Week 5, Religion: Unitarianism Pt. 2, or Can You Really Trust a Unitarian?

You can't trust the Unitarians.

So where were we?

I had a wonderful ninety minute lunch yesterday with a friend who graciously offered to share her thoughts, feelings and experiences with me as a woman growing up Catholic in America today. Knowing admittedly only sketchy bits and pieces about her faith, I quizzed her on some relevant details, including Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Holy Week, as well as inquiring about more basic matters like the Eucharist, Sunday School, and what made or broke a Church service.

She talked a lot and I asked a lot of questions, mostly informational but some invasive, and it was pretty great. But when we got to the end, she turned to me and asked if I minded if she asked me a question: "What about you though? I know you're a Unitarian and all, but what do you believe in? Do you believe?"

This is it, really: what is it exactly that I do believe in? Where has my "Unitarian Faith" brought me? I come back to the jokes, which are not based on nothing; at best, I am in the "discussion phase" of my faith understanding, and at worst I have nothing to say. Growing up as a Unitarian Universalist has made me an open-minded person, but having never been asked to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs, I wonder at times what it would feel like to embrace or reject an understanding of the world handed down to me by people I trust most, my parents and priest.

In explaining myself to her, I clarified that while I do not believe that Jesus was a godly savior and I do not know whether or not I believe in God(s), I am also not an atheist. To me, atheism seems kind of pointless: why take effort to refute a concept that is no more refutable than it is provable? For this reason, I am also somewhat suspect of "avowed atheists", as I am not entirely certain what motivates someone to go out of their way to declare their non-recognition of a force they do not believe exists; beyond the sensibility of such efforts, the undercurrent of anger that often courses through these declarations surprises me. But then, this is probably the love-centered, non-confrontational Unitarian in me; maybe the non-committal middle road of "still searching" is in fact worst of all. Also, I haven't lived in a world where I might be burned at the stake for having non-conformist attitudes about faith, so what the fuck do I know about anything?

Is Unitarian Universalist a postmodern religion? Don't laugh. Modernity, as much as it strives for "the new", is the perfect religious domain: its obsessive quest to find the ultimate epistemological heartbeat falls exactly in line with the hopes and dreams of any prophet having eared the words of God. I'll even do you right and even type "religion" but it's still the same question. As a Unitarian, you are taught to accept any and all comers; love, passion, and fairness reign above drown-out shouts and book-thumping quasi-wizardry. It's not that you're told not to refute another woman or man's truth, but simply that you made to understand that you can't. Truths exist together on a four dimensional Tony Robbin plane. Who are we to say which is right or even happening right now?

What that leaves is a sea of love-leaves blowing around America looking for a home. We float down in upstate wherever and nest and make love and families and houses and touch but don't impact the lives of the people around us. Except for I guess Thomas Jefferson, TS Eliot, Emerson, Dickens, John Adams (shitty prez), Charles Darwin, Sylvia Plath, Buckminster Fuller, Rod Serling, Pete Seeger, Alexander Graham Bell, Christopher Reeve, NC Wyeth, PT Barnum, Paul Revere, Marys Wollstonecraft/Shelley, Coleridge, Horatio Alger, Ben Franklin, and of course, Tim Berners-Lee.

Week 5, Religion: Unitarianism Pt. 1, or Maia M****, Where The Fuck Are You?

The old joke:

"What do you get when you cross a Mormon with a Unitarian Universalist? Someone who rings your doorbell for no good reason."

Also:

Three children were talking about their religions.
"I'm a Catholic," said one, "And our symbol is the cross."
"I'm Jewish," said the second, "And our symbol is the Star of David."
The third child said, "I'm a Unitarian Universalist and our symbol is a candle in a cocktail glass!"

And finally:

A Unitarian Universalist dies, and on the way to the afterlife encounters a fork in the road with two options: "to heaven" and "to a discussion of heaven." Without pausing, the UU heads right to the discussion of heaven.

Diminishing returns, yes.



"If you're searching for a religious home that is guided by a quest for truth and meaning, not by a set creed or dogma, we invite you to discover Unitarian Universalism."

Love is the doctrine of this church,
The quest of truth is its sacrament,
And service is its prayer.
To dwell together in peace,
To seek knowledge in freedom,
To serve human need,
To the end that all souls shall grow into harmony with the Divine -
Thus do we covenant with each other and with our God.

This is all detritus of my childhood


Unitarian Universalist Sanctuary of Oneonta, NY

As I child, I was brought each Sunday to a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary by parents who were raised Catholic and Baptist (the one in the picture above). I was the only one of my friends who attended this "church"--the rest attended local Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist or other Protestant sect churches. Most of us shared an antipathy for our weekly Sunday requirements, and for a while I never thought that my experience was necessarily any different than theirs.

