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!

Praying on the Beads

I was looking at the thoughts I posted last October when I felt down and sluggish. At that time and since, I've tried several ways to maintain a regular spiritual discipline. I do know that as ministers suggest, when you intentionally seek to experience God's presence, over time you "bank" the habit, the feeling, the practices that get you to the Thin Place. When life throws rocks, you can use what you "banked" to find your Thin Place again.

Since I was a very young Catholic, one of the practices that most helped to bring me close to God was reciting the Rosary. Nothing quite like repetitive prayer, aloud or silent, with smooth beads flowing through your fingers. The Rosary went everywhere with me. I could say it while I was walking to college classes, falling asleep in bed, sitting in the woods. As my spiritual journey took me away from the Marian Rosary and its emphasis on Mary and many of the "Jesus Miracles", I tucked my beads away in a small carved box. Several years ago, as an active member of an Episcopal Church, I learned of the Anglican (St. Francis) Rosary.

Like the Marian Rosary, the Anglican Rosary holds deep symbolism in its very structure, but unlike the Marian Rosary, the Anglican Rosary has no one set of prayers associated with it. The basic approach is to pray an opening prayer of faith on the cross and another prayer to settle into the Spirit on the Invitatory. Choose one prayer to repeat at the Cruciform beads and one prayer (or seven phrases) to say at each Week bead. Recently, my busy life and monkey mind have drawn me back to the Anglican Rosary for contemplative meditation. I'm using the following prayer sequence based on the Psalms:

CROSS: I believe in God as eternal and all-conquering love, in the spiritual leadership of Jesus, in the supreme worth of every human personality, in the authority of truth, known or to be known, and in the power of persons of goodwill and sacrificial spirit to overcome all evil and progressively establish the kingdom of God. Amen.

INVITATORY: Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and we shall be re-created and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

CRUCIFORM BEADS: The Lord's Prayer

WEEK BEADS:
1 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
2 Cast me not from your sacred presence, but keep me in the ways of your wisdom and truth.
3 Restore in me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me in the steadfast faith of Jesus.
4 Have mercy on me, O God, in my shortcomings; comfort me in the arms of your everlasting loving-kindness.
5 Open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
6 God of the poets, God of the Prophets, God of the poor and the rich, God of Creation and of Change,
7 Make my hands just. Make my feet firm. Make my body a temple fit for your service. Grant us all your peace that passes human understanding. Amen.

LEAVING:

Glory be to God, Mother and Father, Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. Amen.

FINAL CROSS:
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Thank the Lord, for all good things around us are sent from Heaven above. Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say, Rejoice! Amen.

There are many suggestions for Rosary prayers out on the Web as well as several on-line site where you can purchase an Anglican Rosary. Create your own prayers. Create your own beads. If this practice helps you to focus, go for it. It certainly has done wonders for me and my monkey mind.

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.

Jesus, Laughing

In two weeks, our Consulting Minister is leaving for a new ministry in Cape Cod. Today, she delivered her last sermon to our congregation. Among other words of wisdom and humor, she encouraged us as a congregation to play more, to laugh together. In essense, she said that, of course, our groups and teams--all poised for social action, spiritual exploration, or ministry--are wonderful and needed. But groups of people who work together, live together and love together also need to laugh together.

Immediately I thought of the DeColores Christian renewal weekend I attended 10 years ago. The leader of the weekend had picked the portrait of Jesus Laughing as the weekend's guiding image and theme. There were women at the weekend who balked at the image. To them Jesus was laughing AT them--for their faults, for their failures, for who they were. During the weekend, we supported each other to see the image as the leader intended--as Jesus laughing WITH us. In joy for our presence. In happiness for who we are and the potential of whom we can become.

I remember reading somewhere in the works about the historical Jesus, that the Bible has hints that Jesus liked a good party. He was always having a meal with friends, new and old, visiting, talking, and--I have no doubt--laughing. You do not weep at the news of a friend's death, as Jesus did for Lazarus, unless you have shared tears AND laughter with that person.

In our world, I'm sure you'll agree, we need more laughter among us, among groups, among nations.

I know some of you are facing troubles. I know some of you are celebrating joys. In troubles, find a way to laugh through the tears, not to minimize the sorrow, but to remind yourself of the sweet in life. Laugh with life's joys in full appreciation of the blessings you've been given.

Laughter strenghtens relationships. Laughter relieves stress. Laughter heals.

Today, laugh a little with Jesus. He'd have enjoyed that.