Composing Ourselves, Religously
Rev. Ted Tollefson - revted9@earthlink.net
©November 4, 2007 @ UU Society of River Falls

After 27 years of ministry and 20 years teaching world religions and psychology, I have had many opportunities to witness and encourage the process of identity formation for Unitarian Universalists.  I assume that there are four or five elements which compose religious identities.  Though some people may experience one as “primary” or proclaim one as primary, I continue to see variety in how people construct their religious identities.  I am both philosophically and personally opposed to “one way” formulations.  Philosophically, because they commit the logical sin of generalizing too hastily from one's own habits, biases and values.  Personally, because demands that everyone adopt a single path of faith development cannot do justice to the diversity of our tradition.

In my work as minister and teacher, I try to identify which element is most strongly established and then encourage a journey of integration towards elements that are less developed.  When several elements are well integrated, a process of synergy is activated.  This process can produce a UU visionary leader who transmits a version of our core identity by preaching, teaching, and witnessing.  Our congregations are often imprinted and transformed by such catalytic leaders.  In other traditions they might be called saints, bodhisattvas or enlightened teachers.  I call them “beacons” of our liberating faith.

1. Theology/Philosophy: Beliefs about What Matters
Beliefs about what is Sacred (God/dess, Great Mystery, Ultimate Concern, Tao, Nature, Gaia, Humankind, etc) and how that sacred dimension is related to our picture of self, others, community, world.  For some this vertical dimension connects us to the Source, Ground, Root of Life.  For others it is the most fundamental map or model of Everything and our place in it.  For others it is a finger pointing beyond itself towards what transcends all name, form, and structure (Spirit, the Uncreated, Chaos, Tao-beyond-words, Emptiness...)
         
For many Unitarian Universalists, our theology can also be understood as answers to the great questions of life including:
    Q1.  What is Sacred?  What is the source or ground of our being?  (God, Tao, Brahman, Gaia)
    Q2. Who am I?  What is my core identity?  (soul, psyche, Atman, Buddha nature, human)
    Q3. Who are we? Who is/is not part of our community? (church, sangha, people of the Book)
    Q4. What and why is there evil?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  (theodicy)
    Q5. What happens after death?   (heaven/hell, judgment, karma/reincarnation, recycling)
    Q6. What is the end or defining purpose of our lives?  (goal, telos, destiny)
    Q7. How does radical transformation of self and society occur? (conversion, awakening, etc)
    Q8. What is trustworthy knowledge? (epistemology)
    Q9. Who most fully embodies our faith?  (Christology, Buddhology, heroes, ego-ideals)
    Q10.  How is the natural world organized and ordered? What is our place in it? (Cosmology)

2. Ethics: Giving Life the Shape of Justice
Ethics provide guidelines for living together in communities of more than one by establishing clear expectations of how we will treat others and how we expect others to treat us.  Ethics help us translate our theological beliefs or core values into embodied action in a shared world.  Ethics provide the horizontal dimension of covenants by connecting us to those in our community, humankind and all forms of life.  

Many people have a personal ethic that provides guidance when push comes to shove.  It may be a variation of the “Golden Rule” which appears in most world religions: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.  For others it may be a “rule of thumb” learned from family life or the school of hard knocks.  “If it's not broke, don't fix it” is one such guiding principle that seeks to protect the world from care-less meddling.  For some, our personal ethic may be more visceral: we feel with our heart or gut when someone is trustworthy or when harm is coming our way.

For many Unitarian Universalists, the 7 Principles have become a shared guideline for choosing, acting and witnessing.  They were not carved in stone by lightning bolts, but crafted through years of discussion and voting.  The 7 Principles may or may not be what we want read at our memorial service; they are a guide for living not for dying.  Working together synergistically they point a vision of the Good Life.  This central axis of meaning transforms the riot of our free faith into a May-pole Dance.  For other faith communities, ethical guidelines are provided by Buddha's Five Precept, the Five Cardinal Virtues of Confucius, or Jesus' summary of the Law.

