#uuism

[tinychalise]

Hi friends!

I'm still very new to my spiritual journey, but last time I went to church, I noticed the woman ahead of me had a journal with her! And I found that really inspiring so I decided to start one too!

The odd part is, I want it to be a specifically spiritual journal that mixes elements of Christian devotionals and Book of Shadows'. Does anyone have any ideas about how to do that?

The tough part is is that I'm not a very diety centric person and id rather not just be copying information from internet articles about tarot methods or crystal properties.

I'd rather it be a more serialized summary journal of services, prayers, and thoughts w/ other notes throughout.

Does anyone have any inspiration or guides that could maybe help me with formatting and ideas?

[boogerbrains]

unitarians sure know how to decorate a single stall bathroom

[nyrlthtp]

i started going to a unitarian universalist church (tl;dr: father wanted me to attend church, so i found one i can agree with even though it isn't christian and he's peeved about that) and i've been talking to others there after service is and it is wild realizing just how much my love of cosmic horror has influenced my spirituality and understanding of the universe. my optimistic nihilism also meshes nicely.

[unloneliest]

love is real i love my friends so much catching up with charlotte has been a balm to my SOUL

[sounds-void-fishy]

good omens feels rlly jewish. ik its the similarities to angels in america but my brain is very slowly making the connections

[flamingo--ing]

but mostly its given me a very odd perspective of religion and i kind of wish i had a religion that Told Me what to do instead of "theres inherent divinity within all living souls, and it is up to you to decide what to do with that knowledge" like WHAT!!!!! YOU CANT JUST SAY THAT !!?!?!?

the fun part about being raised in a weird niche religion that isnt actually a cult is that my sense of spirituality is entirely fucked and i dont understand xtians in any way

[idiopathicsmile]

You know, I always used to read utilitarian universalist and i was wondering why there was nothing about the utilitarian part x) anyway, thank you for bringing unitarian universalism back to my attention, I'm currently reading about it and it's really interesting

hi, so sorry for the late answer!

it is a needlessly confusing name, that is absolutely correct. i'm honored that my occasional harping about UUism has inspired research; of course organized religion isn't for everyone but i do wish more people knew that "socially progressive church community where you can believe in any deities (including none)" was an option. whether or not you decide to look into it further, i hope you have an amazing day!

[queerhawkeyes]

I actually feel really strongly that the order of the principles matters, and it should continue to start with equity and end with interdependence, not the other way around. and the new explanation for equity does not fit with my interpretation of the first principle. "Equity. We declare that every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness. We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities." that means something totally different to me than "The inherent worth and dignity of every person," which I take to mean an anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist view is inherent to UUism and extends well beyond our congregations or immediate communities. the first principle can be interpreted to form the basis of the rest of the principles. some of that is maybe gotten at through the new Justice value, but to me that is narrower because it specifies systemic oppression, whereas I read the first principle to include all hierarchy.

maybe I just don't like change but I also don't agree with some of the reasoning for this change--adding the longer explanations actually detracts imo from the fourth principle, but at the same time reducing the principles down to single word 'values' makes them rhetorically weaker.

[liskantope]

Today I attended a Sunday Unitarian Universalist service with a congregation I'd never visited before (long story why; this was nothing to do with the UU congregation I've written about here extensively in a complaining tone, which was when I was living in a different part of the country entirely), and I think it was the most bizarrely incongruous UU service I've ever seen. (And in a way that was generally, while not terrible or anything, not very impressive in my opinion.)

The service proported to be about Martin Luther King Jr. in honor of MLK Day Weekend I suppose (even though that was last weekend), and the sermon kept bringing up MLK and how we should think of him as a person and so on, but at the same time somehow the service was mostly about the value of personal responsibility and how we should all view our situations within a framework which centers it. I was scratching my head and listening hard the whole time trying to make sense out of what any of this had to do with MLK, but the most I could get was "we all have a lot of responsibilities we need to take charge of, and MLK did too".

