This I Believe...
A “Taste” of What Our Members Believe
- "It wasn't easy, but I'm so glad I did it."
- "It felt like an act of gratitude, a way of saying thanks for the many ways these beliefs helped me negotiate tough times."
- "Writing them down helped me see how much my world view has changed."
- "It was like looking at my marriage vows again – forcing me to ask again how loyal I’ve been to my beliefs."
As a congregation, we regularly invite members – either as part of our worship or through our small groups – to put their beliefs down on paper. As you can see from the comments above, it’s always an unexpectedly meaningful experience. Unitarian Universalists are often called “heretics.” We accept this label gladly since in it’s original Greek form the word literally meant “those who choose.” We consider it a privilege to be a community that helps individuals clarify and choose their religious paths for themselves. And look what amazing beliefs and value systems arise from those individual searches! We hope that by reading what others “have chosen,” your choices will also be enriched.
The following are excerpts from members’ statements. The longer, complete versions of their pieces can be found in our church library in the booklet, This We Believe.
I have an enormous white oak in my back yard. It has dozens of branches and a huge weather-scarred trunk. It is my favorite tree. On a windy day, while the branches wave some, the trunk never does. My white oak is a metaphor for what I believe.
I believe I have many guiding inner voices, like the many branches of my white oak. One branch is the needy, scared, pay-attention-to-me voice. Another is my confident, know-better-than-others voice. A third branch is my rational, data-driven “show me” voice. I need to respect them all. And sometimes each comes in handy. Many of you have seen these sides of me!
I also believe we each have a paradoxically unique AND universal deeper inner voice. And my life’s task is to tune in, honor and follow this voice of mine. This is not a BRANCH of the tree, but the trunk. Hence I have labeled it my “tree trunk voice.”
It’s hard to hear and differentiate this wise and oldest part of me. This voice is quiet, unassuming, unwavering, like my giant white oak. She sends subtle signals, not words like my other voices (at least not yet!) She has a wisdom that is greater than my life experience. This puzzles me and I can’t explain it, but while she is my unique special voice, I believe she also speaks a universal truth that is shared by others.
I only hear my tree trunk voice when I make on-going quiet time. She encourages me to reach out in loving ways, gives me the courage to speak at the right moment, and suggests totally irrational, but somehow “right” ways for me to proceed. She does not allow me to sit in comfort in the face of others’ suffering. I’m slowly learning to believe in this special voice.
My Unitarian Universalist faith encourages me to humbly and respectfully clear the clutter so I can hear and act on this quiet tree trunk voice of love and justice. And of course UUism also teaches me to keep questioning her wisdom!
So, “this I believe”: I am a unique, increasingly
weather-worn “tree” in the universe with many
branches, and my tree trunk is a divine echo of the infinite,
that is shared with each of you.
– Joy Collins
I believe that by picking up the crumpled coffee cup on
my way in from the parking lot and by holding the door open
for someone I am restoring balance to the world.
– Steven Buckley
As a Catholic grade school and high school student, and then as a nun for seven years, I led a life of certitude. My goal was heaven... My belief system led me to a life of STRIVING... striving to be better than I was, to be worthy. Within this context, there was never a point of "good enough.” Frailty, failure, flaws often sowed seeds of discouragement and depression in me. And there were always niggling fears about "The others," those who did not believe in this One True Church. What would happen to them?
It has taken me many years to have the courage to listen
to my own inner voice… My beliefs now are far fewer
and far simpler than those of my childhood. I believe that
the journey is more important than the destination. (Parenthetically,
it is also more interesting... and more FUN!) I believe in
my fellow journeyers… and letting myself be supported
by them. I believe in SAVORING all that life offers, having
gradually given up the delayed gratification that heaven
implies. I believe in my "good-enough" Unitarian
Church. I believe in my "good-enough" self.
– Carole Haas
I believe in the potluck. It’s a proven fact that
if you have 6 people for a potluck,
you’ll have a square meal. People who want to tell
me what to bring to a potluck drive me nuts. What if I don’t
want to make a salad that day? What if I want to bake a dark
chocolate espresso cake?
