October 2006

Quest Archives

Contents

• Not for Ourselves Alone BY BARBARA J. PESCAN
• Upcoming Online Classes
• A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart EXCERPT BY ROBERT M. HARDIES
• How to Give to the CLF...
• From Your Minister BY JANE RZEPKA
• REsources For Living BY LYNN UNGAR
• Sin Brought Me Back BY BETTY BOBO SEIDEN

The following links allow you to download various compilations of this month's columns, sermons and meditations without subscribing to our monthly podcast.

CLF Quest (full issue)
From Your Minister (the Rev. Jane Rzepka's monthly column)
Sermons in This Month's Quest
REsources for Living (religious education)
Inspiration

If you are using iTunes, you'll find that each compilation has a separate chapter for each segment. You may listen to different chapters after downloading by selecting from the chapter menu at the top of your iTunes window.

Quest Archives
Quest Submission Guidelines

Did You Know...
Did You Know that the CLF's magazine for kids, uu&me!, appears in every issue of the UU World, and at www.clfuu.org/uume?

Not for Ourselves Alone

BY BARBARA J. PESCAN, SENIOR MINISTER, UNITARIAN CHURCH OF EVANSTON, ILLINOIS

There are so many people to whom we owe our presence here today—our presence as part of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, part of the liberal religious movement, the farthest bud on the longest branch of the Judeo-Christian tree.

We might begin with the Jewish prophets, owing our presence here to Micah, who advised his people to "Do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God"; to Jeremiah who warned his people to turn away from their idolatry; to Jesus, that first humanist, that first Universalist humanist, who was the first in Western tradition to see all human beings as having the capacity to learn and choose the good, and whose words were manifest in the way he lived. What remains to us from these is that ancient ethic to do justice and practice kindness. Walking humbly we're still working on.

There are so many to whom we owe our presence today.

We are here today in large part because of those fourth-century followers of Arius and those later European heretics who, when they read the Bible for themselves, could not let go of what their reason and conscience told them—that the trinity was mentioned nowhere in the Bible, that the man, Jesus, could not be both human and divine. It didn't make sense to them, and they said it couldn't be true.

We also have to thank those early European Unitarians, heretics in both the root meaning of the Greek word, hairetizo, "to choose," because they chose to follow what their minds understood, and in the sense that many were put to death for their beliefs.

We have to thank the 17th-century Puritans, who rejected the authority of any bishop or body other than the local church, and so established independent churches where members covenanted with one another instead. Their guiding principle was not individual freedom, but covenant. We find in the Puritans the sense of community, compassion and justice.

We are here because Charles Chauncy and other 18th-century Congregationalist liberals held that the use of reason was a better means to religious growth than excessive emotionalism. We are here because of Isaac Newton and John Locke; and because Chauncy, among others, was convinced that our ideas rise from what we sense in the natural world and how we reflect upon what our senses tell us. In large part, we are here today because we let fresh air into our thoughts, and because, although it is difficult, we can tolerate ambiguity and see truth as an expanding complexity.

We are here also because the early Universalists insisted on the goodness of God. Hosea Ballou, one early Universalist, interpreted the good message to be one of love. Not only is God good, he said, God is a generous and loving God, the God of universal salvation. Because we have been given life, love and liberty, Ballou believed, our response can and should be one of gratitude. Because we have received love and life from a beneficent and sustaining universe, we are called to respond in love.

We are able to be here because of the brilliant theologian, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said in the Divinity School Address in July, 1838, that God, humanity and nature are one and that human beings come to understand that unity through personal experience; that no written or human intermediary is necessary for this intimate relationship to develop. Our presence here has been encouraged by this affirmation of the human capacity to discern what is true and to act in accordance with that truth.

