UU Society of Cleveland

August 17, 2008

Bring Many Names

by Rev. Colin Bossen

"Truth is one; the wise call it by many name." So reads a verse from the Hindu scripture the Rig Veda. This verse, though it appears in a religious text from another tradition, provides a nice summation of Unitarian Universalist metaphysics. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that addresses the nature of reality. It seeks to answer such questions as: What is real? Is reality of one substance or of many? Can we perceive reality or do we view it "through a glass darkly" as the Christian New Testament states and instead only see and understand a part of it?

Unitarian Universalist metaphysics suggests that there is a unity to existence. That unity can be viewed from many perspectives and understood in many ways. "Bring Many Names," our hymn from earlier this morning, encapsulates the idea that there are many names for and paths to the divine. In seeking to understand the divine--which is simply another word for existence itself--Unitarian Universalist metaphysics proposes that it is best to draw from many sources. If, as the hymn reads, God can be viewed as mother, father, youth, "joyful darkness," wisdom, age and "genius at play" then we need many tools--intellectual, spiritual and artistic--to seek to understand God. All of the tools we use, however, are simply different ways of attempting to get towards the same root.

The fact that we need many tools is implied by the very name of our Unitarian Universalist Association and affirmed by the six sources from which our tradition draws. Meditating on our name, theologian Forrest Church has used the metaphor of light shining through windows to describe religion. The light--God, Truth, being itself, the sum of the universe or the great immensity, call it what you will--is seen a little differently through each window; each religion, in fact each person, interprets the universe in a singular way. Describing Unitarian Universalist metaphysics, Church writes, "One Light (Unitarianism) shines through many windows (Universalism), illuminating human minds and hearts in many different ways." He continues, "In our congregations we honor this truth by encouraging our members to reflect on the Light through whatever set of windows they find most illuminating." One of the gifts of Unitarian Universalism is that we understand that each window has value and can show us something that no other can.

I am a Unitarian Universalist precisely because our tradition upholds the validity of many spiritual paths and religious systems. My parents came to Unitarian Universalism because they wanted a religious community which would honor both of their heritages--my mother was raised Protestant and my father Jewish. I have remained a Unitarian Universalist because I have found within our movement the freedom I desire and the support I need to explore a multiplicity of different spiritual practices and theological traditions.

The openness to differing religious traditions that Unitarian Universalism offers can be exciting. Recently, I was reminded of this when I visited one of the founding members of this congregation in his retirement home. While I was there he showed me a number of religious objects that are important to him. These include a collection of Asian religious art, a watercolor of our building and a calligraphic copy of the Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem "Brahama."

We Unitarian Universalists are occasionally accused of being a sort of choose your own religion church. Those who make such claims suggest that we do not have our own religious tradition. Instead, it is argued, our people are free to believe as they would, borrowing various pieces of inspiration from other philosophies and religions, without accountability to a broader moral system. My time with our founding member reminded me of how far from the truth these accusations are. It is true that our friend values Eastern thought but it is also true that he is inspired by the theology indigenous to Unitarian Universalism. While this theology does affirm the truth of the Hindu scripture-- "Truth is one; the wise call it by many names."--it also follows a specific trajectory and emerges from a particular set of communities. What is more, the careful student can discern certain doctrines--that is teachings--about the nature of reality and humanity within our tradition. The two other objects our friend showed me--the picture of our congregation and the poem from Emerson--in fact hint at what some of those doctrines are.

The picture of our congregation that he showed me reminded that we are a religious community. Each individual Unitarian Universalist may be seeking the best windows to view the light of truth through but we are seeking those windows together. We gather in congregations to both test and affirm the paths and truths that we have found. We hold each other accountable and try to steer each other away from what we call "idolatries of the mind and spirit" that we might have stumbled upon.

Our friend has been a loyal member of this congregation for more than seventy years--he joined our community back before First Church and the Society split. He has remained a Unitarian Universalist throughout his life because our congregation has encouraged him to explore his spiritual path both within our tradition and outside of it.

