Humbly Unitarian Universalist

2025-05-04

While I would be impressed if any of you could recite our eight Unitarian Universalist
principles—full disclosure, I can’t do it myself—I trust we all know one or two of them by heart.
We might even have favorites—mine are the First and the Seventh. I like the way the inherent
worth and dignity of each person responds to the interdependent web of all existence. We all
matter and we are never alone. We celebrate the unique beingness of each of us, knowing that
we are a part of and never apart from all that is and ever was and ever will be. Each of us is
important, most particularly as a part of a community. These are values very dear to me,
animating the way I strive to live my life. These values are so important today, as we welcome
new members, who make us who we are, who expand the “we who is us,” different from what
this community was just hours ago.

I imagine you might have your favorites as well, those of our principles, our values, which most
inform your daily living, your aspirations. All and any of these principles, however, are not
inherently religious. They are values many people hold, whether religious or not, as a moral
code. That people and their thriving matter. That justice, liberty, equity, and compassion matter.
That truth matters. You’ll hear such values in liberal political discourse, part of the bedrock of
democratic process so sadly under threat in both our countries and across the world. You hear
such values in other religious traditions as well. Unitarian Universalists aren’t the only ones who
espouse such virtues. Do we forgot this sometimes, thinking we are the people of highest value
for our high values?

Still, they are mighty values, high aspirations for our conduct and our relationships. They are
beautiful words, and so much more difficult to live up to and to live into than most of us like to
admit. Unitarian Universalists aren’t the only ones who espouse such virtues. Do we forgot this
sometimes, thinking we are the people of highest value for our high values? Sometimes we
forget that holding such values in our minds is not the same thing as bringing them into being,
as living them in action. Sometimes we don’t forget exactly, but we fail none then less to see the
disconnect. And sometimes we see not the lack of faith in these values in ourselves, but we
notice that lack, we can’t help but observe the deficiency, in another. In the Christian Scripture
Matthew 7:3, Jesus asks: And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but
considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Nice, poetic language, is it not? How about
this instead: Why do we see the speck of sawdust in our neighbor’s eye, preventing their seeing
what is truly right, but we don’t notice the giant plank of wood obscuring our own sight? This
admonition is in the same section of text where Jesus says: “Judge not, that ye be judged.” It’s
the admonition against hypocrisy and self-righteousness. Now, let that sink in. Let’s just hold
that thought.

While I would be impressed if any of you could recite our eight Unitarian Universalist
principles—full disclosure, I can’t do it myself—I trust we all know one or two of them by heart.
We might even have favorites. And while we tend to focus on the principles—I, too, am guilt of
that—we sometimes neglect the Six Sources. The Six Sources are the source of the Principles, the foundation upon which our Principles rest, the very waters out of which our values arise.
And the waters are plentiful. This is one of the reasons I quoted Christian Scripture this morning,
not because I believe the theology but because I embrace the call to wisdom beyond my
particular believing. Three of the Sources call us to recognition of wisdom from other religious
traditions. From Jewish and Christian teachings, especially those which call us to respond to
God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves. From the world’s religions, the great ethical
and spiritual systems of Buddhism and Hinduism and Islam and Sikhism and Zoroastrianism
and more. All these expounded in scriptures and poetry and philosophy, annunciated through
time, debated and refined. And also, the spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions, some of
which are textual and some of which are not, but all of which are celebrations of the sacred
circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature. Though our political
and cultural lives draw on such sources as well, these are explicitly religious, about which I will
say more in a moment.

Most religions are organized around specific sacred texts, wisdom sent from a god or holy ones
of some sort. We Unitarian Universalists draw on more: We draw also on the words and deeds
of prophetic people—ordinary human beings living in history—who challenge us to confront
powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love.
Some might call them prophets or saints, but we don’t have to. We can call them “nurse’s aide”
or Rosa Parker. We call them “journalist” or Dorothy Day. We call them “teacher” or Dolores
Huerta. We call them “minister” or Martin Luther King Jr. We call them “survivor of a 2018 mass
shooting at Stoneman-Douglas High School” or David Miles Hogg. And we draw on more:
Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of
science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit. Reason that discerns, and
science which seeks, which changes direction when new evidence requires new thinking, even
new foundations altogether.

Earlier in my life, before I became a religious person, I was blessed with two good Catholic
guides, one a Jesuit priest and one a nun in the Order of St. Mary of Namur. Both encouraged
me toward God. I believe these good guides expected that I would become a Christian, possibly
return to the Catholic faith. But they also said, “There are many paths to the holy.” The thing is,
though, one is generally expected to follow one path, to embrace one scripture, to adhere to one
set of teachings, to be one religion. And the prophetic works of ordinary people like Parks and
Day, like King and Hogg, to say nothing of science, generally fall outside of those paths to the
holy.

