USG Small Group Ministry, January 2012 ~ Living Faith

The Latin root for the word faith is credo. Credo has two elements, but in our public discourse we usually just talk about the first. First, faith involves what one believes to be true. Do you believe in God? Do you believe in love or hope? The second part of faith gets less attention. It involves dedication. What are you dedicated to in the living of your life?  This is where the UU principles and purposes come in to our faith tradition. We commit ourselves to creating communities where justice, equity, compassion, democracy and peace are made available to all. We commit to living our faith.

Gandhi knew that faith needs both belief and dedication components to have any value. He said, “I do not believe in people telling others of their faith, especially with a view to conversion. Faith does not admit of telling. It has to be lived, and then it becomes self-propagating.” (p. 53 McLennan)

In his book “Acts of Faith”, Muslim Indian-American Eboo Patel says that Muslim faith involves learning and service. What does UU faith involve? A couple of years ago a group of colleagues got together to ask ourselves that exact question. We took our time. We told stories that are important in our lives. Together we came up with this statement, which we believe in and are dedicated to:

Unitarian Universalist Faith Statement (2010)
We base our faith primarily on experience. 
As humans, we suffer and are often broken, but our faith teaches that we can all find wholeness.
We experience God as a spirit that binds together all of existence and animates all of life, rather than a being that controls existence. 
This spirit of life is a mysterious force of love and grace, found in nature, community and within ourselves. 
We are all a part of it, and all exist within an interdependent web of life. 
We are limited beings, but we are responsible for one another, and we help create the future.  
When we practice our faith – through generosity, gratitude, humility and compassion – we help to make God manifest.
We do this not just for ourselves, but to serve others, promote justice and transform a hurting world.

Our intention was to create a faith statement, which might provide grounding and strength for others. However, in no way do we believe or intend for these exact words to be appropriate for everyone.

If you need help in terms of process or content in finding your faith, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. UU minister, Scotty McLennan says, “It is my experience that the spiritual mountain is best climbed along marked trails and paths. Of course, it’s possible to make progress by striking out on one’s own and bush-whacking through the brambles and undergrowth.” (p. 13)

Quotes for Inspiration
I have one life and one chance to make it count for something…I’m free to choose what that something is, and the something I’ve chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands—this is not optional—my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference. ~Jimmy Carter

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? ~ Micah 6:8

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness.  This is the judgment.  Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others? ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The good news we Unitarian Universalists have to share…is that a God who picks and chooses is no God at all. It is an idol. Against this spurious faith we must preach the old Universalist gospel of a love that invites all souls to the welcome table, not some. A love that can take hold of our hearts and lead us to lives of meaning and purpose. Our gospel of Universalism is big enough and generous enough and loving enough to capture the hearts and minds of the people. ~ Rob Hardies

Spiritual Exercise
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that “If you want to the tree to grow, it won’t help you to water the leaves. You have to water the roots.” (P. 144, McLennan) Which trees (beliefs and commitments) are you watering? Assignment: look at and appreciate your garden of faith. Take some time in appreciative inquiry. Write down the positive actions you are engaged in with some regularity which bring important values to life. Can you commit to watering one more? Just one.

Session Plan

Chalice Lighting
We are all on a journey together…
To the center of the universe...
Look deep
Into yourself, into another.
It is to a center which is everywhere
That is the holy journey…
First you need only look:
Notice and honor the radiance of
Everything about you…
Play in this universe. Tend
All these shining things around you:
The smallest plant, the creatures and
Objects in your care.
Be gentle and nurture. Listen…
As we experience and accept
All that we really are…
We grow in care.
We begin to embrace others
As ourselves, and learn to live
As one among many….                
~ Anne Hillman

Check-in Please take a minute or two to share briefly the high and low points in your life since we last met.

Reading
Religion grows from the heart as much as from the head, and it cries out to fuse body and mind. Faith, as a divinity school professor of mine used to insist, is an orientation of the whole personality, a total response. It’s not just belief – the holding of certain ideas - which is a function of the mind alone. Beliefs can be expressed in propositional form, to which the adjectives “true” and “false” may be attached. Faith, by contrast, is the opposite of nihilism and despair. It may or may not include beliefs, but it is much larger; it is the ability to experience the universe as meaningful. Having faith means that our lives hold together and make sense at a deeper level, rather than seeming ultimately awry, askew, or absurd. ~Scotty McLennan

Sitting in Silence  Let’s pause for a moment to silently consider this reading.

Questions
1. Were you able to do one more positive action that brought your important values to life as recommended in the Spiritual Exercise?
2. Looking at what you believe and what you dedicate yourself to, are there gaps between the two? Being gentle with yourself, can you figure out how to close those gaps?
3. Which programs, mentors or institutions have made an impact on what you believe and how you live out your faith?
4. Eboo Patel also says that “the heart of even the most ardent religious believer will provide more accurate clues to his or her behavior than the theology of his or her faith.”  What does your heart say about a faith in which you can believe and dedicate yourself?

Sharing/Deep Listening Please reflect on and respond to the Readings, Spiritual Exercise, and Questions.

Reflection This is a time to supportively respond to something another person said or to relate additional thoughts that may have occurred as others shared.

Singing One More Step, #168, Singing the Living Tradition (first 3 verses)
One more step, we will take one more step,
‘til there is peace for us and everyone,
we’ll take one more step.
One more word, we will say one more word,
‘til every word is heard by everyone,
We’ll say one more word.
One more prayer, we will say one more prayer,
‘til every prayer is shared by everyone,
We’ll say one more prayer.

