No Saviors
One of the many reasons I choose Unitarian Universalism as my faith is that I don’t believe in saviors. Read more →
Compassion & Healing
What does compassion feel like to you? What does healing feel like?
JASON
CLF Member, incarcerated in IL
For me, growing up in the nightmare of my childhood and the abuses I suffered, compassion was an unknown word and concept. Read more →
Voices of Compassion
BRANDON
CLF Member, incarcerated in ID
In October of 2020, I suffered a week of torment within which I was repeatedly beaten, extorted of property and medication, and sexually abused by a cellmate. Read more →
A Compassionate Life
Religious scholar Karen Armstrong has studied the teachings of religions large and small all around the world. And she has, as we all have, witnessed the strife in our world: the pain, the isolation, the injustice, the inequality. Read more →
Updates from the CLF’s 2022 Annual Meeting
The CLF held its Annual Congregational Meeting on Sunday June 5, 2022. Anyone who could not attend the meeting was invited to vote by mail ahead of the meeting. Read more →
Would you like your creative expression to appear in Quest?
All CLF members (incarcerated and free world members) are welcome to submit reflections on upcoming Quest themes, original poetry and artwork. Read more →
Quest July/August 2022
July/August 2022
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” —Mother Teresa
Articles
No Saviors
One of the many reasons I choose Unitarian Universalism as my faith is that I don’t believe in saviors. Read more »
Compassion & Healing
For me, growing up in the nightmare of my childhood and the abuses I suffered, compassion was an unknown word and concept. Read more »
Voices of Compassion
In October of 2020, I suffered a week of torment within which I was repeatedly beaten, extorted of property and medication, and sexually abused by a cellmate. Read more »
A Compassionate Life
Religious scholar Karen Armstrong has studied the teachings of religions large and small all around the world. And she has, as we all have, witnessed the strife in our world: the pain, the isolation, the injustice, the inequality. Read more »
Updates from the CLF’s 2022 Annual Meeting
The CLF held its Annual Congregational Meeting on Sunday June 5, 2022. Anyone who could not attend the meeting was invited to vote by mail ahead of the meeting. Read more »
Would you like your creative expression to appear in Quest?
All CLF members (incarcerated and free world members) are welcome to submit reflections on upcoming Quest themes, original poetry and artwork. Read more »
The Father of Christmas
This month we celebrate Charles Dickens, British Unitarian, and author of A Christmas Carol. When Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843, many Christmas traditions had almost died out, and the holiday was hardly celebrated. England was becoming more and more industrial, and people leaving farms to work in factories had left their old customs behind.
But the story, which was wildly popular, brought enthusiasm back to the cities for practices like singing Christmas carols and feasting on special foods. The picture of the Cratchit family celebrating their Christmas together inspired people to find a way to celebrate Christmas in the cities, and the change of heart which comes to Ebeneezer Scrooge reminded people that Christmas was traditionally a time when the wealthy folk shared with the poorer people.
In fact, Dickens was very concerned with the conditions of poor people in England at a time when the gap between the rich and the poor was getting wider and wider. Many of his books deal with this theme, and he became a Unitarian because, as he said, they “would do something for human improvement if they could; and practice charity and toleration.”
Interested in learning more about Charles Dickens, our religious ancestor? Here are a few additional resources:
A 2005 UU World article, “Ebenezer Scrooge’s Conversion,” by Michael Timko, describes how Charles Dickens’s story, A Christmas Carol, exemplified 19th-century Unitarianism.
In the Tapestry of Faith children’s religious education curriculum Windows and Mirrors, Session 13 (Images of Injustice) addresses Charles Dickens, his work and his dedication to improving the lives of the poorest English workers and their families. From the introduction to the lesson:
As Unitarian Universalists, we do not turn away from noticing the gaps that separate “haves” from “have nots.” To work against inequity, we know we first have to see it. Unitarian Charles Dickens saw it. Born poor, he later earned a living as a writer and joined a more comfortable economic class. Dickens used colorful character portraits and complex, often humorous plots, to expose tragic inequities in 19th-century British society. He showed that people at opposite ends of an economic spectrum belong to the same “we,” united by our common humanity and destiny—a lesson which resounds with our contemporary Unitarian Universalist Principles.