There is one Source I haven’t yet mentioned informing Unitarian Universalism, the one listed
first, the one that contains an intersection with other religions while being also our highest
priority, our most privileged Source. And it is the Source that also names the whole reason to
live religiously in the first place, that which sets religion apart from culture or politics. Our First
Source: Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures,
which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and
uphold life.” What is “affirmed in all cultures”? “Transcending mystery and wonder” is what is
affirmed in all cultures. And a priority upon, a privileging of our direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder moving us to a renewal of spirit and an openness to thriving
life is one of the things that makes our faith tradition different. Experiencing transcendent
mystery, living with wonder and awe, recognizing the liveliness of life, this is the reason for and
the definition of religion. There is more to surprise and amaze us, more beyond our limitations
and our explanations, call it what you will—God, Gods, Goddess, Gaia, Universe, Spirit of Love
and Life, Unknowable, Ground of Being, Nameless Mystery, Beyond.

All this goodness, all this multiplicity and possibility embedded into our faith tradition, all the
paths to the holy, any one of which I might embrace for a time and then shift in my journey to
another. All these threads out of which to weave a response to the marvels and tragedies of life
on a large scale and also on an intimate scale. It’s not hard to see why we might become a little
proud, a little self-righteous about being Unitarian Universalists. We seem to have so much
more to draw on and more to offer than some other religious traditions. But I will tell you
something I am learning. In the words of Rev. David O. Rankin, “I have learned to trust those
who are witnesses rather than gurus, those who express their confusion as well as their
knowledge, and those who share their suffering along with their joy.” In the words of Vanda
Scaravelli, “A rigid mind is very sure but often wrong. A flexible mind is generally unsure, but
often right.” In other words, I sometimes crave the balm of Gilead, to ease my sin-sick soul, to
heal my spirit soaked in arrogance and over-confidence.

Like the story Charlotte read earlier, Tomo Hillbo’s story of “nearly twenty years of rice-cooking-
without-a-rice-cooker experience,” of finding oneself “very proud and sure about [her] skills” and
realizing something went wrong. Tomo writes, “My mind was stuck on the certainty that I knew
how to make rice well. It didn’t even occur to me that the knowledge I held dear might need to
change.” Her story reminds us that we can get very caught up in our security, in our surety,
perhaps drawing on only part of the wisdom our faith has to offer, at the expense of other parts.
Perhaps assuming that certain aspects of Unitarian Universalism are more true than the
complex dance of its many parts, calling us to acknowledge that we don’t individually have all
the answers. Perhaps forgetting that we are the planks in our own eyes when we make the
mistake of believing that our own direct experience is sufficient, that we are not wiser unless we
acknowledge and embrace the collective wisdom that emerges when the direct and different
experience of all of us in a community is given voice and used to create truth.

Tomo goes on to clarify that it is not simply our own unique stubbornness that can block our
vision. She writes, “This stickiness of mind—how our minds tend to fixate on one idea—happens everywhere. Oppressive systems thrive in minds that are sticky, no matter how
good our intentions are. We must unstick our minds if we want to bring change into the world. I
need a constant reminder to monitor the stickiness of my mind.” This is one reason the Eighth
Principle, which I have not explicitly mentioned yet, is so important. It reads, “Individual and
communal action that accountably dismantles racism and systemic barriers to full inclusion in
ourselves and our institutions.” Dismantling racism, dismantling barriers to full inclusion,
dismantling what is within each of us and also within our institutions, including Unitarian
Universalism, including at UCM. The multiplicity of our faith, the numerous paths to the holy, the
Eighth Principle, these call us to humility rather than arrogance. These require we look for grace beyond our own direct experience and vision, including within each other, faithful the carrot
seed will grow.

In the words of Tomo’s prayer: <blockquote>“Spirit of life and love, grant us courage to be vulnerable to know that we are often wrong, and wisdom to amend our mistakes and find new ways of being. May
the grace of Spirit bless us with humility for self-examination and bravery for a lifetime of
transformation.” We have gathered this morning “for the art of sacred unknowing, humbled by all
that we cannot fathom in this time.” Yet breathe with me, dear ones. We are in this together. We
are all soft creatures who must pause for meals, water, laughter and rest.” May we move, with
amazing grace, with humility, accepting that we each have gifts to offer the world, not all the
gifts but some which are needful. May we know, humbly, that each of our gifts means more,
does more, when it is joined with all others. When this we know, “we come into the presence of
perhaps the only thing we can ever know: That Love is now and forever The only answer to
everything And everyone.” May it ever be so.</blockquote>

Rev. Rita Capezzi