Everyday Theology
by Sara Smalley
It is often said that Unitarian Universalists do not have a sacred text. Christians have the Bible, Muslims the Quran, but as UUs, we look everywhere: poetry, science, nature, music. We believe religious inspiration is not confined to the pages of a single sacred text, but rather can be found the world over. This wide religious expanse is at the heart of our spiritual journeys and core to our UU values.
But while our search as UUs may be broad and wide, is it also deep? If we are looking everywhere, how do we focus our gaze on what’s important?
A metaphor to illustrate this tension: imagine the Truth (or, in traditional religious language, God) is a rushing, tumbling river. We stand on this river’s shores and dip our fingertips in it from time to time. We linger there, feeling baptized by beauty and mystery. But at some point, we have to turn around and face our daily lives, leaving that life-giving water in the background.
But religion offers us a bucket — a way to carry the divine with us. Through parable, ritual, and fellowship, religion becomes a container of meaning.
Fundamentalist religions seem to confuse the bucket for the water. They use rules and doctrine to build solid, water-tight containers. But inside, those buckets might remain dry, and some members might feel spiritually parched.
Thankfully, UUs don’t impose a rigid container on anyone. We know the water is what’s important. But before getting too self-satisfied though, I wonder: Do UUs sometimes want to throw out the bucket entirely? Do we focus so much on being able to believe whatever we want that we are left with nothing to hang on to?
To paraphrase writer Lillian Daniel, anyone can find God in a sunset. We know what it is like to touch the holy. Do we also know how to carry it with us into our daily lives and our hurting world?
UUism doesn’t offer a ready-made bucket, but it invites us to create our own. This doesn’t just magically happen; it takes work. One way we can create a container of meaning that holds our deepest life experiences and biggest spiritual questions is by weaving together our own personal understanding of the six sources of Unitarian Universalism.
These six sources are: direct experience, prophetic women and men, world religions, Jewish and Christian teachings, humanist teachings, and Earth-centered traditions. They offer us inspiration, courage, wisdom, love, reason and connection.
There is much to say about all six of the sources, but none is more important than the first. It is, in many ways, what sets UUs apart from both traditional Christianity and Islam. The first source of religious inspiration for UUs is:
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.
This is the sacred text upon which our faith is built: not a hard-bound holy book, but the testament of our own lives.
Thus in much the same way a Christian theologian reads the Bible, a Unitarian Universalist theologian might read his or her own life, studying it closely for inspiration and meaning. In the words of Rev. Jen Crow, a UU minister and one of the creators of UU Wellspring:
Taken from the Greek words theos, meaning “god,” and logos, meaning “word” or “reason,” the word theology is generally understood to be any reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality, or god. Some define theology as talk of “that which is of ultimate concern,” others call it “god-talk,” and still other term it “meaning making.”
For Unitarian Universalists, theological reflections tend to include reflection upon our own personal life experiences, the use of our conscience and reason, appreciation of the beliefs of others, and a commitment to the revelation of truth as an on-going phenomenon. I view theology as the individual system of meaning making we each develop throughout our lives. Largely dependent upon our own individual contexts, our theology helps us to make sense of the world and the events that take place in it, and it becomes the framework upon which we tell our stories.
In other words: you are a theologian, reading and interpreting your own life. The Rev. Kathleen McTigue, Director of the UU College of Social Justice, makes time for this personal theological reflection every night:
My spiritual practice consists of this: I think back on the events of the day and ask the question, “Where was God in this day?” It’s a question that can be asked in a dozen different theological voices, and if God language fails to resonate, then we might ask merely, “Where today did I really hear the language of my life?” The question puts a sheen of attentiveness and care on even the most mundane dimensions of the day. It gives us a way to cradle the moments of the day just lived and see them again before they’re too far away.
Being the theologian of your own life is the work of meaning-making and bucket-building. It is the work of looking closely and deeply at your authentic self, your relationships, and your world, and finding there purpose and connection.
