Wellspring: inspiration and guidance for a spiritual journey

Evangelism and Unitarian Universalism, by Tina Simson

Can you imagine sharing something you love with your friends and family? Can you imagine bringing a group of friends together to showcase wonderful things? Are you interested in bringing riches into your own life? No, I’m not talking about Tupperware, fancy baskets or gourmet food. I’m talking about Unitarian Universalism. Would you go door to door to spread the good news? I recently asked some church members that same question; one friend said she’d rather dig her eyes out with a spoon!
Well, we UU’s have traditionally been an insular bunch and frankly that’s causing our denomination to shrink at a time when the country and the world needs our voice as loud as we can make it. As part of my role as Church Trustee, I recently read The Almost Church and began to see our role in the world differently and came to understand what seems to be attracting members to our doors. Let me tell you, it’s not Canasta night. it is vitality, innovative social action and an essential voice in the community.

Recently our home congregation received a grant from the UUA to support our Life Now Radio effort. Life Now Radio is a venue offered jointly by our home congregation First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY, and the First Universalist Churches of Rochester. Rev Kaaren Anderson from First Unitarian is the host and she skillfully explores diverse and engaging topics on a weekly radio program. You can listen to the broadcast or download it onto your computer or IPod and listen to the them whenever you have a spare moment. They often accompany my morning walk. Well, the UU grant will help Kaaren and her team spread the word and using Life Now Radio. It will mean going door to door. Whenever other religious denominations knock on my door, they seem elated because they have found answers to life’s most challenging questions. But don’t we have those same answers? Why can’t we rejoice from the mountaintop and share our message, so relevant in the world today? We could shout about:

The inherent worth and dignity of every person
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

Being a Unitarian Universalist has changed my life in countless ways. I found my way to this denomination at the memorial service of a friend when I was 36. That was 17 years ago, and I immediately felt as if I had come home. I often wonder how my life would have been different had someone knocked on my door eager to spread the good news.

Growing Up Unitarian, by Libby Moore

As a Wellspring facilitator, I look forward to our monthly planning session with the other facilitator and our associate minister. It's a little like our own Wellspring meeting, even though there are only the three of us, and it nourishes us all. We start out with a check-in, just as we do in our groups, and then we review what we've done in the most recent Wellspring sessions and where we're going next. And that's the exciting part.

In the Wellspring program, we're moving this week from spiritual journeys to our Unitarian Universalist history, starting with a discussion about the UU Principles and Purposes. Last year we had this discussion at the end of the year. We realized that participants who were new to our denomination hadn't always understood the threads woven through the history readings because they didn't know what we believe in common as UU's, so now we're discussing the principles and purposes earlier in the year. We talk about our current beliefs in the context of what we still keep from our childhood faith traditions – or lack thereof – and what we have rejected from those traditions.

Unlike others in my Wellspring group, my faith tradition is Unitarian. From the time I was three or four, I was raised in the Unitarian church, went to Unitarian Sunday school and joined LRY as a teenager. But I wasn't comfortable standing out from the crowd, and being a Unitarian felt a little weird to me. The only easy explanation of our beliefs was that we believed "in the divinity of man [sic – this was the fifties, after all] and the humanity of Jesus." One year in Sunday school we studied the Church Around the Corner, visiting different churches and synagogues, and I wanted to convert to any one of them because they seemed so certain of what they believed – and they had great rituals, unlike my austere Unitarian church.

So in my first year of Wellspring, the readings on Unitarian history opened my eyes and my heart. It gave me an appreciation for the long history of Unitarians – a tradition of brave, independent thinkers who dared to challenge authority because of their conviction that they had the right to think for themselves. It's taken me years to recognize that my values and beliefs come from these forbearers, strong, brave people who were seen as heretics in their time. I love Wellspring because it encourages us to think for ourselves while valuing the beliefs we hold in common. It has helped me articulate my own beliefs in my own language – and, most importantly, to feel comfortable speaking about those beliefs to others. I am truly a Unitarian Universalist and glad for it, and Wellspring has given me the tools I need to tell the world about it. May it be so for all of us.

Unitarian with a Rudder, by Joy Collins

Last week I was at a restaurant with two other Unitarian Universalists and one “non-UU.” We discussed the latest topic for the monthly small covenant groups. The question was, “what do you want to be sure to do before you die so that you don’t have regrets?” We decided to go around and share our responses over our Greek meal. As then often happens, these responses called us to deeper conversation in general, mostly about spiritual matters. The non-UU, a dear friend with a different set of beliefs from mine, looked at me and said, “I think you’ve chosen a more difficult path, not being a theist, and therefore so rudderless.”