We owe our presence to the Universalists and Unitarians who, out of the passion of their souls, fought for the abolition of slavery, and for women's right to vote—a long time before either came to be the law of the land. We owe our present-day movement on social issues to them, and to those who signed the Humanist Manifestos of 1933, 1973 and 2003. Each of those documents plumb the depths of human possibility—"guided by reason, inspired by compassion, and informed by experience." We are who we are thanks to the Unitarian Service Committee, formed to save those threatened by the Nazi war machine; thanks to our participation in the Civil Rights movement of the Sixties, in the third wave of feminism, in thirty years of advocacy for gay rights. Participating in these issues, we stand on the shoulders of those humanists who emphasized "deep meaning in relationship and in service of humane ideals."

We carry forward this long legacy. If we are to survive beyond the middle of this century, we must find better ways to tell others who we are and what our purpose is. I would frame it this way:

We are a free people of faith covenanted to care for each other and walk our individual paths in community; who act to promote freedom, justice and kindness in the world; who act in the world individually and together with respect for each other and for people of good faith in other traditions; who actively seek ways to make the world a better place through speaking out and taking action on behalf of those who are, at the moment, not able to speak and act for themselves.

And there are all those people out there, out where the mission of the church begins, just outside our doors, who long for our message—that we are free to find the truth that sings in us; that we are not afraid of the values of other religious people; that we like a good, smart argument but can forgive each other, too; that we have compassion for ourselves and others, and are willing to spend some of our money and some of ourselves to change what is wrong in society. There are people out there who don't know yet that we are here, but when we go find them, and when they join us, it will transform their lives, and they will transform ours.

We can do amazing, inspiring things, one by one, and together, as a people of faith. When the Rev. Jane Rzepka was minister of the Reading, Massachusetts congregation I used to get their newsletter. One month she wrote of looking through the old ledgers of that venerable congregation. In her words:

In the 1930s, of course, times were tough. At that time, our church members were accustomed to pledging twenty-five cents a week, fifty cents, or one dollar. During the 1929-30 church year all of the church members fulfilled their pledges of thirteen, twenty-six, or fifty-two
dollars.

But as the Depression continued, our ledger books begin to show tiny numbers at the bottom of each page. Five cents. Two dollars, twelve dollars. And then a little "s." Five cents "short" of the pledge. Twelve dollars short. Just what one would expect.

But imagine this: Imagine that more numbers appear at the bottom of the ledger. Four dollars. Eighty cents. Seven dollars. Thirty cents. And after these numbers, the tiny letter "o." Four dollars "over" the pledge. Eighty cents "over." I can find no evidence of special appeal from the Governing Board, no traces of public discussion, only the quiet generosity of the people of our church.

I read lots of historical material this week, but nothing touched me more than the dusty ledger book from the Thirties, from high up on the shelf: In our church during the Depression, for every pledge that had to fall short, one of many generous people overpaid his or her pledge to compensate.

I love the history of this church. Gandhi was never a member. Mother Teresa never belonged either. Just regular folks. They dedicated their babies, they worshipped, they reached out to do their part in the world, they cared for one another, they kept this place going, they tried to live their best lives.

A long time ago, Samuel Eliot stood on our corner here on Summer Avenue and Woburn Street and dedicated this church. He said, "My friends, let us not forget that the church of the spirit must be forever building. You are linking your personal religion to the spiritual life of this whole community, and in this high endeavor, I bid you Godspeed." So may it ever be.

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

Upcoming Online Classes

Demystifying Meditation

Taught by the Rev. Wayne Walder, this course starts October 15th and runs for eight weeks.
Using guided meditations with music, this course gently leads participants into developing a personal mediation practice grounded in the Buddhist
tradition.

Reading the Bible Through UU Eyes

Taught by Paul Sprecher, this course starts October 15th and runs eight weeks.
 The Bible is frequently used to support particular political or religious agendas these days. This course will introduce the Bible as an important historical, literary, and sacred document. It will provide an overview of the Bible as a whole from a UU perspective.

This I Believe: A Writer's Journey

This course, taught by the Rev. Amanda Aikman, starts November 5th and runs six weeks.
In online sessions and intensive between-session writing exercises, participants will develop a multi-layered statement of personal belief, emphasizing story-telling about love, work, justice, nature, and encounters with the Holy. Participants will then refine this material and craft it into a well-developed short essay suitable for sharing in Quest or submitting to National Public Radio's "This I Believe" essay program for possible broadcast.

