Author Archives: Gretchen Haley

The Beloved Community Within

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The Chance to Love Everything – February 2012     —-

“The Beloved Community Within”      —-

In the February 5th Worship Service, I offered a series of questions about what it means to be loving. “When one of us is in need – hungry in body or spirit – how does love call us to respond? When one of us is rude or shaming toward another, what does love ask? And what would it mean for us to be known for our love?”

These types of questions ask us to consider our own behavior, how we will treat each other – in personal relationships, in community, in the wider world.  Though it’s easy enough to say “Love is the Spirit of this Church,” figuring out what it means to be loving isn’t necessarily obvious.

Recently, a UU colleague, the Rev. David Miller, shared a series of questions he and his congregation had come up with for helping their community consider if their actions are loving – if they are in what we call “right relationship.”  I share these with you here for you to consider, and invite you to use them in your personal lives, and in your interactions within this congregation, and in the wider world, as we continue to let love guide us.

  1. Am I assuming the good intentions of the other?
  2. Am I communicating directly with the person with whom I am having an issue?
  3. Am I resolving issues or am I spreading them through gossip, anger and/or
  4. frustration?
  5. Am I reflecting on what personal wounds, issues, and tendencies of mine are contributing to the issue?
  6. Am I willing to be an active participant and to work in good faith to clear up issues?
  7. Am I projecting onto someone else through my own framework what they are thinking or doing vs. engaging them and asking them to share their thoughts and story?
  8. Am I actually trying to live the principles and values of Unitarian Universalism by acting with compassion, respect, and a high value of our interdependence?
  9. Am I actively listening to what others are saying and not formulating a response or the next comment or question while they are talking?
  10. Can I let go of my need to control the situation?
  11. Can I graciously leave space for others by letting someone else speak first or by not speaking my mind if the point has been raised or made already?
  12. Can I help lift up the life of another or the group in my words and actions?
  13. Can I have disagreements with an individual or group, do so in love and
    respect, and continue to stay in community?
  14. Can I take into account the importance of the task in relation to the importance of the relationship?
  15. Can I reflect on how my attitude and actions contribute to the tone of our community?
  16. Am I willing not to have to be right?
  17. Am I being the change I wish to see in the world and that means really acting the way I would like others to act?
  18. Am I willing to be changed?
  19. And finally, can I remember to ask the question, “What is the most loving thing I can do or say right now?”

To act in the world with love, we must cultivate love in our own lives.  To hold the world accountable to loving, right relationships, we must hold ourselves accountable to the same. In the coming weeks, I am going to take each morning and read two or three of these, and just spend 5 minutes bringing them into my consciousness.  I invite you to try this practice with me.  Together, we can change the world.

Looking forward to seeing you this Sunday as we delve more deeply into the spiritual roots of justice work and consider how TRUU can grow in our engagement with social change work in our community.

With love and in faith,

Gretchen

 

 

Words, Words, Words…

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The Chance to Love Everything – January 2012  –  

“Words, Words, Words…”    ——-

Before I started seminary, I wrote myself a mission statement filled with a number of promises.  One such promise was to puzzle out what people meant by the word “God.” Not necessarily if I believed in such a thing, but just try to understand what other people meant by it.  I wanted to stop having that pit in my stomach when people said “God.”  That feeling that made me believe we could never really connect.  I wanted to be able to really hear people, no matter how much difference there was in how we understood and named the universe.

It wasn’t an easy mission.  I had to listen deeply, turn off my “argue” instincts, and just try to hear through their words to their underlying experience.

Some people expressed traditional notions of a deity.  Others, it turned out, meant a life force.  Others just meant to describe the mystery of life, the part of life that was always unknown and unknowable.   And still others just meant to say Love.  Big, unconditional, unstoppable love.

There were all kinds of answers throughout my four-year journey, so much diversity, and so much joy.  My heart opened through these conversations, and through my willingness to keep listening through that pit in my stomach (what is that – fear? confusion? fight or flight?!).

