February 2006

Quest Archives

Contents

• Heart BY JAN CARLSSON-BULL
• Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes BY BARBARA WELLS TEN HOVE
• CLF Covenant Groups
• An American UU in Japan BY SCOTT KASMIRE
• What Makes Your Heart Sing?
• From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? BY JANE RZEPKA
• REsources For Living BY LYNN UNGAR

Quest Archives
Quest Submission Guidelines

Heart

BY JAN CARLSSON-BULL, MINISTER, FIRST PARISH, COHASSET, MASSACHUSETTS

Donovan Trevarro was my first heartthrob. He had large brown eyes and the longest lashes. He had a winsome smile, shy, but not really. And on top of those irresistible features was the blackest, waviest hair. I guess he was about 3'11" by then. You see, we were in third grade. Or was it second? It doesn't really matter. I was in love, and it was Valentine's Day. There was only one course of action, and I took it.

Straight to Woolworth's, with just enough money in my pocket for a Valentine, an over-the-top, all-out gushy Valentine. Woolworth's was that store that you could count on for aromatherapy. You didn't even have to inhale. The scent of pencils, candy corn and more greeted you at the door. I went after the "and more." Having picked out a Valentine up to my standards, I headed to the counter that held any cheap cologne you could possibly want—not the kind you might pick up across the street at Eisler's—no, nothing quite so impeccable as that. This occasion called for a distinctive scent that you could purchase only at Woolworth's. I doused my card generously with this Eau de Whatever, tucked it in the envelope, sealed it, and printed "DONOVAN" clearly on the outside.

Did I sign my name? Are you crazy? Anonymous love is much more romantic. Besides, I was just a little terrified of this whole thing.

So off to school I went, undoubtedly reeking. When the time came for our Valentine exchange, Donovan, of course, received his, because I planted it in his hands and ran for dear life. Alas, my first big crush soon moved away from our small town. I have no idea what ever became of him—if he held onto that round-the-bend charm or grew into the most charmless specimen among men. But he definitely held my affection, and until his next bath, it stuck to him. I still love Valentine's Day, but thanks to a few more years and a tad more reticence, my husband can rest assured that I no longer see fit to douse my cards of endearment with something memorable.

It's quite an adventure to give away your heart, and like all adventures, it's scary. I think this is because the heart manages in so many ways to serve as the receptacle for what matters to us—for what really, really matters to us.

Of course the heart is also an essential part of our human organism. Without it, we don't live. Without its well-being, we don't live well. Heart disease continues to be a major killer in this country. So we've learned to eat heart-healthy, to exercise and tone the muscles of our heart, to manage our life stress so that our hearts neither ache nor break out of proportion to what's going on…unlike the poor guy belting out the lyrics of that Country Western number by Billy Ray Cyrus:

You can tell the world you never was my girl,
You can burn my clothes when I am gone.
You can tell your friends just what a fool I've been,
And laugh and joke about me on the phone.

[Just] Don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
I just don't think he'd understand.
'Cause if you tell my heart, my achy breaky heart,
He might blow up and kill this man.

We're all blessed with the promise of extraordinary resilience, because our hearts do ache and break and take far longer to heal than they did when we were in third grade spewing out Valentines.

Let me offer you a memory. The circumstance was the death of someone I loved very much. It was many years ago. I had planned the memorial service, though I was not yet a minister, but stumbling my way through seminary, learning, without realizing it, how to be one through all the stuff that life seemed to be throwing at me. My family and friends and I were gathered at a church, and I had built time into the order of service for people to come to the front of that sanctuary and share what was in their heart.

My father got up. Now, I need to tell you that I had never associated my dad with eloquence. Verbosity, yes, eloquence, no. He loved to talk and was beyond gregarious, which served him well as a traveling salesman. He was a consummate golfer, which served him well as a businessman. He was a Pandora's box of one-liners, which made him the hit of a party, but this wasn't a party. He was a father I could always count on—sometimes embarrassingly so—but he was always there for me. And so he was that day. He stepped forward and said something like this:

"You know, when you hurt so much because you've lost someone, it's because you've taken the risk of loving them. Love carries that risk. The more you love, the more you hurt when you lose that person. But you don't lose the love. You don't lose all that you've shared with that person. You don't lose yourself. The hurt that you feel is the sure sign that you've gone out on a limb and jumped off for love. The depth of your hurt is the depth of your love."

