A Free and Reasonable Search for Truth and Meaning©
January 20, 2002
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland
Jane Thickstun, Celebrant

As much as we Unitarian Universalists stress freedom of religion and praise diversity of thought, I suspect it takes most of us a long time to feel comfortable discovering our differences and even longer before we can celebrate them with enthusiasm.

Our initial excitement about our congregations often comes from the feeling that we have at last found people who think like us. When we discover that that might not be entirely the case, we often focus on what we have in common and try to avoid exploring differences that we fear will divide us.

I remember my own excitement when I discovered that "diverse" means "turned in different ways." The root meaning of the word expresses so clearly the strength we can find in diversity, the way the vision of another can enhance our own. On the other hand, to "divide" means "to force apart." Because we fear that expressing our diversity will lead to division, we often retreat into silence (or express our own views so forcefully that others retreat into silence) rather than engaging in the genuine dialogue that will enrich us all.

On occasions when I have been able to explore with another person just where we differ, when we have both had the trust–and the time–to tell each other what we have seen and how we have come to understand it, I have found the experience to be energizing and clarifying. My thought is clarified, but the boundaries of my self are also clarified. I am more sure what is the "me" and what is the "not me." And I have found myself in some way bound to the person who is seeking with me. The person who had seemed to be my opponent has suddenly become my partner.

Over the years I have come to believe that the meeting of minds, in loving argument as well as in common purpose, is both creative and holy.

Sermon
Today’s topic is "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning." This is the fifth sermon in my series on the principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association, and we’re up to the fourth principle. The fourth principle is an important one - it is a cornerstone of our faith, it is in a way what most defines us as a religious body. It is what makes it so hard to tell others about our faith . . . or if you prefer, our denomination . . . or if you prefer, our association of congregations. It is what makes it so hard to say anything at all about Unitarian Universalism or Unitarian Universalists, because there will always be someone who disagrees and is no less a UU because of it!

Oh yes, we take our freedom seriously.

Like many of us here, I drifted away from the religion of my childhood. I was raised Methodist and Presbyterian, and though I remember being active during high school in the youth group and the choir, I also remember that by the end of high school I no longer considered myself a Christian. I wanted to think and talk about religious matters, but I wanted to come up with my own words and metaphors to describe my religious experience, not use those handed down through tradition. But in those days, I wouldn’t have used the word "religious" because to me it was associated with organized religion, which to me was Christianity, which was what I was rejecting. I used the word "spiritual" because it didn’t have that association, and I was unaware of the negative associations that word has for some. I pursued a spiritual path in many ways, including the study of philosophy and went to church only a few times - and it would usually be on Easter or Christmas Eve. I came to a point, however, when I decided I wanted to go back to church. I wanted greater spiritual nourishment than I was finding in the secular world, and was willing to join a Christian church to find it, if that’s what it took. I went to the local Presbyterian Church, but it didn’t feel right. Meanwhile, some friends told me about the Unitarian church in town, and when I went there, it felt like I had come home. Many UU s express this feeling of coming home when they find us. For me, it was comforting to find the service so much like the liberal Protestant churches I grew up in, yet freeing to be able to develop my own theological beliefs in my own terms! It felt like a perfect fit!

A recent study showed that only 10% of Unitarian Universalists are born and raised in it. The rest of us come to it from elsewhere. It is usually the theological freedom that attracts us. Those who are uncomfortable with it don’t stay.

One light through many windows
in different colors shines;
one flame from many candles
burns bright within our minds.

Since the principles achieved their most recent formulation in 1984, they have gained widespread acceptance, and are being preached about, taught to the children, and hung on walls. Some fear they are becoming a creed. It has been said that Unitarian Universalism has "a fear of creedalism that is irrational to the point of being dogmatic." But as I said back in September, "the principles have never been used as a test for membership, and were never intended to formulate a common theology. It is precisely because of our lack of a creed that many feel a need for a statement of what we do have in common; a formulation of certain values we agree on. And the fourth principle is the one that describes our creedlessness. It defines the free church, and is what sets us apart from most other religions, which are defined by what they believe.

