Talk by Jack Perry, Sunday March 24, 2013 1st Unitarian Church Omaha I share with you this morning, my Secular Journey and a little bit more. No gods no spirits and life ends with the grave. I have no need to look farther than around myself for a good life. I make that strong statement to make it clear that I believe there is life after spirituality. I very much feel that the two Bibles, the old and new testaments have played their important part in our history ---- but now it is time to move on, or maybe catch up. I will briefly review that history as I see it, and I will go on to tell you why I was thrilled when I discovered First Unitarian Church. First my life before enlightenment. My religious/philosophical life before First Unitarian was secondary--- that is the religious part was the result of circumstance rather than choice. At the age of ten I was a Catholic for three months at my mother’s insistence, I was baptized, did First Communion, donned the surplice of an Altar Boy and transferred to the Catholic School. My religious life then lay dormant till age twenty. It was revived by marriage to Margaret, a cradle Catholic. Margaret was my choice, not the church. The church was a central part of our life. I did not treat it lightly, but I never got the hang of living my life to please Jesus and his father. Answers to serious questions at St. Pius the 10th were “It is a Mystery”. Blind understanding is Faith. Margaret understood my dilemma. This church is my home away from home. I have been comfortable here since 1972. No matter how I grouse and complain in the words that follow, First Unitarian is--- MyBlue- Boat- Home ---shared with You. Do not be offended by anything I say this morning, believers and nonbelievers have been breaking bread and sharing pews here for a long time. That said, I am disappointed that the ideal that I read into the statement that Ralph Waldo Emerson made over 150 years ago has not swept the Unitarian Universalism Movement into prominence. I read a few of those words. I almost quote: “Why should not we enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by 1
revelation to us, and the history of theirs? The sun shines also today. There are new lands, new men, new women, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and law and worship.” I am disappointed that we have not become Post Christian. I will even complain about the use of language that seems to belong to the past and I might finish with a few words of advice for Jack—before others do. First of 3 paths #1-- Many, many of we humans take what I think is the normal life journey. One without the complications of religion or the rigors of contemplation. --- Sunday morning, sleep in or a round of golf. Week days, do what has to be done, then a little time with the kids-- wash the car--just live. That was the life of the early Uprights, without washing the car. It is still not a bad option. However many of us are more complicated than that so we go to: #2--- The complications. I believe the ancient spoken campfire accounts of the discovery of a new water hole or a tree laden with fruit became embellished with time and transformed into stories, stories made better with every telling. They were the Source Stories that shape our lives today. The Egyptians and Greeks, and others came, notebook in hand, recomposed the stories and added. The result was the Epics. The Epic stories of the Ancients and the Greeks are recognized as the Myth that they are. Many of those stories reappear, revised and retold in the Bible. That is no surprise, we build on the past. Then from Abraham till about 33AD certain writings have been frozen in time and content, declared sacred and rule to this day, impervious to the advancement of knowledge. Chaucer’s English was a springboard not an anchor. I have tried looking for enlightenment through stained glass windows, and I have considered opening my mind to other venues, but find that first, my questioning mind must be disconnected. My way must be: #3--The temporal path, the way of the world, with contemplation. The place that Robert Frost coined as “Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to 2
go better.” I do not remember how I found the Unitarian Church. It was perfect, tailor made for me. This was my profile in The Bulletin, Oct 22 1972: “It was a lack of creed that attracted me to Unitarianism – an openness to develop all information without first checking to see whether it fitted what I must first believe…” The ministers, Lester Vanstrom and Ron Knapp, that followed were what I will call “liberal disbelievers.” Ron might want to rephrase that label. Emerson was not the only forward thinker in our pilgrim church. Unitarian Minister Theodore Parker echoed with this: I quote, “The Church which did for the fifth century to the fifteenth, will not do for this. It must have our ideas, the smell of our ground, and have grown out of the religion of our souls.” I’m pleased to note that our Minister Frank Rivas used Parker’s words just recently. Frank also added a line that read “We need a church that grows out of the religion of our souls.” Interesting. The words of Parker and Emerson spoke “Post Judeo/Christian” to me. Parker and Emerson were the leading edge of recognizing the divine as a product of the human imagination. With thoughts of Parker and Emerson at the national level and rational thinkers like Van and Ron at home God talk was not an issue most of the 70’s. Something happened in the late 70’s. I recall “UU Christians” and “UU’s for Jesus” and, I recall watching a dozen or so Unitarian Universalist ministers dressed up like Catholic priests in the vestments doing, I guess Mass. I think that was at General Assembly at Cornell University in 1977. I thought that our present discussion about increased use of language that I find unhelpful was a new event until I ran across my reply to a sermon given by Reverend Ron Knapp. My reply from this pulpit was from an imaginary Deacon’s Bench. --Note the date: March 25, 1979. My words this morning are an echo of what I said that morning 34 years ago. I was shocked when I read it. I was comfortable with what I will call the temporal ministry of Lester Vanstrom and the following 20 years of Ron Knapp. However it took me a long time to understand that when Walt Whitman said “I or me” that he was including “you and me“. I’m slow at grasping some thoughts. I am now beset with a new hill to climb presented by our very own Reverend Frank 3
Rivas. Walt Whitman was a tough hurdle. Now it’s god talk. I know -- I know. It does not bother some of you. Some of you welcome it. If I have this right, words of the Bible have a different meaning than what I hear, a metaphor of the transitional passing belief, or not belief as you wish, or something like that. I will always appreciate the words of someone that says “I’ll say a prayer for you,” but especially I appreciate a hand reached out to help. There is a big part of life that I have little mentioned. It is hard to find the kind of community that satisfies. Every church offers community. But here it is different. It is so different that it will have to remain nameless. Perhaps we could call it “Yahweh.” You, we, are different in this place. At our best we want to hear the other side of the debate . If you disagree with me, “well, I see your coffee cup is near empty let me freshen it for you. You are still my friend.” I think no one comes to this church to be saved. I think we are a great place for self-challenge and you get to choose to challenge what. I’m amazed, and delighted that Reverend Frank Rivas urged me and others to speak our minds. This church is so much a joy that sometimes I become overwhelmed and volunteer to do my share of work in the kitchen; however, I remain very serious when I say that the Unitarian Universalist Denomination has the ministers and the ear of North America and the Prophetic Obligation to be the leader in the Post Judah/Christian world. I end with this observation: This is a community made sacred by us, Ron and Frank and you--- and Jack. The Jack, who is still going to have trouble with god talk. We will simply have to endure.
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