The first time the feeling came over me, I was embarrassed. I was in my early 20's and still pretty new to this whole religion business. But I had already wrestled with the worst of my suspicious skepticism and was beginning to understand myself as the kind of person who really gets a lot out of going to church. So there I was, sitting in the pews of the Unitarian church on some Sunday morning when I suddenly felt moved to get down on my knees. I can't remember where we were in the service or what words or music I heard or even why I was moved. I am certain, though, that I looked around at all those sensible, reasonable people and imagined what they might think of my impulse. I was familiar enough with Unitarian Universalism to know that we don't kneel at church, unless maybe we are trying to fix something near the floor or taking a yoga class. Seeing as how I didn't really believe in kneeling either, I waved away the impulse.
Over the course of the next few years, the feeling came again from time to time. It came without words or any kind of explanation. I reasoned with it - I tried to convince it that I acknowledged no God before whom I would kneel, that there is no point in kneeling unless you can say why and what it means. It generally conceded pretty easily. It was most resistant when I was most in need. There were a couple of times when, in tears of sorrow or worry, I would let my head bend forward and fall into my hands. Other people did that, too, from time to time. I decided that was acceptable.
Then the time came for me to move half way across the country and begin theological school. I was sad to leave New England so I decided I would say goodbye with a grand adventure. I would hike the whole Long Trail, 270 miles through the forest from Massachusetts to Canada. Mid way through the trip some of the sense of adventure began to fade. My days settled into a familiar routine - get up, eat, take down tent, hike up mountains, eat, hike down mountains, eat, pitch tent, sleep. One day I woke up feeling like I'd had enough. The day dawned gray, cool and rainy. My body was sore. I was tired of camping food. My companion, with a better attitude and longer legs, was soon out of my sight as I trudged up the mountain feeling a little sorry for myself. I seem to remember that I was contemplating what the point of rain gear is when you just end up damp and sweaty because it is too hot. When I reached a clearing I stopped to drink some water. I noticed that the rain seemed to be diminishing so I turned my face up toward the sky. At that very moment a bit of light broke through the clouds and bathed the tops of the trees in an incredible golden green color. The clouds were literally outlined in silver and a clear, cold wind blew hard across the exposed mountainside. In that moment that familiar feeling overtook me and before I could object I found myself down on my knees, filled with awe and a little bit breathless.
Over the course of the last few years, I have started to understand that feeling as a tool I didn't know I had. I think the word for it is reverence. There are lots of tools we need on the journey of the spirit, tools like courage and hope, honesty and the ability to really listen. My suspicion is that most UU's wouldn't object to that little list and would add plenty more we could agree upon. But reverence? I'm not sure that would make our top ten. However, I am becoming more and more convinced that it should and I want to tell you why.
In his book Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, Paul Woodruff offers a definition-schema for reverence, a definition schema because it is an ideal and therefore hard to pin down. We can point to some parameters but then each of us has to fill in the details after reflecting on our own life experience. Woodruff begins with the understanding of reverence as an ideal that enables us to have "the capacity for a range of feelings and emotions that are linked; [as the] sense that there is something larger than a human being" which is grounded in "deep understanding of human limitations." From this understanding grows the capacity for the feelings: awe, respect and shame. "Awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control" which grows into respect for other people in all their fallibility thereby fostering our ability to feel shame when we have fallen short of our own aspirations.[1]
Woodruff, a humanities scholar, further argues that reverence is an ancient virtue that has been cultivated and developed over much of the course of human history. And he believes that it is essential for us today for much the same reason it was essential to the ancients. "Reverence," he writes, "is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods." It is what helps us behave ourselves when there is no one to force us to do the right thing. Reverence is what allows us to respect the limits of our knowledge and concede that we could be wrong and admit when we are. When it is well developed, reverence helps us exercise good judgment by keeping us humble and open to new ideas. And reverence can give "us the power to make changes toward each other . . .[and] allow us to go on being at home with new or changing people." In short, the ability to be reverent is what helps us "do the right thing, for the right reasons."[2]
To illustrate the importance of reverence, Woodruff turns to ancient Greece and China. In the history of both cultures, cultures that likely had little cross fertilization, the literature reveals that reverence was among their most highly lauded virtues. The authors of antiquity told countless stories about the death and destruction that comes to a people when their rulers lose sight of their humanity. Not only were the consequences devastating for those who were ruled, but the inevitable fall of the rulers who forgot their human limits was long and hard. In both cultures, irreverence was to be guarded against with great vigilance. So too, he argues, should we guard today.
Last weekend, a bunch of us from the church walked in the gay pride parade. Having participated in many such celebrations, I expected the protestors. But in my experience they are usually clustered together in one area. Thus, I was surprised to discover that about 50 vocal and amplified men were lining the entire parade route. As a result, I got a better look at their message and tactics than I usually do. In little groups of two or three they stood with their bibles and signs condemning homosexuality. As we walked past one in particular, he offered a running commentary on the sins and indiscretions of the various religious groups represented. He told us that God rejected our evil ways and would see to it that we were justly punished. That's the polite version.