The freedom comes from our placing religious authority primarily in the individual conscience. Individual conscience has always had a role in religion, but not the primary role. Traditionally, religious authority was primarily in the church–the institution--backed up by the bible which nobody but the monks and priests could read. The Protestant Reformation followed soon after the invention of the printing press made bibles widely available, and Protestants placed religious authority primarily in the book. Then, starting around the 1870s, the authority of the bible as an inspired document began to be discredited with the rise of biblical criticism. People started studying the bible as a work of literature and found that it was written and compiled by different groups of people writing for different reasons in different time periods. Unitarians along with other liberal and mainstream Christians accepted this, and because Unitarianism has been a small denomination, it was able to change more readily to reflect the new knowledge. Individual conscience had always been strong as a religious authority for Unitarians; now it has become primary.

This doesn’t mean our institution has no authority and it doesn’t mean the bible has no authority for us. Our tradition and our bonds with other Unitarian Universalists are certainly important. Some UU ministers preach from the bible a lot more than I do. But for us the authority of these old pillars of religion is minimal compared to that of individual conscience.

I occasionally hear people say about Unitarian Universalism that "you can believe whatever you want." But that’s not it. It is not a choice. Our belief systems are not based on what we need or desire. We believe what we must believe; we believe what our conscience dictates we must believe.

The fourth principle affirms the value of doubt. We can’t believe everything we’re told. Belief "has to be passed through the fires of skepticism, And boiled in the crucible of doubt." We don’t take the word of the crow when he tells us the fashion this year is paper bags on our feet and frying pans for hats. We run that information past our better judgment We test it against our reasoning faculty, and our individual conscience. "When we doubt, we acknowledge that our understanding of truth is imperfect. When we doubt, we strengthen our faith."

One song with many voices
now rises from our hearts,
and from our separate choices
one chorus, many parts.

What are we searching for? Truth. Meaning. Some identify that with God. My feeling is that in our search for truth and meaning we might find something we’d like to call "God" but we might find other words more descriptive too; more meaningful. "God" can be a very useful word to name that which is beyond words; on the other hand, it is a loaded word that can be misleading. It’s a little like the word "minister." I’ve found since becoming one that it is awkward in social situations to tell people I am one. Everybody has their own associations with the word, everyone has their own idea of what a minister is or should be. Usually it doesn’t have much resemblance to what I am. So while I like to use the word God sometimes, I am very careful with it, because I don’t want someone with a very different idea of what God is thinking I mean what they mean.

In a recent article in the UU World magazine, Rev. Forrest Church talks of religious truth being like truth in poetry. I think that is apt. So often we think that religious truth has to submit to the same tests as scientific truth, and we end up dismissing a whole realm of experience when we do that. Certainly the use of reason in religion is important to Unitarian Universalists and we can’t believe something that doesn’t make sense. But in our effort to rule out irrationality, we don’t want to miss out on what could be seen as transrational - the realm of poetry, myth and paradox. The fact that there can be many different interpretations, all equally valid, doesn’t make truth completely relative. As Church says, "That doesn’t mean that the search for truth or knowledge is in vain. . . . It simply underscores the natural limits of every human truth." (p. 24)

In that same article, Forrest Church develops the metaphor of cathedral windows. He imagines the world as a vast cathedral, with many windows. "The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through." "Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short, and our vision so dim, we are able to contemplate only a tiny part of the whole creation." Because we affirm the freedom of the search, because individual conscience is the primary religious authority for us, we must also recognize that other paths are equally valid. As Church says, "the same light shines through all our windows, but . . . each window is different. The windows modify the Light, refracting it in various patterns that suggest discrete meanings."

Ultimate reality, God, Truth, or whatever you want to call it is not something we can know absolutely, in its entirety, or objectively. We are always viewing it from a perspective. Our perspective includes our historical and geographical context. "Truth emerges only indirectly, as refracted through the windows of tradition and experience," says Church.

