When we talk about worship, prayer and grace, we are really talking about the nature of our faith. We pray for many reasons and in many ways to find meaning in the mundane, to be able to tap into sources of strength and courage in time of need. In these moments of worship, we find the gift of grace which enables us to enter a world that is deeper, fuller, larger and richer.
For those who find the concept of grace difficult to accept, it may be that grace is nothing more than an opening of ourselves to all that the universe has to offer. We see possibilities where none seemed to exist a moment ago. We grasp the moment and trust the outcome, if for no other reason than that we trust our personal experience, even when the font of our strength is a mystery. It may be that we have tapped into the source of the wonder in our lives where meaning and understanding intersect. Faith in that moment sees, knows, and senses the transcendence in all of nature. It allows us to walk in the dark without fear, or as Paul Tillich writes, "Faith means being grasped by a power that is greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us, and transforms and heals us."
Of course, none of this comes easily. We struggle all our lives with that which makes us uncomfortable: with fear, with loneliness, shame and death. Through acts of compassion for ourselves and our neighbors, we transform that which confounds into something exalted.
Gathering for worship can move a community to a place of love, contentment and peace. We experience a powerful sense of belonging and connectedness in community. In a similar way, we might experience the same feeling through a walk in the woods, reading the poetry of Mary Oliver or Shakespeare, contemplating a Monet, or working in gardening. The one common element in all of this is relatedness, to ourselves, to others and the cosmos.
Worship is the means by which this connection is made. We come to share our burdens with others who care. We give and receive support according to our gifts and abilities as we wrestle with the hard issues that confront us.
Our principles are the underpinnings of this journey to discover truth and meaning through personal experience. While we may be creedless, our ethics and stated principles call us to accept diversity in our spiritual practice. The embodiment of our movement is an "abiding respect for the right of conscience, based on direct personal experience of that transcending mystery and wonder which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life."
Is this not the purpose of prayer and worship, to be willing to question, challenge and doubt together? We live with paradox all the time. Ours is a faith that does not provide the false peace of answered questions that confront us. We are forever called to the difficult task of finding our own answers to the contradictions and mysteries of life. That is one reason we gather together in worship. We are strengthened and encouraged by community to walk the path of the heart as we attempt to understand the incomprehensible, and to gather courage to continue the journey, especially in those moments of supreme doubt, pain and uncertainty. The experience of worship, individually or in community, helps us feel comfortable and at home in a world filled with constant challenge and uncertainty. Through such worship, we may come to that place of peace and contentment that Paul Tillich calls the 'ground of all being.'
Many others of us hold a very different position, which is that there is no ultimate source of creation, no ground of all being. The world is built on chaos and chance and there is no need to gather to share the unanswerable. Doestoyevsky reflected this idea in the Brothers Karamazov. He wrote, "If that be the case, why gather to worship? This craving for community of worship is the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they slay each other with the sword." I believe, or to say it another way, I have faith that we Unitarian Universalists gather not to slay each other verbally or otherwise, but to answer the call to seek truth in our times. As Duncan Howlett writes, "Adam rebelled in the Garden of Eden, and sought dangerous knowledge, so also must we." We must follow our own path to truth wherever the road takes us, and by doing so, we remain true to another often neglected principle of the Judeo-Christian tradition: that of rebellion against arbitrary authority.
By gathering in communities of worship, we gain strength and momentum necessary to challenge the prevailing religious paradigms and cultural imperatives that demand answers rather than questions, that are content with dogma and creed rather than faith in their own authority. Our answers are arrived at individually or democratically within a worshipful community.
Our rebelliousness, our pugnacious heresies demand that we lend our evolving truth to the cause of justice, freedom and compassion. Our worship is not just about gathering for personal satisfaction and an inner harmony that James Luther Adams would call the "privacy of the inner heart."
If we are to achieve this inner harmony and simultaneously honor our principles, we are required, I believe, to recognize the social contract that calls us to bear witness to the suffering of others and be willing to take action for the greater good, no matter how uncomfortable that makes us feel.
This call to action can and sometimes does put us at odds with others in our movement who have what Adams calls faith but not works. For these people, there is no harmony in compassionate involvement with others. Worship and prayer become a solitary experience, mediating only the relationship between the individual and the transcendent.
This basic disagreement is one reason I think we gather in community to worship and pray. We struggle to understand each other and to find common ground that can open our hearts and minds to the world in which we live. We must constantly be willing lovingly to engage and challenge each other. We must be willing to answer the question, can we be true to our best selves if we exclude others who have less than we: less justice, less equity, less freedom?
