Separateness vs Oneness with the Divine

Everyday, I receive four quotations from various religions: Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism. Today's Muslim Wisdom Quote got me thinking about how some traditions believe that we are separate from the Divine, while others promote a view of oneness. Personally, I feel that the spritual journey is one of discovering our oneness with nature and the divine, and was surprised by this quote:

When you worship, you are aware of your separateness from God; you are the subject and he is the object. The more you worship, the more you acquire this sense of separateness from God. Union with God comes when this sense of your separateness from God is stripped away. -Qushayri, "Risalah"

As a UU, pulling inspiration from a wide range of sources is a common and frequent occurence. For me, this quote (from a UU perspective) seems to say that the traditional form of worship, in which our separation from God and each other, runs counter to the true goal of spirituality, which is to find our oneness with the divine.
The core issue here is one of immanence and transcendance. In most Western religions (at least supericially) God is superior to Man and Man is superior to the rest of creation. In Medieval times this idea was called the Great Chain of Being.
For other traditions which adopt a more immanent view, the Divine is something that is beyond yet within everything. It is on this immanent quality within all that UUs affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That inherent worth and dignity is derived from the shared divine quality within everything.

The Day of Silence (04:26:06)

Next Wednesday, April 26, is The Day of Silence. This is the day where students across the country keep silent to support the idea that anti-GLBT harassment is unacceptable in schools. The silence is symbolic of the silencing imposed on GLBT individuals by society.
This is a very important event to acknowledge today as the rights of the GLBT community are becoming increasingly jeopardized by society at large. As a member of the GLBT community, I plan to participate in this event. And as a UU, as well, to uphold my belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and to respect the interdependent web that connects us all.

Easter Reflections

As today was Easter I wanted to reflect on what the holiday means for a UU. In A Chosen Faith, Forrest Church writes that "Jesus' life was not special because he was more than human or other than human. It was special because Jesus fully realized the promise of his humanity."
From a UU perspective, Easter is not important in that Jesus ressurrected from the grave. Easter is important, not because Jesus died, but because of how Jesus lived.
This is what Jesus came to show us, not to hope for a heaven after we die, but to live a life that holds up our highest ideas. Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations With God series, stated the purpose of life (which Jesus illustrated so perfectly) quite clearly.

Live your life for a new reason. Understand that its purpose has nothing to do with what you get out of it, and everything to do with what you put into it. . . .
The purpose of life is to create your Self anew. in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. It is to announce and become, express and fulfill, experience and know your true Self.

This implies action, words and statements aren't enough. The purpose of life is to live it fully and openly. Jesus came to show us how to live a life that fully, and it is upon such an extraordinary life, that we should reflect upon on Easter.

The Power of Shame and Fear

Have you ever experienced being told that you were bad or wrong because of something you said, believed, or did? How about being made to feel that Who You Are is bad (sinful, corrupt, fallen, wrong)? This is a common experience for many people of many walks and religions. This feeling is shame.
I have had many personal brushes with shame; granted, that has lessened recently, but it still happens. Being gay and finding myself with spiritual beliefs that didn't match the beliefs of my family, I have known shame.
There is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame is a feeling towards who you are, integral parts of your being. Guilt is the feeling you feel when you have done something wrong (i.e. stealing, murder, lying).
The first time I felt shame (that I can recall) is when I first came out to my parents. For at least 2 years, I was told that being gay was wrong, unacceptable--as if I could do something about it! It wasn't understood that "gay" isn't something I'm doing, it's part of who I am as an individual.
The second instance I've felt shame was when I realized that I didn't share my family's belief in Christianity and Jesus. It wasn't that I hated Jesus, but I could not accept the acts carried out in his name. Nor could I accept that God would send people to Hell.
The quote I posted in my last post, illustrates how the God of my church seemed to me. The God that I experienced personally was all-loving, nurturing, accepting, and bigger than a deity who sent people to Hell yet supposedly "loved" them.
I have found in Unitarian Universalism a way to the divine that resonates with my deepest spiritual convictions. UUMAN (my UU church home) promotes itself as a community of "open hearts and open minds." Never, in all my years of going, has UUMAN fell shy of this assertation.