Find out more about these and other online classes at www.clfuu.org/learn.

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart

EXCERPT BY ROBERT M. HARDIES, SENIOR MINISTER, ALL SOULS CHURCH, WASHINGTON, DC

I had a bit of epiphany about our church recently, and I want to share it with you. About a month ago, several others from the church and I were interviewing candidates for the church administrator job. One person whom we interviewed was a Baptist. He was a good guy, and a strong candidate. One of the things he did was bring in an example of his work to show us—a very impressive annual report that he'd produced for the Baptist church. Now, technically, I was just supposed to be examining the document to see an example of his work, but I couldn't help but look at the budget section of the report—in particular, the part on giving. About 42 percent of that congregation gives more than $5,000 a year to the church. About 40 percent tithe 10 percent of their income to the church. He told us that each year, the church ends the year in the black, with significant reserves, so that when they settle on a new ministry opportunity, the money is already there to pursue it. In other words, at any given time they literally have more money than they know what to do with. And we wonder why the Religious Right has power.

Beginning immediately, I've made the decision to tithe. I ask you to consider this too. I'm giving 5 percent of my income to the church, and 5 percent to other organizations that support my values. What it will mean is less disposable income. What it will mean is less travel and eating out. But that's where I feel my money should be going. James Luther Adams used to have a saying for times like these—times when liberals were in their soul-searching mode. He used to have a slogan. He'd say, "Liberalism is dead! Long live liberalism!" We must decide what about liberalism is dead, and what is redemptive. We must jettison the former and cling tenaciously to the latter.

The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that spends so much time sorting out the issues that it never takes a stand for what's right and what's wrong. The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that, even after the most inhumane and violent century of recorded history, still refuses to take seriously the human capacity for sin and evil.

The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that has such a negative attitude toward power and authority that it permanently relegates itself to powerlessness.

The liberalism that must die is the tepid faith of those who can't make up their minds. Once, the wife of Oliver Wendell Holmes said to someone who asked her what religion she was, "We're Unitarian." He said, "Why?" And she said, "Because it's the least you can be." The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that demands nothing of us.

The liberalism that must die is the liberalism that has abandoned its historic commitment to justice, and that, instead, has become a theological cover for middle-class respectability. Those liberalisms have got to go.

Conversely, the liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that looks at the human heart with a clear and unsentimental eye, and still finds reason for hope. That can say, with William Ellery Channing, "Despite all our failings, I still thank God that my fate is bound together with the human race."

The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism whose commitment to the worth of every person is such that it always asks the question: "Who among us is not free?"

The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism with a grown-up's understanding of freedom. Freedom is not "I can do whatever I want." Real freedom is "I can do what I must. What I'm called to do."

The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that takes all the available knowledge—knowledge of faith and of reason—and, based on that knowledge, makes judgments about what's right and what's wrong. The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that values the rational mind, yes, but that also values equally the convicted heart and the strong will.

The liberalism that must live on is the liberalism that is committed to the prophetic call for justice: the call that has motivated generations of liberals to work on its front lines.

Religious liberalism will only be a viable option when it can muster
the courage of its convictions, and recommit itself.

Today I'm recommitting myself. From today on, I'm going to give more of myself and my resources. If this sounds a bit like an altar call, well, it is. Because we have a liberalism that must live on, and I—and you—have the capacity to help it thrive and grow.

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

How to Give to the CLF...

Some give a percentage of their annual income: setting aside 3% or 5%, even 10% to support the Church of the Larger Fellowship.

• Make a check or debit/credit card donation—use the envelope found each month in Quest.
• For online donations—go to clfuu.org, select "Make a Donation to the CLF"—and pay in full or set up an automatic monthly donation from your debit or credit card.
• Make a gift of stock or direct a gift from your donor advised fund.
• Remember the CLF in your will.