I had no fundamental objection to the message about taking responsibility for one's situation, but it seemed extremely unoriginal, derivative, and cliched compared to just about any other UU sermon I've seen -- I've complained about the content of the sermons in the congregation I used to go to, some of which felt unoriginal in the sense of un-free-thinking, but all of them seemed to come from more creative and deep contemplation than this sermon did. What's more, a lecture on personal responsibility that doesn't include any sort of qualification is one of the last things I would expect from a source I associate with far progressivism. In particular, one line about "So maybe you have an evil ex, but remember that it was you who chose to get with that ex in the first place" shocked me in how it flew in the face of the much Younger and Very Online Generation -Style Progressivism, and I can't imagine such a suggestion seeing the light of day in the UU congregation I used to know so well which epitomized said subculture, including the constant "abuse is everywhere, never blame yourself for it" framework.

It just goes to show that the general ethos of UUism depends greatly on the particular congregation and minister and that I shouldn't assume, because of the heavy Youth Progressive Culture domination among the large congregation I was so involved in from 2019 to 2022, that all of UUism has turned in that direction. (Another very small congregation in my general geographic area that I've visited a couple of times also shows zero signs of this; then again, all but one or two of the congregants each time appeared to be of retirement age.)

[bfscr]

Multiple high-quality choices here, but as a Texan I'm going with "Holy Chaos Hammer"

[revlyncox]

Perspiration (2024)

Whether we are creating a garden or building a movement, there are some important questions involved in moving from aspiration to inspiration to perspiration. This sermon was presented to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick on August 18, 2024

“No matter what issues I have with other Unitarian Universalists regarding our visions of God/Spirit, justice, race, and age–at the root of everything is community, love, and faith. That day, something larger than our individual beliefs rose up in my mind. I thought of the principles, values, and family that are the connective tissue of our faith community …”

(From "We Are Community" by Elandria Williams, an essay in Becoming: A Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood)

That’s what my friend, Elandria Williams of blessed memory, said in 2002 about the way the congregation and faith held E and other members of the Tennessee Valley UU Church in the aftermath of trauma. Elandria spoke about connective tissue, experiences and relationships that transcend differences of identity and opinion. Years before we started the process to amend Article II of the UUA bylaws, Elandria was putting love at the center.

[Here's Elandria's charge to the Article II Commission as UUA Co-Moderator in 2021. E's part starts around 4:25]

E was very much in my heart during the discussions at General Assembly and as I cast my vote in favor of lifting up our values in a new way. 

Our values–Justice, Equity, Transformation, Pluralism, Interdependence, Generosity, and Love–explain how we get things done as Unitarian Universalists. From the outside, UUism doesn’t seem like it should work. We do not all follow the same creed in terms of the existence or nature of a God (or gods) or what happens after we die, yet here we are, finding our spiritual grounding as one congregation, supporting one another, and changing the world together. When I tell people on airplanes or buses what I do and about our religion, they often find it unbelievable. It’s beyond belief! How can so many different ideas translate into a faith movement?

There are some ideas we tend to have in common, like the idea that we are born worthy, but I don’t think the secret is in the realm of ideas at all. The secret is in the connective tissue: the values and the relationships, the why and the who. I know the members of this congregation find a lot of meaning in the Bond of Union, which emphasizes individual freedom, but the only way that premise can work is through practices of welcome, inclusion, accountability, support, and connection. We might think about how to make those practices more clear, and remind ourselves of the promises of community that create the trust necessary for liberation. There is a lot holding people together within this congregation and more broadly in the Unitarian Universalist movement. That’s how we turn our hopes into action. We go from inspiration to aspiration to perspiration, and we don’t do it alone. 

As many of you know, one of my personal favorite ways of turning inspiration to perspiration is a garden. Tending a garden is a process of turning ideas, soil, and water into food and beauty. Elandria’s observations about Unitarian Universalism turn out to also be true for how other things come to fruition. There might be changes in how we do things, but the emotional and spiritual energy we need to put wheels on our sense of purpose runs on mission and relationships. Values and people are the connective tissue holding a group together as they pursue a shared purpose. Keep coming back to the why and the who. 

