From Your Minister
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“I often think of humankind as a long procession whose beginning and end are out of sight. We, the living, are an evolutionary link between all life that has gone before and all that is yet to be. We have no control over when or where we enter the procession, or even how long we’re part of it, but we do get to choose our marching companions. And we can all exercise some control over what direction the procession takes, what part we play and how we play it.” —Marty Wilson
Those words are from my mom, an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Akron, Ohio, from a sermon she delivered in 2001, when she knew she was dying from ovarian cancer. I have turned to them many times for comfort and inspiration, because she is my evolutionary link to all of life that went before, but more because I use them to measure myself against the marching orders she left me about how to live my life after she was gone.
Exercise some control over your life, girl! She is saying from the grave. Choose what part you want to play, and how you want to play it. This is your moment! If it’s a day when I whine in resistance to the idea that I truly have the power to create my own life, and protest that she can’t imagine how hard it is, she turns the same deaf ear from the grave that she turned to my whining when she was alive. Oh, evolve! she seems to say over her shoulder, as she looks away.
Yep, I come from tough stock. Appalachian survivors. My granny lived to 106 and wanted her tombstone to read, “The good die young.” But whoever our people are, wherever we claim our lineage, or for those of us who weren’t given the gift of knowing our DNA’s history because of adoption or other early life disruptions—we are the folks in the parade now!
Theodore Parker, Gandhi, Olympia Brown, Martin Luther King—they all may have been a lot more gifted and wise than I will ever be. It doesn’t matter. From the grave they say: Stop looking back at us all the time! You’re it! It’s your turn now!
What does it mean to be the torch-bearers of our faith now, in this moment? This is the time when we know in our very cells that faith is about aligning our values with our actions. Aligning values with actions is a two-step process. First, we claim our values, and stay grounded in them. This grounding comes from daily spiritual practice and involvement with spiritual community—however we describe those two things. (Shorthand: We need to do whatever it takes to keep us centered, connected, and out of major trouble.)
Second, aligning values and actions means we move—we jump out of the plane, plunge off the cliff into the water, ski down the mountain, stroll or roll our chair down the sidewalk, clean out our clutter, etc. It means moving energy along as it is given to us to move it.
I used to be more cautious. I used to want more of a plan. But I think the time for sitting back and taking a year to make a five year plan is over. Sure, we need to be strategic—we need to plan as much as we’re able—but not at the expense of living. The illusion that if we think hard enough we will know just what to do, that we will have enough information to know what it means to be faithful, is seductive. But these are times when systems as we know them are transforming radically, at increasing speed. That’s why we need diverse, grounded, wise people in our spiritual community, so that we get multiple perspectives on choices we make.
We have been given a great spiritual legacy. People have fought and died for our religious freedom, have devoted their lives to keeping the flaming chalice lit. It is our task to give that light away. Our generosity in doing so affirms the abundance of the light. In contrast, when we are stingy with it we denigrate our legacy.
My favorite part of the new online worship services that the CLF is holding is the chalice lighting. Each week, people around the globe watch a chalice being lit on a video and then, wherever we are, light the chalice or candle we have put beside our computer as we connect. As we do, we type, “The chalice is lit in [our location].” I never fail to get goose bumps as I read the places where our flaming chalice is kindled.
The chalice is lit in Puerto Rico. The chalice is lit in rural Georgia. The chalice is lit in Switzerland. The chalice is lit in New York City.
At the close of our services, after we extinguish the chalice, people type again. I carry the flame in British Columbia. I carry the flame in Denmark. I carry the flame in Idaho. I carry the flame in Wisconsin.
This ritual reaffirms for me the strength I gather from being part of this community, and it makes real for me that we are carrying on the legacy of liberal faith that has been handed down to us.
Whether or not you are able to, or choose to, join us for online worship, I hope that you will consider yourself one of those who carries the flame with us. I love knowing that the chalice—albeit sometimes a virtual chalice—is lit behind prison walls, on college campuses, in military barracks, in nursing homes. Our lights can guide us home, even if we never see each other’s faces. We’ve chosen each other as marching companions, and that choice makes all the difference!
- From Your Minister - July 1, 2020
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