Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of
“Who – or What – Is God?”
Sunday, September 14, 2008
by Rev. Dr. Gretchen Woods
Since the 1930’s, God has been a touchy subject for
Unitarian Universalists. The existentialism of post-World War I and the
nihilism of
I remember recognizing considerable anxiety among the
humanists when I first came to serve this congregation. In response, I sought an
opportunity to chat with those among you. When I entered my office, which was
already filled with folks who self-identified as humanist, atheist, or
non-believing, I began with this statement: “I need you to know that I don’t
believe in the god you don’t believe in.” I meant it then; I mean it now.
This realization was also stimulated by many
conversations with my, then atheist, now self-described agnostic, husband. He
pointed out to me that I was not communicating accurately when I used the word
“God.” He knew that my conception of that term and traditional understanding
did not match at all. This led me to resort to the term “Source” to try to
describe what I experience as ultimate in my life. Still, I know that any term
limits and creates a situation where the word becomes reified, deified, and
ossified. That is not my goal for this discussion. Rather, it is my hope that
sharing these ideas together will enrich the understanding of each one of us
and help us collectively create a richer, fuller meaning for our lives.
This is the process of religion, to my way of thinking.
I subscribe to the definition of
religion offered by Lloyd Averill: “Religion is the search for that meaning
that has power to give shape to our experience, purpose to our existence, and
motivation and moral energy to our human enterprises.” You will readily note
that this does not require an institution, a set of laws, nor an inspired – or
even not so inspired – leader. It asks us to pay attention to our experiences,
our choices, our lives. It asks us to fulfill a major quality of humanity: to
attend to meaning making and the search for truth.
Of course, the ground work was laid for me far earlier
when the minister of my high school years, the Right Rev. Arnold John Van
Lummel, asserted that we students should not be expected to believe what did
not make sense to us, given our life experience. In that statement, that
righteous Dutch Reformed minister stated succinctly a basic tenet of Unitarian
Universalism. Our understanding of what is ultimate, of what is our source or
our god, must make sense given our experience.
Now, it is true that any number of human beings can
honestly assert that money or sex or power is ultimate for them; that these are
their gods. Madonna happily asserts she is a “material girl,” and Lewis Lapham
has baldly stated that money is the American Civil Religion. He may be more
right than I care to believe. We do indeed worship lesser gods all the time.
J.B. Robinson lists many lesser gods in his thought-provoking book, Your God Is
Too Small! But then again, as a professor of religion, who is he to judge. We
know our gods, even if we don’t give them names. Our actions are our worship.
So, at the request of those of you who wanted to know
where my thinking has gone in the last nine years, I now begin this series of
services on “Living Ultimology.” I offer you my latest thinking, tempered in
the forge of my experience. It seems only right to begin with one of the
toughest concepts: G-d. (Some of you wanted to know why I left the “o” out of
the term in the title of this sermon. I do that to acknowledge the Jewish
understanding that even naming G-d is an act of blasphemy, limiting the
ultimate in ways unhelpful to knowing G-d. More on this as we go along.)
I suppose there is some merit to returning to my
conversation with our humanist, atheist, and non-believing friends. I do want
first to say what I don’t think god is. I don’t think god is a judge, a king, a
puppet- master pulling strings. I can’t use anthropocentric terms like those to
describe what is ultimate in my experience. I also do not believe in all the
“omnis” that traditional theologians assert for what is ultimate: omniscience,
omnipotence, omnipresent, etc. Finally, I believe that all that we can know is
natural, so god cannot be “super-natural.” This identifies me with natural
theology as described by Charles Hartshorne.
Further, my ecstatic mystical experience as an
eleven-year-old experiencing the first day of warm weather after a long, cold,
northeast winter clearly formed my sense of what is ultimate. When first I left
my house that morning, I could see and feel the motion of each molecule of each
discreet entity: the trees, the flowers, the grass, the concrete under my feet:
all vibrating, singing a song of life and dancing for joy. I was astonished, intoxicated, and forever
changed. I have had similar experiences while singing, playing music, watching
sunsets, and conversing deeply with those who stimulate my mind. For me, this
was an experience of energy and of consciousness that told me things I cannot
use words to convey and gave me a sense of love for life that cannot be taken
away.