3. Growing Spiritually:  the Breath of Life
Growing a spiritual life has two sides.  One side of our spiritual life seems freely given or accidental when we are grasped by experiences that come to us suddenly, surprisingly, without warning.  In direct experiences of the Holy, the Good, the Beautiful a door opens to another dimension which strikes us with fear and awe, terror and yearning.  Ralph Waldo Emerson records one such experience in the opening sections of his seminal essay Nature:

'Crossing a bare commons with snow puddles, at twilight, having in mind no expectation of good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.  I am glad to the brink of fear.'

These trans-formative experiences, cataloged by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, often promote a radical awakening, a new beginning, a change of heart.  One of the functions of theology is to build an orderly framework around such experiences, so that they can be intellectually integrated into the rest of our lives.

The other side of a spiritual life is more intentional.  If spiritual experiences come to us as accident, a spiritual practice makes us 'accident prone'.   As the word practice implies, repetition is essential.  A regular spiritual practice -such as meditation, prayer, reading, t'ai chi, yoga, chi gong, fasting or keeping silence- builds a bridge between ecstatic experiences and every-day life.  Practice, as Zen master Dogen discovered, does not cause Enlightenment.  Practice is a way to express our True Nature by how we hold a tea cup, welcome a guest or release an arrow. 

The two sides of our spiritual life, what is given and what is chosen, go together like the in-breath and the out-breath.  We breathe; and we are breathed.  We are moved by an experience of beauty, so we take up the craft of poetry, music or painting.  We are touched by a fearless truth-teller, so we sharpen our critical thinking skills.  We are changed by an expression of kindness, so we are called to a life of service.  My guess is that most people already have something that functions like a spiritual practice.  What calms your mind, opens your heart, connects your feet to the earth and makes you feel glad just to be alive?  Do that on a regular basis and it becomes your spiritual practice.

An ongoing spiritual practice can add zest, joy and meaning to our spiritual life.  It provides stability in times of crisis, vitality in times of sadness.  Without a spiritual practice, we can have a steel trap ethic but  lack compassion.  We can have a polished theology that has no contact with the living Mystery which animates all theological constructions.  After a direct experience of Divine Wisdom, Thomas Aquinas said that all his theological works were like straw burning in the fire of the Holy One.

4. Shared Histories, Shared Stories
A fourth essential element is sharing our histories: personal and communal.  When Unitarian Universalists gather to tell stories of coming to our faith several processes happen simultaneously.  We can hear how the life of one person has been shaped and nurtured by liberal religion.  We can see common threads and unique features which bind us together into a differentiated tapestry.  We can celebrate the “Good News” of Unitarian Universalism as it courses through a single human life.  We may feel, as some of our evangelical neighbors might say, confirmed and convicted in the faith that we have chosen.

In order to organize and empower a UU religious identity, individual stories and histories must make contact with the history of our movement and its congregations.  Identity formation rarely takes place in a vacuum.  Many of us received and accepted a call to our liberating faith because a Unitarian Universalist leader or congregation welcomed, inspired and blessed us.  To learn significant details about the history of our congregation and our movement strengthens and enlarges the tapestry of our faith.  We begin to know and feel ourselves as part of a movement through time.  Those who have been welcomed and blessed by our liberal faith may feel the call to welcome and bless others.  A thorough and articulate knowledge of congregational and denominational history may better equip us to share its Good News.  Our shared ministries require shared experience and shared understanding.

5.    Congregational  Life: We Gather Together
What we do together in community expresses our theology, deepens our ethical commitments, outwardly expresses our spiritual life, and helps our history to flow into the present and future.  For some UU's, what happens on Sunday morning is the defining moment of our week.  Whether worship is understood as communion with the Great Mystery or the 'shaping of worth', worship is what matters.  For some UU's worship is a means to an end: it provides the emotional/spiritual fuel which powers up peace-and-justice witnessing.  For others our congregations are one-room schools or mini-universities; our central mission is to train and educate current and future Unitarian Universalist leaders.  These different models and metaphors often coexist within the same congregation.  What they all have in common is a shared recognition that the meaning of our faith is fulfilled in community.  Though we recognize and welcome many forms of ministry and use various names for our religious communities, we are still an association of congregations.  

