from Amy Wilson

Growing up, I never really thought much about God, or what going to church meant to me.  Sunday School was a fun way to be with my friends and play exciting games like Fruit Basket Upset.  Being Unitarian wasn’t a part of my identity, and when asked to explain my religious background, I’d tell about my Methodist father and my Jewish mother and how I got to celebrate Hanukah and Christmas!  As I grew older, and my friends turned into ragingly liberal activists who deplored organized religion, I was forced to examine the role of this church in my life.  How could I reconcile going to church every Sunday (except, of course, when it was sunny outside) with my growing awareness of the evils perpetrated in the name of religion, throughout history and into today?  In school, I learned about the Crusades, and the persecution of Jews.  On TV, I learned about genocide and gay-bashing.  From my friends, I learned that religion was bad, bad, bad.  In church, I learned about the “inherent worth and dignity of every person” and “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.”  All of it made sense separately, but put together it was incomprehensible—and array of colored pieces that seemingly didn’t even belong to the same puzzle.

During all this adolescent soul searching, if asked I wouldn’t have identified myself as “religious.”  Then came the long run of the presidential election, through August, September, October . . . feeling hopeful that John Kerry could be elected, that things could change.  Of course, it didn’t all work out as I had hoped, and on Bush’s re-election several of the people around me blamed basically all the ills of our country on “the religious.”  The statement implied evangelical Christians, but I couldn’t help but feel very hurt.  It wasn’t until “religious” people came under fire that I found myself identifying with them, sometimes even against my will.  It seemed that along with admittance to church attendance came the deeply, deeply unfair assumptions that I would try to force my belief on other people, or that I would take to condemning others who didn’t believe what I did, or that I automatically couldn’t be scientific, rational, and progressive.  I grew so tired of the endless disbelief in the voices saying “Amy, you’re religious?”, and tired of my knee jerk defensive reaction of “Well, yeah, I am, kind of . . . but although Unitarian-Universalism is a Christian sect, I don’t believe in Jesus as Christ and in fact, when I was in fifth grade I was taught that he was a prophet just like Muhammad or Siddhartha.  And you know what, seriously, if you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, trasngendered, militantly feminist, a Nader voter, a hippie, or any other kind of weirdo, you know what, I’m totally okay with that.  In fact, let me give you my card.  But no, I’m not religious, I just . . . go to church.”  I began to want to believe that I could be myself without disclaimer and without excuse.  I wanted to believe that there was nothing wrong with being religious.

It occurred to me that religion, when it comes down to it, is about people.  It’s about what people believe, but moreover, what they do with that belief.  Religion is not inherently evil or good, it’s what people do with it that makes it so.  Although most Unitarians probably couldn’t name the second and sixth principles, I see them living by those words every day.  I see people giving donations to battered women’s shelters as Christmas presents, and putting themselves on the line for the rights of others.  I’d like to think that this church is different from the others somehow, but I don’t think it is.  I think many churches, and many religious people, feel the same way I do.  I don’t want to do anything bad with my faith.  All I want is to feel like every day, I have justice, equity, and compassion in my own human relations, and I am helping to create a world community with peace and liberty for all, atheist, agnostic, Shaker, Quaker, or evangelical.  It doesn’t matter that we have these words written down on the back of our order of service, or that in the Grace Bible Church they may have different ones.  What matters is that we, people, act by them.  If religion is people’s actions, how can this be anything but good?  I have to believe in something.  I can’t live my life thinking that we are totally alone.  I don’t know if I believe in God, or even in a Spirit of Life.  I do know, however, that I believe in this.  I believe in people, in these people, in what they do.  It sounds sappy, but I believe in you, and in me, and in the simple fact that these beliefs, even if they can’t change the world, shape my word every day.  So yes, I am religious.  No excuses, no disclaimers, just the straightforward power of a loaded word and the conviction behind it.  Want to make something of it?