You might ask yourself: Where was God in this day? How has direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder changed me? What shows up, again and again, as my ultimate concern?
by Sara Smalley
It is often said that Unitarian Universalists do not have a sacred text. Christians have the Bible, Muslims the Quran, but as UUs, we look everywhere: poetry, science, nature, music. We believe religious inspiration is not confined to the pages of a single sacred text, but rather can be found the world over. This wide religious expanse is at the heart of our spiritual journeys and core to our UU values.
But while our search as UUs may be broad and wide, is it also deep? If we are looking everywhere, how do we focus our gaze on what’s important?
A metaphor to illustrate this tension: imagine the Truth (or, in traditional religious language, God) is a rushing, tumbling river. We stand on this river’s shores and dip our fingertips in it from time to time. We linger there, feeling baptized by beauty and mystery. But at some point, we have to turn around and face our daily lives, leaving that life-giving water in the background.
But religion offers us a bucket — a way to carry the divine with us. Through parable, ritual, and fellowship, religion becomes a container of meaning.
Fundamentalist religions seem to confuse the bucket for the water. They use rules and doctrine to build solid, water-tight containers. But inside, those buckets might remain dry, and some members might feel spiritually parched.
Thankfully, UUs don’t impose a rigid container on anyone. We know the water is what’s important. But before getting too self-satisfied though, I wonder: Do UUs sometimes want to throw out the bucket entirely? Do we focus so much on being able to believe whatever we want that we are left with nothing to hang on to?
To paraphrase writer Lillian Daniel, anyone can find God in a sunset. We know what it is like to touch the holy. Do we also know how to carry it with us into our daily lives and our hurting world?
UUism doesn’t offer a ready-made bucket, but it invites us to create our own. This doesn’t just magically happen; it takes work. One way we can create a container of meaning that holds our deepest life experiences and biggest spiritual questions is by weaving together our own personal understanding of the six sources of Unitarian Universalism.
These six sources are: direct experience, prophetic women and men, world religions, Jewish and Christian teachings, humanist teachings, and Earth-centered traditions. They offer us inspiration, courage, wisdom, love, reason and connection.
There is much to say about all six of the sources, but none is more important than the first. It is, in many ways, what sets UUs apart from both traditional Christianity and Islam. The first source of religious inspiration for UUs is:
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.
This is the sacred text upon which our faith is built: not a hard-bound holy book, but the testament of our own lives.
Thus in much the same way a Christian theologian reads the Bible, a Unitarian Universalist theologian might read his or her own life, studying it closely for inspiration and meaning. In the words of Rev. Jen Crow, a UU minister and one of the creators of UU Wellspring:
Taken from the Greek words theos, meaning “god,” and logos, meaning “word” or “reason,” the word theology is generally understood to be any reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality, or god. Some define theology as talk of “that which is of ultimate concern,” others call it “god-talk,” and still other term it “meaning making.”
For Unitarian Universalists, theological reflections tend to include reflection upon our own personal life experiences, the use of our conscience and reason, appreciation of the beliefs of others, and a commitment to the revelation of truth as an on-going phenomenon. I view theology as the individual system of meaning making we each develop throughout our lives. Largely dependent upon our own individual contexts, our theology helps us to make sense of the world and the events that take place in it, and it becomes the framework upon which we tell our stories.
In other words: you are a theologian, reading and interpreting your own life. The Rev. Kathleen McTigue, Director of the UU College of Social Justice, makes time for this personal theological reflection every night:
My spiritual practice consists of this: I think back on the events of the day and ask the question, “Where was God in this day?” It’s a question that can be asked in a dozen different theological voices, and if God language fails to resonate, then we might ask merely, “Where today did I really hear the language of my life?” The question puts a sheen of attentiveness and care on even the most mundane dimensions of the day. It gives us a way to cradle the moments of the day just lived and see them again before they’re too far away.
Being the theologian of your own life is the work of meaning-making and bucket-building. It is the work of looking closely and deeply at your authentic self, your relationships, and your world, and finding there purpose and connection.
You might ask yourself: Where was God in this day? How has direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder changed me? What shows up, again and again, as my ultimate concern?