A free and responsible search for truth and meaning

Opening Words:

This is the last of our four sessions that calls for an in-depth examination of what we think about, and how we live out, our Unitarian Universalist principles. Our approach combines the principles into pairs and asks us to look not only at each one, but how they might conflict with and/or complement each other. The fourth Principle talks about a search for truth and meaning. It is therefore also about how Unitarian Universalism is a spiritual path. When I talk about spirituality I am not talking about something hidden and dark, forbidding and grim, even meaningless. To be religious, to live a genuinely spiritual life, is to embrace a tradition and a history and to make it your own. With all religious traditions or practices, to be spiritual is to follow the journey into truth and meaning, to discover the treasure and to make it real and visible in the living of our lives.

Prelude: Read Resposively

We come to this time and this place:

To rediscover the wonderous gift of free religious community

To renew our faith in the holiness, goodness and beauty of life;

To reaffirm the way of the open mind and the full heart

To rekindle the flame of memory and hope and

To reclaime the vision of an earth made fair, with all her people one.

Let us worship together and learn to love.

Lighting the Chalice:

May this light that we now kindle

inspire us to use our powers to heal and not to harm

to help and not to hinder

to bless and not to curse

to serve in the cause of justice

to search for our path toward fulfillment and wholeness.

Joys and Concerns: (We throw a small stone into this bowl filled with water, to symbolize our thoughts, which move in circular rings eternally, like concentric waves.)

We invite you to share your joys and concerns since our last meeting

Prayer: ( followed by a moment of silent meditation)

I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts;

A sense of the sublime, of something far more deeply interfused,

whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air.

There is a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and it rolls in unending motion through all things.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all.

There is only the meaning we all give to our lives, an individual meaning.

May we find it.

Story for All Ages:  (the children go to Religious Education at the end of the story and the adults sing "Spirit of Life" )

Hymn::    # 123  (STLT)   "Spirit of Life"   by Carolyn McDade (adapted)

Spirit of Life, come unto us,
Sing in our hearts all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea;
Move in our hands, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold us close; wings set us free;
Spirit of Life, come to us, come to me.
First Reading:
With so many different beliefs, what holds us together? Unitarian Universalism is a WAY of being religious rather than embracing a specific religious doctrine. For us, religion is an ongoing search for meaning, purpose, value, and spiritual depth in one's life. Our creed is not doctrinal, but moral: to love your neighbor, work for a better world, and search for truth with an open mind. We come together in community to support each other as we explore our own truths.

Second Reading:

What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and -- especially important -- to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we LIKE the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premise or starting point and whether that premise is true. Often the highest truth cannot be put into words. Therefore the greatest teachers have nothing to say. They simply gives themselves in service and never worry.

Discussion: Unitarian Universalist Principle 4 (copyright: First Unitarian Church San José)

Principle 4: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free – John 8:32

As the youngsters approach their early teen-age years, they begin to think critically and will be drawn to reject many of their childish ideas. We should certainly encourage them, making religion stand in their mind for the DUTY to question and scrutinize, rather than making it an area too sacred and too fragile to bear examination. We can now replace childish ideas and compromises of language with mature ideas which an adolescent should be prepared to understand. I cannot accept the idea that true religion ever asks us to turn off our critical intelligence or our moral judgment. --Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
.

For four consecutive sessions, we have been examining the seven Unitarian Universalist principles. This is the final one of these sessions. Our approach was taken from an essay "The Principles Behind the Principles," by the Rev. Frances H. Manly *

In this final session, we examine the hinge that holds all of these Principles together. Manley writes: "In the center of the Principles, at the point where individualism and interdependence meet, is the 'free and responsible search for truth and meaning.' Thus, by their very structure the Principles not only affirm the search for meaning as central to the human enterprise, but also suggest that the very meaning we search for, the meaning of human existence itself, is to be found somehow in the fact that we are at once separate individuals of worth and dignity and interdependent parts of an indivisible whole. Moreover, that same structure also suggests that a 'free and responsible' search for truth and meaning does not mean a purely individual search because none of us is a purely individual being. Rather, it is inherently something we carry out both in the privacy of our own souls and in community with others."

Perhaps the most important word in this principle is "responsible." Without it, we would be free to believe whatever we want to believe. Instead, we are required to believe what a free and responsible search for truth and meaning leads us to believe. This is a much higher standard to attain.