Closing Words
Your religion is something you not only think about but also dance, sing, eat, paint and sculpt. To find your religion you must engage all of your senses. You should feel it as well as explain it, hear it as well as see it, taste it as well as smell it.  ~ Scotty McLennan

Additional Inspiration:

 “I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness. I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent and liberating. This is a faith that emphasizes love and respect for ourselves as a foundation. It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.

The faith I describe does not require a belief system, is not necessarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn't deny one. This faith is not a commodity we either have or don't have - it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

When our efforts to help seem futile, we can trust that in another time and place there may be unexpected results. When we’re trying to address a problem, improve the state of the world, help an alcoholic friend, comfort a grieving child, it might all appear to be going nowhere. Yet our actions are like planting seeds in the ground. We don’t know for sure when they will bear fruit, and what looks like failure may be a time of gestation. Our faith in working toward the good can be sustained if we don’t harshly measure the success or failure of our actions by the immediate, and apparent, results.”
~Sharon Salzberg, Buddhist Teacher

“Influences matter, programs count, mentors make a difference, institutions leave their mark.”  Eboo Patel

“From the beginning, the theology of liberation posited that the first act is involvement in the liberation process, and that theology comes afterward, as a second act.  The theological moment is one of critical reflection from within, and upon, concrete historical praxis, in confrontation with the word of Lord as lived and accepted in faith—a faith that comes to us through manifold, and sometimes ambiguous, historical mediations, but which we are daily making and repairing.

The second insight of the theology of liberation is its decision to work from the viewpoint of the poor—the exploited classes, marginalized ethnic groups, and scorned cultures.”
~ Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History, p.200

“Being a Unitarian Universalist, I understand that one’s religious identity must begin with one’s own direct experience of life.  Yet when it comes to blackness, instead of looking within myself at the one experience that mattered most, I looked to others.  It began with my mother’s commandments; later, as a young man, I went to a black psychiatrist who reassured me but couldn’t repair my self-esteem.  At the South Side Settlement House, I found redemption in good deeds and other’s acceptance.  I left Meadville Lombard inspired by the lives of my black UU predecessors.  In all of this I failed to lay claim to my own blackness-blackness defined by my past, my conscience, and my choices.

My own heritage as an Afro-American is rich.  I am the amalgamation of all my ancestors: Universalist and Unitarian: Mend and Bolum, English and Scottish, Native American, French Huguenot, perhaps Fijian and whatever else.  I am the progeny of plantation owners, slave traders, and slaves, of those who fought for the Confederacy and for the Union, a state senator and a seafarer, strong matriarchs and dutiful men.  I am, in fact, a descendant of all who came together in this ethnic cauldron, and no one has a stronger claim on being Afro-American or All-American than I.  I am what I am.” 
~ Mark Morrison Reed, In Between: Memoir of an Integration Baby, p.226

Specific Questions for reflection for the Morrison Reed excerpt:

-What do you know about the social or religious barriers to looking within himself for a sense of his racial and religious identity that Morrison-Reed experienced? What barriers does Morrison-Reed describe or imply? What barriers have you experienced? How do these relate to your own racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious identity?

- What Unitarian Universalist core truth(s) does Morrison-Reed capture in this reading? How does this truth speak to you?

- What word or phrase catches your mind and heart in this reading? Spend some time meditating on that word or phrase. Copy the phrase and carry it around with you for a few days, revisiting it from time to time throughout the day. How does your understanding of it change over time? How does it influence what you notice in the world around you, in your work and family life?

- What do you learn about how you want to "live your faith" from spending time with this reading?

- Have you read "In Between" or other writings by Morrison-Reed? Have you researched the history of the African-American experience within Unitarianism, Universalism, and Unitarian Universalism? A wide range of articles on this history is available through www.uua.org. A few examples:

http://www.uua.org/documents/congservices/araomc/racialdiversity_timeline.pdf, http://www.uuworld.org/ideas/articles/5753.shtml, http://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/resistance/workshop12/workshopplan/stories/182672.shtml, http://www.uua.org/news/newssubmissions/93750.shtml

“Since you cannot find the universal and beloved community, create it….Do whatever you can to take a step towards it, or to assist anybody − your brother, your friend, your neighbor, your country, mankind − to take steps towards the organization of that coming community.” ~ Josiah Royce

“Thomas Merton wrote, ‘There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.’ There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.  It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and the winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage. I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.” ~Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“The real question is ‘Are we willing to be changed by what we’ve started?’ Because what we’ve begun will require tremendous change within Unitarian Universalism, at both the institutional and personal level.” ~ Rob Hardies

“Freedom, reason and tolerance….are not the final goals to be aimed at in religion, but only conditions under which the true ends may best be attained. The ultimate ends proper to a religious movement are two: personal and social, the elevation of personal character, and the perfecting of the social organism, and the success of a religious body may be judged by the degree to which it attains these ends. Only if the Unitarian movement, true to its principles of freedom, reason, and tolerance, goes on through them and finds its fulfillment in helping (people) to live worthily as children of Go, and to make their institutions worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, will its mission be accomplished.”  ~ the final words of Earl Morse Wilbur’s two volume A History of Unitarianism

“Getting past the language (choose your own metaphors) what would it mean to us today to ‘live worthily as children of God’?  What would our churches and fellowships look like if they were ‘institutions worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven?’” ~ Unitarian Universalist Minister, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell