It's okay to have the holiday blues. For some people it's true all the time, and for others it happens every now and then.  The holidays arrive, and it's not a happy time.  If you are missing someone who has died or left your life forever, this can be a time of more intense mourning, a time of tears, a time of sitting alone and looking through old photographs and remembering what once was.  If the holidays have always been a bad time in your family, when relatives mistreated each other or got drunk and abusive, these may be times that bring the memory of misery to the surface.  For some, the holiday in this place and time is a sad echo of holidays in another place in another time, in a land with the comfort of being surrounded by familiar customs and people.

I want to invite anyone with the holiday blues to come to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester on Thursday, December 11, at 7:00 PM to be with others who have similar feelings, just to be together for the comfort we can offer one another.  We'll have gentle music and light some candles.  There will be a chance to share your story or acknowledge it in silence.  We are located at 669 Union Street, Manchester, just four blocks north of Bridge street.  Our web address is www.uumanchester.org, or call 625-6854 for more information. The church also offers a vegetarian supper on Thursday evenings at 6:00 PM for a suggested donation of $3 per person, so if you're coming from work or whatever, feel free to join in.

May there be tidings of comfort and joy for everyone this holiday season!

Recently a group of pastors chose a special day for a kind of protest.  They wanted to affirm their right to recommend candidates for public office from the pulpit.  The consequence of doing this is supposed to have to do with the tax-exempt status of churches as charitable and educational organizations, so it might be expensive.  But these pastors in effect said, "bring it on". I don't know what happened to them, but it got me thinking about faith and electoral politics.  Of course, pastors speak on issues related to civic life all the time, and by custom don't actually say, "vote for Sallie Brown".  When asked about not recommending candidates, I have generally referred to the IRS and the possible tax consequences.  But that is a cop out.

The real reason that I don't recommend candidates is that I serve in a faith tradition where people are supposed to find their own way.  We accept one another and encourage each other in spiritual growth, rather than setting up a set of hoops for people to jump through in order to say they belong with us.  There is teaching, for sure, from the pulpit and in other ways, that presumably guides people toward certain ways of looking at public decisions.  We affirm the worth and dignity of every person and call for justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.  We encourage the use of democratic process as the foundation for building communities of peace, liberty, and justice.  We remind one another of our interdependence with all life.  Applying those principles to particular issues, we come up with positions that make sense to us.  

There are some issues where Unitarian Universalists speak with one voice.  But these are few.  Mostly, we talk and argue with one another about how this or that way or this or that candidate affirms our values.  And then we each go do what we individually believe is right.  

I guess I think it's a good idea for those pastors to go ahead and do what they believe is right in spite of the IRS.  But even if the IRS changes its policy, I won't be joining them in trying to tell the congregation I serve who to vote for.  They wouldn't do what I told them, anyway, because they are committed to making up their own minds.  And I wouldn't do it because I agree.  They should make up their own minds.  I hope to provide some of the material that will help them, since the stuff of politics has everything to do with the stuff of faith, but it's still each person's own decision about how to vote. 

Yes, there are atheists and agnostics who want to gather with others on Sunday morning.  At the Unitarian Univesalist Church, worship language is open enough to include them, along with others who are less reluctant about the holy.  Something happens, these unbelievers will say, when they gather with others, a sense of presence beyond words, an opening to the mystery beyond human understanding, sometimes a glimpse of the unity of all that is. From being together on Sunday morning, they draw inspiration, hope, and courage to meet life's challenges.

There are those who say that "worship" is a transitive verb, that there must be an object, a "something" that is worshiped. The ancient roots of this word, "worship" are about honoring what is "of worth". In response to this idea, an atheist might say that to reduce that cosmic worthiness to a mere object seems arrogant.  To leave the door open to what is beyond words makes more sense.  It's true that the God many atheists don't believe in is the same God that you don't believe in -- the grumpy old white man with a beard, sitting on a throne in the clouds and making judgments on people's affairs.  When pressed, an atheist may say there's "something out there" beyond our science and reason, something with power and glory, something unnamable. Maybe they believe it is ultimately knowable, and certainly not outside Nature, therefore not "supernatural," but worthy of attention with our limited knowledge, especially worthy of investigation..

This line of thought can lead to noticing that the same sense of a powerful mystery beyond our daily understanding appears in the great faiths of the world, an unnamed presence with many names, something of worth that is sought in many cultures.  An appreciation of what is universal across the world's faith traditions is part of our practice in Unitarian Universalism.  Some seekers in our tradition will discover this and begin to say "God", for want of a better word.  Others continue without naming, opening themselves in worship without saying they worship anything or anyone. It's not a bad thing to leave it nameless.  Nor is it a bad thing to ask of  worship that it engage the thinking part of the human being.  Indeed, it's not bad if a community of worshipers expects to be taught about the holy through individual experience and reflection, rather than through doctrine.

So it's true, there can be worship without God, a worship that can be deep and meaningful, a source of guidance for life, and a source of hope for the healing of the world. 
 

Every year, on the last Sunday before things get very informal for the summer, we celebrate "Flower Communion". This is a day when children and adults are all in church together. Everyone is invited to bring some flowers from their garden, if they have one, and we place them in vases at the front of the church.  People are like flowers, each uniquely beautiful and yet all similar in some ways. We admire them all together during worship, then towards the end of the service, we invite everyone to come forward and take one, a gift to them from someone.  Each flower is itself precious and unique, like the person who gave it, carrying within it something of the Holy.  We take the flowers home, so children have a chance to appreciate and care for them. 

This uniquely Unitarian Universalist ceremony is a gift to our religious movement from an early twentieth century leader of the Unitarian Church in what was then Czechoslovakia, Dr. Norbert Capek.  After attending a Unitarian church in New Jersey while he was a Baptist minister among the Czech and Slovak immigrants there, Dr. Capek realized that what he needed to do was go back to his homeland and start a church more like a Unitarian church.  He envisioned a church that taught freedom of thought and a spirituality that is based on inner truth more than outer dogma.  So he did that.  With support from the American Unitarian Association, his congregation in Prague became large, and other congregations grew throughout the country.  

But then the Nazi forces came to rule the country.  When they found out about Capek's teachings, they knew he had to be silenced.  Freedom?  not under Nazi rule.  He was sent to the labor camp at Dachau, and ultimately died in a gas chamber.  His church lives, however, and the flower communion we celebrate each year also celebrates his initiative, his courage, and his willingness to die for his faith.  Each person, like each flower, is unique and beautiful.  And each has within it something of the Holy.  Some are very precious, indeed. 

We Unitarian Universalists are known for our willingness to offer memorial services for just about anyone.  We believe there is goodness in everyone, goodness, even Godliness, that can be celebrated, if not during their lifetimes, then at the end.  We see a spark of the Divine in every life, a spark that may need to be dusted off in order to shine forth, but a spark nonetheless.  Our worship tends to be "horizontal" -- sensing the holy in the places between us as we gather, wanting to dust off those sparks of the Divine within the people who have come together.  So our memorial services are a celebration of the person's life, with music and readings reflecting the person's tastes, and words from people who were close to them in life.  Of course, those closest are never required to speak, and often the minister meets with the family to gather the stories that need to be told, so that a widow or widower, children or parents need not do anything but receive the experience of the service.  But within our own community, especially, the bereaved often want to share their memories and their appreciation of the departed. In a recent memorial service in our sanctuary, there was no formal eulogy.  Instead, there were brief remembrances, first by the adult children of the departed, then by representatives of three different communities that were important in her life.  