When I first started the garden, the why was about my children. I wanted them to have a concrete sense of where their food comes from, even if we only grow a small percentage of it. I wanted all of us to feel a connection with the earth, and to have an experience of working toward something over time. Over the years, the why and the who expanded. Gardening in the front yard has deepened my connection with my neighbors, both human and more than human. I talk with my human neighbors and their canine friends as they walk by, I trade stories and strategies with the other gardeners on my street, and I get to know the birds and the bugs and the hungry mammals who are all part of the interdependent network of my local ecosystem. Supporting pollinators has become increasingly important to me each year, for their own sake and also because their fates and that of my human family are intertwined. Finally, I have come to understand that there is a why and a who about gardening for my own soul. It is a practice of grounding, patience, relationship, and generosity that helps me to be more like the person I want to be. 

Knowing the “why” and “who” guided my decisions about how. Years ago, I consulted my family and the seed catalogs and made graph paper charts to figure out how to plant the things we wanted to eat. The “why” came from what we wanted to eat and what I was interested in growing, and it turned into the “how” of a garden plan. This year, I also thought about the flowers that my human neighbors tell me they enjoy, and that my pollinating neighbors seem to like. I thought about plants that grow well together, and about rotating crops from one part of the garden to another from year to year, and about what the soil needed to stay healthy. A friend of mine who grew up on a farm and who is a plant biologist now says that one of the keys to gardening is figuring out what the land wants to grow. Adding that wisdom to my “who” and “why” understanding helped me to adapt as needed, watching what grows well and what doesn’t, changing course mid-summer, no longer attached to theoretical graph paper charts. 

One of my experiments over last winter was to allow more dry leaves to rest on the ground. We did not keep all of the leaves where they fell on the ground because we live in a forest, but I had leaf sanctuary areas around the edge of the patio and the yard, and left them in the paths and the raised beds in the garden. Natural leaf litter may have contributed to the spectacular fireflies we had in June and July, and the green patches of clover in the backyard, and to the health of some of the smaller mammals seeking an escape from the foxes. I discovered in the spring that the old leaves needed to be moved from the flower beds before any wildflowers or herbs could grow, and that I had a very happy colony of isopods attracted by the decaying leaves who needed to be persuaded to renew the soil in another part of the yard rather than munch on the new seedlings in the raised vegetable beds. I had to start my beans over twice because of the hungry bugs. I didn’t get too frustrated with the isopods, because they are part of the “who” in the interdependent web that I garden for. I went ahead and moved the decaying leaves to the roots of some trees, clearing space so that flowers could grow for my pollinator friends and so that the trees could enjoy the mulch. It was a learning experience, part of the practice of patience and resilience that answers the “why” of working in the garden. 

The wildflowers were another experiment this year, once I gave the seeds enough air and light. I planted a wildflower mix just outside the vegetable garden fence in a little aisle of soil between the garden and the driveway. I got nervous when a lot of plants with fern-like leaves popped up, worrying that they were baby invasive honey locust trees. But the plant identification app I use on my phone assured me that these were Sensitive Pea plants. A few other plants were mixed in, and perhaps another winter will unlock different wildflowers next year. Once the sensitive peas bloomed with little bright yellow blossoms all up and down the stalk, the bees flocked to my garden. It made me so happy to see the stalks of the wildflowers sway with all of the buzzing. What I did not take into account is that this meant all of the low-growing herbs next to the fence within the vegetable garden were now in the shade and didn’t flourish as usual, so that is a learning experience for next year.

The garden is never perfect. Not only are there things that are beyond my control, I’m always learning something new, always adapting to the needs and hopes of all of the beings who are connected to the garden, always finding new insights about the patience and resilience I am trying to grow within myself. But even with all of my mistakes and learning experiences, we got a fair number of beets, carrots, strawberries, cucumbers, Mexican sour gherkins, cherry tomatoes, and tomatillos this year, among other things. 

