by Jennifer Schnayer, Intern Minister

A sermon delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Portland

September 24, 2000

When I was 27 years old I lived 2 blocks from the beach, had a successful career and a devoted English cocker spaniel named Chelsea. This same year I quit my job, packed 11 boxes of that stuff that I actually HAD to have, and moved by myself across the country to Chicago. I spent the next three years studying at Meadville Lombard, our Unitarian Universalist seminary on Chicago's south side (quite a different environment from my life in Carlsbad, California).

A friend of mine came to the airport in San Diego to see me off on my journey. We sat together in the airport and made small talk. I chattered about what I'd packed and what the last few days had been like. . . and all the while I could feel the butterflies multiplying in my stomach. For the first time in a long time what came next felt like a total mystery. But there was also such excitement in the unknown - I wanted to do this, it was right for me. When I got off the plane I would begin a new stage in my life 2500 miles from home where I had no friends and no family. It was all way too scary and too exciting to talk about - so we made more small talk.

Just as I was about to board, she handed me a card and said, "Open it after you get on the plane." Once I got settled in my seat, I pulled out her card. On the front was a Barbara Winters poem:

When you come to the edge of all you the light you know,

And are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown,

Faith is knowing one of 2 things will happen:

There will be something solid to stand on

Or you will be taught how to fly.

I opened the card and a feather fell into my lap. I picked it up and just held it between my fingers, stroking the feather with my other hand. For a while I just sat quietly in my seat, stroking that feather, listening to the sounds in the plane as we prepared to take off.

In leaving my life in California to pursue my call to ministry I was following my heart and the deep yearnings of my spirit. I was leaving my friends and family, a job I knew how to do and most of my sense of security. But this was what I had to do. There are times in our lives when we are called to do something unknown to us - whether it’s a new job, a new relationship or building a life without a loved one. The transitions in our lives can be both frightening and full of potential. I was coming to the edge of all I knew, and my friend was right: I needed to jump off the cliff if I was going to learn to fly. I was taking a leap of faith.

Now, when I say a leap of faith, I mean this in two ways. First, I was taking a risk to follow the deep call of my spirit. What I was doing didn't necessarily make practical sense: leaving a comfortable life by a warm ocean for an unknown scholastic and religious endeavor in the heart of the Midwest, where more than one person had mentioned to me that "it's the wind in the winter that cuts right through you." But, cold wind or not, I was going on this journey.

And there is a second way in which this was a leap of faith. When I put my trust in a process that outran my knowledge something new inside me was born. My faith life catapulted into a realm that was unknown to me when I boarded that plane for Chicago. What began as reverence for the religious tradition that we share, this tradition that taught me to question and come to conclusions through my own experience and through reason has been transformed. The faith that called me to live my religious life through my works has been transformed. Now, my faith grows from my spiritual life as well as my life of works. It is both intimate and public, and my trust in what lies beyond my understanding has deepened. In this I have found great peace. Transitions in our lives often provide the spaces for our faith to grow - seize those opportunities when you can, for they are precious gifts.

Now, talking about a life of faith in a Unitarian Universalist context is, I think, even MORE difficult that talking about our theology. Not that describing our theological approach is easy - it's not. For example, how would you answer this question: "So you get into an elevator with someone and they ask you what Unitarian Universalism is. How do you answer that question before the elevator door opens on the ground floor?" Assume I don't mean the elevators at the World Trade Center and that you only have about 45 seconds to respond.

As UU's we are required to reflect, question and evaluate our theological beliefs throughout our religious life. Today, at coffee hours in our churches across the country there will be people who get into discussions about the nature and existence of God. As a child I learned quickly that these conversations were meant not only to stretch the theological horizons of the participants, but also to strengthen their skill in the art of debate.

This was especially true of the Fellowship of my childhood. When I was six years old my family started to attend the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Vista, California. One of my clearest memories of that place was what happened after the service. Everyone would gather on the patio and out came the card tables, the soup and the sandwiches. Then people milled around talking with each other about things like the different purposes of religious life, whether or not we should be a sanctuary church for El Salvadoran refugees, the nuclear arms threat, the ERA and so many other concerns of the day.

As a child I remember wandering from discussion to discussion, listening to all the different things the big people were talking about and the plans they were making. That social hour challenged me to think about my beliefs and how I was going to respond with my action.

Looking back, this congregation's main ritual was actually this "Discourse on the Patio." As a matter of fact it was listed in the order of service. After the postlude there was this little blurb: "Please stay after the service and join us for soup, sandwiches and discussion." This social time fed the people, literally and figuratively.