Four  Wagers  for  Unitarian Universalists
1. Any of of these factors can serve as the basis, root, ground of our religious identity.  None have foundational status except as a profession of personal faith.  Some of those whose foundation is theology may be theists or teachers of theology.  Some of those whose foundation is ethics may be humanists or teachers of ethics.  Some of those whose foundation is spiritual practice may be transcendentalists or teachers of spiritual practice and psychology. 

2. One function of religious education is to identify and strengthen our foundation and then develop resources for integrating the other elements of religious identity.  For example, those with a deeply introverted spiritual practice might grow their faith by participating in communal worship or public witness.  Those with a clear theology might gain a sense of social efficacy from articulating their ethical principles.  Those with a well-defined ethic might find new energy and zest for their good works through developing a spiritual practice.

3. Religious identities that are positive, pro-active and complex may be more durable contagious than those that are negative, reactive and narrowly based.  I want to know what you are for more than what you are against.  When we know who we are and are not afraid or ashamed, when we can articulate our faith clearly and compassionately, we become “beacons” of our liberal faith.  Let your Light shine!

4. A comprehensive approach to encouraging and strengthening UU identity formation would provide easy access in multiple formats to each of the cardinal elements: beliefs, ethics, spiritual life, history and communal life.  Comprehensive preaching would include at least three dimensions in any sermon aimed at a congregation of more than two or three.  Inclusive and mutually affirming principles for collegial dialogue would discourage one-upmanship based on a privileged pattern or content of identity formation.  Debate between various faith constructions should be grounded in direct experience, tempered by logic and informed by tolerance.  As the Unitarian minister Francis David said centuries ago: “We need not think alive to love alike.”

RESOURCES  for Further StudyImage
Introduction
The question of how religious  identities are formed has long been a focus on my ministry.  These reflections began as a response to dialogue at the UU Prairie Star District Ministers Retreat at Shalom Hills Farm in early October 2007.  Thanks to my colleagues for the lively conversations.

Beliefs about the Sacred
This understanding of beliefs systems  being centered on what is sacred or what matters comes in part from the pioneer work of William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is carried forward by Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy and Mircea Eliade's, Sacred and Profane.

A Question-Centered  Faith 
A good place to start is  our hymnal Singing the Living Tradition:  #650  “Cherish Your Doubts”  and # 657 “It Matters What We Believe”.  For theological approaches see Paul Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith and Paul Rasor, Faith without Certainty.   A readable history of  free inquiry is  Duncan Howlett, The Critical Way in Religion. Rev. Harold Rosen's provocative thesis develops an inter-generational approach to the Great Questions: Religious Education and Our Ultimate Commitment:   An Application of Henry Nelson Wieman's Philosophy of Creative Interchange. Gregory Stock's series provide lots of good questions: The Book of Questions;  The Kid's Book of Questions, etc.   Strephon Kaplan-Williams models the healing power of well-crafted questions in Dreamworking.  Unity-Unitarian Church of St. Paul , Minnesota  is developing a question-based curriculum for children (The God-Shaped Hollow).    I am working on an adult curriculum based on the 10 Questions (Q1-Q10 above) , called Living the Questions Now.  For a refreshing portrait of Socrates as a founder of free inquiry see Robert E. Cushman, Therapeia.

Ethics
The efficacy  of ethics has been demonstrated in countless  inter-faith groups and ministerial associations: conversations about theology tend to divide and  conversations about ethics tend to unite.  Many UU congregations have benefited from  shared covenants  so members and leaders know what is expected of them.  For a classic introduction to “covenants” among UU's see Wright, Conrad, "Congregational Polity and the Covenant," in The Transient and the Permanent in Liberal Religion.

The notion that many people have a personal ethic or rules of thumb came, in part, from my work with Mythos Institute from 1990-2000.  The most common “personal ethics” in my informal survey are variations on the “Golden Rule” (do unto others...) and the Silver Rule (“do no harm”).  For a lovely poster of the “Golden Rule” plus lessons plans go to: www.pflaum.com.  The poster is $9.95

The Seven Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association  continue to be a unifying factor in a denomination that values diversity and integrity more than enforced theological orthodoxy and its cousin hypocrisy.  For a huge bank of resources go to the UUA web-site, www.uua.org, and search for “Principles”.  One gem among many: Our Seven Principles in Story and Verse, by Ken Collier.

