What is the "truth and meaning" we are looking for?

The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. A possible answer to the question "what is this truth and meaning" we are looking for is Love.

At one level I think it is easy to understand that what we all are looking for is love. And yet we are confused about what love is. I was taught that there are at least 5 kinds of love: agape, charitable love; philia, brotherly love; platonic love; eros, romantic love; and storge, parental love. It seems that these distinctions, while meaningful, still hide the deeper understanding that these different kinds of love are just parts of a larger, grander, more abiding love which is the ground of our being, what some people have called the godhead. Some people, like Jesus, simply say that God is love.

A woman asked me in a pointed way one time whether I believed in God. I answered, "It depends on what God you are asking about?" She was a fundamentalist Christian whose God was very judgmental and consigning people to either heaven or hell. If this is the God she is talking about, her God, no I don't believe in it.

Some people say, "I don't believe in God," and I ask them, "What God is it that you don't believe in?"

Some people's gods are more mature than others. In considering the concept of spiritual development an indicator of the stage of spiritual development might be the kind of God the person does or doesn't believe in.

An indicator of a higher stage of spiritual development is the understanding that God is a verb not a noun. God might be thought of as "the force" which Luke Skywalker in Star Wars described.

"Becoming one with the all" gets mocked as New Age psychobabble and yet this desire of going home, joining the cosmic consciousness is a higher level stage of spiritual development.

If we considered the stages of spiritual development on a continuum from thinking of God like Santa Claus who rewards or punishes good and bad boys and girls to becoming one with the all as in each person being a drop in the ocean who is stressed by being separated from the source of its being until it can meld back into the whole from whence it came, where are you in your spiritual development?

The UUA has an interesting handout on stages of faith development based on Fowler's model which you can access by clicking here.

What is it you are looking for? The 4th principle of UU

The fourth principle of Unitarian Universalism asks us to covenant together to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning and what is this truth and meaning that we are searching for?

It is written in A Course In Miracles in lesson 182, "This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of."

We all are on a mythic journey, a quest, to find the holy grail. And until we look within we never really find it. We make the mistake of looking out there when we should be looking within our own hearts.

Having married at 20 my wife and I moved 16 times in the first 11 years of our marriage. Half of these moves were for practical reasons and the other half I never understood, she just was restless and wanted to move because some sort of novelty attracted her. Then we stayed in one place for 12 years, and then moved 7 more times in the remaining 12 years before our divorce after 35 years of marriage. And did she ever find what she was looking for?

Radical understanding of the UU first principle

A radical understanding of the UU first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, is to know the worst about someone and love them anyway.

As a professional Social Worker I was taught to take the client where they're at. Further, one of the primary values of the profession is to approach and accept the client with a nonjudgmental attitude. Carl Rogers, the famous psychologist who pioneered client centered therapy, taught that one of the therapeutic ingredients in a therapeutic relationship is unconditional positive regard. In my professional life of 49 years I still work on this. It is much easier in my professional life than in my personal life because professional relationships are short lived and developed for a therapeutic purpose. In my personal life, relationships have a history and a future and I have a personal investment and stake. However, it is suggested in A Course In Miracles that I apply the same approach, attitude, and focus on my personal relationships that I do on my professional ones. I should approach all my relationships with a nonjudgmental attitude and unconditional positive regard.

Lesson 181 in A Course In Miracles reads "I trust my brothers, who are one with me." It reads further, "We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now." " For the past is gone; the future but imagined."

It takes a spiritually mature person to rise above the drama of people's past lives (which we sometimes call baggage) and to set aside imagined future threats based on fears of hurt, and just be present in the moment focused on the divine spark which is within each person sometimes buried quite deep but there none the less.

Joe told me he couldn't get over his wife's affair, not only that she had engaged in it, but that she had kept it hidden from him for 10 years. Joe said that he just couldn't get over it, nothing would ever be the same again. She was not the person he thought she was. I pointed out that disillusionment is a powerful emotion and seems to make him angry not only at the fact that she had had the affair, and kept it secret (lied to him) all these years, but that he felt himself a fool for not knowing. I wondered with him if the most upsetting thing to him was his pride not what she had done.

We think we know and have a need to be right. To find out we are wrong is very difficult to recognize, admit, and incorporate into our sense of self without losing confidence, self esteem, and self worth. What is this pride that we feel we have lost for having been wrong and been a fool? It is a sense of shame which stems from feelings of inadequacy and defectiveness about who we are afraid we really are. Yet spiritually, we are children of God, loved and perfect in every way. Our fears stem from the drama on the ego plane not based on spiritual reality.

I suggested to Joe gently that he needed to get over himself and quit playing the victim. His wife's affair probably had nothing to do with him. Why is he taking this personally? Why is he making this all about himself? This occurred in the past and he seems afraid she could hurt him again in the future so he doesn't trust her even though this was a one night stand 10 years ago. Joe's feelings of disillusionment seem appropriate and I suggested he doesn't really know the person he is married to but he is now getting to know her better, for real,  and he must decide how he wants manage his emotions and thoughts about the relationship. I am reminded again of the ACIM lesson, "I trust my brothers, who are one with me." "We seek for innocence and nothing else. We seek for it with no concern but now." This is a very difficult lesson similar to Jesus' injunction to love our enemies.