Dad spoke from the heart, and I knew he was hurting because he loved me and I was hurting. I've never forgotten his words. (I've never forgotten some of his jokes either, but I won't share any of those.)

We hurt, we suffer, but as long as we breathe, we have the gift of a heart that stretches and bends and contorts to handle just about anything, as long as there are plenty of tears for lubrication and arms to embrace us.

How is it that we are as elastic as we are? I think of Mohammed Iqbal, a Muslim poet and statesman who had his own share of loss and healing. Is this what he was thinking when he penned the lines:

It is true that we are made of dust
And the world is also made of dust,
But the dust has motes rising.

"...The dust has motes rising." That seemingly sullied substance from which we are said to emerge rises and falls on the whim of the slightest breeze.

But where there is heart, there is hope. Maybe not certainty, maybe not guarantees of lasting health, or lasting relationships, or children who do what we think they're supposed to, or world peace in the next decade or subways that don't stop between stations or all the stuff of our day-to-days that can feel so messy. But where there is heart, there is always hope.

"We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson, that reluctant paragon of Unitarianism, in his essay on friendship. He said more:

How many persons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.

Have hope, he was telling us: the person sitting next to you is good to be next to, and you are that person for someone else.

What's in your heart today? How is it filling with questions and musings and confusion and hurt and joy and all those things that you wonder about and care about? Maybe it's full. Maybe it's empty. Maybe you're feeling resilient this morning. Maybe you're feeling brittle. You've had it with whomever and whatever and you just don't want to have to flex one more centimeter. The circumstances of life are definitely not on your side today. Then again, maybe the spirit of life has thrown you a party. Maybe things are wonderful.

Whatever the circumstances of your life, you're not alone. Whether you are alone in the room or not, your heart relates to others, whose life stuff may be every bit as complicated or as wildly joyous as yours. Sure, we're made of dust, but imagine those motes rising. Yes, our hearts break, but they heal in spite of our sorry prophecies that we'll never, absolutely never, get over whatever it is. We might disappoint ourselves mightily. We might let our families down and dismay our friends and not live up to those expectations that we knew we would meet. But we have something inside us that forgives, that flexes, that keeps hope pumping through those atria and ventricles.

Take a leap of faith….and time. It's Valentine's Day again. Imagine the scene on Valentine's Day, 2003. I'm in Alta, Utah, and my nephew, Todd, and his fiancée, Jennifer, are walking up the steps of an avalanche-proof chapel. The chapel is called Our Lady of the Snows. I'm about to preside at their wedding. I've known Todd since he was a tiny baby. I feel like I've known Jennifer that long. The ceremony unfolds. They speak their vows to one another, vows that they have each carefully composed. My throat tightens. I catch my breath and pronounce them husband and wife. They kiss. I know it will last, avalanche-proof as the chapel. Jennifer didn't run after Todd with a cologne-sodden Valentine. They've known each other for 13 years—a good-luck number in my book. They are expecting a baby the next month. It's okay. Math doesn't matter, sometimes. Love is taking root, and dust motes are rising.

You're not alone. Take a chance. Let those eye-beams wander. Dare to read their language. And take heart.

Love happens because of it.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes

BY BARBARA WELLS TEN HOVE, COMINISTER, PAINT BRANCH UU CHURCH, ADELPHI, MARYLAND

"Where justice shall roll down like waters, and peace, like an ever-flowing stream."

My father did not live long enough to hear the hymns in our grey hymnal, but I know he would have liked Carolyn McDade's re-casting of those words from the biblical prophets Amos and Isaiah. John Wells had a profound belief in the power of the human spirit to create peace and justice, and lived his whole life as if peace and justice were not only possible, but also inevitable.