Spiritual Life
I am indebted to  the essays of  Ralph Waldo Emerson (Nature, The Over-Soul, Self-Reliance) for his steadfast insistence on direct, personal (“original”) experience as the necessary foundation for  theology or ethics.  My mentors in the study of spiritual  experiences began with William James', The Variety of Religious Experience, and continue with Abraham Maslow's, Religion, Values and Peak-Experiences and Mihaly Csikszentamihalyi's Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience..

A contemporary Zen teacher, Richard Baker, coined the phrase: “spiritual experiences are accidental; spiritual practice makes us accident prone”.  (oral report from my cousin Frank Kilmer)

The intimate and universal connection between “Spirit” and “Breath” is evident is many languages (Greek, Latin, Chinese, Japanese, Sanskrit,  etc).  This embodied wisdom is reinforced by Matthew Fox's We, Whee, Wee: All the Way Home and 30 years of meditation practice.

Shared Histories, Shared Stories
My awareness of how shared histories and stories inform religious identity began with  studying  and teaching of story-telling at Starr King School for the Ministry.  It continued with 10 years of teaching via Mythos Institute (1990-2000) when I traveled to UU congregations across the country listening to stories of how people left the religious home of their childhood and found a new home in Unitarian Universalist congregations.  For a good collection of essays on the power of stories see Sacred Stories: A Celebration of the Power of Stories to Transform and Heal by Charles and Anne Simpkinson.  For an elegant therapeutic mode based on stories see What is Narrative Therapy? by Alice Morgan.

Congregational Life
My wager that congregational life is for many of us, the central hub of our religious identities has been shaped by several ministerial colleagues who were lucky enough to be born Unitarian Universalists.  I want to especially thank the Revs. Rob and Jan Eller-Isaacs and Jim Eller for investing their  talents in UU congregations in a way that is both inspiring and contagious.  See also Conrad Wright, Walking Together: Polity and Participation in UU Churches and a collection of essays published by the Unitarian Universalist Association: The Transient and the Permanent in Liberal Religion.

OPENING QUESTIONS:  Gaining an Over-view

  1. What is the core, the central hub of your religious life?  (beliefs, ethics, spiritual life, etc).
  2. In crisis or change, which elements of of your religious identity sustain and guide you?
  3. What is your religious/spiritual home? (beliefs, ethics, spiritual life, etc)
  4. What's your back-up? Your supportive/complementary function? (beliefs, ethics, etc) What strengthens your core?
  5. If your core had a name, what might it be?  What book or thinker has shaped your core?  If it were a piece of music or painting or novel, what might it be?
  6. If beliefs are the core, how would you characterize your theology or philosophy?  What is the central idea or question for you?
  7. If ethics are the core, what is your “golden rule”? Central ethical norm?  Where does it come from?  Who or what taught you to respect this principle or norm?
  8. If spiritual life is the core, what is one spiritual experience that changed your life?  How do you return to, honor and deepen this trans-forming experience? (ie, spiritual practice)
  9. Draw a map, chart or cartoon of your religious core and what supports it.
  10. What your growing edge?  What aspect of your religious/spiritual identity would you like to learn more about?
  11. What does your growing edge look like? Feel like?  If it were a song, what might it be?
  12. Where or to whom might you turn to help with your growing edge?  What resources exist within your congregation and communities?
  13. Draw a picture, map or chart of your top-two elements  and your growing edge.  Gather these images around a central open circle---leaving room for something new.
  14. Share this image with someone else and invite them to create one of their own.
  15. Draw a mandala, a geometric form that includes images of the Sacred, your “golden rule”, and exemplars/teachers of your spiritual practice.

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For information about   Study Guides & Workshops in each area
(beliefs, ethics, spiritual life, congregational life, history)    
contact Rev. Ted Tollefson via-email:
revted9@earthlink.net