But, they say, what if everyone brought dessert? And I answer, what’s wrong with that?...
So I tell people that I have faith in the potluck and I’m
an uncompromising evangelist for my faith. I often urge others
to share my faith in the potluck. Faith in the potluck really
has a much larger meaning . . . faith in community. When
we live in community, we find that each person brings her
own gifts and needs. It’s just a matter of matching
up the person with the gift and the person with the need.
It’s faith that if at some time I have a need, there
will be someone within my community who will be there for
me. It’s faith that if someone within my community
needs me, I will be there for them.
– Anne Perry
I believe in the sun
though it is late in rising
I believe in love
though it is absent
I believe in God
though he is silent…
The words, etched on a cave wall in Cologne where Jews had been hiding during the Holocaust, call out to me. What does it mean to believe? To trust in what cannot be seen even in the darkest of times? To remain, steadfast and strong, in that conviction even when reality is speaking otherwise? Or could it be to affirm and reflect an inner goodness, etching some imprint of a life onto a rock, even when the entire world seems to be demanding that life’s invisibility.
I believe that faith plays an essential role in our survival. Whether we live for a God, an ideal (such as love), or life itself, I think that some modicum of belief is necessary in order to take a step forward… On my hardest days I cling to the idea that things will get better, that the world can be changed, that one life can make even the slightest difference. And if this belief were to completely fade, I would fade also.
Essentially, the question of making a life matter is to me the main question of belief. I have heard an assertion that faith is the underlying conviction that the world is good. Well, the world may not be good; it may be harsh, or just indifferent. But the kind of faith I have experienced tells me it doesn’t matter: I am here, I will live, and, in the pursuit of beauty and goodness, I will make my life count.
I do not know if the cave-writer in Cologne survived the
Holocaust. But in the instant that he believed in some beauty
beyond his present darkness, and in writing offered that
belief to the world, I believe he truly lived.
Terri Pahucki
I believe that there is no destination in life. Any arrivals
on the journey are stop-overs. The important thing on the
journey is not how much you carry with you, or what your
stop-overs look like, but your companions as you travel…I
believe shying away from pain is what makes me choose fear,
greed, hatred or addiction as life companions...
– Tim Farnum
This I Believe: What goes around comes around. I have often
heard this phrase associated with revenge fantasies and people
getting what’s coming to them. I suppose that could
be so but I prefer to associate it with something more along
the lines of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you. I have… learned that what I
choose to give to the world are likely the same things I
will be getting back from the world and those I travel with.
I choose to respond with anger, the chances I will get anger
back are almost guaranteed. I choose to respond with love,
I’m going to get love back… I have seen this
work in my life and the lives of others. What goes around
comes around. This I believe.
– Melissa Mitchell
This I Believe: that I am nothing and everything
This I Believe: that God is nothing and everything
This I Believe: that space and time and all that’s
made of matter
Are all that really matters, and that I know nothing definite
About any of it at all
This I Believe
This I Believe This I Believe
It matters nothing and everything what I believe about the
heavens
The stars will still fall for me to wish on
It matters nothing and everything what I believe about the
canyons
The stones I throw in will never fill them…
This I Believe: that everything is energy
Dancing madly in The Mystery That’s all
This I Believe This I Believe
It matters nothing and everything What I believe
This I Believe This I Believe
– Kindle Perry
I believe in faith.
I am one of the probably 0.00043% give or take of people
on earth raised Unitarian Universalist. …it never
struck me that we were a small bunch and worse, heretics.
I thought everyone else was. And I have to say, living among
the heretics has been a little rocky.
I don't know why they felt so threatened, but one aunt spent
20 years trying to get me baptized and another forced me
to memorize the 23rd Psalm and the books of the Old Testament – OK
now, together! Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers...you know
the routine.
But as threatened as others have seemed of my faith, I have
been awestruck by theirs, as well as by ours – by yours
and mine – and by the sheer concept. Take it on faith.