My father was a child during the Depression and came of age during the Second World War. Born in 1927 to a well-educated Atlanta family, he entered college at the age of 16, in 1943, expecting that he would finish in time to go immediately into officers' training, as other family members had done. His older brother Frank served on a PT boat in the Pacific and saw fighting there. His cousin Jere, a pilot, was shot down over Europe and died there. But the war was over by the time my father turned 18, so instead of going directly into the military, as he expected, he went instead to law school to become an attorney. He married my mother in 1949.

My father loved his country. He was an American through and through, and though he was proud of his Southern heritage and knew everything there was to know about the Civil War, he was more interested in the founding of his nation, in particular the creation of that amazing document called the U.S. Constitution. In law school he became more and more fascinated by the intricacy and simplicity of this piece of paper that created a nation.

Proud of his American heritage, it was just a small step for him to decide to serve his country in the military. In the early 1950s he became a judge advocate in the Air Force, and in that capacity spent time based in Morocco, traveling all over the Middle East and Europe trying cases. He loved the work. He loved being a part of something he felt was important. But it was during this time in the military that he began to see some of the cracks in his beloved nation.

The military had only recently been integrated, and my father, a Southerner, was challenged to look at his own racism in the face of a rapidly changing world. His superior officer in the Air Force was Chappie James, who was once the highest-ranking Black officer in the nation. Chappie could fly my Dad to Georgia, and give him orders. But because he was Black, he could not enter the hospital where my grandmother lay dying in Atlanta. It rankled my father, and it changed him. He was proud of the military for being willing to do the hard work of integration, but distressed at the lack of change he saw in the civilian world.

John Wells left the Air Force in 1961, but not because he was unhappy with his work or the military itself. He wanted to be a minister, and he could no longer deny the call. But even while he was in seminary and serving his first church in Virginia, the Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church, he continued to work for the Department of Defense as a consultant. I remember as a child going to visit him at the Pentagon.

I tell you this long preamble about my father because I think it is important to understand that there have always been liberal, justice seeking people who love their country and are not ashamed to serve it. I know that there are at least some among us who are either veterans or currently serving in the military in some fashion. If this is true for you, if you are a veteran or currently serving in the military, I honor and thank you, as my father would.

In 1968, my family moved to Lexington, Massachusetts where my father was called to serve the historic First Parish Church, Unitarian Universalist. I was eight years old and the world was a very scary place. In April, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been killed, and only a few months later Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The Vietnam War was raging and protests were being held all over the country. Richard Nixon was elected president and liberals like my parents were dismayed.

The church in Lexington, like so many New England churches, was pretty traditional. My father liked that about it in some ways, for it reminded him of the past, particularly the beginnings of his nation's history, which had literally happened right outside our front door on the green in Lexington. He was moved by the sacrifice the Lexington minutemen had made in 1775. He knew that their fight for liberty was a worthwhile one, like the fight that had taken place in the 1940s against Hitler and other fascist regimes. My father was not naïve, nor was he a pacifist. But he was, in 1968, deeply worried and concerned.

Why—he kept asking himself, his parishioners, and his elected representatives—were we in Vietnam ? He took the time to study Vietnamese history and learned that the Vietnamese had resisted occupation not simply for generations but for centuries. He came to believe that this war was not one we could win, nor was it worth fighting. More importantly, he began to question the legality of the war. As a student of the Constitution, he believed that only Congress had the right to declare war, as they had done in 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The war in Vietnam was never declared. It was, as his book People vs. Presidential Power proclaimed, a presidential war, and in his view, that made it illegal. He already knew in his soul that the war was immoral. Determining its illegality was, for him, the natural next step.

What my father did between the years of 1968 and 1970 still seems pretty amazing to me. Along with a young state legislator named Jim Shea, my father introduced a bill in the legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that made it legal for GIs to sue the Federal government for sending them to an undeclared war. It was audacious and unprecedented. Yet it was, in so many ways, just the kind of thing my father would do.

