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Our UU
Secret Revealed It was the April Fool, Palm Sunday controversy that sparked my cyber- plea for your thoughts and opinions: Should we go with a traditional Palm Sunday Service, or have a good time wallowing in the nonsense of April Fools day which happens to fall on that very Sunday? It was your wide array of responses that piqued my quest for the UU secret. Some said, ‘go with April Fools, the chances of it falling on Palm Sunday are so rare.’ Others thought ‘we should be more vigilant of the needs of those who expect a traditional service, and the expectations of the general public coming in for the first time‘. A few voted for a Palm Sunday Service. The most revealing response came from a parishioner who simply wrote, “What is a traditional UU Palm Sunday Service?” Good question? Why has this become a problem for us? Is it our guarded reticence to echo literal Biblical rhetoric? Is it our difficulties in defining how far we should allow our Judeo-Christian roots permeate and influence our modern day beliefs. Or is it our aversion to the use and the meaning of the word God as defined by the Western Judeo- Christian Community? So where does that leave us as a faith? Beautifully, yet terrifyingly, undefined ? Feeling a bit at a loss as to the specific parameters and responsibility for our existence and purpose that brought us to this church in the first place? Last week, as I was pondering the implications of your responses, and recovering from a 3 day bug, I happened to catch the Oprah Winfrey Show, which has stirred up a lot of excitement among the secular and religious communities. The topic was based on a book called “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, which actually, in my opinion, culminated in a very eloquent and profound description of Unitarian Universalism as it always has been and is today in the here and now. Let me begin with tackling our difficulties with the use of the word “God.” Our professed diversity has made it difficult to adopt any traditional terminology that suggests a unifying doctrine. After all we have become so individually oriented theologically, that coming to a unified statement of belief is like nailing Jello to the wall. Most Unitarian Universalists have come to us from other faiths. Sometimes coming in anger. Anger at how a former church used “God’s will,” to exclude, judge or reject the reality of human diversity of belief. Some came with an aversion to rituals taught and sacred truths professed that were perceived as too restrictive, dogmatic, antiquated or ironically un-Christian in their practice. There were many reasons for leaving, and joining us, but have we been able to restore or create within the joy we all seek, the belief that life is “meant to be joyously abundant”, not a battle to be fought? In place of the “God” word, that has soured many in the practice of it’s human definition, have we in turn been able to present a sense all of creation that is so powerful and individually inclusive, that joy returns, purpose flourishes, the individual retains his or her connectedness with our place in the cosmos and this community bonds like cement for the common good? It is more than semantics that has been our stumbling block as we spar with religious writings and terminology that has ultimately translated into a kind of muddy soup, leading us to define ourselves as to what we are not, not what we truly are; thus we are in danger of becoming apologists, a faith with a huge line of defense, constantly shoving at the obstacles of our living rather than one that embraces a calm and confident message. In hassling, guiltily accepting or ignoring the God word, which carries so many positive or negative meanings and images, past memories of disappointments or confusion… we may have overlooked the obvious; every sacred name ever spoken by any tradition, God, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Apollo, Zeus, Nirvana… has only one meaning …ENERGY. Energy emanating from the source that powers the universe. Not heaven. Not hell, nor ritual, doctrine or creed. As stated in our 7th principle, “ respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are all apart…” We mean Energy, which when in existence can be neither created nor destroyed. Every piece of sacred literature has known this, even the Bible. “The Secret,” was about a recognition that we have become much too restrictive and somewhat arrogant in our understanding of the “God word.” God, Energy, is not about doctrine, or creeds or rituals or magical thinking it is about a realization that as a part of that life giving energy we do have a connection with all of the universe. How we proceed to recognize that force and tap its flow is far more important than clinging to a definition or a meaning, which in it’s scrutiny becomes far too narrow and may not be to our advantage. The Rev. Judith Walker Riggs in her Berry Street lecture given at General Assembly in 1998 hit the nail on the head. She wrote: Clinging to meaning-often does us harm. An actual radio transcript from the Unites States Chief of Naval Operations, October 10, 1995: Station No.1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision. Station No.2: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the south to avoid a collision. Station No.1: This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course. Station No.2: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course. Station No.1: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER ENTERPRISE. WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE U.S. NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW! , ' Station No.2: This is the Puget Sound lighthouse. It's your call. Caught up in the meaning of being a United States aircraft carrier nearly brought disaster. Jesus said, (in Luke 17:21) "The Kingdom of God is within you." He did not say, "Go find the Kingdom of God." He did not say, "Philosophize and philosophize and maybe someday you'll find the Kingdom of God." He said, "The Kingdom of God is [already] within you." The Bible knew it, so did Jesus, Einstein, Galileo, Emerson, Ghandi, Buddah and Oprah to name a few. To quote Dr. Michael Beckwith, one of the contributors to “The Secret”, “we are not simply a meat-suit… we as energy also give off a frequency which by the laws of Polarity,( note the Yin Yang) can respond to the source around us. The Athiest , Thiest, Agnostic, Panthiest, Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jew, may gather that energy, that wave of life from nature, from others, from work or play, meditation, reflection or prayer. Negitive thoughts and actions bring a negitive response. Positive thoughts and actions can create the reverse. As our energy flows where attention grows.’ Our wave length, our connection to the source is in itself a voice that can speak in positives or negatives. Unity of voice works through the energy, the spirit of every unique individual. The positive uplifts and gathers up the joy that is out there. The negative surpresses and strangles any hope of achieving what is dreamed for. Beckwith made a very Unitarian Universalist statement when he said, (surprise!) ‘we are creatures of free-will and we must put our faith in ourselves, …our visions, and goals personally and as a community and believe that the energy that effort imparts, will affect the outcome. Some call it the power of prayer. Others sheer positive determination. We love to know exactly where we are going and to have control of that venture, but there are times when we travel a path we have chosen and have no idea of how we get there. Take for example a road trip at night. Lets say from Massachusetts to California. We plan the route carefully and study the map, but our headlights can only illuminate 200 feet ahead, mile after mile. We can’t see the route but we know we will eventually arrive at our destination. We have to trust that the road is there. If we cannot trust what lies beyond the headlights then we will never go at all. This has been an adventure. Finding what I had always suspected. We have always had the clues right in front of us. The universe, like ourselves, is pure energy. The sacred books have told us this over and over, “The kingdom of God is within.” Palm Sunday has its very pertinent lessons, in the here and now but maybe all along the joke, the April fool has been on us, staring us in the face for centuries. God is an energy we select as our own; of love or hate, action or inaction in the law of polarity…to tap our positive or negative energy as our free-will determines. We are individuals who seek our own connections to that power that turns the earth and lights the stars and galaxies, whose course of our living is determined by the connections we choose to make alone or more powerfully together, with that ever present force. This is what joins us as a church, as a free faith with a history of centuries of unfolding the secret that is truly ours, absorbing the stardust and moonlight that flickers in our hearts and souls. The eternal energy of our creation, of our living, and dying; our successes and failures as we reach inward to tap the source of our one and only God. We are one in need, in spirit and in our quest… and we knew all along. So be it.
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