Reading: Responsive Reading #576: "A Litany of Restoration" by Marjorie Bowens Wheatley--in Singing the Living Tradition

If, recognizing the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community, the strength we gather will be our salvation. If you are black and I am white,
It will not matter.
If you are female and I am male,
It will not matter.
If you are older and I am younger,
It will not matter.
If you are progressive and I am conservative,
It will not matter.
If you are straight and I am gay,
It will not matter.
If you are Christian and I am Jewish,
It will not matter.
If we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened, and that does matter.
In this spirit, we build community and move toward restoration.

"If you are Christian and I am Jewish, it will not matter." If you are pagan and I am humanist, it will not matter. If you are Buddhist and I am atheist, it will not matter. If you are agnostic and I am a deist, it will not matter. What does matter is that our spirits are joined together in this Unitarian Universalist fellowship.

This place is impossible. How can a religious community with people holding such diverse beliefs exist--let alone thrive? Several visitors lately have commented on the profile of the Fellowship published last fall in the Post-Crescent. "I read about all of the different beliefs present in the Fellowship. I didn't believe it was true," they say. "How could such a thing work? It's impossible." Yes, it is impossible. But somehow, here we are! How do we do it? In a sermon I preached last fall, I shared my belief that the principle of freedom is what makes possible this impossibly diverse community.

In the past couple months, I have had further occasion to contemplate freedom and its role in making possible this Fellowship. This year I am one of thirty writers for a Unitarian Universalist ministers' monthly journal called the First Days Record. It's a simply produced journal: each of us contributors sends in two pages by the first of the month. Our contributions are photocopied, compiled and mailed. I'm kind of lucky because my name starts with a "B": I'm third out of the thirty--a good place to be since even with the best of intentions I don't always read all thirty contributions. I doubt I'm alone in this.

For my first contribution in January, I wrote about my belief that freedom is the center of Unitarian Universalism. When February's issue of the First Days Record arrived, I anxiously looked at the back of the journal, where reader responses to the previous issue are copied. There were four responses; three were responses to my piece on freedom. Two of the three were negative. Then I glanced through the table of contents and discovered that one of the thirty writers devoted his two pages to refuting my position. I guess I hit some kind of nerve!

The Rev. Dr. Daniel Simer O' Connell was the First Days Record contributor who responded to my piece. He rejected my assertion about freedom's centrality. "To make that claim," he wrote, "is to mistake the hammer one is holding for the house one is building." Freedom is an important tool, but nothing more. "Saying the organizing principle of Unitarian Universalism is freedom can be a convenient bypass to the hard, but necessary work, of saying what Unitarian Universalism is and what it is not," he wrote. Freedom is not the end, but part of the means to each of our choosing a faith. He wrote, "One must get beyond the freedom to choose, and CHOOSE! One must take a stand, one must exclaim what the common faith is: to be able to describe its substance, its character, its tenets, its values, its heart and soul. To say that the common faith is freedom, is wildly insufficient and denies the content which that freedom has previously found." He asserted that I might be guilty of acedia--a $5 theological word I had never heard of--meaning "spiritual torpor and apathy; ennui."[1]

I read and pondered the Rev. O' Connell's words on my flight to California a couple weeks ago. I knew that apathy and ennui and spiritual torpor are not the words I would use to describe this Fellowship. But how to answer? Earlier this week I wrote a response: my March contribution to the First Days Record. Believing this discussion gets at the heart of our Unitarian Universalist faith--at least as it is embodied in this particular Fellowship--I want to share some of my thoughts this morning. I find this metaphor of mistaking the hammer for the house to be especially rich and worthy of contemplation.

I stand by my belief that freedom is the center of our liberal faith. I accept the Rev. Dr. O' Connell's charge that I have mistaken the hammer for the house--only I do not consider it a mistake. I believe the hammer is the key to our liberal religion. Liberalism is fundamentally about process, not the end of our particular beliefs. Liberalism is an approach based on certain principles, like freedom of thought, expression and conscience, respect for opposing viewpoints, flexibility, and the recognition there are no absolute or final Truths (at least that we humans have access to). Liberalism is not a particular set of beliefs; it is a process. What binds us together as religious liberals is not the conclusion of a particular faith stance, but the process by which we search for meaning and truth. Liberalism is all about the hammer, not the house. It is the liberal approach, and the deep heritage of Unitarian Universalism--a religious tradition that has embodied this liberal approach for hundreds of years--that binds together the humanists, Buddhists, Christians, pagans, atheists, agnostics and deists (to name a few categories of belief) of this Fellowship into a UU community. The hammer is the key.