The Constitution may make the president Commander in Chief, but it rests with Congress to declare war. In fact, no war has been declared in this country since the Second World War— Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf War were all undeclared wars. Perhaps you know where I'm headed here. The United States went to war in Iraq and once again Congress rolled over and gave the president the power to wage it. Elected representatives did not follow the Constitution. Rather than having a debate on the merits of this war in Iraq, and a vote to make a declaration of war, troops were sent into battle at the will of one man. My father must be rolling over in his grave.

Many people believed when the United States invaded Iraq that they would be safer and the world more free. No one (with the exception of certain Iraqis) misses the dictator Saddam Hussein, but can we honestly say our world is safer today than it was when the war began? Can we look at the situation in Iraq and truly believe that soon it will function as a Western style democracy, spreading seeds of freedom all over the Middle East ?

It breaks my heart that this nation that my father loved so much continues to make choices that go against all I was taught by my parents to hold dear—the precepts of democracy and the vision of a just and peaceful world.

I don't know for sure what my father would say today about the U.S. role in Iraq, but I can imagine. Like many liberals, I think he would recognize that we can't just cut and run. That since we did illegally wage war on a people and occupy their country, we can't just abandon them without help and support.

I think he would tell us to remember the hard lives the soldiers who are in Iraq are leading, and mourn for the killed and wounded. I also think he would challenge us to remember the dead and wounded Iraqis and mourn for them as well. I think he would tell us to be more involved in democracy and to elect people who will work in partnership with other nations to build, as our Unitarian Universalist principles state, "a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all."

And I think he would inquire of us, in his thick southern drawl, "Are we citizens or are we subjects?" And then he would remind us that it is not only the soldiers and the politicians who are patriots. And then he would say, "Let us commit ourselves to the ideals of our democracy and get involved and make a
difference."

And then he would go to Congress and lobby representatives to do their duty. He would march in protest against war even as he saluted the flag of the nation he loved.

And he might even go to Iraq, to see for himself what is happening there. In 1972, he went to Vietnam, illegally, to meet the "enemy" so he might better know the truth. He came home convinced that it is not America 's job to force others to be like Americans. Instead, he believed that the more America could model the principles of democracy, the more nations would see that democracy is a powerfully good way to live.

As I honor the memory of my father, I acknowledge the sacrifices veterans have made and do make for their countries. But I pray that someday we will learn that war is always a failure of the human spirit, and find better ways to make the world a safer and more humane place.

Though my father cannot be here in the flesh, I thank him for walking beside me in spirit. May the dreams he taught me to believe in, the dreams of nations at peace, "where justice rolls down like waters and peace like an ever-flowing stream," someday come true.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

CLF Covenant Groups

More than a year after their inception, our Covenant Groups—intentional small communities which discuss topics in facilitated discussions via e-mail—are going strong. People report a sense of intimacy and enjoy the intellectual and spiritual stimulation that the groups provide. We have only one major problem—we have more people who would like to join than our six groups can accommodate. Consequently, we are looking for additional people who would like to become Covenant Group facilitators. Ideal candidates for these volunteer positions would have experience with Small Group Ministry in a local church setting, as facilitators or at least as active members. If you are interested in applying to join our outstanding Covenant Group leaders, please contact our minister for lifespan learning, Lynn Ungar, at lungar@clfuu.org.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

An American UU in Japan

BY SCOTT KASMIRE, CLF MEMBER, HOKKAIDO, JAPAN

When I teach in Japan, I "team teach" with a Japanese instructor. A few weeks ago, I had my first lessons at Esashi Junior High—the introduction days where the students get to know me. One of the students asked my religion. I pronounced "Unitarian Universalism" and then wrote it on the blackboard dutifully, like I do with many new words. I wasn't asked, nor did I bother trying to explain, what it was. I just moved onto the next question, and forgot about it. Religion is not a topic that often comes up for me with Asian people, and I tend to avoid the topic in the classroom.