As I continue to make sense of that and subsequent
ecstatic experiences, I find that the thought of Alfred North Whitehead and
Charles Hartshorne most influences the words I use to share those experiences.
Hartshorne describes what I experience as Source this way: “Eternal-Temporal
Consciousness, Knowing and including the World. Panentheism” (Charles
Hartshorne and William L. Reese. Philosophers Speak of God.
Clearly, this is informed by contemporary physics, which
recognizes that its grossest form is what we call matter and we know matter is more open space and energy
than solid. The table that I bruise my shin on in the dark is full of this
energy/ consciousness, but not nearly so much as any biological form, which
could be the next layer of the “pulsating onion” of Source. And consciousness
is stronger in the biological form. This understanding harkens to the
“perennial philosophy” of the Vedic religions of India, which observes
increasing levels of consciousness from the physical to the biological to the
mental through several spiritual levels too esoteric to consider in our brief
time this morning and beyond to “consciousness as such” which is very like the
“collective consciousness” of C.G. Jung – only comprising everything.
I do not
understand these layers of what is ultimate to increase or decrease in value
according to consciousness. They are all interconnected and needing one
another. In other words, they are all contingent upon each other. I describe
the layers to make sense of discreet types of experience. Ultimately, as my
experience as a pre-teen told me, they are all one. And the deepest experiences
of energy/consciousness interchange I identify as Love, for they not only
energize me, they also inform me, give me a better understanding of my self, my
world, and my relationships within that context.
This energy/consciousness, as Source, is both impersonal,
encompassing all that is, and totally personal in its presence within each of
us. I believe it is eternal, preceding the Big Bang, which we will discuss much
more next week and also temporal, in comprising and comprehending all time as
we know it. I believe it can know - or be conscious of - all possibilities, but
not all future actualities, because there are so many contributing
possibilities in any one choice that no one can know until after the moment of
decision. And each decision any of us makes contributes to the next set of
possibilities – but I am getting ahead of myself. All of this is comprised in
the totality of what is ultimate: what is, for me, G-d.
Alfred North Whitehead has called this ultimate
experience “the divine lure toward greater intensity and harmony.” This is not
so much A Being, as being through time, god as verb, as process. Therefore, it
is easy to assert that I do not believe in the god, the being who directs
traffic for those who are holy – or not. And I do not need belief. I have an
experience of knowing that goes far beyond belief: mystical experience. I do
not have to prove it. I do not have to defend it. I can rest in it and take
comfort in it and try to share it with those who wish to experience it.
Spiritual practice is intentional “paying attention,” so
that one is open to such experience, to G-d. Prayer is one such practice, but
there are as many practices as there are types of learning styles and human
foci. As the Vedic scholars know, one may practice through physical activity,
through attending to feelings of love, through, simply being fully present to
the moment (Vipassana). One can practice in any way one can deepen one’s sense
of preparedness for greater consciousness.
I do believe that the experience of Source ultimately is
an experience of love, of creative energy interchange, which does not seek for
one’s self, but knows that greater energy and consciousness for all involved is
the best result of this exchange. As the apostle Paul asserts, in one of his
mystical moments: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the
right. (I Corinthians 13: 4) This is the heart of Source. I strive – and mostly
fail – to bring such love into the world, but I know in my deepest being, that
this is Source truly experienced.
Of course, all of this is metaphor, signs that point
toward something beyond words: some experience larger, more profound, and more
demanding than we can convey through our language. Still, as one among many
meaning makers, I feel inspired to share these thoughts with you.
