Radically Welcome

When I read the question guiding today's service – "What would happen if our Society closed its doors and ceased its ministries tomorrow?" – I stopped breathing.

"I've only just found you all," I thought. "I've been looking for so long, and I only just found you." The idea of this place ceasing to exist sent my heart into a panic.

Before coming here, I'd made a kind of resigned peace with being a solo practitioner in my spiritual life. Just to be clear, there's a lot of value in it. I got the chance to explore what I really believe and what works for me. There were none of the squabbles or power plays that crop up in human institutions. Plus, I could set up the altar any way I like, and scheduling was a breeze. But I found it hard to sustain a regular practice without more structure to support me.

It feels akin to the difference between being single and being in a relationship. There are critical things I learned about myself while I was single, and probably because I was single: a sense of my inherent self-worth, satisfaction with my own company, how to resolve conflicts, a trust in my ability to live independently. Before I met Emily, I'd come to a place where I was looking for a partner, but I was also content on my own.

And then I did meet Emily, and found myself stretched and challenged in a whole new set of ways. Our relationship has opened different doors into the world for me. It's helped me heal old wounds, and shown me parts of myself – both good and bad – that I wouldn't have found otherwise. Sure, being single meant there were fewer disputes about whose turn it was to walk the dog or who left food on the counter, but there was also a whole lot less love.

As in any relationship, I believe our challenge as Unitarian Universalists worshiping together, caring for each other, and together creating a more just world is to find a way to operate from that place of love even when there's conflict, and especially when we're trying to reconcile different visions for this church.

For example, my favorite homilies of [Senior Minister] Greg [Stewart]'s – and I've already told him this, so it's no secret – are the ones in which his natural warmth and caring presence come through. Where I have an emotional stake in his stories and insights, not just an intellectual one. Perhaps for some of you, though, those are the services you wish you'd stayed home for. Yet each of us deserves to be here – in fact, each of us is needed as an integral part of our spiritual community.

For me, the purpose of this church comes down to one simple thing: I want to be here, and I want you here, too, whoever you are. Because in the places where our beliefs overlap as well as the areas of meaningful disagreement – even in the squabbles – I learn something about myself. And because now that I've found a spiritual home, I want to throw open the doors as wide as possible so that everyone – everyone – feels radically, lovingly, unconditionally welcome.

We may not always succeed in reaching this ideal. Sometimes, we may not even want to try. But I had to wait even longer to find this place than I did to find the love of my life. I can't imagine a greater way to show my gratitude than to keep myself pointed towards that radical welcome and to keep my heart open to share and absorb as much love as I can.

Let's answer Greg's challenge from last week. Let's be the church together. In doing so, I think we'll take each other's breath away.

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I wrote and delivered this piece as the Credo for the March 14, 2010, service at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.

A Faithful Existence

I wrote and delivered this piece as the Credo for the April 19, 2009, service at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.


When I told my partner Emily that today’s topic was “A Faithful Existence,” she got a kind of faraway, glassy look in her eyes. She was polite enough to keep any “yes, dear...uh-huh...wow, that’s interesting” comments to herself. But we’ve been married a long time, and I knew something was up.

The concept of “faith” didn’t speak to her because it seemed too wrapped up in a belief in god. Or more specifically, a distinct kind of monotheistic deity with distinct ideas about how we should be living our lives. For those of us who find divinity everywhere, sitting through a service like that is a recipe for boredom at best or alienation at worst.

Certainly the word “faith” has become a loaded term. People of faith, faith-based initiatives, faith communities...on my best days, the images that pop to mind start with my friend Matt, a devout Catholic who leads an interfaith worker’s rights organization, has run for office as a dyed-in-the-wool progressive, and is my exemplar of a truly feminist man. On my less-than-best days, though, those phrases about faith conjure images of people waving Yes on Prop 8 signs, screaming outside Planned Parenthood clinics, and protesting at funerals.

But faith is larger than religion. The truth is, each of us already lives a faithful existence, in ways large and small. Without even thinking about it, we take a lot on faith every day. In this moment alone, I assume that my internal organs are going about their business, my house still stands, and gravity will continue to operate. Often this faith is grounded in reason – especially that thing about gravity – but trust, expectations, and past experience all play big roles as well.

It’s an act of faith to go to bed at night and assume we’ll wake up the next morning. This isn’t something people with terminal illnesses can take for granted – maybe making their leap of faith that much bigger.

It’s a tremendous act of faith to become a parent. How will I know what to do? What happens if I lose my job? What if my child turns into a person I love but don’t like? There’s so much that’s unknowable, and the stakes are enormously high. Yet here we are, nearly 7 billion people later.

I think the biggest act of faith, though, is believing that we can find meaning in life. It’s a profoundly human tendency that transcends religion. We look for signs and omens. We cross our fingers and make wishes on stars. We ask for guidance, from the universe or the directions or our higher power or our best selves or from god or the goddess. We sit here on Sunday mornings. When times are tough or tragedy strikes, when the inexplicable and wholly irrational occurs, still we ask, “Why?”

When I was a junior in high school, I lived in Germany as an exchange student. The scholarship I’d won to get there allowed me to escape the torment I experienced at home and at school. That year abroad literally saved my sanity.

About eight months into my stay, a major existential crisis hit. I was a 16-year old desperately needing to make some kind of sense out of everything that had happened to me. One Saturday, as I sat by the river that formed the valley where my host family lived, looking up at the mountains of the Black Forest, I kept repeating, “What does it all mean? Why are we here?” with tears streaming down my face.

Much to my surprise, I got an answer. As though whispered in the back of my head, I heard, “For the beauty of it.”

Well, figuring out the meaning of life is heady stuff for a 16-year old. I tried to share this new insight with my host mother when I got home that afternoon and discovered for the first time that not everyone contemplates the meaning of life all the time. (This news came as quite a shock.) I tried sharing it with friends at school, but I couldn’t seem to convey the depth of my experience by the river. And while I’ve come to think of life’s beauty more in the sense of poetry rather than some neat and pretty package, at the time I struggled to reconcile what I’d learned with things like famine, violence, poverty, and the crazy-making way mosquitoes buzz your ears in the middle of the night.

But those words whispered to me more than two decades ago have stayed with me. It may not be your answer to why we’re here. It’s not even always my answer. But that long-ago afternoon gives me faith that the yearning for meaning will point me in the right direction to find peace.