Today, the teacher with whom I taught that class was preparing for next week's textbook lesson. This 8th grade English textbook talks about Japan 's "first Japanese teacher of English," John Mung, also known as John Manjiro. Here is part of what it says about Manjiro's time in America:

"Mr. Whitfield sent Manjiro to school. Manjiro didn't speak English well, but he studied very hard. He studied navigation, mathematics, and a lot of other things. The Whitfields went to church on Sundays. But their church didn't want Manjiro. It was only for white people. Whitefield's was not happy about this. He went to other churches. At last he found a church for Manjiro."—One World English Course, New Edition, Level 2

My colleague showed this to me and said to me, "The church was the Unitarian church in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. It is the same as yours, correct?"

Hai. Correct.

And he made simple eye contact. And smiled at me. And for some reason, whatever historical or symbolic threads there are among Americans and Japanese and English teachers and Unitarians and students abroad and the very reasons for doing what we do in life, all seemed to come to a nexus in me. And I'm happy I didn't cry. That would have made everyone very uncomfortable, a most impolite thing to do in a Japanese office.

But it's a story worth sharing with UU-all.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

What Makes Your Heart Sing?

In the July/August issue of Quest we asked CLFers to share with us particular songs that were special to them and why. Here are some of the responses we received:

I'll go with Bobby Darin's version of "Beyond the Sea" as a song I have needed to hear several times a year for the past 40 years or so. This song offered hope that someday I would find a woman who could love me. It seems perfectly orchestrated, perfectly sung, exactly the right length and attitude. There are dozens of songs I need to hear on a regular basis to feel good about being alive, and this one is high on the list. –Bill Adams, Lovington, New Mexico

If I may, I'd like to mention two songs that make my heart sing. During the 80s I led tours in France. Because I had many UUs from my church in Santa Barbara, when we were on the Cause du Midi on a Sunday we had a short service. I had a tape of "Morning Has Broken." We sang it lustily. Combined with the beauty, reflections and serenity, the experience was truly spiritual. Back home whenever we sang it in a service at church we sought each other out and relived that sacred moment we shared. My second is singing "This Is My Song" (Finlandia) after travels in Europe those years of my touring. I came home with a newly awakened feeling of "Other lands have sunlight too, and clover, and skies are everywhere as blue as mine." –Nanette Graham, Bellingham, Washington

Songs I remember! A Spiritual I sang in grammar school during the 50s—"Going Home, I'm Just Going Home." I'm now a senior citizen and remembering this time as a child gave me a lot of pleasure. –Dolores Kenna, Ponte Vedra, Florida

There are many songs that make my heart sing and take me away from my situation and times. The song [I would choose] is by the late Luther Vandross—one of his newest songs that is played on the radio, entitled "I Think About You." It is a beautifully written song and every time I hear it it brings me great joy and deep thought, and it's for any listener. –William A Brooks, Smith State Prison, Glenville, Georgia

For my choice of song which makes my heart sing, I have the dilemma of choosing from two excellent entries, so I present them both: "Vocalise" from the 14 Songs, opus 34 by Sergei Rachmaninoff for soprano and piano and the "Bachianas Brasileiras #5" for soprano and eight cellos by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Neither of these songs has a single word. They are best heard in their original form by an artist such as Kiri Te Kanawa or Renee Fleming who have recorded one or both, although the songs have been transcribed for other sources such as orchestra or other instruments than voice. Both of these songs go directly to feeling, and soar over whatever concerns may be at hand to another world. –Arthur House, Franklin, West Virigina

The song that emerged is "My Heart Stood Still." "I took one look at you, that's all I meant to do, and then my heart stood still. My feet could step and walk, my lips could move and talk, and yet my heart stood still." The song is about falling in love at first sight, a phenomenon in which I believe. It has happened to me with more than one person, with males and females (as friends and lovers), with places ( Hawaii in general and the Serpent Mound near Cincinnati, Ohio in particular), with groups (Unitarians) and with the July/August, 2005 issue of Quest. –POE

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

From Your Minister

BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP

God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of?

