Wellspring: inspiration and guidance for a spiritual journey

Ben & Jerry & Joy, by Joy Collins

April 29th was pouring rain on Cape Cod. And only 46 degrees. And every single person walking out that door had a huge grin on his or her face. A “moment of joy.” The door was the exit from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Shop in Eastham. And as all ice cream aficionados know, that’s Free Cone Day at most Ben and Jerry’s around the country. Sometimes the line extended out the door, with hoods and umbrellas up. We saw teenagers with pink hair, workers with stained overalls, elderly folks with canes, a couple in a pickup truck sharing their cones with their black lab. We aren’t sure what brought us more joy – savoring our own “Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz”, or watching, through windshield wipers, all those smiles.

How is it, all these people were free at 2 pm on a Tuesday afternoon? The only reason we were free, and willing to drive 30 minutes each way, was that we were on vacation. In my “real” life, I would never have made time for this. Life is jammed full of “important” stuff. Work, food shopping, home repair, meal preparation, church committees, dog walking, vacuuming, eldercare. Oh yes, and time for my spouse! So, I ask again, how is it, these other folks had free time for a “moment of joy”?

Through Wellspring, I don’t so much learn new ideas, as much as move the ideas from intellectual realization to experiential. And this year, one of my aha moments came in our new session on the “Theology of Joy.” I saw how easily I let productivity kill the spiritual sustenance of “Joy Moments.” If I’m frantically trying to jam more into my day, or worrying about all I need to get to, I miss the “moments of joy” that arise every minute. There is a false underlying belief I carry, that life will be wonderful once I get it all done. It’s my lifelong struggle to move beyond this belief. In a book we are considering for our following on course, “Wellspring 2”, Philip Simmons writes in Learning to Fall, “in our desire always to be elsewhere than here, we can lose what measure of heaven may be ours on earth…the present is the unfinished house in which we dwell.” All those people who went to Ben & Jerry’s for a free cone on Tuesday reminded me to let go of needing to “finish the house” before I savor a rainy day scoop of ice cream.

God as verb, by Joy Collins

Previously I wrote about the gift of my 81 year old mother. Today I write about the unlikely teaching of my elderly dad.

I was raised Catholic during the 1960s and totally bought into “God the Father” as the white bearded guy with a staff, and “God the Son” being Jesus of the Sacred Heart. My teenage religious rebellion turned me toward the God of Rationality. Later, in my mid-30s I enthusiastically embraced the God of Psychotherapy. I will admit, I am an unabashed fan of therapy, having had many years of it. It truly awakened my emotional and compassionate side.

Yet at some point, it too, became not enough. My therapist, a most transformative person in my life, encouraged me as I experimented in the mid-90s with Unitarian Universalism. But I still felt caught. It seemed I had only two options: reject God altogether, as our humanist-oriented minister at the time indirectly advocated, or embrace my childhood image of a conscious, directive potentate who saw fit to allow child abuse and starvation. Neither route was appealing.

Enter Process Theology in the guise of my dad. 8 years ago, at age 76, he showed early signs of dementia. As their executor and eldest local child, I needed to delicately get more involved in his and my mom’s finances. Managing their money had been the center of, not only his retirement years, but his entire adulthood. I began spending hours sitting with him in their spare bedroom as he and I would go over investments, gifting, and bill paying. He had a brilliant financial mind that gradually was slowing to a crawl. During those in between years I had many minutes where we sat, him struggling and usually eventually succeeding, in grasping the work and conveying his ideas. All I could heartbreakingly do was practice patience, breathing, compassion and the fine line between taking over and sitting back. In an odd way, these were beautiful moments.

During these months, I was also nearing the end of my time in therapy. Our sessions had moved from dissecting my childhood to more forward-looking spiritual concerns. In one session in particular, I remember bemoaning my lack of connection to a personal God, the one my conservative Christian sisters took such comfort in. Because a just and loving God would not slowly destroy the part of my dad he most treasured.

And my therapist, in one of those simple, yet brilliant remarks, said, “God is in those conversations with you dad.” I probably stared at her blankly. She continued, “God is not a separate being. God is created in you each time you choose compassion with your dad. God is the love you are showing by letting him do what he can, and gently, with face-saving respect, offering to do what he can’t. God is the loving interaction.”