I must admit, I broke all the polite conversation rules about pausing before speaking or making a reflective listening statement. I jumped right in to defend myself, maybe I was even a bit too defensive. I certainly don’t feel rudderless. At least most of the time. Especially after being involved in Wellspring for 2+ years.

And yet why was I so defensive? I do feel misunderstood, and imagine other UUs face similar image problems. We UUs, without a common creed, a common deity, a common book of scripture, can certainly look rudderless. And then I got thinking that perhaps this is what Wellspring is all about. About not only finding one’s rudder, but also being confident and articulate enough to talk about it. And maybe I am at a stage of needing to not only feel my rudder, but to unapologetically share that more with others.

This week in our Wellspring group we looked at our Seven Principles and also an overview of the most frequent theological questions. The questions other faith traditions have ready-made answers to. Questions like, what happens after you die? What is the nature of evil? How did the world come into being? Are our lives pre-destined? What is the role of religious authority? One of our goals by the end of this church year is for each participant to be able to answer these questions, at least for him or herself. At least for right now. And as part of our “faith in action” to be able to articulate these beliefs, yes this rudder, even over a Greek meal.

Pencil marks on a door jam, by Tina Simson

There I was, smack dab in the middle of cleaning my house, arms full of rags and Murphy’s oil soap, tears streaming down my face. You see I had just glanced at the door jam in my kitchen. You know the one with the pencil marks measuring children, the one you can’t bring yourself to paint during the 20 years you live in a house. There it was, as it is every day, testimony to the ways we all grow.

I see my own mark, noted by my son Mike. It names me ‘Mom’ and the mark 1/8 inch above me claims, with glee, the day this son grew taller than I. I remember the ritual of measuring. Only Dad could do it, it must be done with a pencil, with no shoes and feet back against the wall. I remember the few moments of holding our breath as Dad would proclaim, “yep, you grew” or “no sorry, not this time.” At holidays distant friends and family would clamor to the wall to see where the year had brought them.

There is a mark for ‘Dad’, and family friends, nieces and nephews all clustered at the top racing to out grow each other. A girlfriend added, only when the relationship passes certain tests, if you make it onto the door jam you usually make it into the family.

So what caused the tears? Well, there are three new marks at the bottom of the jam. Not far from the floor at all. They are the measures of three new souls in our family. I look at each, a nephew, a niece and a grandchild. Three glorious members of this family and I think, who knew? Who knew what hope and grace they would bring to all of us? You see, we’ve had our share of losses. Every family does. And in life, we come to expect loss. People die, always sooner than we want. We miss them desperately because they had become a part of who we are and their loss feels as if a limb was severed. We all have sorrow that brings us to our knees leaving us wondering how to go on. Somehow we do.

Three children full of awe, love and joy fill the empty spaces in ways we could never have known. And we grow in ways not measured with a pencil on a door jam.

The Chorus of Connection by Rev. Jen Crow

Just over twelve weeks ago everything changed for me. People told me it would happen, of course, but how could I possibly know what they meant? One night I was out running errands and doing laundry, sleeping soundly in a quiet house, and the next – well, let’s just say the world turned upside down and my heart cracked open.

The morning of my son, Henry’s birth, everything went exactly as planned. We arrived at the hospital on time and before we knew it, we were heading down the long hall to the operating room for my partner, Loretta’s, scheduled ceaserian section delivery. The doctors and nurses warned me that I’d need to wait outside for just a few minutes, and relieved that our midwife was in the operating room, I sat on the bench outside the door and began to wait.

I waited and waited. I tried meditating, but that didn’t work for long. Within minutes of closing my eyes and counting my breaths, the narrow corridor filled with doctors and nurses scrubbing in at the sink just a few feet away from me. They sure seemed at ease, but as the time of the surgery got closer and closer, my anxiety started to climb. So I began to pray. I prayed for the hands of the surgeon, for his quick mind and kind heart. I prayed for the nurses and the anesthesiologist, for their care and skill. I prayed for Henry and Loretta, for their health and comfort, and I prayed for myself, for the flexibility to cope and be present to all the moments ahead. As I prayed, I poured out my worries and my mind eased. And then something else happened. Something that I find harder to explain. The best I can do is to say that my heart simply cracked open that morning. In those moments sitting on the bench outside the operating room, I heard in my own prayers an echo – a ghost, you might say in this month of Halloween. 