My aunt takes it on faith that she will one day see her beloved
sister, my mom, once again. I don't but I can't help appreciating
the comfort that gives her and sometimes, I wish I could
share her conviction. It's an act of faith to talk of the
future. To marry. To reproduce. To act selflessly, to acquiesce,
to try to improve things.
I was a kid when Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies tried to levitate
the Pentagon. I thought that what they were saying was, we
have faith that if we all work together, we can move this
thing. We can end this war and maybe get something done around
here.
I do, too. Faith is a powerful thing. Even for the heretics.
– Eve Holberg
I believe in people.
I believe in the goodness in people
I believe in family. I believe my parents were extraordinary
people. I believe in my husband and my children. The whole
kit and kaboodle…
I believe mistakes are okay.
I believe in forgiveness.
I believe you should be able to use as much ketchup as you
want.
I believe if you hurt someone you should tell them you're
sorry.
I believe you can always learn something.
I believe it is okay to cry.
I believe vacations and banana splits are a necessary part
of life.
I believe in trust.
I believe in Halloween. I love Halloween.
I believe in the adage that home is the place that when you
go there they have to take you in.
I believe you should never underestimate the hurt someone
may carry.
I believe you should tell people you love them…
This is what I believe.
– Juanita Steinman
I believe that God lives in and between all of us, and that when we shut ourselves off from others, we are shutting out God…
In silence, I believe, we find our souls and God. But we
find them also in glorious music, and in the sounds of nature – water
rushing in a stream just off the ice, geese honking overhead
at sunset, wind blowing through pine branches in the woods.
And we find them in the laughter of children and the voices
of loving friends and those dearest to us…
– Libby Moore
I believe in miracles--not the burning bush kind, nor the
walk on water and raise the dead kind. More the Mozart composing
music at aged four kind and van Gogh painting sunflowers
when he was insane kind… When I see an acorn and realize
a huge majestic oak lies somehow within it, I bow to the
miraculous mystery…
I believe that the temporary experience of simply being alive
is a miracle. If, as Crowfoot said, “Life is the flash
of a firefly in the night,” it is all the more sacred
for its brevity. When I consider the odds against any of
us being who we are, (how many sperm are released for just
one fertilization of one egg to take place?) I need a word
for awe to the hundredth degree…
If I am feeling too overburdened and just don’t know
what to do I have finally learned that that is a good time
to do nothing. I no longer feel even a little guilty about
this--and that, too, is a miracle!
– Anita Rosenfeld
I believe that we are all making this experience up as we go along…
I believe in seeking activities that uphold us all…
I believe in God as another word for life itself. I like the metaphor of asking what God is, is like asking a fish to describe what water is. Life force is so much of who we are, what we do…
I believe I can know reality, but not through my intellect.
I’m too much of a fish for that. I can know reality
through grace. Becoming very honest with myself in the stillness
between thoughts leads to truth.
– Randy McDonald
I BELIEVE that moments matter....it's all a bunch of moments, one following another, and I BELIEVE that only moments matter, only moments matter at all.
I went in search of the Moon last night. I couldn't find it, but I BELIEVE it is there. My daughter called me at 8:15pm to say "Whatever you are doing, STOP; GO TO THE BEACH, LOOK AT THE MOON: it is full, it is HUGE, and it is ORANGE." She knew I would like this; we have this "moon-bond".
But she was in Penfield and we live in West Irondequoit and the cloud cover here was extreme, so we did not encounter that huge orange moon; we drove around looking for it too...we went out in search of the moon. We would do that for our daughter.
A dark sky in dark times with our second and last child, Chloe Althea, remembering her snuggled up between us in bed when she first started to know us, to smile when she looked at us. The smiles are not so frequent anymore during this very rough passage into adulthood.
I BELIEVE those first smiles are still a part of us;
I BELIEVE we will smile them again,
that they will come out from behind this
dark cloud cover,
cover of night,
cover-er of light.
My daughter said "LOOK AT THE MOON! IT IS HUGE, IT IS ORANGE, GO AND SEE!"