As you think about your own lifelong search for truth and meaning, we invite you to contemplate some of the following questions:

1. What beliefs from your past have you given up? Were they damaging beliefs, or comforting beliefs? Were they easy to give up or hard to give up? What led you to give up those beliefs?
2. Can you name any beliefs you wish you had, but cannot bring yourself to? Why would you like to believe them? What prevents you?
3. Are there beliefs that others – especially other Unitarian Universalists– believe that you would like to embrace? Are there beliefs held by others – especially other Unitarian Universalists –that you think are damaging or foolish? Why? How does this affect you? How can you listen to them speak their truths, and hear what you might learn, if you believe they are damaging or foolish?
4. The search for truth and meaning may be carried out in any number of ways, including scientific inquiry, an academic study of the words of prophetic women and men, a study of scriptures, discussion with others, experiences with nature, experiences in worship, meditation or other ways of seeking transcendent experiences. These sources for our inspiration are listed in Living Tradition part of our Principles and Purposes, Which of these avenues have you included in your own search? Are their avenues for this search that you would like to pursue, but have not? If there are, what is holding you back?
5. Thinking over the past three sessions, what role have the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes played in your own search for truth and meaning?
6. Having spent several weeks looking at the dynamic tension between individuation and interdependence, have you had any new insights into the role that the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes play in your own life?

*From Essex Conversations: Visions for Lifespan Religious Education

Essay: "The Principles Behind the Principles," by the Rev. Frances H. Manly

One of the most valuable tools available to us . . . is the Principles of the Unitarian Universalist Association – if we read them in such a way as to reveal and emphasizes the "principle behind the Principles." I propose that we look at the Principles as a single complex statement, rather like a poem. When we do so we find that the whole conveys a coherent meaning greater than the sum of its seven constituent parts, and each principle in turn derives an important layer of meaning from its relationship to the whole.

As I read them the overall structure of the Principles reflects the fact that as human beings we are always in dynamic tension between separateness and connection, between individualism and community, between autonomy and interdependence. The poles of this tension are represented, as has often been noted, by the first and seventh Principles: the inherent worth and dignity of every person at one end, and the interdependent web of all existence at the other. What has not been generally recognized, however, is that as we move from the ends toward the center, paired Principles balance one another, expressing related concepts but reflecting a different point on the continuum from separateness to connection, a different resolution of the tension between the two poles. The second and sixth Principles, for example, both address the issue of justice; but one sees it from the more individualistic perspective of justice, equity and compassion for each person, while the other offers the perspective of community, affirming peace, liberty, and justice for all. A similar, though less obvious balance exists between the third and the fifth Principles, where acceptance of one another as individuals corresponds to the right of each person to speak and act publicly – that is, in the context of community – according to his or her conscience; and the encouragement to individual spiritual growth corresponds to the affirmation of democratic process as the means by which the community itself can grow toward its greatest potential.

In the center of the Principles, at the point where individualism and interdependence meet, is the "free and responsible search for truth and meaning." Thus, by their very structure the Principles not only affirm the search for meaning as central to the human enterprise, but also suggest that the very meaning we search for, the meaning of human existence itself, is to be found somehow in the fact that we are at once separate individuals of worth and dignity and interdependent parts of an indivisible whole. Moreover, that same structure also suggests that a "free and responsible" search for truth and meaning does not mean a purely individual search because none of us is a purely individual being. Rather, it is inherently something we carry out both in the privacy of our own souls and in community with others.

Congratulations on making it through these four weighty sessions. We've hope they've opened up new avenues for understanding our wonderful faith and your own unique expression of it!

UU Principles

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

UU Purposes

We shall devote our resources and power for religious, educational and humanitarian purposes.

We declare and affirm a special responsibility to promote the full participation of persons in all of our activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, color, sex, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed.

Nothing shall infringe upon the individual freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and Unitarian heritages.

UU Traditions

The living tradition which we share draws from many sources:

• 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;
• Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• 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.
• Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Closing circle of hands: (Holding hands or link arms as you read the closing words together)

Go your ways, Knowing not the answers to all things

Yet seeking always the answer to one more thing than you know.

Extinguish Chalice:

And now we extinguish our chalice but not:
The warmth of community,
The spirit of gratitude,
Or
The fire of commitment and shared compassion of this community.
The light of hope, hope for change that brings new blessings into our lives and the lives of those around us continues to burn brightly, we carry hope in our hearts until we are together again.

*Hymn:    Go now in Peace     

Go now in Peace, Go now in Peace,
May the Love of God surround you
Everywhere, everywhere, You may go
More Unitarian Universalist Principles




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