I think not. Peter Fleck writes, "the effort to resolve the conflict between inner harmony and concern for, compassion with the other can lead to a great spiritual awakening." Such growth is nurtured through our communal worship. We pray for guidance in these efforts. We pray for a blooming of hope that comes through dialogue more readily than through monologue. We pray together because the stimulus of the gathered community helps us articulate our inner yearnings. We pray together for wisdom and the means to love more completely ourselves and those who suffer.
If our prayers are not to be narcissistic, we must include others. What we love we give our attention to. A prayerful community can help clarify what our heart needs to pay attention to.
Prayer dwells in the heart of worship and sustains mutuality within community. It is a tool of worship that helps us know the profound nature and beauty of life. Prayer for Unitarian Universalist is not about bowing down to a capricious, patriarchal God that calls for some strict pose of reverence. It is more about how much of ourselves we bring to the endeavor and not about the words. To pray is to be in contact with our deepest and most profound reality. It is to honor the beauty that is within us.
While the words themselves may be an obstacle to the endeavor of prayer, the reality is as the Buddha has said "The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart. Prayer can be without words, silence can thunder.
I owe much of my current evolving understanding of pray and worship to my internship supervisor Ken Collier, who writes that "prayer is anything that reveals to you the holiness, the beauty, the healing, the uniqueness, and the wholeness of your life." For that to happen we must make time to journey within to the rocky terrain of your soul, listen to the still quiet voice and then follow what your heart tells you.
When you do this, it is an act of prayer. Truly, deep prayer is like a bolt of lightning against the cold black night. It is an encounter with your inner truth and sacredness within your heart. It is the overpowering confrontation with your true unique self. It is the road to your life and source of power. "It is the power of the Holy, putting flesh on the acts of your life."
The hope is that we may all live with authenticity until the end of our days. This is the sole road to the healing of our minds and souls. As Ken writes, "It takes us to the place where the immanent God lives, and truth abides."
The prayer that can take us home encounters many an obstacle to reach the source where "the Truth flows through the bedrock of our souls, clear and sparkling and free. All of our lies and deceptions are washed away in this place. Here at last is the place where we cannot avoid our truth, no matter how painful. Here we confront our loneliness, our lies, our alienation, our powerlessness and are healed in the waters of forgiveness and loving acceptance.
Make no mistake about it, the work is hard, and mere reciting of the words of prayer will not lead us to the light of healing and wholeness. Our actions to strip away our secrets and the barriers to truth will, however, get us there. At that naked moment when we finally face the truth of our whole lives, we encounter the God that dwells within each of us.
It is in this very moment that we can finally hear the still quiet voice that calls us to change and love. We are called to give up illusion, particularly the one that says we exist in isolation, allowing us to abuse or dispose of ourselves. It is in this place of acceptance and understanding, stripped of all ego and pretension, where we are freed to embody a radiance that calls us to share our unadorned and unencumbered beauty with the universe, and in so doing, we knit together the fabric of the interdependent web of all existence.
We are meant to exist as the helix of DNA does, entwined with each other. That is our special gift. That is why we worship together.
Through relationships, we work together in the never-ending task of becoming human. Wherever there is loneliness, despair, pain or emptiness, there is space and time for worship and prayer. We share the journey to find that place of deep healing within. We are companions of the road, journeying towards healing and wholeness. Our revealed truth is ever unfolding and its ongoing revelation is without end, and so is our need to worship together.
This shared worship and prayer within our beloved community is what gives religion its potent meaning and potential for grace.
A Blessing On Your House, Amen
My Various Time Keepers - Who remind me that there is greater art and more discipline in writing a short story than an epic novel. They also remind me that I have to change my motto from never say in a few words what you can say with many to brevity is the soul of wit.
My Editor - who dots the i's of my sermons and reminds me that good spelling is the mark of a gentleman...which I have never been accused of being.
My Summer Committee - my eyes and ears into the mood of the congregation. That ensures that you only talk about how brilliant and moving my sermons have been. You will notice that a church of 850 has shrunk to about 90 very quiet and cowering individuals. They tell me that has nothing to do with me.
The staff - that helps me to be politically correct at all times and patiently endures my computer generated tirades.
Helena - who was still willing to have me come to Rochester even after she found out that my good friend is her former husband. She did not, however, succumb to all my obvious charms, because she refused to tell the MFC committee to give me a 1 without having to appear before them. OH WELL.
Dick - who ventured down from Mt. Olympus to give me advice, solicited or not, on how to handle you mere mortals.
The Congregation - Besotted with my wit, charm, grace, humor, brilliance, compassion, humility and, oh yes, my retiring manner.
Some serious comments - As the moment moves
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
A Blessing on Your House
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