Hospitality at Our Borders
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There has been a lot of conversation lately in the United States in general, and the world of Unitarian Universalism in particular, about immigration. Read more →
The Fine Art of the Good Guest
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The most important thing that I’ve learned in traveling to more than twenty countries is the art of being a guest. And I’m a particularly fine visitor at the supper table. Read more →
From Your Minister
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For years, Biblical scholars have suggested that the real sin condemned in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but inhospitality. Read more →
REsources for Living
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How do you feel when you are about to head off to a party? Excited? Eager? Maybe a little bit anxious? For me, heading off into the midst of a group of people, some of whom I don’t know, always makes me a little jittery. Am I wearing the right thing? Am I bringing the right kind (or amount) of food? Will anyone want to talk with me? If people do want to talk with me, will I say the right things?
Descent into JFK
Living Faith in the Light of Racism
American racism is still with us—in our minds, hearts, and souls. In every sphere, in every place, in every corner of every role that constitutes who I am, the tentacles of race and racism infiltrates. I am focusing specifically on racism because of a particular class discussion that chipped away at the edges of my soul. But make no mistake; it is certainly not the only “ism” grinding at the edges of our souls. If there is any area in my life where I struggle most to have faith or to live out my faith, it is in the area of racial healing.
My soul feels at times to be a sculpture of sorts. And there have been times when my soul has painfully cracked.
Earth and Spirit: Belonging to the Earth
As the crickets’ soft autumn hum
is to us
so we are to the trees
as they are
to the rocks and the hills—Gary Snyder
What does it mean to belong to the Earth?
Living in a Multi-Racial Family
We Unitarian Universalists…are mosaic makers. We piece together truths from world religions, science, poetry, and personal experience to create a whole. We believe revelation is not sealed. New truth can be revealed in every moment. Each person contributes their unique piece to the mosaic of community. Out of our broken pieces, together we create beauty.
—Rev. Bill Hamilton-Holway
Our Unitarian Universalist faith embraces and celebrates diversity. Our principles declare that every person has inherent worth and dignity and all of us are part of an interdependent web of life.
But for those of us who live in multiracial families, this ideal of diversity meets the messiness of putting it into practice in our homes, both our family homes and our spiritual homes.
Coming Out in a Conservative Family
“The world is full of suffering; it is also full of overcoming it.”
—Helen Keller
I am honored to be a part of a inclusive religious tradition that values not only the worth and dignity of all people but that also actively seeks to affirm and invite diversity, which is not always the case for those of us who grew up in more exclusive religious paradigms.
There are, still, many religious institutions which cling to a dying worldview that people who are not heterosexual are not normal. Or they take it a step further, and say that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered persons are an abomination to God.
This is a sad and harmful stance, and it leaves a trail of pain and suffering for those who have endured such teachings. Some of us have been able to escape the bonds of belief systems that condemn us through religious hate-speak.
As an “escapee,” I offer you words of comfort: You are not an abomination. You are not flawed. You are good and worthy, and you deserve to live life in an unfragmented fashion—as who you are, knowing that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” that you are loved, and that you deserve to be happy and whole—as well as confident that you deserve to walk your own spiritual path with authenticity.
The Challenge of Being “All of the Above”
I’m just not willing to choose only one.
I have been a student of religion all my life, it seems. But I have lived in worlds that press me to choose. I attend a Christian seminary. I have been in a “goddess group” of Wiccans. I honor humanism. I have had the holy joy of worshiping with Muslims, with Pagans, with Protestants, with Catholics, with Jews, with Hare Krishnas.
Sometimes, kind practitioners of one particular religion or another will profess that they know what I truly am (and it is always what they are). I take these as compliments, for I know they are intended that way.
Others are not so complimentary. Mine is a deliberately syncretic faith. “Syncretism,” to many in exclusivist religions, is a heresy, an un-holy mess, something to be avoided at all costs.
Well-meaning people will explain that it doesn’t matter what I choose, but I must choose, and only one. Only then can I go truly deep into a religion.
