All the questions within the Adolescence category for World Religions.

We are born, and we wonder, were we somewhere before? If we were, where were we? We live our lives, and we wonder what we are meant to do? Is there a special purpose for our lives? We die, and we wonder why? Will we live on in some way after death? These are the questions that all people ask at some time or another in their lives. These are the questions that bring us up against the edge of any certainty; on the other side of that brink lies mystery. Religions are born out of the questions; God is born out of the mystery.

Whatever concepts of God are believed, whatever myths and symbols image God, all religions include mystery as an attribute of God. It is a common belief that God is something totally other, something utterly unknowable for humans, something ineffable. Rudolf Otto, explains this phenomenon in The Idea of the Holy, “The truly ‘mysterious’ object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon somethng inherently ‘wholly other’, whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own,..” Yet, at.the same time, those who accept that God is totally unknowable usually also attempt to understand what God is through some earthly or human metaphors. This paradox, of not knowing and yet knowing, is at the heart of religion, in fact it is at the heart of life.

Scientists, too, are finding that they come up against the same kind of mystery at the edges of their knowledge. They are always pushing those edges for new understandings but as soon as they make a new discovery, they find new puzzles to solve. The threshold of knowledge only moves out a little; the mystery always remains on the other side. Scientists who study the microcosm also discover a paradox similar to one in which God can’t be known but is known. Sub-atomic particles can be described only from one viewpoint at a time; they can never be totally known all at once. The underlying stuff of life seems to contain a paradox, a mystery. This ultimate mystery is a basic part of the meaning of the word “God”. It is no wonder that God as mystery is common to all religions.

The Native Americans of the Plains call God, Wakan Tanka, the Great Mysterious. The Medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart described God as “A mystery behind mystery, a mystery within mystery that no light has ever penetrated.” In the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says of himself, “I am the silence of mysteries”. The Tao Te Ching says, “The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.” (translation by Stephen Mitchell) One of the ninety nine names of God in Islam is The Hidden. Zen Buddhist koans and other exercises attempt to make an experience of the paradox and mystery possible.

Most people love a mystery. Humans are curious creatuies and if there is something hidden, they want to find it. If there is something wrapped up, they want to open it. If there is a mystery, they want to solve it. Children are especially intrigued by mysteries. The younger children in this age group, though curious, will accept mysteries at face value since their thinking processes allow them to be comfortable with them. The older children are beginning to analyze in a more rational way and they may push for more rational answers. We wish to honor the new mental abilities of these children, yet it is important and possible for them to consciously carry along their earlier intuitive understanding of the underlying mystery.

An understanding that mystery is a the heart of life is affirmed by our Unitarian Universalist principles which encourage us to spiritual growth and urge us to a free and responsible search for truth. It is also promoted by our use of the source, direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder.

Although moses was raised as the grandson of the Pharaoh, he still thought of himself as a Hebrew. Once, when he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, Moses tried to stop the Egyptian. In the struggle, the Egyptian was killed. This made the Pharaoh very angry, and Moses had to go into hiding.

While he was in hiding, he married and started to raise a family. Once, while tending his father-in-law’s sheep, he saw a bush that burned without being burned down. Moses went closer to look at this amazing bush, up on the side of a mountain. As Moses came closer, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses."

Moses answered, "Here I am," and covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

God told Moses that the suffering Hebrews at the hands of the Egyptians had not gone unnoticed: God had heard the Hebrews’ cries. Indeed, God had come to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. Thus God was sending Moses to the Pharaoh to free the Hebrew people from Egypt.

But Moses protested, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Hebrew people out of Egypt? If they ask, ‘What is the name of the one who has sent you!?’ what shall I say?"

God said to Moses, "I am who I am. Say, ‘I am has sent me to you. The God of your fathers and mothers, the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of Isaac and Rebekah, the God of Jacob and Rachel has sent me to you.’" Moses still protested that people would not believe him. God told Moses to throw the staff he had in his hand on the ground. When Moses did so, the staff turned into a snake, and Moses drew back from it. God told him to grab the snake by the tail, and when Moses did, the snake turned back into a staff.

Then God told Moses to put his hand inside his cloak and then take it out. When Moses did so, his hand developed a very bad disease called leprosy. Then God told Moses to put his hand back inside his cloak and take it out. When Moses did, his hand was restored to health.

God told Moses, "If they will not believe you, or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign. If they will not believe these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground."

Still Moses protested. He reminded God that he stuttered and wouldn’t be able to speak well. God assured Moses that his speech would be taken care of. Moses still begged God to send someone else.

Finally God got angry and told Moses that Moses’ brother, Aaron, would be there to speak for him, but that Moses must go. And so Moses and his family went to Egypt. Four times he had tried to get out of going. But he believed it was God who was calling him, so he went.

We have been asking very large questions. How did everything begin? We have asked, how did people begin? We have asked, how did our earth begin,how did our solar system begin, how did our galaxy begin? And we have even asked, how did all galaxies and all suns and all worlds begin?

We have read the answers given by different people from different lands and different times. We have asked both primitive people of long ago and the scientists of today. It has been a stirring adventure. We understand now how other people have felt. We see why they thought as they did, and we know why the scientists keep asking more and more questions. For like Kofi in Africa, we too can "go on thinking and thinking and never stop."