How does this understanding of Source, of G-d, affect my
day to day life? It gives me hope when I experience despair. It helps me to
keep going when I experience road blocks in my life. It energizes and lifts my
spirits. It fulfills Averill’s definition of religion. I wish this for you,
each and every one of you.
Since this is truly a series of conversations we will
have over the next four months, let me not so much close as leave you with a
parting thought to enrich your week ahead. It comes from Matins by Denise
Levertov:
Marvelous Truth, confront
us
at every turn,
in every guise, iron ball,
egg, dark horse, shadow,
cloud
of breath on the air.
dwell
in our crowded hearts
our steaming bathrooms,
kitchens full of
things to be done, the
ordinary streets.
thrust close your smile
that we know you, terrible
joy.
May you begin to know what
brings you that joy, that sense of connection to all that is, was and will be;
to know that it is within/beyond your very being, what is ultimate for you,
what is your Source. So Be It! Blessed Be!
“Who – or What – Is God”
Order of Service
Sunday, September 14, 2008
9:30 AM and 11:00 AM
Welcome and Announcements:
Nancy Kaib, Board Host
Choral Introit” “How Do You
Feel” from “Children’s Letters to God”
By E. Marshall,
UUFC Choir
Chalice Lighting
Opening Words: “The Womb of
Stars” by Joy Atkinson
Opening Song: #393
“Jubilate Deo”
Sing the Children to
Classes: “We Hold You in Our Hearts As You Go’
By Kathleen Tracy
Celebrating with Music:
“God of the Universal Song” by Michael Helman
Sermon: “Who – or What – Is
God”
Sung Response: #23 “Bring
Many Names”
Spoken Response
Candles: Sharing our Joys
and Sorrows/Offering
Meditation
Closing Song: #20 “Be Thou
My Vision” (verses 1 & 2)
Closing Words
Closing Song: #20 (verse 3)
Celebrants: the Rev. Dr.
Gretchen Woods, Etc.
I am the Self that dwells
in the heart of every mortal creature;
I am the beginning, the
life span, and the end of all.
I am the radiant sun among
the light givers;
I am the mind; I am
consciousness in the living.
I am death that snatches
all;
I also am the source of all
that shall be born.
I am time without end;
I am the sustainer: my face
is everywhere.
I am the beginning, the
middle, the end in creation;
I am the knowledge of
things spiritual.
I am glory, prosperity,
beautiful speech, memory, intelligence,
steadfastness, and forgiveness.
I am the divine seed of all
lives.
In this world nothing
animate or inanimate exists without me.
I am the strength of the
strong;
I am the purity of the
good.
I am the knowledge of the
knower.
There is no limit to my
divine manifestations.
Whatever in this world is
powerful, beautiful, or glorious,
That you may know to have
come forth from a fraction
of my power and glory.
Teacher Dedication:
We are grateful for the
Co-Directors of Religious Exploration and the teachers who freely choose to
share their time and talent with our children and youth. In that spirit, we now
acknowledge you and thank you for that choice.
Recognizing the precious
gift that our children and youth are for our world, we ask that you covenant
with us to to:
• help them explore and develop a strong Unitarian
Universalist identity;
• help them experience a sense of belonging to this
religious community, as it strives to teach
and model trust, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance of differences;
• help them to feel safe, valued and accepted as unique,
creative beings;
• and offer activities that foster respect, joy, wonder and
curiosity.
If you accept this
covenant, please respond by saying: “We Do.”
Teachers: We do.
To the children: Do you
agree to respect your teachers and each other and to have fun?
Children: We do!
To the congregation:
As members of the Unitarian
Universalist Fellowship of Corvallis, do we affirm that we are each a vital
part of the religious life and exploration of the community; do we covenant to
support the Religious Exploration program, accepting the responsibility to help
create such a religious community,
participating as volunteers as we are able, and providing the resources
and funding necessary for a fully functioning program? If so, please respond:
“We do.”
Congregation: We do.
Let us hold this covenant
as a sacred trust to ourselves, to our children, and to the future of our
world. So Be It! Blessed Be!