The feature of our memorial services that often surprises outsiders is that we most often offer an informal time to share memories.  A member of the worship team brings a microphone to people in the congregation who want to speak.  This can be a very powerfully comforting part of the service, as aspects of the person's life are brought forward and appreciated.  Because we believe in that spark of holy goodness in everyone, we also do not fear a permanent and agonizing hell for anyone after death. We send them forth to whatever comes next in confidence that they go in peace and go towards peace. And of course, as is the case with many of our ceremonies, our memorial services are never complete until we share food and drink and informal conversation with one another after the formal gathering has ended.  The holy comes among us as we speak to one another in love, especially as we speak of our dear departed with love, creating a space within our hearts where they will live and influence us even after they have left this life.  

Last week a woman called me to ask whether I would perform a wedding for her and her partner.  We chatted a little, and then she sort of apologized, and said she hoped I wouldn’t be offended if she asked, but, would I mind performing a service that was appropriate for atheists?  Of course, I said, I do this kind of ceremony all the time.  In fact, I explained, I serve a congregation in which many members are either atheist (sure there is no God) or agnostic (don’t know whether or not there is a God). 

Church for atheists?  Religious weddings for agnostics?  How can this be?  At the Unitarian Universalist Church of Manchester, we do not ask you to forget your questions at the door.  For us, religion has everything to do with what we call “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  For us, it is important to engage with our questions, and to explore in search of answers to the important questions about life and death, separation and unity, our place in the cosmos.  Where else but in a congregation can you find a quiet hour to sit with those questions and concerns, to raise your voice with others in celebration of the spirit of life, in gratitude for all we have been given?

Where else can you bring your children, not to be indoctrinated into a certain set of beliefs, but to be invited to build their own.  Of course, we provide some building blocks, but we really do believe that the questions and honest inquiry into them will yield good answers.

Can a non-theistic wedding be religious?  We invoke the power of the gathering of family and friends to bless the couple, knowing that the holy breathes through the human spirit. We reach solemnly into the depths of the human spirit, that deep well of human need to live united and loving before a broken and imperfect world, and draw out deeply felt vows.  By emphasizing the love that flows between and among human beings, we don’t leave the door open for the expectation that some other being will take care of things.  The people involved take responsibility for their commitments, rather than relying on something beyond. 

A group of people with a common concern had gathered, some who knew each other well, others who only knew one or two a little, and so of course there was an icebreaker.  We were invited to put on an extra nametag with a slogan that spoke of our way of being in the world.  I put on mine, "come as you are." But then I had to leave for another meeting before we could play the game, so here is what I would have said.

Come as you are, that's the way it is with the Unitarian Universalist church as well as with me.  Everyone is invited to be themselves, not to pretend to be someone else.  So people come to Sunday service in different kinds of outfits -- some dressed up in nice jackets and ties, pulled-together outfits with jewelry and coordinated shoes, and others in jeans and hoodies with sneakers. Even people's ways of looking nice or looking natural are different.  It's fun to see so many different "looks", especially when what's happening is that everyone is looking around at each other, smiling, and making friendly conversation.  Sometimes it's hard to get the place quiet so the service can begin.

People can come as they are on the inside, too.  With doubts and questions about faith, with their own ideas about God, what happens after we die, what the rules are for living a good life.  And we talk.  We don't all have to agree in advance, or even at all.  You can't quite believe just anything, but the structure really does allow people to think for themselves. Then there's the other kind of how you are on the inside:  lonely, fearful, seeking new friends, overflowing with love, eager to share, mourning, celebrating, the whole nine yards.  To everything there is a season, and everything comes to each of us in its own season, so some are celebrating new babies while some are worrying about sick and aging parents, some are joyful as achievements are recognized while some are anxious as jobs dry up and disappear,.some are struggling with addictions while others find the purpose of their lives opening like a highway before them.

We're like an overgrown family, where there's room for everyone to be at whatever stage they are at on whatever their journey might be.  We get to know each other.  We make it a spiritual practice to see the divine within each person, or, since not all of us want to say "divine" or "God", to see the deep interconnectedness of all. This is a religion where you can come as you are, and work out your own spiritual development with the encouragement of others who may or may not be on a path like yours.