REsources for Living
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Perhaps you have seen the bumper sticker: “Born OK the first time.” That’s where we UUs tend to come down. You don’t need to be born again. We don’t hold with the notion of original sin, that babies are born carrying the sin of Adam and Eve’s rebellion. You don’t need to be baptized or washed in the blood of the Lamb or answer an altar call or accept anyone or anything as your personal lord and savior. We’re willing to trust that who you are is OK, at the same time that we hope that as a community we are learning to be ever more responsible, compassionate people.
We will not assert, as in the Gospel of John, that “You must be born again.” But what if your life doesn’t feel truly alive? What about the people whose alcohol or drug use leaves them feeling trapped? What about the people in prison who truly are not free? What about the folks whose body makes people perceive them as being a different gender than who they know themselves to be inside? What about people who feel they have to hide their sexual orientation or their religious beliefs, who don’t feel free to explore the breadth and depth of what calls to them? We say you don’t have to be born again, but what if you want to be born again?
Being born again isn’t for everyone. Some folks really are born OK the first time, and they just do some fine-tuning over the course of their lives, little adjustments to get and keep themselves on track. But it’s not that uncommon for people to need to be made anew, to move from a place which feels like death to a new and different life. Think of John Newton, the British slave trader who had a change of heart, realized the error of his ways and ended up working to abolish the English slave trade. When he wrote “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see,” he gave us pretty much the definition of being reborn.
Other stories of rebirth are less well-known. A steady stream of letters comes into the CLF office from CLF prisoner members who feel they are reborn when they are met with open-minded compassion and they learn to turn that compassion toward others around them. For instance, one prisoner member writes:
UU, in the form of Chaplain Pat and the CLF Prison Ministry has literally saved my life. When one has more than thirty years in prison, reasons to continue on are few and far between. At least this is how things were for me. CLF was a genuine lifeline for me, connecting me with others who were willing to accept and see me as a person, even if I was openly Wiccan and Trans, as well as Black….Now, I have reasons to stay alive, not for myself, but to be there, to help others in need, to use those long years spent in this prison in that effort. To help give a little worth and meaning to all of these personally wasted years.
The writer doesn’t have to be born again, but he has been born again, through his own efforts, but also because we, as UUs, believed that he could be born again. We believe that inherent worth and dignity doesn’t die, however deeply someone’s self-worth may be buried, whatever the actions of the moment might say, whatever the socially-denigrated categories a person might belong to. We don’t declare that people are perfect and that everything they do is just fine. People end up in prison for committing crimes, some of which cause enormous, unacceptable pain, perhaps even literal death. But our faith is that no one moment is the end of the story. We hold to a faith that life is possible in the midst of death—that, in the words of the poet Dylan Thomas, “Though lovers be lost love shall not; /And death shall have no dominion.” Rebirth is always possible, so death doesn’t have to win.
Let me share with you one more story, another story that you very likely have heard. Another story worth hearing again. On Sunday, July 27, 2008 a man with a vendetta against “liberals” walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, carrying a gun. That morning the children of the church were presenting their version of the musical Annie. That morning death, literal death, entered the building as Jim Adkisson pulled his gun on the congregation, killing two, and injuring seven. The only thing that prevented Adkisson from wreaking further havoc was the bravery of congregation members who piled on him and threw him to the floor.
The congregation could have crumpled under the weight of their sorrow. They could have put armed guards at the door, interrogated strangers before allowing them in. Instead they declared that “our doors and our hearts will remain open,” and a week later they held a rededication of the church, a public declaration of rebirth. In that service, minister Chris Buice declared “This holy place, which has been desecrated by an act of hatred, we reconsecrate for love. This sacred space, which has seen death, we recommit to life.” And the congregation returned to their demolished performance of Annie, singing together “The sun’ll come out tomorrow…” We are people who believe in rebirth. You don’t have to be born again, but you can, and we will stand on the side of rebirth every time.
- REsources for Living - December 1, 2020
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- REsources for Living - November 1, 2020