I could not find the moon last night, but like Chloe's inherent
goodness and truth, like the daughter
I know we raised,
I BELIEVE
it is still there.
– Claudia Cashman
I believe in love,
said over
and over
like a needle stuck
on an antique
phonograph.
I believe in love,
in the mystery of its transforming
power, sure
as the earth spins
each day
over
and over
and over.
I believe in love
– Vicki Schwartz
I believe that even when the financial cost is higher, it is usually a bargain. Most of the time, I believe I am receiving gifts…
I believe I will die before I WANT to do that…
– Martin Fass
I believe in Earth and its animals and plants.
I’m not so sure about some of its people.
I believe it’s good to question your beliefs.
I believe a seed of goodness is in every person. I don’t
know who put it there.
Most of the seeds germinate while others do not.
I believe you should not be afraid of being different, either
a little or a lot.
– John Rasor
I believe in subjecting myself to the chaos…I also
believe that sometimes we have to just accept what is.
Matt Shackelford
I believe that everyone has inborn beauty, and this goodness is a powerfully sweet mystery. I think of God as the ultimate sweet mystery of love and life that resides in us and all around…
After seeing grand cathedrals throughout Europe that took my breath away at every turn, my favorite cathedral remains as the sanctuary I find among trees…
Contemplating existence is akin to assembling a million
piece puzzle made up of shards of glass in order to see clearly.
This puzzle surely will take more than a lifetime to put
together…
– Patricia Hill
This I believe: in caring for myself, and in the knowledge that I’m doing the best I can.
I find it presumptuous to describe a Power greater than
myself, in human terms, but I call on this Power, usually
in wordless prayers, of awe and gratitude…
– Eleanor Porter
I believe I sometimes get it right. I believe in simple answers.
I knew this woman for more than 20 years. [I was her doctor]
She recently died after a very long illness and a long difficult
hospitalization…She asked many questions, always expecting
an answer to each one. We did not talk about philosophy,
religion, good or evil. She wanted to know what was happening
to her and what the treatments would do and when she would
be able to drink water and when she would be able to go home.
Every day she asked what she could do to help get better.
She always believed she would go home even though she needed
help with everything that we take for granted such as sitting
up, eating, turning over in bed, swallowing and much more.
She had not been out of the hospital bed for over a year
and [I had to tell her] she would never stand up again. She
accepted all this and still asked for whatever could be done
to help her live… When she died, many of her family
said to me that she always listened carefully to the answers
to her questions. She would tell those who visited her what
I had told her. It helped her, they said, to know and to
understand and she believed it helped her live better. I
learned that the simple answers and honesty gave us both
dignity and respect for one another. When I look back at
her life I feel at this time I got it right despite the times
I wasn’t sure at all.
– Bill Rolls
I am a heretic. This I know…
I am a heretic. This I know because I don’t feel that humans are God’s ultimate creation. Nor do I think we are the superior species on this Earth….
I am a heretic. This I know. Rather than celebrate the divine
selection of my species, I see only the interdependence of
all living things…
– Dolly Malik
This I believe. The sun will come up tomorrow. Maybe not very visibly in cloudy Rochester or for very long at this time of year in Alaskan latitudes, but it will come up. If not eons from now on this earth, then on some other earth, somewhere. And there will be some form of life appreciating it, savoring its warm rays, giving life energy to grow and develop.
And when I get discouraged or incensed about my fellow mortals’ political/
ecological/ ethical/ other views, this thought brings me
comfort. Nature will be there, in all her loving, ferocious
beauty, with her cycles of seasons, cycles of flooding, hurricanes,
drought, ice storms. Plants and animals will reproduce, species
will evolve, adapt, or disappear as the case may be. Somewhere
something akin to tea will grow, as will wheat to make scones,
and fruit to make jam. Somewhere “people” will
share this grace-full bounty, this happiness, this gift of
being alive. This, I believe.