Please call 617-948-6166 if you would like more information on Giving to the CLF.

We hope you will reflect on how important the CLF is—and how vital the voice of liberal religion is to the world we live in. Perhaps you eagerly await each issue of Quest. Or maybe our online connections are part of your community. The CLF is so many things to so many people in so many different circumstances—please join us in our commitment to this vital work, wherever your truth takes you.

Make a Donation to the CLF

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

From Your Minister

The Best Money I Ever Spent

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

That's what I Googled for: "The best money I ever spent." You always hear that a look at your checkbook or your credit/debit card log will tell you what you value, so I figured a values sampler would be readily available online. I was right.

A sewing machine. Eye surgery. Wine Searcher Pro software. A performance of Cirque du Soleil. A harmonica masterclass. The Howard Dean campaign. A $2 circular saw from a garage sale. A ukulele. Tuition. A bicycle. A wild turkey hunting dog. Driving lessons. It was all there. The best money I ever spent.

Reading these clips made me happy. I got the impression that money was a good thing, even though word on the street is that ministers don't approve much of money. Indeed, isn't it customary for clergy to promote giving everything away and await treasure in heaven? What about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God ? But even the Christians backed off of this perspective by the second century, leaving the poverty mandate to the monastics.

Money, of course, is neither inherently good nor bad. Literally, our dollar bills are small pieces of wrinkled paper that have no meaning in and of themselves. Money is entirely symbolic. The trouble is, beyond its unit value, we have no agreement in our society about what money means. One can look at money and see freedom, love, survival, excess, power, comfort, benevolence, control—money can be a symbol for all kinds of things.

Can money be bad for us? Of course. Money is bad if we think it is love. Money is bad if we think that getting it or spending it will make us feel fundamentally good about ourselves. Money is bad if we're feeling insecure, and we chase after it for psychological security. Money is bad when we use it for power or control. Money is bad when it becomes our excitement. Money is bad when we're afraid of it, or we avoid dealing with it. And money is certainly bad when it's used to exploit or destroy the human family or the globe.

But when it is good, it is very, very good. Assessed by its results, money can deserve high praise. When everybody has enough, when voices are heard about how it is spent, when pleasure is taken and love and care made manifest, when standards of living rise, what's not to like?

Which brings me back to the best money I ever spent. The Web wasn't all about bikes and ukuleles, glad as I was to live those delights vicariously. Religious websites turned up categories that appeared nowhere else. Some people said they were glad to have spent money on their children, raising them as well as they could. Others talked about donating to food drives, HIV/AIDs research, peace initiatives, the local preschool. They spent money on solar panels and camps for kids and international efforts to rescue orphans. But what did they cite most of all? The best money they ever spent was on their church.

They felt good about their church donations. They saw results. They could see that when they supported their congregation, they were living their values.

The Church of the Larger Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist, spends money for the good. Someone benefits from every dollar we spend. A podcast listener in Russia maybe, or a young adult member of the Church of the Younger Fellowship, or an elderly enthusiast for Quest-on-tape, or a prisoner. Children are reading uu&me. Somebody out there is taking a UU online course that they couldn't get anywhere else, or expecting a book in the mail from our library, chatting in a UU CLF online community about science and religion, or lighting a virtual candle of joy. Grownups sit with small groups of kids, enjoying weekly curricula and activities that they receive ready-to-go in their inbox. Someone is reading a handwritten letter—maybe I wrote it, or another one of our staff.

The Church of the Larger Fellowship is a self-supporting Unitarian Universalist congregation. A church. Fundraising experts tell me I should flat-out say it: We need your support. Your money. A figure in the hundreds if you can; thousands if possible.

When I make my own contribution today, I'll believe it: It's the best money I ever spent.

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

REsources For Living

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

I love Halloween. I loved Halloween when I was a kid, and I love it just a bit more now, since it's my daughter's birthday. OK, well, maybe it lost a bit of its shine when I stopped eating candy a few years ago. But you know what? As much fun as candy is, I don't think eating candy is the best part of Halloween.