I am a veteran preacher of Unitarian Universalist god-sermons. Most UU ministers are. When I preach them, I hope I am drawing everyone into the conversation and affirming all UUs in their various theologies. I include a lot of options, and of course I say that plenty of us don't believe in God at all.

If you are new to the CLF you may want to know that in our midst you are welcome to love the God of your childhood, or a god of love, or of justice, or of support during troublesome times. You may believe in a generally benevolent universe, or a "there's gotta be something greater." If you feel uplifted by the smell of newly mown grass or the maple leaves on the hillside or the birth of a lamb or a finely turned poem, you may have found your god. We leave a lot of leeway.

But veteran of the god-sermon that I am, I have learned that I need to also say this: Let's be clear. You don't have to believe in God. You just don't. You don't have to embrace alternative definitions, imagery that seems to you to be off-beat, gods and goddesses, or any kind of spiritual language. You're fine. Unitarian Universalists welcome you.

True, we make a pretty big deal about all the ways UUs can believe in a god, given that so many of us feel reluctant to embrace traditional images. Brian Wren, the Oxford-educated poet who wrote the words to our hymn, "Bring Many Names," offered seminars in which he encouraged people to brainstorm images of God. "Bakerwoman God," "Straight-talking Lover God," "Grandfather, Great Spirit God," "Daredevil Gambler God." He says, "The fact that Jesus called God ‘Father' doesn't mean he was teaching us to use that image for all time and eternity. I think that at its best the biblical tradition is that God cannot be contained in human language." Like Wren, UUs are nothing if not flexible on this.

We are awash in imagery and metaphor, but still, many UUs proclaim a deep, mature, heartfelt and complete religion quite aside from any notion of god. It doesn't take a god for compassion to move us, for love to prevail, for connection and awe and luck and joy to move to center stage. Justice requires no god, goodness requires no god, deep emotion requires no god, beauty requires no god. That needs to be said. Every Unitarian Universalist needs to feel included in our midst.

Sure, I remember the connotations of the word "atheist." Cold War Communist undertones in the 1950's, associations with Madeline Murray O'Hare, intimations of immorality in the culture at large. Where I grew up, atheists were treated as bad people who were not religious, who were not ethical, who were cold, narrow, and un-patriotic. Some among us experience these reactions even today.

So let me state the obvious: a belief in God does not make you a good person. Jails are full of God-fearing people who have no problem pulling a trigger or misdirecting an ax. And atheism does not make a person bad: people who are atheists love their children, care about their neighbors, feel the awe in the universe, and try to do the right thing, the same as the theists. Observation and experience assure us that religious feelings and ethical behavior don't correlate with a belief in a supreme being or a theological doctrine. We can set all that aside.

What we can't set aside, I believe, is the question, "How can a person bear to live in a universe that is wholly indifferent?" How can we cope with the notion that despite its wonders, the cosmos is not reliably benevolent? What if nobody up there or out there really cares?

Most people throughout history have believed that something, someone, was behind it all. Animal gods, spirits, fertility goddesses—someone controlled the crops and the hunts and the births and deaths. The gods and goddesses had personalities that you could bargain with. You could appease them, you could offer sacrifices, you could plead with them. Things happened for a reason. You have a personal relationship with God, and God makes things happen.

These days, of course, some conceive of a universe that lacks a personal god, yet takes a kind of divine cosmic interest in humanity—a universe that bends, for example, toward love or justice, or that operates within a system whereby everything happens for a reason.

UUs who do not believe in this kind of universe or in a personal god or goddess find fulfilling ways of living alone in the cosmos. What does it take? An internal grounding, strength, and sense of well-being. A feeling of belonging in the universe. An experience of love from the people around us. A conviction that we need to care for the planet and one another because we are the only ones who can. A commitment to create meaning where none is at hand. And the drive to promote goodness and kindness in the world, not in the name of God, but simply because we recognize their value. As James Baldwin wrote in The Price of the Ticket:

Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witness they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

In a society that does little to affirm this religious perspective, it's worth a minute's focus.