– Katy van Geel
I believe that the life I’m living is incredibly, almost obscenely, privileged… Having said that I believe that material wealth, beyond the basic necessities, has very little to do with happiness… and very often gets in the way of it…
I believe that there is a realm beyond the physical world – I call it the spiritual realm – which we are limited in our ability to fully understand, but which holds a greater truth…
I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was ‘tuned in’ to the spiritual realm to a very high degree, and that he tried his best to explain it all to us. I believe there were others who were ‘tuned in’ like Abraham and the Buddha. We can learn from all of them.
I believe that when I pray or meditate, the energy I throw out in the process connects to the spiritual realm and has some impact on it, others, and myself…
I believe that when the body no longer is able to function in this world, the energy that was with the body leaves it. I’m not sure where it goes…
I believe that this belief statement is only my thoughts
at this moment…
– Mary Lyubomirsky
Years ago, I left this country with my family to live abroad. At the time I knew about American culture (at least in the Northeast) and about Christianity (at least the Episcopal Church) and not much more. But suddenly we were living in the Arab world… We heard Arabic all around us. I woke to the muezzin’s call from the mosque and watched prayer rugs unrolled in doorways on crowded streets when it was time to pray. We were welcomed into Qatari homes and enjoyed the warmth of Arab hospitality. We admired the closeness of their extended families. We liked their sense of humor. Generosity surrounded us, freely given, even taken for granted….
Once, at a family picnic on a deserted beach in Qatar, a lone traveler approached us - a Bedouin with his camel. “Mai,” he said – “water”. We gave him water. He drank and drank and drank. Then, with a brief “Shukran” – “thank you” – he and his camel were gone. He knew we would share; everyone did.
After eight years,…I came “home.” But it wasn’t quite home anymore.
I believe that countries and cultures and religions are just different – that each has its own history and traditions and that we can all learn from and appreciate these differences.
I believe that the operative word is different – not better, not worse, just different.
Yet I also believe that we are all basically the same, living
our lives as best we can on this shared earth.
– Marcia Blackin
…I say to others, honor your experiences. I do not
say take them literally or think you possess the truth. The
honoring is in recognizing that there is meaning and there
is the unknowable.
– Martin Johnson
[I believe] belief must be tempered with the facts. I believe
that science and its methods are our surest way to the truth… I
can only say we must count on process: we must search for
the truth, but we must always be skeptics, even about what
we strongly believe to be the truth.
– Clifford Eddy
I have been asked what I believe. I have tried to dodge the question, perhaps fearing that my behavior would give the lie to my professions.
John Updike writes, “A person believes various things
at various times, even on the same day.” Good, I am
comforted to know that I am not the only wandering philosopher…
– Marion Strand
I used to think:
…tiny people were somehow hidden in the back of the
TV – how else could we have those pictures on the screen?
…my grandma was silly when she’d talk about
angels watching us.
…when I grew up I’d know all the things adults
around me knew when they talked among themselves.
…there is a God beyond the sky in charge of EVERYTHING.
Definitely I believed in the split of Father, Son and Holy
Ghost.
Today I believe:
…in the transmissions that send us radio, TV sounds
and pictures.
…that there are angels of some kind, perhaps waves
of energy in that form that we can communicate with, that
actually can protect us if we only tune in.
…that the adult conversations that seemed to be on
a level above our comprehension are not so secret and mysterious
and profound after all.
…that there is a “something” not beyond
the sky, but permeating the existence of humanity.
– Shirley Malone
I believe in the finitude of life, making it all the more
precious… I believe we are in this life alone. We
must care for ourselves and each other.
– Liz Trow
I believe that there are mysteries that we will probably never know the answers to. (And I am alright with that.)…
I believe that it is important to not just stand by and witness injustices that we may be able to help change…
I believe, as I have now come to realize, that it is impossible
to be effective if I spread my energy among too many things – and
try to remember to check the framed saying above my desk – which
says “Prioritize your outrage.”
– Nancy Eckerson Fitts
We hope these statements of belief inspire you to write your own. And if you are willing to share, we welcome additional statements. Send them to scott@rochesterunitarian.org.
October 18 2007