The hammer, though, is not enough. On this much, I agree with the Rev. O' Connell, though I doubt we agree on what comes next. I believe that what comes next is the individual search for meaning and truth. What comes next is the hard, essential task of using the hammer of our liberal religion to shape the distinctive houses of our individual beliefs and understandings. The UU who finds principal meaning and truth in Christianity will build a different house than the UU who finds principal meaning in humanism. Using the hammer of our liberal religion, we do not toil to build one house, but the many houses of our individual understandings. A UU congregation is a village of individual houses.

We help each other in the building of our individual houses by sharing the insights and challenges from our own understandings. Here in this Fellowship, hearing and contemplating Paul's traditional Christian understanding and Chester's pagan understanding and Len's humanist understanding and Jane's primarily Buddhist understanding helps me build the house that is my understanding. We nurture each other's individual searches for meaning and truth. This is the heart of our mission: to bring together religious liberals of the Fox River Valley, nurturing the individual's search for life's meaning.

So I agree with the Reverend Dr. O' Connell: Yes: "The ability to choose is not the final destination. One must go beyond the freedom to choose, and CHOOSE!" By all means, choose an understanding to embrace. Choose a house to build and use the hammer of our liberal religion to build it! Don't just sit around celebrating and contemplating the freedom to choose! That is not enough. That is the path to acedia. No, use the freedom to discover beliefs to which you can give your heart (even as you acknowledge you might be wrong). Use the freedom to come to your own understanding of the world.

And then, yes, by all means, exclaim and articulate your beliefs. Articulate your beliefs, in words certainly, but even more importantly in the way you live your life, in the way you help make the world a better, more just place. Just choosing a particular understanding is not enough, either. Use the freedom to act responsibly in the world. This is what this Fellowship is all about.
As I look out on you this morning, I have a beautiful image in my mind. This image comes from my favorite religious education curriculum for children: the Haunting House. Each time we do the Haunting House curriculum, the first and second graders gather at the Fellowship once during the year for a sleep-over. They each bring with them a large box--like a refrigerator box. The children spend the evening creating a home out of their boxes, cutting out doors and windows, decorating their individual homes to suit their taste, even hanging bird feeders on the outside of their home. In the course of the evening, a whole, beautiful village pops up as each individual home takes shape. An adult with a camera circulates through the village, taking a picture of each child standing proudly in front of her or his home. Nighttime arrives, and each child sleeps in his or her home.

As I look out this morning, I see not only each of you, but I see a village of homes like the Haunting House box-homes. Behind each of you is your individual home. Each home represents your individual beliefs and understandings. Each of you is different; each of your homes is different. Some are quite polished; others are barely begun. Some are aged: comfortable and worn looking; others are in the midst of renovation. A few are in the midst of a complete overhaul. All these homes have been built--are being built day after day, week after week--with the hammer of liberal religion: the hammer of freedom; the hammer that ties this whole beautiful, growing village together. And the whole village of diverse houses--like the kids' box-home village--is contained within the expansive walls of the Fellowship, contained within the expansive walls of Unitarian Universalism. The words of the Wendell Berry poem I used as the benediction to our building dedication service come to mind:

One faith is bondage. Two
are free. In the trust
of old love, cultivation shows
a dark graceful wilderness
at its heart. Wild
in that wilderness, we roam
the distances of our faith,
safe beyond the bounds
of what we know. O love,
open. Show me
my country. Take me home.[2]

Well, making our theological diversity work is the greatest challenge facing this congregation. And it's the most important challenge. In an age in which killing each other over religious differences shows little sign of abating; in an age in which people continue to struggle not just to tolerate but to accept what is other, a UU congregation like this--a village of diverse houses built with the hammer of liberal religion--can be a very powerful, living example of the unity in diversity that the world so desperately needs to understand. I believe that how we embody our cherished freedom in our Fellowship is a very significant part of our saving message for the world.