Unitarian Universalists care a lot about words. We want to be authentic, we want to be true, we want to be heard for what we’re really trying to say.  This care and concern over words has caused many a debate in our congregations throughout the years.

In January 2003, then UUA President Rev. Bill Sinkford started the most recent large-scale conversation over words.  He preached a sermon in Fort Worth, Texas, where he advocated UUs grow a greater “vocabulary of reverence.”  You can find a summary of this sermon here: http://www.uuworld.org/2003/02/calling.html.

He upset lots of people in doing this, people who wondered if he meant we should return to traditional Christian language exclusively and away from humanism.  It was ironic that people reacted that way, because actually, Sinkford’s ideas were referencing humanist Rev. David Bumbaugh’s call for a “vocabulary of reverence” in his lectured called, “Toward a Humanist Vocabulary of Reverence” published in the journal, Religious Humanism, the year before.

In that lecture, Bumbaugh argued, “We [humanists] have manned the ramparts of reason and are prepared to defend the citadel of the mind.  But in the process . . . we have lost . . . the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the religious community.”

The debate intensified for the next few years, with most ministers preaching sermons on the topic, and with most congregations finding themselves in a sometimes bitter debate within their congregations over how to grow, and also hold true to what they loved about Unitarian Universalism.

Humanist and lifelong Unitarian Universalist Rev. Kendyl Gibbons responded to this debate in 2006 with what is considered one of the most influential pieces on the question of religious language. You can find the full text of her essay here: http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/4026.shtml. In summary, Gibbons thoughtfully asked that we consider creatively using the symbols and vocabulary of tradition to allow us to more fully connect the individual’s experience with the universal – and vice versa.  She also argued that we can’t invent a new vocabulary of reverence “out of whole cloth,” and that we have much to learn from the wisdom of those who came before us who used these words in their religious communities.

In a recent sermon, I suggested that words are containers for the imagination.  They can prompt us to grow, to wonder, to change.  And they can also be places that keep us stuck, scared, unchanging, ungrowing.

You might have noticed, I’m a fan of using words that are “sticky.”  Primarily, because I find that those words that cause us that feeling in our stomach, are great opportunities for growth.  And Unitarian Universalists believe in growth – personal, societal transformation – in stretching our hearts, our souls.  If it causes you to resist – lean into it.  There’s probably something there for you to learn.  Not to agree with or even use yourself, just to learn.

And second, because I believe we are about connecting with people – all kinds of people.  And in order to do that, we need to have a comfort and capacity to use words that all kinds of people use.  Words can’t be a block in making those connections with people – whether in or outside of our congregations.  Without squinting or squirming, we need to be able to offer words that comfort across multiple vocabularies, and we need to be able to invite in words that aren’t our own, and receive them fully into our hearts as another’s truth.

And third, because I agree with Kendyl Gibbons that our religious ancestors have a lot to offer us, and we need to be able to engage with them, understand what they meant when they used some of those words we find confusing today, and be able to apply this as a source of wisdom and guidance in our lives today.

And finally – and relatedly – I embrace those sticky words because conservative Christians didn’t make up these words, and they don’t just mean the things they’d like us to believe they do.  They aren’t their words, and I won’t give them up to them – any more than I’d give up the word “love” to them.  “Love” is a word conservative Christians use a lot after all, in ways I don’t always think is the right use of the word.  But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep on using it and helping clarify what it means to me to be loving.  They don’t get “love,” and they don’t get “church,” and they don’t get “religion,” and they don’t get “God.”  And they don’t get all kinds of other words they’d like to claim as singularly theirs to define and use.

Look around on Sunday, this is what religion means.  This is what faith means.  This is what worship means.   Claim it, it’s ours too.  We come from a long and living tradition that has fought hard for our place in the religious landscape.  And as one of our hymns says, “what they dreamed be ours to do.”

