In five minutes or less
Oct. 3rd, 2001 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI don't remember whether I've mentioned here that Misha and I have started the process of becoming members of our local Unitarian Universalist church. Last week was our first "Beginners" class, where we'll be learning more about Unitarianism and about the history and practices of the congregation, and getting to know the ministers as well as our fellow "Beginners."
And also, apparently, where we will be telling the story of our spiritual journey in five minutes or less.
This was a task sprung on the group without warning. Apparently some people have a coherent spiritual journey, one they're actually capable of explaining on short notice and in five minutes or... well, more. (Apparently, keeping to a time schedule is not a Unitarian strong suit.) (I did notice that the spiritual journeys of the first few people who spoke were much, much shorter than the spiritual journeys of people who were sitting further along the circle and thus had more time to prepare.)
They didn't get to me (or Misha) before time was up, so we're supposed to go this week. That's given me a week to think about the question. Starting with, "Hey, wait a minute - doesn't 'journey' imply a destination?"
So maybe tomorrow night I'll say something like this:
What typically sets me apart from most of the social circles I move in is that I had a positive Christian upbringing, which I haven't felt the need to renounce. My family belongs to a liberal northern Protestant denomination - Congregationalist, or United Church of Christ. It's a church that ordains out gay and lesbian ministers and has a national Office of Social Justice, and - although they had their bad moments - the people I met there were generally good people who did their best to walk their talk. I ran across plenty of Christian hypocrisy later, but I never thought of hypocrisy and Christianity as synonymous, because of the example of my home church.
My family were pillars of the church. Church and Sunday School every week, singing in the choir, taking care of babies in the nursery, committees and church suppers and youth groups and retreats and all of the rest of it. But through all of this, I don't ever remember being taught that one religious group had a monopoly on the truth. I don't remember ever believing that, or even being encouraged to believe it. I went to synagogue with my best friend when I slept over on Friday nights. I took books out of the library on witchcraft and Buddhism and meditation. I sang in an Espiscopalian choral group and memorized most of the Latin mass. I liked the litanies and rituals and stories and metaphors of my religion, but I always sort of understood them as personal preferences.
I went off to college and found myself surrounded by people who were not religious at all - except when fundamentalists shouted at me as I escorted patients in to the abortion clinic or ate fire with the Lesbian Avengers. Everyone around me sort of took it for granted that religion was oppressive and bad, especially Christianity. At that time, in Oregon, liberals were battling with extremely well-organized fundamentalist Christians over, literally, issues of life and death. It was hard not to see my friends' point, although I always tried to get them to distinguish between Christianity and Christian extremism.
I never stopped having religious beliefs and thoughts, although they were mostly dormant for awhile. I never stopped shocking the hell out of people by saying that I was a Christian, but I continued to be uncomfortable about allying myself with a religion in whose name so many were doing great evil. I prayed, sporadically. The day that the doctor who did my hip replacement told me I could walk again, I found myself seeking out a church before going back to campus. I didn't have a religious community, but I always sort of expected that I'd have one someday.
I met Misha. He's an ex-Southern Baptist, and had enough animosity toward his religious upbringing to make me realize that any religious community we would join together wouldn't be Christian. Not even liberal Yankee Christian. We went to the Unitarian church in Iowa City a few times, because he'd been a Unitarian back in Memphis, but we didn't much care for the minister. I did like what I saw of how Unitarians work - especially in that they recognize that individual spiritual paths differ, but believe that people following different paths can support and learn from each other.
Over the past few years, I've found my interest in spirituality growing deeper. I've prayed more. I've spent a lot of time talking about religion with my HIV+ clients, who are mostly deeply Christian African Americans. I've celebrated the Sabbath with a couple of Jewish six-year-olds and attended Pagan circles and been deeply uncomfortable at a Southern Baptist funeral. I've been thinking more frequently about raising children, and how to teach them to see the world with love and respect.
I want to be part of a religious community because I want to join with others who are also thinking about spiritual matters and trying to put meaning to things. I still feel Christian in spirit, but I want my family to be able to go to church together. I like the idea that Misha and I can sit side by side, me thinking my Christian thoughts and him thinking his non-Christian thoughts, each of us fitting equally well into the Unitarian church. Besides, I don't think I could pick up on One True Wayism this late in life - I'd have a hard time picking a creed and sticking to it.
If I were required to come up with a comprehensive religious outlook, I'd say that it feels to me as though religions and philosophies are attempts to describe and encompass things that are essentially beyond description; that whatever spirit or God or the infinite is, it is beyond our human attempts to represent or approximate it. Like the cliched blind men and the cliched elephant. I'm not an absolute relativist - some belief systems seem to me to have a bigger piece of the truth than others. But I also think that some minds are best suited for particular paths, and that some people just have... personal preferences.
Heh. "That was never five minutes just now" ...I guess I'll have to edit out the unimportant parts before tomorrow evening. If I can figure out which those are.