Oh, we're not doing this perfectly. But we're doing it! We are creating a powerful, beautiful village of diverse houses. And we are beginning to see echoes of the diversity we have achieved theologically in other areas: sexual orientation, politics, economic class, age, people with and without significant disabilities, race and ethnicity. We are all challenged to keep growing in our appreciation of diversity. We are challenged to keep being a village where we accept and hear the wisdom of what is other and different from us.

One of the ways we make this impossible village possible is through the generosity of our members and friends: generosity of vision, work, and treasure. Today, as each of us contemplates how much money we will give to the Fellowship next year, I want to talk for a bit about money. Someone remarked how interesting it was that I preached about guilt the week before our annual canvass. An unconscious sequence, I assure you! This is not about guilt. Giving money here should never, ever be about guilt. If you feel guilty because of what I say or the canvass brochure says or a canvasser says, that's Petty Guilt. Ignore it and let it go. If you feel guilty about your giving internally--because maybe the way you spend your money isn't really reflecting your values--that might call for contemplation and perhaps changing your ways. But only you can discern that.

So here's a little bit about money. As many of you know, our Finance Committee set a budget goal that represents a very large increase. Why? In a word: mission. To fulfill our mission--so as we grow in numbers this can continue to be a place where we deepen spiritually and in understanding, so that this is a place that helps make our world a better place. Much of the increase goes to offering our staff better compensation and more hours for our part-time staff. Frankly, our staff is stretched too far and is underpaid--below average for staff in our UU district. Your generous pledge is an investment in keeping our staff, and in making sure that the Fellowship is in a position to hire comparable staff should any of us choose to leave. More staff hours will help create programming that is deeper and has more variety. Another substantial part of the increase goes to pay our full share to the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Central Midwest District. For several years we have not paid our fair share to these organizations, even as they have offered us tremendous support and resources. We need to pay our fair share. Another part of the increase goes to sustaining our current programs as we grow. And here I want to say a few words about growth. Why do want to grow? Why have we built this building in an effort to be more accessible and welcoming. Not so we can grow and get more money! We embrace growth because we know there are still a whole lot of religious liberals in our area who have not yet found us--people who would find their lives and service enriched by joining our village and using the hammer of liberal religion to build their unique homes. We have to make room in our village and hearts for these folks. Making room costs, among other things, more money. Those of us who made room in our village by financing this wonderful new building know this.

Though large, the budget increase our leadership hopes to achieve is do-able: if each of us pledges 2-3% of our gross income, we will make it easily. I hope some of you will join me in pledging 4% of income. Maybe a few of you will be able and willing to do even more. For those who contributed to the capital campaign...

Whether we reach this goal is up to each of us. This is our Fellowship--yours and mine. Day after day, week after week, year after year, WE decide whether it will be and what it will be. This is the way it was that snowy November evening in 1955 when nine people met and decided to start a liberal fellowship in the Fox Cities. It's the way it is today and the way it will be next year and fifty years from now. We own this place.

There was another response to my First Day's Record piece that I want to share with you. This one concluded: "Please! You used 'my' Fellowship exclusively; you don't really own it, do you?"[3]

I ended my March contribution to the First Days Record by answering this question. Here is what I wrote:

Yes, I do own my Fellowship. It's mine. Although I understand why some of my colleagues opt not to join their congregations, I have joined mine. And so I own my Fellowship. Of course, so do the other three hundred adults and one hundred fifty children and youth; and so do those who came before--those whose vision and hard work made my Fellowship possible. I hope that when members of my Fellowship talk about their religious community with those outside our walls, they will use "my," too. I hope that they will feel [the same] sense of intense, personal ownership [I feel]...

[1]Daniel Simer O' Connell, "Freedom as Theological Justification or the Problem of Acedia," First Days Record: A Journal of Liberal Religious Response (Newark, DE: February 1999), pp. 35-36.
[2]Wendell Berry, "A Homecoming" in Berry, Wendell, Collected Poems--1957-1982 (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984).
[3]A response by Rob Brownlie, First Days Record (February 1999), p. 55.