"My Grandfather” by Hannah Jones

On any particular summer night, you could find me beaming, perched on the backseat of my grandfather’s white convertible as we cruised down the winding cliff road in Santa Cruz.  The wind would blow through my hair and drown out the sounds of laughter coming from my cousins and I as we waved to people passing by.  The sun would slowly die over the blue waves as we passed the lighthouse.  My sister and I would throw back our heads and wish on the first stars we could find in the darkening sky.  On some nights, we’d stop and look out over the edge at the rolling ocean, as the last dedicated surfers rode the last waves to shore.  Every once in a while my grandfather would point out the place he and my grandmother would go for Sunday picnics, or where he got his first job as a bus boy in a local restaurant.  Yet other than that, he didn’t speak, he didn’t have to.  He knew we were happy and our shrill cries of complete contentment were enough to spread a smile across an old man’s face.  Sometimes he would turn to us and say, “It’s not Italy, but it’s perfect.”

Although I had never been, my grandfather’s love for Italy was contagious.  I’m no more Italian than Queen Elizabeth, but somehow, even though we were not blood-related, my grandfather’s blood ran in my veins.  I sang opera in the shower and was immensely proud of my spaghetti-loving family.  On some nights while driving down the coast, I would find the brightest start and squeeze my eyes shut and wish that some day, my grandfather and I could find ourselves under an Italian sky wishing on Italian stars.  Those were wishes that never came true in the sense that I wanted.

My grandfather took better care of that car than he did himself and when I was 13 years old, he died.  My grandfather’s death hit me hard.  He was the first person I ever lost and somehow his death was the first realization I had ever had that things were not going to stay the same.  No matter how many stars I wished on, my life would never be as sweet as those drives down the cliff, there was an end to all those, a bed to creep into, a starry night sky to sleep under.  Every place I went was a place without him, every car I would climb into was a car he wasn’t driving, and every wave that crashed upon soft golden sand was a wave I wasn’t seeing with him.  Often when I’m upset there’s only one place I want to be, the back seat of that white convertible.  I want to let my hair down and drive, drive away from all my problems, leave everything behind for one night of pure and complete happiness.

Last summer I boarded a plane and flew for 12 hours to my grandfather’s favorite place.  In Greppi de Silli, a small village outside of Florence, we threw my grandfather’s ashes.  We watched them dance in the warm Italian wind under a perfect red sunset.  I closed my eyes and told him I loved him as the first tear I ever shed for him rolled down my trembling cheek.

from Alex Rush

“I loved you so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the stars.”  --T.E. Lawrence

I wrote three homilies before I realized that there was only one thing that I wanted to talk about today:  change.  Everyone here wants it.  Now whether we gain that change by raising a good family or developing nuclear fusion is up to each of us.  Yet in order to get that change we must be individuals.

I remember when I was an individual.  It was in Kindergarten.  It would not have mattered if my teacher asked a question about Hawaii or astrophysics, I would have raised my hand to answer.  If I id not know the answer then I probably would have given a monologue on how Leonardo was the coolest ninja turtle because he had to samurai swords and his color was blue.

I also remember the day that I stopped being an individual.  It was the first day of third grade.  My teacher asked a question, and on instinct I started to raise my hand.  Halfway up I stopped, I looked around the room, and I realized that I was the only one who did not know the answer.  So I put my hand down, my logic being, if they didn’t know the answer then I couldn’t.

Looking back on it now I see the real reason why I didn’t answer that question.  I didn’t want to be excluded from a group, even if it was the “I don’t know” group.  That is basic human nature.  We have survived and prospered for thousands of years because we live in groups.  And yet it is that very group that takes away our individuality.

The most recent example I can think of is the past election.  We separated ourselves into red and blue, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal.  We voted for or against someone simply because they were red or blue.  And that has to stop!  I know I’m preaching to the choir here but that is only because I haven’t been invited to the Republican convention yet.

We need to think about the candidate that we’re voting for.  We need to express our views.  Don’t be afraid to say what you think simply because your opinion is unpopular and in the minority.  When someone asks you what you think, tell them.  If someone asks you who the greatest rock and roll band of the past 20 years was, say  Guns n’ Roses.