Maybe the best part of Halloween is dressing up: figuring out who or what you might like to be for an evening and trying it out. What would it be like to be a cat or a bat or a mummy? Would it suit me to be a fairy princess or a football player? How would I howl and moan if I were a ghost?

Or maybe the best part is seeing everyone else's costumes, and getting a little peek into the fantasies or dreams of friends and strangers. Who knew that Casey wanted to be a firefighter, or that Bryn could carry off being a big, scary monster?

Then again, as far as I am concerned, the best part has to be walking my neighborhood in the dark, going house to house, walking up to the doors of friends and strangers alike, all of whom are just waiting to give you a treat.

I love the idea of people sitting at their front doors, eager to do something nice for someone they might not even know, just because it's the day to do that. Of course, I know about the history of threatening tricks on people who don't give treats, but I have to say that anywhere I've ever lived there have hardly been any mean-spirited tricks, and there have been a lot of treats. Even if you go trick-or-treating at a mall or shopping area, or have a party instead, there is still that sense of people meeting up in a different kind of way, making little, tiny, fun connections.

Did you know that gathering up candy or going to parties is not the only way to build connections with people at Halloween time? Have you ever done Trick or Treat for UNICEF? Here's the idea: on Halloween night you go around to houses asking, not only for candy, but also for coins to put in a special box. Then a grownup sends the amount collected to UNICEF, to help kids around the world get the basics of life, such as food, medicine, education and water. So by doing Trick or Treat for UNICEF you can not only make a connection with your neighbors, telling them about UNICEF, you can make a connection with a child in Thailand whose village was swept away in the Tsunami, or a child in Africa who has lost a parent to AIDS, or millions of other kids across the globe. Or, if you don't go trick or treating, or would rather just focus on candy that night, you can set up your own website where you can send your family and friends—and neighbors—to make a donation. If you have a Unitarian Universalist group, you could make this a program for your congregation, or you could even bring it as an idea to your school. Whether you say it aloud or not, and whether you're with a UU group or not, you will know that you are taking action to build "a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all," just like it says in our sixth UU principle.

You can find out everything you need to know to do Trick or Treat for UNICEF in person or online by going to www.unicefusa.org and clicking on the orange Trick or Treat box. While you're there, check out the fun UNICEF World Heroes game!

But whether you Trick or Treat for UNICEF or just for candy this Halloween—or if you live in a country where Halloween isn't a holiday you celebrate at all—maybe you can make this October 31st a special day to celebrate the tiny ways that we are connected to each other.

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)

Sin Brought Me Back

Sin is what caused me to leave the church and give up religion, and sin is what brought me back.

In my grandmother's house, sin was associated with pleasure. All those things that I thought were fun were of the world, and therefore sinful. Dancing, playing cards, going to the movies all condemned me to Hell—which made it sound like a pretty interesting place. In my father's house, sin was associated with form and ritual. Eating meat on Friday, coming into church with the head uncovered—these were misdeeds to confess. But I couldn't feel guilty about them.

Years later my three-year-old son came running to the house to tell me that a neighbor's boy had just told him that God would kill him if he told a lie. I decided that it was time we found a religious community that would sustain and encourage our beliefs:

that we are part of a universe of diversity and inter­dependence,
that the diversity of our world suggests that truth and beauty take many forms,
that God is concerned with the enhancement of life, that evil is life-destroying,
that sin is associated with self-absorption, and that salvation lies in selflessness and service.

A religious community is in the world and concerned with the world.

by Betty Bobo Seiden, from Been in the Storm So Long, a meditation manual edited by Mark Morrison-Reed and Jacqui James. Published by Skinner House in 1991, this book is available through the CLF Library (www.clfuu.org/library or 617-948-6150).

Quest October 2006 Contents Not for Ourselves Alone Upcoming Online Classes A Religious Liberal Examines His Heart How to Give to the CLF... From Your Minister REsources For Living Sin Brought Me Back Listen to this month's Quest	Email this article to a friend (Remember to add your friend's email in the "To:" line)