Gerard Hughes Quote: God as "Good Old Uncle George"

I am a Catholic, a priest and a Jesuit. Many people still think that Catholic priests, perhaps Jesuits especially, never suffer confusion, bewilderment or disillusion. I do.
When we try to pray, we must have some idea of God in our minds, and this idea will influence how we pray and whether we pray. As a University chaplain I used to spend much time listening to people who had either given up their Catholic faith, or were thinking of doing so, or they were worried about their own honesty in continuing as Catholics when they felt they no longer really believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Having listened to them, I always tried to encourage them to speak about their own understanding of God. After many conversations, an indentikit image of God formed in my imagination.
God was a family relative, much admired by Mum and Dad, who described him as very loving, a great friend of the family, very powerful and interested in all of us. Eventually we are taken to visit ‘Good Old Uncle George’. He lives in a formidable mansion, is bearded, gruff and threatening. We cannot share our parents’ professed admiration for this jewel in the family. At the end of the visit. Uncle George turns to address us.
‘Now listen, dear,’ he begins, looking very severe, ‘I want to see you here once a week, and if you fail to come, let me just show you what will happen to you.’ He then leads us down to the mansion’s basement. It is dark, becomes hotter and hotter as we descend, and we begin to hear unearthly screams. In the basement there are steel doors. Uncle George opens one.
‘Now look there, dear,’ he says. We see a nightmare vision, an array of blazing furnaces with little demons in attendance, who hurl into the blaze those men, women and children who failed to visit Uncle George or to act in a way he approved.
‘And if you don’t visit me, dear, that is where you will most certainly go,’ says Uncle George. He then takes us upstairs again to meet Mum and Dad. As we go home, tightly clutching Dad with one hand and Mum with the other. Mum leans over us and says, ‘And now don’t you love Uncle George with all your heart and soul, mind and strength?’ And we, loathing the monster, say, ‘Yes, I do,’ because to say anything else would be to join the queue at the furnace. At a tender age religious schizophrenia has set in and we keep telling Uncle George how much we love him and how good he is and that we want to do only what pleases him. We observe what we are told are his wishes and dare not admit, even to ourselves, that we loathe him.
Uncle George is a caricature, but a caricature of a truth, the truth that we can construct a God who is an image of our tyrannical selves. Hell-fire sermons are out of fashion, but they were in fashion a few decades ago and they may well come in again. Such sermons have a great appeal to certain unhealthy types of mind, but they cause havoc with the more healthy and sensitive. The danger in the institutional element in religion is that we never advance beyond a religious infantilism......

Are we Christian?

This is a question that many UUs are asked. The answer depends upon who you ask. Historically, Unitarian Universalism is a derivative of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. However, UUism (as it is known today) has grown out of American soil.
The two traditions (Unitarian & Universalist) grew out of opposition to two doctrines. Unitarianism was founded in opposition to the idea of the trinity. God was seen as a unity rather than a three-part entity. Unitarians also took issue with the idea of Original Sin, that mankind is inherently evil and in need of salvation. Unitarians believed that, through choice and social environment, each individual had the potential to do great good or great evil. It is by our actions that we are made. Universalists believed that all are saved--not that God sends some people to Heaven and some to Hell. How could a loving God send someone to Hell? "He" doesn't.
Unitarian Universalism, as it exists today, cannot be considered a Christian movement. The Christian roots of Unitarian Universalism are just one of six sources of our faith. What once was a liberal Christian denomination, has expanded into a movement that embraces all faiths, people from all walks of life. Because of this liberal approach to the spiritual quest, UUs have been at the forefront of many of the movements for social change: from abolition to womens' suffrage, from education to gay rights.

When I first began to explore the UU tradition, I knew very little about it. I still am just coming to realize that UUs are everywhere, in some very surprising places. I had known about Emerson and Thoreau being influential to the tradition, but I never realized, as I am beginning to, what a rich and vibrant movement Unitarian Univeralism is.
The thing I love about being a UU is that, aside from children raised UU, being a UU means that you choose to be one. You don't find UUs coming to your door with pamphlets, holding huge conventions to draw attention--hardly any degree of proselytization. Despite this lack of advertisement, UU draws people in. I think this is because Unitarian Universalism fills a need that many seek but few find in a spirituality--intellectual and spiritual fulfillment.