We are interpreters of the poetry of the universe. Looking at it this way, sometimes "meaning" feels like a more appropriate word to use to describe the goal of religious seeking. As trite as it sounds, we are indeed seeking some meaning to our lives, to life itself. But we don’t just find meaning, we create it. It is an ongoing process, one that never ends. The search is the important thing, not the finding. Seeking ways to live in the world with integrity - this is what is required of us by the divine impulse.

The metaphor of a journey is often used in literature to characterize the search for truth and meaning. Joseph Campbell wrote a famous work called The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he studies the classic hero’s journey. The hero goes through many dangers, toils, and snares and ultimately finds the treasure, which he or she brings home to benefit the whole community. One theme that comes up again and again is that the search ultimately leads home. An pared-down example of this is a story by Anthony de Mello:

"A young man became obsessed with a passion for Truth so he took leave of his family and friends and set out in search of it. He traveled over many lands, sailed across many oceans, climbed many mountains, and all in all, went through a great deal of hardship and suffering.

"One day he awoke to find he was seventy-five years old and had still not found the Truth he had been searching for. So he decided, sadly, to give up the search and go back home.

"It took him months to return to his hometown for he was an old man now. Once home, he opened the door of his house–and there he found that Truth had been patiently waiting for him all those years." (quoted in With Purpose and Principle, ed. Edward Frost, p. 66)

Another example of a story with this theme is the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy sets out to find her heart’s desire, and in the end says that if it isn’t in her own backyard, she never really lost it in the first place. But she had to go to Oz and have all those adventures to find that out.

The journey leads home because the divine is within us. We can search and search and in the end find it was there all along. But we can’t find it easily. We have to engage in the search, we have to embark upon the journey to find the treasure waiting for us at home. In the words of T. S. Eliot, "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

One earth with many nations
must share a common sun;
a world of celebrations,
a universe at one.

The fourth principle tells us we are free to search for truth and meaning according to our own conscience, but it also says we affirm a Responsible search. This means we are responsible for how we conduct that search. But we also have a responsibility to conduct that search. Because this is a free church, the foundation is not given. We are not given a theology, a way of structuring, or describing reality. We must each develop our own theology. We must each determine for ourselves what, if any, order there is to the universe. We must find truth through our own path, through our own experience and reflection on that experience; we must create our own meaning. On a website called Belief.com, in their description of Unitarian Universalism, someone is quoted as saying, "Because UUism gives you freedom, people who don't know what they believe feel lost. If you feel like you need to be told what you should believe, there's nothing wrong with that, but UUism is not for you." (It was attributed to someone called "chalicechick")

We place so much emphasis on the value and authority of the individual. This needs to be balanced by the recognition that we are not alone - we are on this search together. We have another responsibility - to share our journey and to hear from others what their experience has been and what learnings they have gleaned from it. We are each on our own search, but we are not alone. In particular, this faith community gives us fellow travelers on the path. It binds us to them through our common tradition - even though it is most often an adopted tradition - and through our covenantal community. Covenant is a solemn agreement or promise. We "covenant to affirm and promote" our seven principles, and we covenant in our statement of purpose too. It reads, "Grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches and ennobles our faith, we are inspired to deepen our understanding and expand our vision. As free congregations we enter into this covenant, promising to one another our mutual support and trust." The reading by Barbara Rohde expressed well the difficulties and the rewards of sharing our journeys - what we have seen and how we have come to understand it. We have a wonderful opportunity in Unitarian Universalism to be in dialogue with others who interpret the world differently right within our own congregation. It is an opportunity and at the same time, a challenge. It is not easy being UU. It’s not easy, but great challenges make possible great rewards. May your searches bring you challenges and companions along the way, and may your searches be fruitful.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland is recognized by the Unitarian Universalist Association as a Welcoming Congregation. We welcome, affirm, promote and celebrate the full participation of all persons in all of our activities without regard to age, gender, sexual orientation, race or any other such category of exclusion.

Please feel free to contact us with any feedback, corrections or questions at jaham@delta.edu