group feels a need to have the following items in our service--items that are not regularly included in the Sunday UU congregational service:

• Communion with both bread and wine/juice;
• Traditional prayers;
• Bible reading with discussion, insights from Christian ministers, or silent reflection; and
• Hymns which use the original Christian lyrics and/or music from contemporary Christian artists.

None of us is a professional minister and we're a small group, so even with a service in place, we still feel the need to connect with a larger Christian body. We've done a bit of digging and found several churches in our area who have self-identified as Progressive Christian churches (no easy task in North Carolina), and have begun a series of "field trips" to visit these churches. We hope to bring back ideas for our own small group, explore more of what each of us as a progressive Christian needs, and perhaps establish a partnership with one of the churches we visit.

I recently had an opportunity to visit the Episcopal Church which I attended for many years in Michigan, and knew for certain that what I miss most about the Christian Sunday service is the Bible reading and the sermon on the Word, usually with a hefty dose of encouragement to get out and LIVE the Word.

I love my UU congregation and the Sunday Service is spiritually and mentally invigorating. But I know I still need fellow Christians. I'll continue to seek out opportunties that I can add to my personal routine that will keep me connected to my Christian roots within the UU framework.

As I said a year ago, if your church service is not providing your connection to the Thin Places where God is found--or provides it only rarely--keep looking. Perhaps a visit to a Christian church once a month will help. Getting together with other Christians for Bible reading and discussion may be what you need. Be creative. Be imaginative.

God will show you what you need.

Blessings!

Worship Is The Word

From Webster's New World Compact School and Office Dictionary, 1982:

worship n. 1. a service or rite showing reverence for a deity 2. intense love or adoration.

From "The American Heritage Dictionary", 3rd ed.:

worship n. 1a. The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity, an idol or a sacred object. b. The ceremonies, prayers or other religious forms by which this love is expressed. 2. Ardent devotion; adoration.

Reverence. Love. Devotion. Adoration. Worship.

Many Unitarian Universalists shy away from the word. Some feel there's nothing to worship. Others feel that the word is too...irrational, holy-roller, emotional. But UU Christians? Ah-h-h. We are more likely to use the word, act the word, at Sunday service and in our daily lives. It is the element of the UU Sunday service that we often say we miss, that we crave. I'm a strong proponent of ritual for its value in preparing us to enter a spiritual space of worship. A friend reminded me that, in general, Christian services with their visual drama, music and repeated prayers and actions provide a chance for us to encounter what Celtic language calls "thin places" where we can encounter God and can experience God's power, greatness, awesomeness. And worship with people similarly moved by the Spirit.

Some UU Christians are not Deists, do not believe in God, but they follow Jesus--Jeshua, the man, the rabbi, the moral teacher--and have an experience of his presence in their lives. I don't know how the word worship fits into their vocabulary, but I intend to ask at the UUCF Revival in October.

That's what we do as UU's--embrace the infinite colors of belief to come a little closer to the Truth. That's what we do as Christians--come together to learn how others experience the Divine, the Spirit of Life, Jesus.

I'm looking out my window at the summer sunlight filtering through the woods behind my house, the leaf green here, deep and vibrant, there, cut with patches of bright yellow green. An occasional breeze shifts the patterns. A beautiful morning full of promise, full of God's life.

A time for worship, indeed.

Thin Places and the UU Service

I've been reading Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity (see especially Chapter 8), and he suggests that "open hearts" and "thin places" are central to being Christian. You can tell that your heart is open (as opposed to closed) when you "see" the world clearly, notice what's right in front of you; when you are aware of the awe, mystery and wonder that is life; when you have a grateful, physical response, a gut reaction to the blessings life presents you; when you are filled with compassion for the suffering of others and feel an ethical impulse to do something about that suffering and the system that created it; when you are aware of God, the Mystery, the Other, the Spirit. Borg says that an open heart is "in the world" completely, mindful of life, and unbound.

The Spirit of God opens our hearts through thin places.

The mind set that acknowledges "thin places" sees God as Paul does in the book of Acts: God is "the one in whom we live and move and have our being." God is everywhere, right here, more than right here. Borg quotes Thomas Merton:

Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time.

And occassionally, perhaps often if we "tune in", we experience God shining through.

Borg goes on to say that although one of the purposes of the Christian service is to worship God, another, equally important purpose is to create a sense of the sacred, a thin place. And this is where, in my experience, our Unitarian Universalist services are sometimes lacking. Personally I know with deep certainty that if the Sunday service I attend does not create that thin place on a regular basis, I will not be attending for very long. I attended one UU church for 6 months. The sermons were thought-provoking, the hymns thematically relevant, the setting serene. But in 6months, the only service that created a thin place, that gave me a spiritual hug, that opened my heart to the sacred, was Choir Sunday. I continued to attend the UU Sunday service occassionally, and participated in the life of the UU congregation, but I became a regular Sunday attendee at a nearby Episcopal church. And I was not the only one. Other members of that UU church, many who did not identify as Christians, sought out other services at other churches. This longing for experiencing the Other, the More, is not the exclusive property of Christians.

Borg spends several pages describing the elements that can be considered when planning services that will help to create a sense of the sacred. The hymns chosen, the music performed, silence, the words used in the sermon, the rituals, the physical space--all of these can be used to encourage the deepest recesses of ourselves to open and touch the More, sense the Divine.

Does the Sunday service you now attend create a thin place? Can you, right now, remember the last service in which your heart opened and you sensed the sacred? How long ago was that? Too long? Just enough?

If your service is not creating a thin place for you often enough to nourish you, I guarantee that lack will drain some of your energy and optimism in life. Read Borg's book to get a better sense of what might be missing. Talk with your minister, worship committee, music director, whoever plans the services. Get on the worship committee yourself. In this one life we have, our hearts deserve as many opportunities as possible to be opened, to experience God. Sunday service is the best place to start.

May it be so. Amen.