At the end of the day, when we are dying, will all the mistakes we have made and others have made really make any difference? In the Christian prayer, the "Our Father," we pray, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us."

Amen. And so it goes............

UU's first principle means we are to love our enemies

One of the biggest implications of our UU first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person, is how we treat people who we feel threatened by.

One of the biggest challenges on our spiritual path and spiritual development is to love all of our brothers and sisters. Jesus tells us we must love not only our friends but also our enemies. In Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus tells us, 

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This is a very hard teaching. Our human brains are not wired this way. Our amygdala's spark the fight or flight response when we perceive a threat. To override our amygdalas and engage our pre-frontal cortex takes intention, self discipline and effort. In A Course In Miracles the following advice is given: "When you feel the holiness of your relationship is threatened by anything, stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit you willingness, in spite of fear, to let Him exchange this instant for the holy one that you would rather have. He will not fail in this." T-18.V.6:1-2 This prayerful, mindful approach can be miraculous in lowering one's anxiety and allowing us to lean into the relationship rather than attack.

Loving our enemies requires us to look for the divine spark in people we fear and focus on that. This willingness is a sign of spiritual maturity. When we see all our brothers and sisters as parts of our shared humanity deserving of respect, compassion, and love, we experience a great and abiding peace.

Humility and the fourth principle of UU

The UU fourth principle, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning requires an open hearted willingness to accept the truth which our Higher Power shows us. It is very hard to give up control, to give up the feeling that "I know best." The worst position to adopt is the need to be right which involves winning over other people. Arguments, disagreements, debates no longer have as their goal finding the truth but winning. The need to win and dominate takes precedence over truth and relevant meaning.

One of the most important qualities for spiritual development is humility. Humility comes from the recognition that our lives are unmanageable and that we have to turn them over to our Higher Power whatever we conceive our Higher Power to be. All we need for spiritual growth is willingness and to give up our willfulness. Willingness and willfulness sound alike, look alike, and yet are diametrically opposed. Willingness is to turn our life over to God and then get out of the way.

Some people don't feel worthy to allow God to come into their lives. Their sense of unworthiness makes them think that they have to purify themselves, atone for their sins, clear their desires and motivations, and yet this way of thinking denies God's power in their lives. We just need to turn our will over to God's will for us. That's all. If we try to do more, it is coming from our arrogance and desire to control.

Letting go requires trust and faith. Jesus complained all the time, "Oh you of little faith! If you only knew how much your father in heaven loves you."

When we are making choices with existential import, we can ask ourselves, "What would Love have me do?" and then allow things to take that direction.

Nicknaming: terms of endearment or bullying? The first principle of UU

Our UUAWOL fiction book for September, 2017, has been Dave Eggers' novel, Heroes Of The Frontier. On page 143 Josie, the main character in the book, refers to her foster sister Samantha, and describes how Sam nicknamed their foster mother, Sunny, "Sunsy." Eggers writes the passage thus,

"Neither she nor Sam had called Sunny by that name when they lived with her, and hearing her use it, twenty years later or whenever it was was, was jarring - as if Sam had assessed what Sunny had been to her and given it a name. Hadn't she once called her Sunsy? She had! Sam liked names, nicknames. These names did what - they helped Sam define, or redefine, what she and Sunny were to each other. They gave her some control, as if to call her Sunsy put her in her place, as a small and aging woman, whereas Mom had been a holy honorific." p. 143

Nicknames can be a form of endearment and they can also be a form of domination and control. Currently, we have had two presidents who have a habit of nicknaming people: George W. Bush, and Donald R. Trump, the most recent example when President Trump has called the North Korean President, Kin Jong-un, "Little Rocket Man."

To Unitarian Univeralist ears, these kinds of bullying put downs meant to belittle, and mock, are antithetical to our first principle of affirming and promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Jesus taught that we are to love our enemies. It would be quite a different world if this injunction was affirmed, promoted, and acted on.

Why was I born? Kate Braestrup's answer

We continue out discussion of this month's nonfiction book, Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. If you have suggestion for a nonfiction and/or a fiction book for October, please let me know in the comments or by sending the suggestion to me at davidgmarkham@gmail.com

Kate Braestrup writes in Chapter 11 on page 117

"But I suspected and even feared that no one who actually needed a woman of God would be fooled into thinking I was it. I have to say, though, that mourners and wardens have thus far proved to be remarkably accepting, reassuringly capable of seeing beyond me, in all my flawed particularity, to the power, mercy, and love of God and neighbor that I, by grace alone, am striving to embody."

And we should all strive, shouldn't we, to be a conduit of God's love and grace? Is that not our function here?

Kate Braestup seems to me to be one of those prophetic women and men that UUs second source describes.