In the Church of the Larger Fellowship, we embrace our members—theists, atheists, pantheists, humanists, panentheists, those who find religion in nature, and those who describe their theologies uniquely. I wanted you to know.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

REsources For Living

BBY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP

Do you know how Unitarian Universalists ended up with such a long, awkward name? It's because two different religious groups, the Unitarians and the Universalists, decided to join together in 1961. A lot of us sometimes get lazy and just call ourselves Unitarians, because it's easier not to have to say the extra five syllables for Universalist. But it's worth putting in the extra effort to say our full name because the Universalists had a really big idea.

The main idea that defined the Universalists was a belief that God loves each and every person just as they are, and so it doesn't make sense to believe that God would send anybody to hell to be punished for all time. Now, if you were raised in a Unitarian Universalist home, the idea that nobody is going to be punished in hell may not seem like such a big, surprising thing. But believe me, when the Universalist church started in the late 1700s, a lot of people thought that idea was pretty shocking. After all, at the time a lot of people in the United States not only thought that people who were bad would go to hell, they thought most people would be eternally damned. And that God decided before you were even born whether you would be one of the lucky ones who went to heaven or one of the unlucky ones who would suffer for all eternity. Scary!

It was in this setting that the Universalists started saying that God was Love, and that God loved people the way parents love their children. And that no loving parents would want their children to suffer for all time. Now, beliefs change over time, and most people no longer believe that God would choose out a bunch of people as the unlucky ones before they were even born. But as Unitarian Universalists we hang onto that Universalist idea of everyone being loveable.

Of course, sometimes feeling love and remembering that everyone is basically OK gets tricky. Even with those we especially love, like our families, there are a lot of times when we get frustrated or angry and think that our parents or our kids or our siblings are pretty rotten—not so loveable at all.

Take, for instance, when I came home the day I wrote this column. I went off to a class in the morning, leaving my two dogs shut in the kitchen, where they wouldn't get into trouble. And I left a five-pound bag of flour on the counter. I didn't much think about it. I mean, I know that if I leave food on the counter my big dog and my getting-big puppy will help themselves. I even know that they like to shred plastic bags. But a bag of flour? Yup. A bag of flour.

I came home a few hours later to find flour all over the floor. Flour all over the rug. Shredded bits of flour bag all over everywhere. And flour paste all over the floor and the rug and all over the two dogs from where they'd been licking at the flour. Did you know that you can make glue from flour and water? That's how people used to put up wallpaper. For all I know it's still how people put up wallpaper. Mix flour and water—or dog drool—and you get a glue that will last until the next time you need wallpaper. To say it was a mess is putting it lightly. To say I was mad and disgusted and infuriated would be putting it mildly.

But you know what? I never stopped loving my dogs. I'll still love them as I scrape the flour glue off the floors and try to wash the flour glue out of their fur. I'll still love them even if the rug never comes clean, which it probably won't. I'll still love them, not because they are perfect or they do everything right or because they never make mistakes, but because, well, because I do. That's how love works. That's Universalism. That's who we are.

So this Valentine's Day, if you get a chance to make or sign Valentine's cards for your friends or your family, maybe you can give a little time to thinking about love, and the Universalist big idea that all of us are loveable, even when we might not look like it. Universalism doesn't say that we don't make mistakes, or bad choices. Each of us can think of plenty of times when we've been mean or selfish or careless. And we can probably think of even more times when our friends or family members have been mean or selfish or careless. Universalism says that love is bigger than our mistakes, bigger than our bad choices, bigger than all our flaws. Universalism says that love is the biggest thing that we all belong to.

So I guess we all deserve a Valentine, just the way we are. Even, say, when we are covered in floury glue. So here's a Happy Valentine's Day from me, and from puppy Taz, who doesn't know a lot about good behavior, but knows plenty about love.

Quest February 2006 Contents Heart Reflections on War Through my Father's Eyes CLF Covenant Groups An American UU in Japan What Makes Your Heart Sing? From Your Minister: God: Yes? No? Maybe? Sort of? REsources For Living	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

“Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.”
—E.B. White