Come As You Are, Part III: The Size of Your Soul

This is Part III of the sermon series on transformation and Beloved Community. It seems particularly fitting, having just seen Selma Thursday night. I’ll be reflecting more on that soon.

In With Purpose and Principle: Essays about the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism, The Rev. Dr. Carolyn Owen-Towle, the minister emerita at First UU Church of San Diego, wrote about our third principle, which is the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth. This is what she said:

Ours is a hopeful faith. It holds out the promise that we can become as full, rich contributors to life as our imaginations and our efforts can take us. We have to work at it, however. [This seems like a recurring theme, doesn’t it?!] Spiritual development takes effort. Every time we come from a personal rather than an intellectual place, we express ourselves spiritually. …If acceptance affirms us as we are, encouragement pushes us toward whom we might become. As crucial as acceptance is to our spiritual and emotional health, we need frequent nudges by others to grow lest we stagnate.[i]

Nudges… If this series of sermons that we have shared the last two times we’ve been together and this morning have been anything at all, I would probably argue that they have offered some gentle and, yet, not-so-subtle…nudges. I’m a fan…of nudges. As I shared last week, much to the shock of all those gathered, I am not at all averse to being contrary in church, so it makes sense that I kind of like the notion of nudging and being nudged.

Owen-Towle is talking about the commitment we make in this covenantal faith to support and encourage one another. And I believe, at the heart of that acceptance and encouragement, is a willingness to be nudged just enough to meet people where they are and not expect them to meet us where we want them to be. That’s how we grow, right? That’s how we get to see and understand that which is beyond ourselves…and sometimes even beyond our comfort zones. We help create spaces in which we can call upon and cultivate one another’s voices and share our stories. And the more we do that, the better equipped we become to step into the risk and trust involved in talking about what’s real for us.

And whether you realized it or not, THIS is precisely what many of you did last week! For those of you who may not have been with us, we talked about the 4^th principle, the free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and used that as a foundation to take a closer look at our mission here at First Parish to become a multi-racial, multicultural, multi-faith justice-making community. Part of the invitation was for folks to jot down some things that come to mind when thinking about this mission and opportunity for transformation as a community. It was certainly possible that you could have looked at me and said, “Not today, Mykal.” But you didn’t! You placed in a basket on the chancel 70+ index cards loaded with incredible wisdom and insight, knowing at the very least, that one person would read them. It was incredibly brave and probably generated some anxiety in the room. Am I right? But you did it anyway. And I want to take this opportunity to thank you for sharing everything that you wrote because it opened my eyes and heart, is helping me grow and, hopefully, will provide some foundation in the future for how to engage more deeply an understanding of our mission and where we all fit in the vision for the future that it provides.

Not surprisingly, there were many perspectives on transformation – not just one or two, but many. Without sharing everything that I read (the hope is that we’ll have more opportunities to connect around these issues in deeper ways), it seemed clear to me that there were four primary themes: 1) well-articulated notions of what transformation is and what it requires of each of us as community members; 2) an understanding of transformation and a deep desire to see that vision through, but an uncertainty about how to do that; 3) very real fears and anxieties about what may follow from our charge to live and to build the Beloved Community; and 4) concerns that transformation is not only not likely, but that we’re not equipped to actually do it well. Really serious and beautiful stuff!!

Folks expressed desires to be seen and to learn good ally and anti-racist work, as well as to understand our weaknesses and blind spots in radical welcome and addressing them together, without creating an “us and them” framework or congratulating ourselves too much for what we’ve already done. Folks became really honest about not knowing, in the context of transformation, how to share the truth and realities of their class and race privilege in a respectful and compassionate way, or how to focus on personal transformation while, at the same time, being accepting of so much. We especially find fear in the fuzziness of what transformation means and how it may impact what’s familiar. One person, as a way to help ease some of that tension and fear wrote: “Transformation isn’t just changes; it takes time and is evolutionary. And perhaps it will help all of us along the way to remember that it takes time.”