The website Charles Dickens online has well as the Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography offer biographical information and many other resources.
Valentine’s Day
I could be wrong, but I rather suspect that Valentine’s Day is the most widely despised holiday in the country. Really, unless you’re in the small minority of people who 
are in the throes of romantic passion, what’s to like? You don’t get a day off of work, there’s no religious ceremony or significance, and for weeks ahead of time the stores are filled with a boatload of pink and red crap that nobody needs, and hardly anybody actually wants. Jewelry store commercials aside, the number of lives that would be improved by the gift of a heart-shaped diamond is, I suspect, shockingly small.
Worse than that, for many people the holiday is an affront. If you are single, it’s a reminder that society expects people to pair up, and a suggestion that you are probably a loser because you’re alone. If you’re in a long-term relationship that has become more centered on helping with homework and making sure that there is milk in the frig than on lust and making googly eyes at one another, it’s a reminder that popular culture is obsessed with passion and falling in love, and no one will ever make a blockbuster movie that looks anything like your life. If you’re gay or lesbian or in any kind of non-traditional relationship you know that there probably isn’t going to be a card in the drugstore that is in any way designed with your kind of love in mind. And if you’ve recently been through a break-up, or your relationship is going through a rocky period from which it may or may not recover, or your spouse has died, well, then Valentine’s Day is pretty much designed for your own personal torture.
So here’s my suggestion: Maybe a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by buying candy and flowers would be to embrace the fact that love is often difficult. Rather than a day about romance, why not a day for concentrating on loving something or someone that makes you uncomfortable?
You might want to start by loving your crooked toe, or your stretch marks, or the flabby skin on the back of your arms. Anoint them with lotion, and a long, loving look, and consider the possibility that they really don’t need to be any different than exactly what they are.
You could try loving your neighbor who plays loud music and leaves his RV parked so that you can hardly get in your driveway. Maybe the music is his only stress reducer after caring for elderly people all day; maybe the RV is the only place his son has to live; maybe he’s so busy trying to hold his life together that he forgot to consider what would be most convenient for you.
You could work on loving your daughter’s crappy fourth-grade teacher who doesn’t appreciate your child’s unique gifts and has failed to teach her the structure of a paragraph. Chances are good that there are too many kids in the classroom to give each their due and the teacher is exhausted simply from trying to maintain some semblance of civilization until the bell rings.
You could try to love the person ahead of you in the line at the grocery store who has 27 items in the express lane, or the punk who cut you off on the freeway, or the customer service representative from the cable company who does not appear to have the slightest idea what “service” might mean. Just for today, since it’s a holiday.
You might even go all out, and work on loving your ex, or the person they left you for. Not necessarily forgiving, and certainly not forgetting, but just a little warmth, a little bit of an open heart for someone who, like everyone else in the world, is trying to find happiness in the best way they know how. Which isn’t necessarily a good way, but there you have it.
Just for this one day you could practice love not so much as a feeling but as a choice, a discipline, a practice. You could start with the conviction that everyone certainly needs love, and the possibility that everyone deserves it. Not because they have earned it, not because they are loveable, but because each of us is capable of being an instrument of grace, which is another name for the love that we don’t have to earn or deserve.
Happy Valentine’s Day. And good luck.
Today
Today I am going to try and live into the simplicity and struggle of this covenant (co-created by junior high UU youth at camp this summer):
Respect, Kindness, Forgiveness, Focus.
Today I am going to aspire to be the human being I wish others would be to me and my neighbors.
Maybe tomorrow too. So much is possible.
And when (not if) I miss the mark, I will begin again in love.
For myself, for you, for all that is possible when we choose compassion over judgment, hope over harm…
Today.