In a flash, I got it. Ten years before I ever heard of process theology, I got the concept. Rev. Gary Kowalski talks of the world/god “as composed of verbs rather than nouns.” Rebecca Parker says “we make God, as much as God makes us.” While this is still intellectually difficult to understand or articulate, I totally get the experience of God as Process. It has liberated me into being as “godlike” as I can in all my interactions. Thanks, Dad, for providing such an unusual but life changing gift.

Recyled Stardust, by Joy Collins

My mom is 81 years old. Yesterday, in our 9 degree (yes, I mean NINE degree!) weather, she went downhill skiing at the local resort, where she continues to ski the most difficult “black diamond” trails. Maybe not as aggressively as in the past, but she’s still tough to beat to the bottom. Part of her identity is that of a skier.  Me, on the other hand, on the 9 degree day, had out-patient surgery on my “bum knee” which turned out to have a meniscus tear (probably from my own years of skiing and running.) What a contrast between Mom and me!

The good news is my surgery went smoothly and I should be off crutches in a week. The bad news is they had to remove a significant chunk of the meniscus, and as the young doctor kindly put it, “You might want to consider cross training with a sport other than running.” Immediately I began wondering what this meant. Run only 3 times a week? Twice? Once? Not at all? What, not engage in my favorite physical and spiritual pastime for the last 37 years? I’m really going to have to think about all of this.

Which brings me back to Mom. When is it the courageous, life giving path to push back on aging and get out there in the 9 degree weather? On the other hand, when is it the gracious spiritual path to say good-bye to an anchoring and life connecting sport that has sustained me through moves, job anxieties, divorce, coming out, re-marriage, deaths of loved ones….the list goes on. How can I feel connected in the universe without this beloved spiritual practice?

I’m getting some comfort from one of the readings in our recent Wellspring session on Humanism. In a speech, Rev. David Bumbaugh, Professor of Theology at Meadville Lombard, reminds me that, hard as I try, I am NOT separate from the universe, and that whether I jog or not, I am a manifestation of it:

“The history of the universe is our history; we are all of us recycled stardust…In a curious way, we carry with us in our bodies the very environment in which we evolved. The heat of our bodies is the heat of stars, tempered to the uses of life. The salt in our blood and in our tears is the salt of ancient oceans, encapsulated and carried with us, generation upon generation, into strange and distant places and circumstances. The past is not dead. It lives in us even now… It is a religious story in that it whispers of a larger meaning to our existence…If, as the Humanist Manifesto suggests, we are not separate from nature and we are a result of nature’s inherent processes, then our struggles with meaning and purpose, our endless search for insight and understanding can not be limited in their significance or consequence to the human enterprise alone, but must be part of the emergence of the universe itself.”

For a non-theistic agnostic such as myself, Bumbaugh offers me an honest, yet satisfying way to see the truth that I don’t need my daily run to feel connected. I am better than connected, I AM the universe!

Evolutionary or Revolutionary?, by Joy Collins

Last weekend my spouse and I were in New Jersey to attend a civil union ceremony. New Jersey legalized same-sex commitments earlier this year. The couple, in their mid-60s, have been in love for 47 years. One of the pair, Marge, is a practicing Catholic, active as a lay leader in her parish. Though she knew the answer, she asked her parish priest to perform the ceremony. He declined, but asked if he could come, without his collar. So the ceremony was instead performed by a federal judge, with “Father Mark” incognito. Both Marge and Father Mark have chosen to stay in the Catholic Church, trying to evolve it from within. They take a lot of heat from their more revolutionary friends. Father Mark told me it’s his and Marge’s church too, and if they leave, the powerful win over the loving. Some might think Marge and Father Mark are weak-spined.  However, I think theirs is a courageous stance. The stance of hanging in to slowly move an institution forward.

In Rochester on the other hand, our city gained notoriety 10 years ago when Father Jim Callan not only blessed same sex unions, but allowed all worshipers to receive communion and allowed a woman in vestments on the altar. The Vatican removed Jim as a priest, and he and his 1,000 person congregation are now part of the American Catholic movement at Spiritus Christi Church. I think Father Jim is courageous too. Each is expressing their radicalism in a different way.

I compare this to almost 500 years ago. Our Rochester Wellspring groups are currently reading For Faith and Freedom, a short history of Unitarianism in Europe, by Charles A. Howe. There are two chapters dedicated to Michael Servetus, who by daring to challenge John Calvin’s Protestant doctrine was burned at the stake in 1553. He believed Jesus was human as well as divine – a heretical threat to the prevailing power structure. Micheal Servetus, the first (and unfortunately not the last) Unitarian martyr, was willing to lose his life for his beliefs.