As we continue to walk and grow together, continuing the long Unitarian Univeraslist tradition of taking words seriously, let us recall the words from nineteenth century Universalist minister Hosea Ballou:

“If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury.  But if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace.”

Keep on growing, keep on loving, stay with the “sticky” places – with love and with openness, for in those places, we will find the tools of transformation, the tools of changing ourselves, and changing the world.

With love and in faith,

Gretchen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflections on the TRUU Path

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“The Chance to Love Everything” – December 14, 2011 

  • Grace and Ultimacy, Belonging and Transformation – Reflections on the TRUU Path    -   

If you are like me, you might still be wondering what happened to November even as we are facing the middle of December. The days have gone by quickly, and here we are, already facing the half-way point in the church year.

When I last wrote a note like this, it was early-October, and I had just returned from Boston. I was reflecting on Belonging, noting my article as “Part 1,” implying of course, a Part 2 to follow….In the meantime, however, we’ve not only finished up our monthly theme on belonging, but also passed through November’s reflection on Ultimacy, and now are smack in the middle of December’s theme of Grace.

Luckily, a month does not end in real life like it does on the calendar. The 31st of October is just the day before the 1st of November, and the 1st of December is just the day after the 30th of November. And so, we need not hold all these themes – Belonging, Ultimacy, Grace – or even Transformation, September’s theme – as separate and distinctly reflected upon – they are all pieces of the whole path we’re on, this TRUU spiritual path of love and life, community and justice, wholeness and healing.

Transformation (personal, social) requires the confidence that comes from a deep sense of belonging (who are my people, to whom am I loyal, where do I belong).

Further, transformation is not directionless – inviting a path of transformation asks us to consider what we are becoming, and by what means – and so responsible transformation goes hand-in-hand with questions of ultimacy - what matters most, what is ultimately true, for as Emerson says, “what we worship we are becoming,”

And how else does one discern such big things except with the people with whom they belong?

And these people with whom we belong are both the bearers of gifts beyond our doing or our deserving – as well as our helpers in responding to all of life’s grace, as together we bring healing and hope – transformation - to the world around us, which in turn transforms us as well.

All of these themes are interconnected, asking that we deepen our connections and strengthen our commitment to growing ourselves, and growing our world.

In truth, it’s the hope of all theme-based ministry, that we will hold all these concepts as one, that we will integrate our understanding and our questions, and that each new theme will deepen the reflections on the previous ones. I have experienced this myself as I have prepared worship and Bright and Spirited Path materials – I’ve noticed how each of these themes interrelate and ask similar questions just from different perspectives.

For this month’s theme – grace – I have been thinking how it does – and does not – relate to questions of ultimacy. I have been hearing this song from Judy Fjell in my head all month, entitled, “If there is a god.” You can download it for just a $1 (click here to download.) It goes like this:

If there is a god, god is elusive

If there is a god, god is right in my face

If there is a god, I’m not so important

If there is a god, is that who’s givin’ me grace?

Cuz grace I see, and god I don’t

Sometimes I believe, sometimes I don’t

But grace I feel, and grace I know,

And grace is touchin’ my soul

In some ways, it doesn’t matter what we think of as the source of these gifts of life. It only matters that we acknowledge the ways we are blessed beyond our own effort, and respond to these gifts with our gratitude, and that we give back – spread the grace around.

And yet even acknowledging that is a way to think about Ultimacy - that what ultimately matters is knowing we are blessed abundantly, and responding by bringing more life to more people.

As the days continue to pass too quickly, through this holiday season and into the new year, may you find yourself blessed beyond belief, and may your life be a blessing to all you meet.

I look forward to seeing you this Sunday – for our service at 10, reflecting on how we give voice to our blessings and needs – and for our big Solstice Event at 5 in the evening. And as always, I look forward to continuing this journey of transcendence, significance and belonging, with laughter, light, patience, and courage.

With love and in faith, Gretchen

PS: If you are ever in need of a personal conversation, for whatever reason, please feel free to get in touch so that we can schedule a time.