About Unitarian Universalism
IMAGINE AWAKING one morning from a deep and dreamless sleep to find yourself in the nave of a vast cathedral. Like a child newborn, untutored save to moisture, nurture, rhythm, and the profound comforts at the heart of darkness, you open your eyes upon a world unseen, indeed unimaginable, before. It is a world of light and dancing shadow, stone and glass, life and death. This second birth, at once miraculous and natural, is in some ways not unlike the first. A new awakening, it consecrates your life with sacraments of pain you do not understand and promised joy you will never fully call your own. Such awakenings may happen only once in a lifetime, or many times. But when they do, what you took for granted before is presented as a gift: difficult, yet precious and good. Not that you know what to do with your gift, or even what it really means, only how much it matters. Awakening to the call stirring deep within you, the call of life itself - the call of God - you begin your pilgrimage.
Before you do, look about you; contemplate the mystery and contemplate with awe. This cathedral is as ancient as humankind, its cornerstone the first altar, marked with the tincture of blood and stained with tears. Search for a lifetime, which is all you are surely given, and you shall never know its limits, visit all its apses, worship at its myriad shrines, nor span its celestial ceiling with your gaze. The builders have worked from time immemorial, destroying and creating, confounding and perfecting, tearing down and raising up arches in this cathedral, buttresses and chapels, organs and theaters, chancels and transepts, gargoyles, idols, and icons. Not a moment passes without work being begun that shall not be finished in the lifetime of the architects who planned it, the patrons who paid for it, the builders who construct it, or the expectant worshipers. And not a moment passes withhout the dreams of long-dead dreamers being outstripped, shattered, or abandoned, giving way to new visions, each immortal in reach, ephemeral in grasp.
Welcome to the cathedral of the world.
Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the cathedral of the world there are windows without number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of dust, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history , the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines in.
As with all extended metaphors, this one is imperfect. The light of God ("God" is not God's name, but our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each) not only shines down upon us, but also out from within us. Together with the windows. the darkness and the light, we are part of the cathedral. not apart from it. Together we comprise an interdependent web of being; if the cathedral is built out of star stuff, so are we. But we are that part (that known part) that contemplates the meaning of the whole. Because the cathedral is so vast, our time so short, and our vision so dim, we are able to contemplate only a tiny part of the cathedral, explore a few apses, reflect upon the play of darkness and light through a few of its windows. Yet, since the whole - holographically or organically - is contained in each of the parts, as we ponder and act upon the insight from our rumination, we may discover meanings that give coherence and meaning both to it and to us.
This is Universalism.
Fundamentalists of the right and left claim that the light shines through their window only. Skeptics can make a similar mistake, only to draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshipers, they concluded that there is no light. But the windows are not the light. The whole light - God, Truth, call it what you will - is beyond our perceiving. God is veiled. Some people have trouble believing in a God who looks into any eyes but theirs. Others have trouble believing in a God they cannot see. But the fact that none of us can look directly into God's eyes certainly does not mean that in the light and the darkness, mysterious and unknowable, God is not there.
Religion is dangerous, of course, because its power is independent of the universal validity of its claims. Every generation has its terrorists for Truth and God, hard-bitten zealots for whom the world is large enough for only one true faith. They have been taught to worship at one window, and then to prove their faith by throwing rocks through other peoples' windows. Tightly drawn, their logic makes a demonic kind of sense: (1) religious answers respond to life and death questions, which happen to be the most important questions of all; (2) you and I may come up with different answers; (3) if you are right, I must be wrong; (4) but I can't be wrong, because my salvation hinges upon being right; therefore (5), short of abandoning my own faith and embracing yours, in order to secure my salvation I am driven to ignore, convert, or destroy you.
One impartial response to this war of conflicting convictions is to reject religion, to distance ourselves from those who attempt, always imperfectly, to interpret the cosmic runes and gauge their responses accordingly. There are two problems with this approach. One is that such rejection deprives us of a potentially deep encounter with the mysterious forces that impel our being and the opportunity to illuminate, if but partially, its meaning. The second is that none of us is able to resist interpreting the cosmic runes. Consequently, not only the world's religions, but every ideology, every scientific worldview, every aesthetic school, has its windows in the cathedral of the world. In each the light and darkness mingle in ways that suggest meaning for those whose angle of vision is tilted in that particular direction. Attracted to the patterns of refracted light, the playing of shadows, the partial clarification of reality, these people are also worshipers; their windows too become shrines.
None of us is fully able to perceive the truth that shines through another person's window, nor the falsehood that we may perceive as truth. Thus, we can easily mistake another's good for evil, and our own evil for good. A true, and therefore humble, universalist theology addresses this tendency, which we all share, while speaking eloquently to the overarching crisis of our times: dogmatic division in an ever more intimate, fractious, and yet interdependent world. It posits the following fundamental principles:
- There is one Reality, one Truth, one God.
- This Reality shines through every window in the cathedral (and out from every eye).
- No one can perceive it directly, the mystery being forever veiled.
- Yet, on the cathedral floor and in the eyes of each beholder, refracted and reflected through different windows in different ways, it plays in patterns that suggest meaning, challenging us to interpret and live by the meaning as best we can.
- Therefore, each window illumines Truth (with a large T) in a different way, leading to different truths (with a small t), and these in differing measure according to the insight and receptivity of the beholder.
Among other things, this theology suggests that we must acknowledge the partial nature of our understanding; respect insights that differ from our own; and not only defend the rights of others to believe their own truths so long as they do not deny us the same privilege, but also credit them with a measure of truth (with a small t) even though it may conflict with the truth that we embrace.
Even universalism can be perverted. One way is to elevate one truth into a universal truth: "My church is the one true church." This might be called imperialistic universalism. Another, leading to reductionist universalism, is to reduce distinctive truths to a lowest common denominator: "All religion is merely a set of variations upon the golden rule." The universalism I aspire to does neither. It holds that the same light shines through all our windows, but that each window is different. The windows modify the light, refracting it in myriad ways, shaping it in different patterns, suggesting different meanings.
This is not a simple appeal for relativism (reductionist universalism). For each of us to grow in faith and understanding, we can do no better than to cultivate and develop the particular meanings reflected in our own traditions and cultures. Aspiring to see the refracted light as clearly as we can, we act upon our insights as best we may. I'm suggesting a new theological model, in which one light (Unitarianism) shines through many windows (Universalism) in various, yet telling ways.
With my cathedral metaphor, I introduce the third source of our common faith: wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life. So long as we avoid the smorgasbord approach to religion (reductionist universalism: a little too much of everything, leaving us with a stomach ache and a confused palate), we assume an almost unique position among the world's faiths. We draw inspiration from other religions as well as our own. Within our churches we acknowledge the presence of many different windows, celebrate a wide variety of festivals in an attempt to divine the essential meaning of each, and - at our best - truly welcome and respect the insights of others. We are always seeking new guidance from ancient sources for the shaping of our ethical and spiritual lives. This has its dangers, for we may trivialize the faith of another by trying to appropriate its essence. But as long as we remember this, by remaining open to the insights of others we may augment our own cherished traditions and expand the scope of our faith.
One Truth, many truths; one God, many faiths; one light (Unitarianism), many windows (Universalism). This is why we number as one of the sources for the living tradition we share "wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life." Among other things, it reminds us to be humble, especially when we are sure we are right.
This passage has been borrowed from the book "A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism" by John A Buehrens and Forrest Church. If you are interested in learning more about Unitarian Universalism this book is a great place to start.