Our tradition stretches back to the very beginnings of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the settling of this country by religious refugees. Unitarian churches are some of the oldest Protestant churches in either the world or in the United States. In fact, the very first congregation started by the Pilgrims, the First Parish Church in Plymouth, is now a Unitarian Universalist community.

The religion practiced today in that congregation is a great deal different from the religion that was practiced by the community's founders. Indeed, there is much about the world that would render it hardly recognizable to people from the early 17th century. However, there are several clear through lines that can be drawn from that community to ours.

Like contemporary Unitarian Universalists, early New England Puritans communities did not organize their communities around a confession. Instead they organized themselves around covenants. Covenants are agreements to, as the historian Conrad Wright puts it, "walk together in mutual fellowship." For the Puritans and their descendants these covenants were and are not statements of belief. They were and are commitments to offer each other mutual aid and to share our religious journeys.

We call the covenant of this congregation our bond of union. It reads that all who become members agree to: "mutual helpfulness in the search for truth and for enduring value in ways of life; advancement of sound morals among ourselves and in our community; encouragement and protection of individual freedom of religion."

The language is a little dated--it was written in the early 1950s--but the sentiments expressed are sound. Essentially this bond of union means that members of our community agree to help each other, seek truth, try our best to live worthwhile lives and uphold the value of freedom. I suspect that our Puritan ancestors could agree with most of those of things. The language might be different but the sentiment would likely be the same.

Emerson's poem, the second item that our friend showed me, clearly had been helpful to him on his search for truth. Personally, I find it a maddening little piece of verse. It reads:

If the red slayer think he slays,
    Or if the slain think he is slain.
They know not well the subtle ways
    I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;
    Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear;
    And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;
    When they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
    And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,
    And in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good!
    Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.

If I understand it, the poem suggests the unity of existence for "Shadow and sunlight are the same." At the same time it upholds that true knowledge comes through knowledge of the self. The last line--"Find me, and turn thy back on heaven"--implies that when true knowledge of existence is found the idea of heaven, or other religious ideas that point to a divine outside of the self, becomes unnecessary.

Emerson's poem is, like much of his writing, a little obtuse. However, I find our friend's interest in the poem revealing. It suggests to me that he was inspired to seek knowledge of other religious traditions by his own religious tradition. Ever since Emerson our tradition has insisted that religious knowledge starts with self knowledge and personal experience. Emerson and the other transcendentalists have encouraged us to look towards both our Christian roots and other world religions in our search for truth. In fact, we are encouraged to look to beyond the sphere of religion and into the wisdom of the natural world and the beauty of human culture for inspiration. I find "Brahama" interesting because it is an early example of a Unitarian thinker encountering the religious thought of another culture—in this case Hinduism—, struggling to understand it and then letting it inform his religious journey. This is something that many members of this congregation continue to do today. As Unitarian Universalists we look through many windows.

The six sources that our Unitarian Universalist Association draws upon serve as a reminder of the different windows we might look through. Each of these sources offers us a only partial view. Taken together they can provide us with a more complete, though still grossly inadequate, image.

The first source which our association draws from is "Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all culture, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life." This source comes first because as Unitarian Universalists we understand that theological reflection begins with personal, that is direct, experience. Theological reflection is wrestling with the big questions in life--Why am I here? Where do we come from? Where do we go when we die? It is something we humans appear to do instinctively.

Our own experiences of the world around us ultimately teach us what is true and what is not. How we understand the world depends upon what we have experienced. Someone might say they believe in God because of an experience they had in which they felt a prayer was answered or a time they felt at one with all of creation. Someone else might label themselves an atheist because they find God language meaningless or because they have sought what they thought to be God and failed to find it. Both would find a place within Unitarian Universalism because they each arrived at their views by examining their own experiences.

Understanding this provides us with a different starting place for theological reflection than will be found in most other religious traditions. In the majority of the world's religion people begin seeking truth by examining an authoritative scripture. They then use that scripture to interpret their experience. We Unitarian Universalists begin with our experiences and then seek tools to help us understand and interpret them.

The first source then offers us a starting point. The following five sources suggest to us places we might look to help us understand and interpret our experiences.