I have no doubt those protesters sincerely believe in the particular convictions they proclaim. Woodruff, too, has seen such protestors. "The people behind the signs are showing faith," he writes, "and plenty of it. But they are acting against reverence. They are human beings, and yet they suppose they know the mind of God so clearly they can declare" God's opinion and intention.[3] I also want to say, to be fair, that it is not only religious conservatives who fall prey to the dangers of irreverence. I have encountered atheists as vehemently declaring their ability to know that God is a grand and dangerous fiction of our imagination, that people of faith are weak and deluded. The human truth is that there is very little we can actually know with absolute certainty. We all have our opinions and feelings, but none of us really knows the answers to ultimate questions. None of us knows for sure from whence we come or why or what death brings. Honoring reason as we do, we are generally willing to allow that we don't have the only corner on truth. As a result, we try to make room for a wide variety of theological belief in our congregations.
Sometimes this diversity feels like a blessing of riches. Other times, though, we are daunted by the challenge it brings. When the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Reverend Bill Sinkford, called for a renewal of a language of reverence in our association, many objected. A lot of folks understood him to mean that we should come up with a particular language of reverence, some worried he was really asking us to reclaim a theistic language of reverence. The opposition insisted that we cannot renew or create such a language among us because we just have too many different beliefs. But then, the Reverend David Bumbaugh responded to the challenge with an address called "Toward a Humanist Language of Reverence." Through his work he helped make a little more room for folks to imagine a plurality of reverent languages.
I so appreciate his response because, for all our challenges, I love our theological diversity. We do have a lot of different beliefs among us, but reverence isn't primarily about belief. Through studying the spectrum of cultures in which reverence has been cultivated as a virtue, Woodruff has observed that it is primarily about feeling. The only thing you must believe to be reverent, he explains, is "that there is one Something that satisfies at least one of the following conditions: 1. it cannot be changed or controlled by human means 2. it is not fully understood by human experts 3. it was not created by human beings 4. or it is transcendent."[4] Thinking about reverence this way, I would venture to say it is something we share. Our objects of reverence vary: nature, God, even life itself; therefore our languages will have to be diverse. Some languages speak to me more than others and some I don't really understand. But the language refers to the experience, and the experience is universal.
Responding to that experience is part of what we are doing when we worship. The word worship comes from an old English word meaning "to shape things of worth." In our Sunday services we come together to celebrate, to seek comfort, to strengthen and renew our commitments to that Something to which we ascribe worth. The UUA's Commission on Common Worship describes our gathering as a time to "help us reorder, reopen, reshape and reinterpret our experience and help us find the power to reaffirm again and again . . . what is worthy of our ultimate commitment."[5] Woodruff argues that one of the best ways to grow reverence is through ceremony and ritual. That's what we are doing in our worship. However, he points out that it is not the ritual itself that is reverent. We bring the reverence to the ritual.[6] Simply going to church doesn't make us reverent, what we bring to church can.
We become more reverent by practicing reverence. We can grow our reverence by taking time to stand in awe before that Something which is larger than our own egos. That could mean committing to a daily spiritual practice. After much struggle I find myself with a daily prayer practice. I am still a little surprised to find that I do it on my knees. I don't know why, but I know that kneeling helps me open my heart. But there are many ways to open the heart. We can nurture the seeds of reverence within us by taking time regularly to meditate or walk in the woods, by taking time to say grace before we eat or by engaging in some kind of service or justice work.
"They've lost it," writes Aaron Kramer, "because the sun keeps rising and these days nobody sings."[7] We help our children keep open their hearts and find their way when we encourage them to keep singing. And they remind us when we listen to their song. Let us sing together. Let us gasp together in astonishment at the perfection of the kingfisher sating its hunger. Let us create opportunities to share ritual in our families. Let us dedicate some of our time, some of our hearts, to caring for others and the natural world around us. "We see you," writes the poet Joy Harjo of the eagle,
see ourselves and know That we must take the utmost care And kindness in all things. Breathe in, knowing we are made of All this, and breathe, knowing We are truly blessed because We're born, and die soon within a True circle of motion.[8]
Albert Schweitzer was a physician and Christian theologian who was affiliated with Unitarian Universalism. He wrote several articles about what he called reverence for life which he understands as the heart of ethical living. His code of ethics is grounded in the belief that we all sense in all life a will to live. It is that will to live which we must honor and serve in all life, no exceptions. And when we do, he writes, we "enter the service of that Creative Will whence all life emanates." And when that ethic "becomes engraved on our hearts," he continues, "[it] culminates in spiritual union and harmony with the Creative Will which is in and through all."[9] I am not really sure what name I want to give to that source. But that doesn't really matter. What matters is that we live in harmony with it. What matters is that we practice reverence. Through that practice we might find and keep our balance. Through that practice we might better love ourselves, each other and this Life we all share. May it be so and Amen.
Closing Words
John MorganIn the end it won't matter how much we have,
but how generously we have given.
It won't matter how much we know,
but rather how well we live.
And it won't matter how much we believe,
but how deeply we love.
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