But there was more than action and debate in that small church. There was also Sunday school. The Sunday school teacher was a spritely woman, with copious energy and short white hair. Her name was Laverne and she would become my fast friend. We talked about Unitarian Universalism, the state of affairs in the world, and her work for peace, which was her lifelong calling. She emphasized tolerance of others’ beliefs and the power of science, reason and questioning in religious discernment. "Don't check your mind at the door," she admonished us. "We are going to talk about the world and our role in it." She was devoutly humanist, and gave herself over to the task of justice work to transform the world of the here and now. We sang together, played together and talked a lot about what we thought about God and Jesus and just about everything else! But we did not talk about faith. We did not pray. In the 21 years of our friendship, which lasted until her death a little over 3 years ago, Laverne and I never talked explicitly about faith. The closest we got to sharing that part of our religious tradition came to me through how she lived - with tremendous moral character and the courage to act. But for several years at the end of her life she was very sick and unable to maintain action as her spiritual discipline. I wonder how her faith deepened and what new resources she discovered to sustain her during those years. I wish we had talked about that journey.

In every UU church I have ever been to, the freedom of belief is something we state right up front - we even print it in the order of service and in our newsletters. But our religious tradition does not end there. It cannot end there. Alongside developing a theological foundation that resonates with your understanding of the world and your own personal life experience there is also the development of your faith life - one that enriches and reflects what you believe. Theology cannot stand alone - it must entwine with our works and our faith. A life of faith, and the things that feed that faith: be it worship or music or prayer or mediation or chant - whatever it may be - can help carry us through the verities of life.

About fifteen years ago my mother was faced with a serious lung disease that would eventually disable her. My mother was the rock in my life. She was a backpacker, a sailor, an all-around outdoorswoman. She had provided for me and protected me since she and my father divorced. She was strong. But when she got sick she got very controlling, needy and depressed, and her illness began to weave into the fabric of our family.

As an only child and the only relative she had to rely on, her illness placed a great deal of responsibility on me - and I was just fifteen. By the time I was eighteen my mother was quite seriously ill, and I was not sure whether or not her lung disease would kill her within the year. Illness in a family, especially a critical illness, creates a tremendous amount of stress. I was worried and angry and so very fearful. And this, coupled with our changing roles - my mothering her and her feeling that she was entitled to all of my time and care - created physical, emotional and financial strain for both of us. We come from a proud, self-reliant family and she felt, "We should meet our needs in our own family." Her idea was born of her strength, yet I was left thinking, "But what if I am the only family?" The burden was too great for me to bear alone, and I turned to my friends and my church community to help us.

A few years later, when I was fresh out of college, her illness once again escalated dramatically. Her friends helped us pay the mortgage, I moved home to care for her physically and help financially and our church helped us both through the transition that her disability created in each of our lives and in our relationship. The responsibility I felt for my mom, for me and for all the details of running a big household while tending to her illness was absolutely crushing.

Worship became one of the central, rejuvenating forces of my week, and the church was my source of good health and provided some of the strength my mother was not able to provide for our family and for herself. "Ask for help," my minister encouraged me. And I did.

One of the Sunday services I went to during that time was about prayer. Frankly, I had never been to a UU service that ever talked about prayer. I was still getting used to the notion of God. That Sunday the minister, Carolyn Owen-Towle, preached about prayer and the challenge that prayer presents for many UU's. She encouraged us to try it and see what worked for us. (And again, I did.)

There are many things that can feed our soul and replenish us when we burn low - but for myself I have discovered that there is great value in ritual - the repetition of timeless acts that transcend the present and connect us far into the past to sustain us into the future. Prayer and worship provide this kind of connection in my life. Coming together as a communal body in the act of worship binds together the joys and sorrows of our lives. These ritual acts sustain me not just because of my participation in them now, but also because I sense the presence of tradition, of a legacy of care, of the reality of human pain and suffering, joy and hope, and when all this comes together there is great power. Power beyond ourselves.

This past year I served as chaplain at Northwestern Hospital. During my time there my spiritual life once again was transformed. I found that the time I devoted to my spiritual practice doubled and I became more explicit about each aspect of my ritual: where the chalice went when I sat down to pray, what time it was, and which words I recited to begin and end my prayer time. The more I attended to the ritual the more meaningful it became in my life. As I move through life and its many transitions I have come to see that my faith is evolving. When our spirit cries out for more we have to dig even deeper inside to find hope and express our faith.

In our religious tradition works and faith go hand in hand. Take some time and explore what that might mean for you. Pray about it. Are there some words that particularly feed your spirit? You might try memorizing them and saying them each day. We Unitarian Universalists do not have a confession of faith or a liturgy provided for us. You must discover for yourself what feeds you. There is great power in the intimacy of a faith life that is created from the deep need of your own soul. Alongside this individual responsibility is our life as a religious community, bound together by covenant to recall and respect all existence. We come together to support, sustain and challenge each other, and to bring our religious heritage to bear on today's world. It is both within this community and in our own lives that we discover a life of faith.

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, will there be something solid to stand on or will you be taught how to fly?

May it be so. Amen.

Copyright 2000, by Jennifer Schnayer.  All rights reserved.