The second source we draw upon is the "Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love." The "prophetic women and men" include people from within our tradition like Theodore Parker, Margaret Fuller, Jane Adams and Linus Pauling and people from outside of it such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Emma Goldman, Gandhi and Dorothy Day. This source roots us firmly in human history and reminds us that there is great wisdom and folly in human activity. Most importantly this source tells us that those who have shaped the world are no more or less human than any of us. Therefore, we might achieve what they have.

Our third source is "Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life." Our willingness to draw upon this source again echoes the verse from the Rig Veda--"Truth is one; the wise call it by many names". There are powerful teachings to be gleaned and useful practices to be explored within each of the world's religious traditions. In any given Unitarian Universalist congregation you can probably find people who have been inspired by Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Taoism, and all of the richness of the world's religious thought.

Examined together the world's religions remind us of the deep spiritual nature of humanity and affirm that in every human culture something akin to religion has existed. Such an examination cannot help but teach us that as human beings, no matter what our religious or cultural background, we are ultimately more alike than we are different.

Our respect for other religions and our tradition of religious interchange dates back to the earliest Unitarian thinkers in 16th century Poland and Transylvania. Those early Unitarians allowed themselves to be influenced by Islam and Judaism at a time when most Christians viewed the practitioners of all other religious traditions as infidels. Indeed, it has been argued by some scholars that those early European Unitarians rejected the Christian trinity and affirmed the unity of God and the humanity of Jesus precisely because of their exchanges with their Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters.

Our fourth source is essentially a variation on our third. We draw from "Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves." Similar teachings can be found elsewhere in the world's religions. Jewish and Christian teachings are afforded a special place in our tradition because, institutionally, we have emerged from Christian heretically movements. Our Unitarian ancestors affirmed the unity of God and rejected the doctrine of original sin. Our Universalist ancestors proclaimed that God's love was universal and that, in the end, no one would be sentenced to eternal torment in the afterlife but all would be united with God.

Today, we retain many of the institutional and theological trappings of our ancestors. We organize our congregations around covenants. We gather most often for worship on Sunday mornings. We sing hymns and listen to sermons preached by ministers. Most importantly, we continue to uphold the early teachings of our religious ancestors by continuing to affirm the "inherent worth and dignity of every person."

Our fifth source--"Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit"--reminds us that we live in age where human knowledge is ever increasing. This source reminds us that science can improve upon our religious knowledge and that it is one of the most important ways we can seek to understand the world. With the humanist movement this source also reminds us that we are to focus our attention upon what happens in this world and let the next, of which we have scant proof, take care of itself. Our reason cannot counsel us differently.

Like our fourth source, our sixth source—"Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature"—is essentially a expansion on the third source. It serves as a reminder of our connection to the earth and all that surrounds us. Importantly, it also calls us to celebrate the wisdom of the indigenous cultures and religious traditions that still remain in this world. We are all connected to each other through the rich web of life. Few understand this better than those who live close to the land and continue to pay homage to the yearly cycles of planting and harvest. If we pay enough attention to the teachings from such sources me might find ourselves able to avert the looming ecological disasters our world faces.

Taken together our six sources offer us a guide to some of the windows that the light of truth shines through. They remind us of the wisdom of the Hindu verse-- "Truth is one; the wise call it by many names."--and suggest just how limited our ability to understand the universe is. It is impossible that in our brief life-spans we can gain more than cursory knowledge of any of sources, even the first which stems from our own experiences. As the scholar of comparative religions Huston Smith has put it, "To expect our minds to corner the infinite is like asking a dog to understand Einstein's equations with its' nose." No matter how hard we try we will only learn a little on our life's journey.

And this, ultimately, was something else I was reminded of by our friend. At 89 he is still curious, still reading and still trying to understand the world. The knowledge he obtained in his lifetime through all of the sources he examined, all of the windows he looked through, may be extensive, however, it just scratches the surface to what there is. That should be no reason why we each might not be inspired to do likewise and look broadly in our quests for wisdom.

So, in the hopes that we may all continue to seek out many windows in the search for truth, I say Blessed Be and Amen.