We don’t ask our Wellspring participants what they are willing to die for. We DO ask them what they are willing to lose, in order to stand up for their beliefs. There is no right answer. Are Marge and Father Mark “right” for working within, some say supporting, the Catholic dogma, or is Father Jim Callan “right” in forcing the Vatican’s hand, and being ousted? I believe we are each called to shine a light to support the “inherent worth and dignity of every person”. And we need to be willing to lose something in that endeavor. At the same time, where we are on the evolutionary – revolutionary spectrum is up to the conscience of each of us.

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.

A Unitarian Universalist Mother’s Day, by Tina Simson

My son has a tattoo of a chalice on his shoulder. I remember the day he called from Ithaca NY. He was visiting some friends he had met at a UU Youth conference, had just turned 18 and was in the tattoo parlor.

“I just want you to know, mom. I’m not asking for permission or anything.”
Raising a UU child is always fun! I wasn’t really against tattoos, it’s just that I’ve seen teens make mistakes, like ‘Sam and Sally Forever’, and I knew for sure he wasn’t stamping ‘I love mom’ on his arm. So, I asked about the cleanliness of the establishment and then I asked, “What are you having put on your body?”
“A chalice,” he said, “I made the design myself.”

Well there you go, how do you argue with that? The UU faith was so important to this child of mine, so much a part of his identity and his spiritual home, that he was making an indelible statement.

It’s only recently, through my Wellspring journey, that I learned the history of the symbol of our faith. The chalice is not just a cozy way to begin our worship ceremony but an emblem that defines our commitment to freedom, action and creative dissidence. Its origins begin with the Unitarian Service Committee during WWII.

In 1940 the Rev. Dr. Charles Rhind Joy, directed the Lisbon, Portugal, office of the USC. Lisbon, the only open port in Europe in the early 1940s, was the preferred destination for millions of refugees. The USC took special interest in helping artists, intellectuals, and dissidents escape the Nazis. And so while Joy worked with people from all walks of life, his clientele included many famous authors, scientists, and politicians. Many of the refugees fled without the identification papers they needed to cross borders, so the Lisbon office concentrated especially on helping them obtain replacement papers. Joy introduced an innovation: travel documents issued by the USC itself. "It may amuse you a bit," he wrote to the Boston office of the USC, "to know that we are now issuing navicerts to pass emigrants to the new world through the British blockade. We are certifying that they are politically safe and sound."

Joy believed these documents needed a seal. He asked Hans Deutsch, an Austrian refugee artist working in Lisbon, to create one. The result was essentially the flaming chalice as we know it now.

An Austrian refugee, caught in the evil of fascism, created a symbol of freedom. This is what the creator had to say about his work.

It represents, as you see, a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice. In ancient and medieval art this chalice is frequently found, and the design itself, modernized and stylized, though it is, reminds one of the signs seen on the old monastic manuscripts. This was in the mind of the artist. The fact, however, that it remotely suggests a cross was not in his mind, but to me this also has its merit. We do not limit our work to Christians. Indeed, at the present moment, our work is nine-tenths for the Jews, yet we do stem from the Christian tradition, and the cross does symbolize Christianity and its central theme of sacrificial love."

My son graduates college on Mother’s day and yesterday I told him about the origin of his tattoo. He was pleased with the history, and took the opportunity to tell me…see mom it was a good idea.

I wondered out loud, how I might have an indelible symbol of my faith for all to see. He put his arm around my shoulder, leaned his head down onto mine and said, “You do mom. Me”
Happy Mother’s day

Making History, by Libby Moore

Several years ago I joined a group of UU's on a pilgrimage to Transylvania. We visited the hilltop fortress where Francis David was imprisoned until his death. In Wellspring, we read about our Unitarian roots in Europe (For Faith and Freedom, by Charles Howe) and the history came alive for me because of having been there. I comprehended the magnitude of the changes instituted by Francis David and honored his life. I am in awe of the strength of belief it took for him to stand up in the face of the established church and say, this is the truth as I see it.

I wonder sometimes what beliefs I would feel compelled to defend to in the face of prison and death. We are so blessed to live in this society of more-or-less open discourse about matters of religion and the soul. Our own church community and Wellspring nurture me in my own quest for truth and meaning. What must it have been like for Francis David to stand up, alone, for what he believed? And yet he did – and we are stronger for it.

"We need not think alike to love alike." (Unitarian History)