But let us come back to some of the smaller questions. How did you and I begin? How will we end, or will we ever end? These intimate questions about ourselves may have been waiting quietly all this time behind big questions.

When did you begin? Ten years ago? Fifteen years ago, did you say? Do you mean you began to be you the day you were born? How can that be? Did you not begin nine months before you were born? Doesn’t the thought start a wondering in your mind? Nine months before you were born, you were a small one-celled gelatin-like ball of life– not as big as the period at the end of this sentence. Was that speck you? How could you come out of that? It took the human race at least two billion years to evolve from one-celled protozoa into people. How is it you could make such a big change from a small one-celled animal into a human baby with billions and billions of cells in your body in so short a time as nine months?

The answer is that your one-celled beginning had in it something that the first protozoa did not have. It had already in it a much larger number of patterns to grow by. Those patterns were strung together in tiny strings inside your one-celled egg. The biologists call these patterns genes. Very wonderful microscopic pieces of life these genes are! For they had in them all the patterns your egg needed in order to grow into you. It is a mystery how these very tiny specks can hold such patterns and how they make the egg follow the patterns. It is as if these little genes could talk and say, "You are to be a boy with brown eyes and dark hair and dark skin," or just the opposite, whatever was needed to make you. Yet who ever heard of a one-celled living thing talking?

Probably in that long-ago time, when there were no living animals except the tiny one-celled protozoa, each of these tiny living things had at least one of those wondrous genes inside its cell. It needed something to show it how to be even just another protozoa. But your tiny egg, that began growing inside your mother’s body, needed thou- sands of patterns or genes to grow by if it was to know how to grow and grow in order to become you.

And where, we ask, did that little speck of life, that was your egg in the beginning, get those patterns to grow by? They came from two germ cells, one a male cell from your father’s body and the other a female cell from your mother’s body.When you were conceived (nine months before you were born), those two cells blended into one cell–into the beginning of you.

And where,we ask, did your father and mother get those small containers of life that could form together and make you? These thousands of special kinds of genes that were needed to make you had been kept alive ever since your father and your mother themselves were single cells inside their mothers. Again it is hard to imagine (but the scientists have good reason for believing it).

And how did your father and mother get their genes that told their eggs how to grow? From their four parents, that is, from your grandparents. And where did your grandparents get their genes to grow by? From their parents, that is from your great-grandparents. And where did your great-grandparents get their genes? How far back must we go to find your very first beglnnlng? We cannot stop, can we, until we have reached the very first living things that were in the beginning of time.Had not these living things lived in the long, long line of ancestors before you, the small egg that began to be you would never have known how to become you. For it was from them that your egg had slowly gathered the patterns for making you.It was because millions and millions of years ago male and female creatures began joining their dlfferent kind of germ cells together that you began, rather than an amoeba. Each new baby creature that was born was a little different from its parents, and some began trying out new ways of doing things. After a while these new ways became firm habits, so firm that new patterns were given to the new eggs to grow by.

The writers of the Hebrew Bible had an interesting way to report how persons have been connected with the people before them. They used a word that we seldom use now: begat. It means brought into being. For example, we read in the Bible, "Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah, etc." So we might describe your connections with those who have lived before you in this way. But we must think of large groups of living things as if they were one single living thing in order to keep your very long story short enough to tell. So this, we may say, is the story of the beginning of you.

The Protozoa begat the Volvox. The Volvox begat the Worm with Brains. The Worm with Brains begat the Fish. The Fish begat the Amphibian. The Amphibian begat the Reptile. The Reptile begat the Mammal. The Mammal begat the Ape. The Ape begat the Human. And the Human begat You.

These are the chapter titles in the long, long story of you. We feel the wonder of it, but who can explain it? In some way, something in all these kinds of living creatures is still living in you, and in every person now alive. You- or a part of you- are much, much older than you seem. You feel young. You look young. You have no memory of the ages before you were born. Yet you brought with you on your birthday some tell-tale signs that you already had inside you a number of patterns to grow by. The millions of cells in your baby body knew how to do thousands of things you have never consciously thought about. Their ancestor cells had gotten used to doing these things "without thinking" thousands of years before you were born. You belong in a living chain, a spiral millions of years old and millions of people and animals long.

And will some of these patterns-to-grow-by that are in you go on living in your children and in your children’s children after your body dies? Surely, we cannot imagine this living chain as ending with you. What kinds of patterns for growing will you and your mate be passing on to your children? Can you do anything about improving these patterns? How?

The past has been long. The future may be even longer. We began with questions. We continue with other and harder questions still unanswered.

Goal:
To consider the importance of living one’s faith and to identify some famous Unitarians and Universalists.

Materials:
List of stamps and their numbers
2 sample stamp collection pages: Marlene’s Stamp Collection and UU Kids Book

Background:
It’s difficult to teach our children what UUs believe. We don’t have a single statement of belief, or dogma to teach them. The theological beliefs of Unitarians and Universalists have changed dramatically over time. We continue to call ourselves a “living tradition,” one that evolves and reforms itself. But one hallmark of Unitarian Universalism—past, present and future—is social activism. That’s because Unitarians and Universalists have always believed that we must apply our faith to the world we live in. So, we turn to “famous” Unitarians and Universalists as one way to see this faith in action throughout history.

Activities:
Collect stamps of famous UUs.
Make an album of your own. You can use Marlene’s example, the UU Kids Book pages, or make up your own design.