The first time I remember realizing that being Unitarian U wasn't like anything else was when I went to a Catholic Church one Sunday with a friend. I believe I was about 8 or 9. The first thing I noticed was how everyone was all dressed up. More than that though, I couldn't believe that they made the kids sit through the sermons--at the UU church, everything is timed so the kids go downstairs to their youth groups when the talky adult stuff starts. BORING. I also noticed how people didn't seem quite as loving or friendly or familiar with each other, but I understand that this was at least partially due to the fact that there were a few hundred people there, as opposed to the 75-100 or so that regularly made up a weekly UU congregation. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I knew that it wasn't at all the same.

As I began to grow and understand the world better, I gradually came to conceive of what it meant to be a UU: "... Erm, what the fuck does it mean to be a UU?" I had stopped coming round when I was about 12 (at which point my dad and sister stopped coming forever), but I started again when I was 14 because the youth group at that point was pretty cool. Our leader was a woman almost exactly ten years older than me named Maia M**** who I thought was just about the most amazing woman I'd ever met. She taught us about meditation, buddhism, reiki, self-expression and how to drink a cup of coffee for two hours. She also sheperded our group on trips to Buffalo and Ottawa for "UU Youth Conferences", which are about some of the most mental, hedonistic experiences a person could possibly classify under the aegis of "religious activity." But two years later, when Maia left to move to New York and become an actress, and my friends in the group left to graduate high school, I moved on as well, thus ending my renewed relationship with the UU community.

How easy was it for me to just pick up and put down? Or maybe a better question (by anyone of "faith") is "why was that ok?" Before I answer, I want to get into some of the discoveries I've made this week in learning about the roots of Unitarianism.

The Unitarian faith is actually very old, taking shape in the 16th Century during the post-Protestant "Radical Reformation". Unitarianism is a type of nontrinitarian faith, with the concept of the term "Unitarian" referring to a belief in a single God figure rather the holy trinity (father, son, holy ghost). As a result many Unitarians thought of their faith as being in fact one of the oldest forms of Christianity, with roots in early Christianity prior to the Council of Constantinople in 381 whereby the Holy Trinity was officially indoctrinated.

Though the ideas of nontrinitarianism subsided as the Dark Ages began, they came out again during the Radical Reformation as part of the a number of waves of antitrinitarianism. Many of these groups each carried their own distinct agendas, but over time came to be grouped together in 1687 under the banner idea of "Unitarianism", for all "who, with whatever differences, held to the unipersonality of the Divine Being."

The faith continued as a distinctly Christian one until the mid to late 19th Century, when factions of the community began to embrace the idea that their beliefs were grounded more in a quest for truth, knowledge and love of mankind an less in a necessarily theistic "love of God." At this point the church began to take on the shape and spirit more akin to the one I grew up with.

[to be continued]

Week 5: Out of Time (words coming tonight!!)

This is how i'm feeling right now, trying to fit in writing down my thoughts on my religious studies when dealing with crazed sisters arriving from Ghana, houseguests, and a mounting pile of downloaded but unwatched serialized television:


King Khan & BBQ Show

Also,


I have no idea who these people are.

[I have been collecting and listening to different versions of this song about a million times in the past five days. ]

Words will arrive this evening. Thanks also for great thoughts received by email and comments on the next two weeks!

Week 5: Other People's Lives (Seem More Interesting than Mine)

Most of us are on a spiritual journey of some kind or another.



One of my best friends from childhood told me when I was home during Christmas that he had decided that he had reached a point where the only thing he could do for himself to make his life better would be to travel to the country of Gabón in Africa and live among the natives for a few weeks while ritually consuming the iboga plant. Sailing on iboga is on the wavelength of taking a trip on peyote, except harsher and more intense. It's also illegal in the United States. I was in disbelief when he told me he was leaving, but it was also clear that nothing would stop him. I've been worried about him for the past few weeks but finally he wrote me an email today:

hey dude!

yes, im more alive than ive ever been! Im going to be staying a bit longer...

I am still undergoing my initiation: I have had 2 iboga ceremonies and they have been very eye opening. Lots of excruciating pain and terror. it has been really good for me to face these fears. i have one more ceremony to do, and then i will be finished hope you are doing well my friend

-D****

I love "Very eye opening. Lots of excruciating pain and terror."--this should be a couplet I use to end a poem someday.

I can't pretend I understand what he's doing, but I can understand the idea that everyone needs to take their own path.

Click here for a great Salon.com article on a journalist's superpsychedelic iboga trip.