Turning the idea of growing things into a living garden was a project powered by the “why” of learning and relationships and by the “who” of people in my family AND other beings in ever-expanding circles of love and care. When we’re transforming goals into action, it doesn’t hurt to start with a plan, yet the connective tissue of values and relationships is necessary for holding the whole thing together and giving a project or a mission the spark of life. In addition to household projects, I’d like to think that the questions of “why” and “who” are relevant in big goals, huge endeavors that span decades and borders and cultural divides.

Once upon a time there were two religious denominations. They had a lot of ideas in common. They both liked the idea of a faith that learned, grew, and adapted through the ages. They both liked the idea that loving God and one’s neighbor were important. Yet the denominations remained separate. It took almost a hundred years between the time they first started discussing their common ground until the time when they completely joined forces to become a unified faith that brought its combined history and potential into the future. I’m talking about the Universalists and the Unitarians, and their consolidation into the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961.

Universalists were convinced that union with the Divine is the shared destiny of humanity, and therefore we joyfully choose to care for all of our siblings on earth. Unitarians were dissenters who used reason in matters of faith, and by applying critical thinking to the evidence, found support for free will and a loving God, along with skepticism for the doctrine of the Trinity. Briefly, Universalists: no Hell; Unitarians, one God; both: free will, love your neighbor. These are powerful ideas. Ideas need people to put them into action.

The first time there was a resolution for a merger of the two denominations was in 1865. It was defeated, but the two movements had so much in common, they kept talking about cooperation. What separated them was not so much theology as culture. Universalists were more likely to be found in smaller and more rural communities. There were perceived differences of wealth, class, and education. For many years, the two groups focused on the mechanics of the how question, “How can we cooperate with the people who are different from us in these ways?”

Meanwhile, at the local and regional level, cooperation was happening all over the place. Many ministers held dual fellowship and sought positions in either or both denominations. Some individual congregations merged or federated, starting with congregations in Mukwonago, Wisconsin, in 1878. Even congregations that stayed separate got into cooperative arrangements, like the Universalist and Unitarian congregations in Syracuse, New York, that remain good neighbors to this day. Sunday School leaders swapped books and lesson plans. These relationship-building efforts sped up as years passed. Meanwhile, Humanism gained strength in both denominations, further moving questions about belief to the side in favor of commitments to values and relationships. In 1953, the Universalist and Unitarian youth groups merged for form Liberal Religious Youth. In 1955, faith development professionals combined to form LREDA, which is still the professional association for Unitarian Universalist religious educators.

The question of “who” was clearly involved. Then there is the “why.” In the documents prepared for congregational discussion about the consolidation, the authors stated reasons about religious freedom and responding to the issues of the modern era. In retrospect, I would phrase it a bit differently. Universalists and Unitarians grew from the same source material of faith that moves people to love their neighbor and to promote liberation, and a faith that comforts its people in the spirit of love. By coming together, they were able to carry forward the most vital, transformative parts of their reasons for being, and leave behind the mechanics--the “hows” and “whats”--that didn’t necessarily support the “why” and the “who.” From there, Unitarian Universalism was able to adapt to a changing world.

We find ourselves in a changing world in 2024 as well. We have clarified our values as a UU movement, our national and state-wide faith-based justice organizing is focused on building power according to those values, and we understand more than ever how important it is to have a place of grounding and spirit and joy and belonging. As we continue our anti-racism and anti-oppression work, we have more clarity about who we are, who we are accountable to, who our community partners are, and how deeply interdependent our world is. All of those contribute to our “who.” Love is at the center. That’s a big answer to the question of “why.” And we are coming to understand that the “how,” the forms, techniques, organizational structures, and technologies that have served us in the past may no longer be the best vehicles for our purpose. We must ground ourselves primarily in the “who” and the “why,” not the “how” and the “what.”

Church consultant Carey Nieuwhof, in his article, “10 Predictions About the Future Church and Shifting Attendance Patterns,” writes that there is a seismic shift happening right now in American religious life. He writes from the perspective of mainline Christianity, but his observations are relevant for Unitarian Universalists as well. Nieuwhof readily admits that no one is really sure what’s ahead, but talking about the trends and the possibilities can help us to be more effective at being loving, spiritually grounded communities making an impact on the world. He predicts that gathered faith communities are here to stay, but how we gather and how we organize and how we implement our values can and will change. Nieuwhof writes: 

Churches that love their model more than the mission will die.

That said, many individual congregations and some entire denominations won’t make it. The difference will be between those who cling to the mission and those who cling to the model.

Nieuwhof goes on to compare the model of how we gather in spiritual communities with different technologies that come and go. A musician or a musical group may have a mission of creating beauty and catharsis and emotional connection with the human condition through music, and that mission might be shared in 8-tracks, cassettes, CD’s, MP4s, streaming, or something we haven’t yet thought of. People may arrive at concerts in horses and buggies, trains, cars, buses, electric scooters, online, or some other way. The mission is the guide, and connecting with the people who are part of the mission is more important than any given model for how to make it happen. 

This congregation has a busy year ahead. You are going to work together to clarify your mission, and the Mission Task Force is going to help you do that. Having a new mission statement will only be the beginning; you’ll need to spend the next several years in lively engagement with questions about how to implement that mission and how to let mission, rather than form, guide you. You are also in search for a Contract Minister. The Contract Minister Search Committee is going to do a lot of the legwork for you, and they will be asking members for your input, your discernment, your heart and soul work as you expand your imagination about who your next minister might be. A renewed sense of mission will be really helpful as you get to know your next minister, and you will need to be creative and courageous in partnership with that minister as you transform the model of congregational life to best fit your mission, your resources, and the world that is changing around you. If you are a member or a committed friend of this congregation, your participation in both the Mission work and in the feedback for the Search Committee is vital. I’m excited that I get to accompany you on your journey this year. 

Moving from inspiration to aspiration to perspiration is a process. The energy we need for that process comes not just from time management and noble abstract concepts, but from a deep sense of our purpose and values, and from a sense of connection with the people and forces that sustain us. There are techniques that can help us refine the “what” and the “how,” and yet we must change and grow and adapt our “what” and “how” in the service of “why” and “who.” May we remain true to our purpose and values, and in right relationship with the interdependent web of life.

So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

[mngael]

What's Going on in Unitarian Universalism?

Intro: A few years ago I was a member of a UU church...for various reasons I left it, but am thinking of checking it out again. I heard from some of my UU friends on Facebook that there were some major disagreements going on at a national level at the General Assembly so I looked into it. What I found was a more pronounced version of things that bothered me about my local church & some national UU programs.

UUs have long emphasized social/economic/racial justice as being intertwined with their faith and the seven principles that form UUism's core. This was a major reason I found them attractive. Encouraging civic involvement and activism and taking broad positions as an religious association are all positive ways of expressing these values.

UUism also emphasizes freedom of conscience & belief, reason and democratic representation. The problem is, these two aspects have been coming into conflict as some people have pushed specific political ideologies to the point of dogmatism especially in ministerial education. Ministers and other leaders that openly disagree or criticize these ideologies have been denounced and ostracized or pressured to conform or keep silent. Clearly this is a misuse of "social justice" that serves agendas that betray the foundations of UU traditions and history.

While there is indeed a history of classism, elitism and racism within religious liberal traditions, it is a mistake to cast aside these roots by reducing them to "white supremacy culture". Fortunately there are UUs both ministers and laypeople who are speaking out against these trends. Many people have already left but perhaps folks can either work from the margins from within, or outside of official UU channels. Whether I will be one of them I have yet to decide. But in the meantime, in the next post I will share some links and resources I have come across in a spirit of solidarity.

[ripples-of-thought]

The wilderness at my door

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest was a privilege that I was quite unable to appreciate as a child. It seemed from my earliest memories that I was never far from a delightful garden park, towering cool forest, or rich field teeming with life.

Not that I didn't love my neighborhood or the city I was raised in. I just had no idea how very rare the wealth of natural beauty that surrounded me was. Out at the edges of Portland, Oregon, a lot of the land had yet to be developed. Zoning laws were very strict to limit sprawl and the pollution that comes with it.

When I stepped outside, my lungs pulled nothing but fresh air. Traffic was a dim hush in the distance. In the morning, songbirds chorused together. In the evening, when the sun sank over the hills, the stars peppered the night sky in countless twinkling points.

Today, you would say that we were "free range kids". In those days, before cellphones, nobody had heard of "helicopter parenting" and roaming the neighborhood was just how kids met outside school. Assuming we had no homework (which almost nobody had until they reached middle school) we were allowed to go anywhere our bikes could take us, under the condition that when we saw the streetlights come on at the end of the day, we came home.

Frequently, my bike took me around the corner and down to the bottom of a little valley, where a wooden footbridge crossed a meandering creek, leading to a great mountain forest forest of fir trees, with paths running through it. It seemed to span miles - I never did find the far end of that forest, as I would usually reach an impassible point where the trails turned back or came to a stop at a small clearing, speckled white, yellow and blue with wildflowers.

To me, that forest on the other side of Fanno Creek was Middle Earth, or Narnia, or Camelot. I howled like one of Wendy Pini's Wolfriders, and I searched (in vain) for the musical unicorns of Phaze. It was a place I could escape, imagining myself a daring explorer penetrating the lush ferns, or a naturalist, studying the complexities of an ant colony. Some days I was a "mountain man" (think Grizzly Adams), rationing out the fuzzy red wild raspberries I found and "fishing" in the creek with a hook-free string dangling from the end of a stick. In the hottest days of August, I removed my shoes and socks and waded up the chilly creek in search of its source.

I would also go there to cry. So few people trod those paths that it made a really great place to find solitude and comfort. It was a bad day at school that day, and I hiked up the hill to breathe in the scent of pine needles and wood rot, and write my some moody poetry in my spiral notebook. I chose a large fallen tree to sit on, and opened to a fresh page.

Until then all I had known of woodpeckers were from Woody Woodpecker cartoons, so when I heard the rapid thunkathunkathunkathunkathunka of a bird after its next meal I almost didn't believe what I was watching. It was female, and bore no resemblance to the rascal cartoon character. As I stared, it continued hammering away at the remains of the tree that had furnished the log I was sitting on.

Suddenly, I remembered that I had brought a journal with me, so I began to try to draw what I was seeing. When it pecked at the tree, it was nothing but a blur, so that is what I ended up putting to paper. Wood chips flew all around as it bore into the soft, rotting column. It paused occasionally, cocking its head one way and another watching for any sign of danger.

A recreation of the sketch, somewhat improved from the original.

My mood shifted with the distraction. The angst was abated, but time is short for someone so young, and the woodpecker was more patient in its pursuit of bugs than I was. I closed the book, stood to return home, and startled the poor thing off.

One of the principles of my religion today is the acknowledgement that all things are interconnected in a great web, and that what affects one affects us all... touch a single thread and the whole web vibrates. My time spent within small pockets of nature, like that forest, was one of the cornerstones of that affirmation for me.

[kategivesup]

That’s why I go to a Unitarian Universalist church. It does not tell you what to believe, it’s more about being a good person. I and half the people there are atheists, but it’s a supportive community with social activities, civil activism groups, moral and intellectual guidance, etc. My church has a LGBTQIA group that I go to, which puts on a prom for queer kids every year.

TBH the church is dying cuz young people are not interested in religion, so I’m doing my part to tell you all about this community you can access. Because UUism is non-creedal every congregation is gonna be different, so if you don’t fit into one church, try another.

You gotta create replacement activities man. We can't just phase out all the church attendance and all the usamerican social holidays cold turkey in the middle of a loneliness epidemic bro like yeah fuck church fuck thanksgiving and FUCK the 4th of July but like what's the long-term plan. People need holidays and repetitive social rituals or they go crazy. Like are we inventing new ones or ....?

[smallblueandloud]

it's raining outside and i have the fairy lights on and like? you know what? this is good. i am good. i am glad for this.

[uuchurchofriverside-blog]

It’s the second night of #Chalica!