And also, apparently, where we will be telling the story of our spiritual journey in five minutes or less.
This was a task sprung on the group without warning. Apparently some people have a coherent spiritual journey, one they're actually capable of explaining on short notice and in five minutes or... well, more. (Apparently, keeping to a time schedule is not a Unitarian strong suit.) (I did notice that the spiritual journeys of the first few people who spoke were much, much shorter than the spiritual journeys of people who were sitting further along the circle and thus had more time to prepare.)
They didn't get to me (or Misha) before time was up, so we're supposed to go this week. That's given me a week to think about the question. Starting with, "Hey, wait a minute - doesn't 'journey' imply a destination?"
So maybe tomorrow night I'll say something like this:
What typically sets me apart from most of the social circles I move in is that I had a positive Christian upbringing, which I haven't felt the need to renounce. My family belongs to a liberal northern Protestant denomination - Congregationalist, or United Church of Christ. It's a church that ordains out gay and lesbian ministers and has a national Office of Social Justice, and - although they had their bad moments - the people I met there were generally good people who did their best to walk their talk. I ran across plenty of Christian hypocrisy later, but I never thought of hypocrisy and Christianity as synonymous, because of the example of my home church.
My family were pillars of the church. Church and Sunday School every week, singing in the choir, taking care of babies in the nursery, committees and church suppers and youth groups and retreats and all of the rest of it. But through all of this, I don't ever remember being taught that one religious group had a monopoly on the truth. I don't remember ever believing that, or even being encouraged to believe it. I went to synagogue with my best friend when I slept over on Friday nights. I took books out of the library on witchcraft and Buddhism and meditation. I sang in an Espiscopalian choral group and memorized most of the Latin mass. I liked the litanies and rituals and stories and metaphors of my religion, but I always sort of understood them as personal preferences.
I went off to college and found myself surrounded by people who were not religious at all - except when fundamentalists shouted at me as I escorted patients in to the abortion clinic or ate fire with the Lesbian Avengers. Everyone around me sort of took it for granted that religion was oppressive and bad, especially Christianity. At that time, in Oregon, liberals were battling with extremely well-organized fundamentalist Christians over, literally, issues of life and death. It was hard not to see my friends' point, although I always tried to get them to distinguish between Christianity and Christian extremism.
I never stopped having religious beliefs and thoughts, although they were mostly dormant for awhile. I never stopped shocking the hell out of people by saying that I was a Christian, but I continued to be uncomfortable about allying myself with a religion in whose name so many were doing great evil. I prayed, sporadically. The day that the doctor who did my hip replacement told me I could walk again, I found myself seeking out a church before going back to campus. I didn't have a religious community, but I always sort of expected that I'd have one someday.
I met Misha. He's an ex-Southern Baptist, and had enough animosity toward his religious upbringing to make me realize that any religious community we would join together wouldn't be Christian. Not even liberal Yankee Christian. We went to the Unitarian church in Iowa City a few times, because he'd been a Unitarian back in Memphis, but we didn't much care for the minister. I did like what I saw of how Unitarians work - especially in that they recognize that individual spiritual paths differ, but believe that people following different paths can support and learn from each other.
Over the past few years, I've found my interest in spirituality growing deeper. I've prayed more. I've spent a lot of time talking about religion with my HIV+ clients, who are mostly deeply Christian African Americans. I've celebrated the Sabbath with a couple of Jewish six-year-olds and attended Pagan circles and been deeply uncomfortable at a Southern Baptist funeral. I've been thinking more frequently about raising children, and how to teach them to see the world with love and respect.
I want to be part of a religious community because I want to join with others who are also thinking about spiritual matters and trying to put meaning to things. I still feel Christian in spirit, but I want my family to be able to go to church together. I like the idea that Misha and I can sit side by side, me thinking my Christian thoughts and him thinking his non-Christian thoughts, each of us fitting equally well into the Unitarian church. Besides, I don't think I could pick up on One True Wayism this late in life - I'd have a hard time picking a creed and sticking to it.
If I were required to come up with a comprehensive religious outlook, I'd say that it feels to me as though religions and philosophies are attempts to describe and encompass things that are essentially beyond description; that whatever spirit or God or the infinite is, it is beyond our human attempts to represent or approximate it. Like the cliched blind men and the cliched elephant. I'm not an absolute relativist - some belief systems seem to me to have a bigger piece of the truth than others. But I also think that some minds are best suited for particular paths, and that some people just have... personal preferences.
Heh. "That was never five minutes just now" ...I guess I'll have to edit out the unimportant parts before tomorrow evening. If I can figure out which those are.
no subject
Date: 2001-10-04 04:34 am (UTC)My "Describe your religious background" comments tend to start with "Well, to actually include the important bits, I need to start with my great-grandfather...."
Thankfully, after that, it goes somewhat faster from the turn of the century or so through about 1988, and much of that I can condense into about 10 sentences.
Re:
Date: 2001-10-04 04:42 am (UTC)