In that echo, I heard not only my voice praying for the health of my wife and son, for the doctors and nurses caring for them – but I heard the voices of families around the world - – from Iraq to Afghanistan to Norway to Australia to America – offering up those very same prayers in dozens of languages. I imagined families sitting outside of operating rooms, beside bomb sites, up late at night wondering where their children were – and I heard their prayers lifted up – their hopes, their dreams, their human longings. In those moments before the nurse called my name and led me into the operating room, I felt myself joined in this chorus of connection - praying for comfort, for hope, and for the ability to cope with whatever came next.

Through this experience, I came to know our essential and unwavering human connection in a new way. No matter who we are and where we come from, we share so many of the same hopes and dreams, most of them so basic – for health, for life, for care and hope. As we continue to live into this month of pumpkins and haunted houses and memories – I pray that the ghosts of our neighbors all around the world might call us back to our truest task – creating conditions of health and healing the whole world round.

On Sunday, by Libby Moore

I have to admit up front that I'm something of a Rebecca Ann Parker fan anyway, but I'm becoming even more so after reading her essay "Spiritual Practice for Our Time," in Everyday Spiritual Practice: Simple Pathways for Enriching Your Life. She writes about an ancient spiritual practice that I have been trying to adopt over the past couple of months, keeping the Sabbath. She says, "To keep the Sabbath means, once every seven days, to step outside the dominating culture and enter another space." The dominating culture emphasizes shopping, consuming, working, striving, competing. Stepping outside of it for a day means slowing down, paying attention to family and friends and nature, giving oneself time to think, pray, reflect. "Stop the madness and rest," she says.

I have to admit that my life isn't madness in the first place. I'm blessed with the ease of retirement, with enough money and time and space, and I have the luxury of attractive choices about how to spend my days. And I'm naturally averse to shopping – when we're in need of food, I'll go to the grocery store, and if my clothes wear out, I'll buy new ones, but it's not a recreational sport for me as it is for so many people. Even with my comfortable life and with my daily yoga and meditation practice, though, I love the idea of setting aside a day for rest and contemplation. Because it's traditional and works best in my life, Sunday is my Sabbath.

For me, Sunday no longer means a time for laundry, cleaning, shopping, or taking care of business, whatever that might be. I try to stay away from my computer, which is probably the hardest part – it means no e-mail, games, news on-line, and writing blogs. Sunday means going to church and singing in the choir, visiting with friends and family, reading good books, doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle. It means walks with Bob, quiet afternoons reading and napping.

I've grown into this practice slowly and still haven't made a public commitment to it, although I've started telling friends not to expect responses to e-mail on Sunday. Nor am I rigid about not doing anything that smacks of work or commerce. I cook because we need to eat. If we go out to eat, I'll pay and not feel guilty for spending money on the Sabbath. If there's a congregational meeting at church, I'll go even if it's about budgets and by-laws. What keeping the Sabbath does is give me permission to rest, to contemplate, to pay attention to what's important in my life. Parker says, "To keep the Sabbath is a radical act of resistance to a culture that has lost track of the meaning of life." I find it also a radical act of resistance to my own tendency toward busy-ness. I'm discovering that it's okay not to be producing or accomplishing something every minute. I'm grateful to Parker for opening my heart to this spiritual practice – it's one I can live well with.

An Unexpected Treasure, by Libby Moore

Saturday morning I was out running errands and found myself poking through the "hot books" section of our local library. I had a list in my head of a few things I wanted to read, but a new book jumped out at me and landed in my hand and my heart. It's called Here If You Need Me, by Kate Braestrup, a memoir by a woman who become a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. The dust jacket says she found an unusual calling as a chaplain for search-and-rescue missions in the Maine woods, and that sounded interesting enough. What really grabbed me, though, after I laughed and cried my way through the first couple of chapters, was discovering that she's a Unitarian Universalist minister and that her theology felt completely comfortable to me. In the midst of heart-rending, complicated and difficult stories, she holds an unwavering certainty that love is present and that it matters. Dealing with death more often than most of us, she has thought deeply about what it means and says, in words that sounds so completely right to me: "If you want my considered opinion on what actually happens to us when we die, I have to tell you, I think we just die….If you are, in Christian terms, following Christ, or in Unitarian Universalist terms, completely and wholly in love, then you are in heaven no matter where you are. If you are not in love, you are in hell, no matter where you are. The stories we tell of heaven and hell are not about how we die, but about how we live." So much of this book is about living, about simply being there, loving and caring, not necessarily having the right words (although she often has loving words, funny words, caring words, prayerful words) but being present with the people who need you. May we all find the grace to be present with those we love and to be blessed by the presence of those who love us.