I’m not asking for a better world.  What I’m asking for is one that can change.  So be yourself.

Humans are social beings.  We need to interact with other humans in order to be happy.  We’re also spiritual beings.  We desire our interactions with others to be meaningful.  But with over six billion other people on this earth, how can we ever hope to interact meaningfully and peacefully?  It’s difficult not to feel like just one more grain of sand trickling through a giant hourglass.  How can we create a world community when the dimensions of our local communities are already daunting?

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a scene which has stuck with me since I read the book in middle school, oh so many long years ago.  In it, while surrounded by poverty as well as racial and social injustices in their own small town, the Ladies Sewing Society is raising money for the poor children in Africa.  Although raising aid for African children is a very good thing to do, it comes across as an effort on the part of the ladies to keep their own world small.  Their community at home is fragmented, filled with isolated groups of people divided along lines of race or class, people who struggle to find meaningful human interaction in a place where they are not treated as equals.  The Sewing Society will not have any sort of meaningful contact with the children in Africa, and so their world will not become any larger than before.  However, they can now sleep at night knowing they helped the world, without having had to change or stretch in any way.  World community has come no closer for them.

Almost every day when I walk into school, I catch sight of one or another of my friends.  We smile at each other, walk up and talk briefly, then hug and continue on to class.  But I always go off a little more cheerfully, because all of a sudden I feel like I have community, a nice reminder of all the threads that connect me to other people.  When my friends are unhappy, then everyone in our own small community feels it, and immediately lends help and support.  That kind of love is an incredibly powerful thing.  But it hasn’t always been this way.  Flashback to freshman year:  I sit at a table in the Science classroom, listening idly while my teacher tells us about how he always used to stare out the window during science class in high school.  There are no windows in this particular classroom.  It’s nearing the end of the first week of school, and I feel a little isolated, because I’m terribly shy when I first meet people, and haven’t yet made any friends.  At Catlin Gabel most people already know each other from middle school, and I’m new.  I’m doodling on the corner of my paper when the girl next to me looks at my drawing and giggles quietly, and then proceeds to draw a rectangle on her own paper.  A window.  I lean over and draw curtains while she draws a nice looking tree outside.  Simple as that.  Suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore.

And every Sunday, when I walk into youth group, I see so many faces that I recognize, and have known for years, and usually some which I have never seen before.  By the end of our youth group, it doesn’t matter the mix of kids there, I feel like it’s a community.  It’s easy to connect to people.  A simple smile, a wave, a hello, and you just continue to extend your own invisible web of community.  Suddenly there’s a much larger group of people who are looking out for you, who know your joys and concerns, your name, and what superhero you would be on the off chance you were one.  When I then see people from youth group elsewhere, I’m reminded that there are so many places I feel at home.

And home, I think, is the key to a world community.  Where do you feel at home?  In what places, with what kind of people?  The summer before ninth grade I traveled to Sapporo, Japan with the Sister City Association for the World Youth Fest.  Kids from all over the world came.  While we were there, we were paired with a group of kids from Japan.  In that group I made a lot of friends.  I also discovered that communication isn’t always a matter of language.  By smiling and waving at the group from China, I was able to make friends, even though none of us spoke a word of the others’ language.  The next summer a girl named Sarina who’d I’d met in Japan came to stay with my family in the States for a week.  She now has a home and second family in the U.S., and I have a home in Japan.  I feel like the world is a little smaller because of the connections I have which crisscross the globe.  China and Japan have human faces for me now, as do Germany, from exchange students at my school, India, from my friends Aarthi and Stuthi, Canada, England, Mexico, France, Africa, even the world of the homeless, from simply looking them in the eye and saying hello.  I’m still shy, and it’s sometimes hard or uncomfortable for me to get over my own self-consciousness or pre-formed stereotypes and reach out, but when I do, I always feel rewarded.

So I urge you.  Go on.  Reach out and touch someone new.