Deeply personal, honest and engaging work, you all did, because we all desire to be seen and heard in these efforts. In everything that you wrote, it was as if you were asking: Just how F.A.R. can we go? Someone offered these words on one of our index cards: “Fear. Acceptance. Renewal. These are the stages that I experience. The fear is born from a desire for acceptance. Renewal is born from the fruits of acceptance. Community, whether large like this congregation, or small like a couple, brings this uniquely human benefit of belonging.” In other words, going F.A.R. offers the uniquely human benefit of creating a space of belonging, but in order to reach that place of belonging in its fullness, it is good to be willing to move through the Fear, Acceptance and Renewal that makes those spaces possible. (And I swear I want to use this everywhere I go now, so if the person who wrote this wants to tell me who they are, let’s talk about that.)

You see, the possibilities for growth in our community of faith is endless. This is true, not in spite of who we are and all we bring, but because of it…ALL OF IT! The key to moving through that fear and into acceptance and renewal begins with expressing ourselves from that personal place, which is where spirit resides, and speaking into community what lays claim to your heart and mind. And when we do that, we open up the possibility for abiding relationships with each other and with the Holy because what will become most familiar are the connections and contradictions that make us who we are called to be as a community. (This was what Nona Hendryx was getting at in her song Transformation that we all heard during the offering today.) And the more invested in those connections and contradictions we become, the more our hearts and minds and souls can expand and we can embrace all the complexities that being in relationship will bring. Notice I didn’t say CAN bring; I said “WILL” bring!

Unitarian theologian, Bernard Loomer, wrote and spoke about this expanding when he would ask folks at his home church in Berkeley, CA, “What is the size of your soul?” He’d say:

By S-I-Z-E, I mean the capacity of a person’s soul, the range and depth of their love, their capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature.[ii]

Rev. Dr. Robert Hardies, the senior minister at All Souls DC who wrote our call to worship this morning, called Loomer’s assessment “Spirituality in 3-D”!!![iii] We hope for souls that can take in the world in all its complexity and diversity, yet maintain a sense of integrity. We hope for souls that can love and be in relationship in the midst of all that complexity. What we need is a spiritual posture of embrace.

And let me be clear about something. It is a false dilemma to ask whether we should focus our lives on spiritual growth or social justice. They are not mutually exclusive! Hardies posits, and I agree, that when we frame the conversation in this way we undermine both our spiritual health and our work for justice, and we miss the meaning of a world-affirming spirituality. If anyone knew and believed this, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every Sunday, we say that we strive to live and build the Beloved Community of Dr. King’s dream. It is at the heart of our mission and the transformation we seek to live into in deeper ways. “The Beloved Community” is a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th Century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. King, also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of goodwill all over the world. As early as 1956, Dr. King spoke of The Beloved Community as the end goal of nonviolent boycotts. As he said in a speech at a victory rally following the announcement of a favorable U.S. Supreme Court Decision desegregating the seats on Montgomery’s buses:

the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding and goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.[iv]

For Dr. King, The Beloved Community was a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of kinship. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict. For King, Beloved Community offered a vision of total relatedness – Whereas desegregation can be brought about by laws, integration requires a change in attitudes. It involved personal and social relationships that are created by love — and these cannot be legislated. That’s what he hoped for, lived and died for, and it’s what we strive for here in this place.

How do we do it? One breath at a time. One awkward and uneasy moment at a time. One thought, perhaps created by fear, but carried through by hope, at a time. When I can fully see you and you can fully see me, marvelous…even miraculous things can happen. No, they will happen. And we will all be better people for it. I believe in us. I believe in the vision. So my hope for this community is that we can continue to meet each other where we are, have the hard conversations, share what’s in our heats about the vision and make this a place of radical welcome for all people.

Amen. Ashe. Blessed Be.

[i]  With Purpose and Principle: Essays on the Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism. Edward A. Frost, Ed. UUA: Boston, MA 1998, p. 41-42.

[ii] The Seven Principles in Word and Worship. Ellen Brandenburg, Ed. Skinner House Books: Boston, MA 2007, p. 41-42.

[iii] Ibid at 42.

[iv]  http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-philosophy#sub4