REsources for Living
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As someone who grew up Unitarian Universalist, I have to admit that there are some disadvantages to being a UU kid. There are advantages, of course, like being able to celebrate holidays from a variety of different religions, but there are definitely drawbacks. Mostly these problems come when someone asks you, on the playground maybe, what church you go to. It’s hard enough just getting people through the ten syllables of Unitarian Universalist. But if you manage that task then the inevitable follow-up question is: “What do you believe?”
I happen to think that’s kind of an unfair question, especially to put on, say, a fourth-grader. If you say you’re Methodist or Baptist or Jewish nobody asks you what you believe. They have a category in their head to put you into, and they just leave it at that. Now, their assumptions about what you believe might be totally wrong, and I’m sure there is not one nine-year-old in 100 who could tell you the difference between what a Presbyterian and an Episcopalian believes, but the point is that no one feels they need to ask.
But if you’re UU there’s not only the long, awkward name to get through, there’s also the uncomfortable fact that people don’t know what mental box to put you in, so they ask about what you believe. Which leads you to the equally uncomfortable fact that your religion doesn’t tell you what to believe, which really messes with people’s idea of religion in general. And beyond even that, if you’re going to actually answer the question then you need to have figured out for yourself what it is that you believe, and how to say it, which is hard enough for a grown-up, and a real uphill climb for a child.
You might find yourself resorting to “UUs can believe anything they want,” but that isn’t true. For instance, UUs just don’t believe that God loves some people but not others. Better to say that UUs don’t all believe the same thing. But even that concept is tricky. Religious language is slippery as an eel, and it’s hard to know exactly what we agree and disagree on.
It turns out that one UU will say, “I don’t believe in God,” and another will say, “I believe in God.” But if you really get down to talking with those two people you might find that the one who doesn’t believe in God doesn’t believe in a Guy in the Sky who is judging and controlling everyone, and the person who believes in God certainly doesn’t believe in that kind of a God, either. The person who believes in God might mean that they believe that all of us are connected by a mysterious force that draws us together and makes our lives intertwined. And the person who doesn’t believe in God might believe that exact same thing, except they call it gravity, instead of God.
Unfortunately, saying that your church believes in gravity doesn’t get you very far on the playground when some kid is trying to figure out whether you are saved or not. Sometimes, the easiest solution is simply to duck:
What do you believe? I believe I’ll go play kickball now.
Are you saved? Saved from what?
Have you found Jesus? I didn’t know he was lost.
And so on. You don’t really owe anyone an explanation of what you believe, any more than you owe them information about your grades or whether you still sleep with your baby blanket. But you might just owe an explanation to yourself. You see, Unitarian Universalism is a religion that’s a process, not a product.
Some religions provide a box full of beliefs, and it’s the believer’s job to hang onto those beliefs for dear life. But UUism says that we go through life gathering up the smooth stones of belief that we want to put in our box, and sometimes we might take a stone out of the box and drop it by the side of the road because it doesn’t feel like it’s worth carrying around anymore.
But there’s another important piece to the story. You see, no one expects you to do this gathering all by yourself. As parents and as religious educators we offer children some smooth stones that we hope they will carry with them:
You are unique and precious—but so is everyone else. Your body is a good and sacred thing. We are all woven together in a web of life, and we need to take care of that web because we all lose whenever a strand breaks. Beauty matters. You have choices, and how you choose to live makes a difference. You are loved. You are worthy of love. We are all worthy of love.
The playground or the elevator with a stranger might not be where you want to pull out these stones and examine them, and that’s okay. But you should know that UUism—whether the CLF or in local congregations—offers a place to bring our boxes out in the open, to see the beliefs and convictions that others carry with them. In looking carefully at someone else’s collection you might find new stones that you want to carry—or you might realize that there are stones you’re ready to drop.
One way or another, Unitarian Universalism is not any single stone, or even any one box of stones: it’s the place where we come together with open minds and hearts and hands to examine the beliefs we carry, and to live those beliefs in the world.
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