Rev. Dr. Michael Tino
Lead Ministry Team, Church of the Larger Fellowship

Recently, I’ve heard more and more people wondering what is the place of covenant and accountability in Unitarian Universalism. In some circles, they have become almost dirty words–signs that we are somehow abandoning the individualist faith that so many people mistakenly think we are. And yet, both of these concepts are central to our faith.

Covenant consists of the sacred promises we make to one another. It is not a fixed set of beliefs, but rather a living understanding of how we are in community together. Covenants define the practices of Unitarian Universalism as well as what we are striving to create together.

As a faith movement, our congregations are bound to each other in covenant. That covenant is expressed in Article 2 of the Unitarian Universalist Association by-laws. It lives there because covenants and by-laws, unlike creeds, are meant to be changeable. As our understanding of our faith deepens, as our understanding of our world develops, and as the circle of our faith widens to welcome in those who have too long been marginalized, we must adapt the promises that hold us together.

And so it is that our covenant has been updated recently. Rather than simply asking our congregations to “affirm and promote” principles (a phrase that I came to see as the faith analog of the meaningless phrase “thoughts and prayers”), our new covenant asks us to engage in specific actions to live our faith in the world. It asks us to understand power, how it is abused to lead to oppression and exploitation, and to actively work to dismantle those things in our world. It asks us to commit to changing, growing, and repairing damaged relationships. It asks us to create fully accessible and inclusive communities, and to embrace our differences as we learn from one another.

These are good promises, solid promises that, if we keep them, will help us center our faith in love and live from the values we claim: justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, and generosity.

But what if we don’t keep our promises?

That’s where accountability comes in.

In 1646, the congregations in the New England colonies brought delegates together to discuss how they would be governed. The 1648 Cambridge Platform has served since then as the basis for what we call “congregational polity,” the way in which Unitarian Universalist congregations still come together. Even in 1648, congregations realized that one of their responsibilities to each other was to be able to hold each other accountable to the practices and ideals of their faith.

How this happens has changed a lot since 1648, but it has not ceased to be part of the relationship among congregations. We are collectively responsible for the covenant of our faith. And so, we have to be collectively responsible for asking our sibling UUs to be accountable to that covenant.

Accountability does not mean punishment, nor does it mean banishment, like so many people seem to fear. It does mean that we are allowed to ask each other to do better. It means that we are allowed to point out when each others’ actions fall short of the values we claim. Yes, it might mean that we are going to have to get used to giving and receiving constructive, loving criticism.

For too long, our faith has been mired in a hyper-individualism that is good for no one. We are not the faith where, as some claim, one can believe or do whatever one wants to. We are instead a faith where we proudly center our interdependence with one another, a faith that insists that none of us are in this alone.

In the back of our hymnal is an uncredited (anonymous) reading that blesses us with these words: “May we know once again that we are not isolated beings, but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to this community, and to
each other.”

To these words, I add this: May our connection to each other be grounded in covenant. May it be a connection of mutual accountability and growth. May it be a connection that helps us all live with love at the center of our lives. 

Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire.

Perhaps you have seen the widespread cartoon image that illustrates the difference between “equality” and “equity” [above]. First drawn in 2012 by Dr. Craig Froehle, it shows two panels. In each, three people of varying heights are trying to watch a baseball game over a fence, and they have three crates to stand on. In the scenario labeled “equality,” everyone gets one crate, which allows the tallest person to tower over the fence, but the smallest person still can’t see the game. In the scenario labeled “equity,” the crates are distributed so that everyone can see over the fence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this cartoon as Unitarian Universalists discuss naming equity as one of the core values of our faith. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about why there is a wooden fence in the first place, and about all of the people in the stands whose access to the game doesn’t depend on the distribution of crates.

If someone were to attend the game in a wheelchair, they’d need more than crates to see over the fence. They’d need an expensive ticket, and a ballpark policy that carves out appropriate and desirable places for wheelchairs to be. (It is purely coincidental but illustrative that this week, a friend who uses a wheelchair and loves baseball took to Facebook to decry the ways in which several major league teams make it harder for him to attend games by putting additional steps in place if one wants to buy a wheelchair-accessible seat.)

It seems to me that true equity is that everyone has access to the game in a way that fits their bodies and brains and not their wallets or the willingness of someone to give them a temporary boost.

It wasn’t until I decided to write about this cartoon, though, that I learned that its original creator researches inequities in healthcare. This makes the difference between getting into the ballpark and trying to see over the fence even more stark. For too many people, inequity leads to death.

I have hope that our Unitarian Universalist embrace of equity will be deeper and more meaningful than a cartoon. Part of the proposed language for what would be our core values reads that “we covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.”

If we are really serious about equity, then, we will work to make our communities—inside and outside of our congregations—fully accessible and inclusive.

This means accessible and inclusive to all bodies. This means accessible and inclusive to different ways that brains work. This means accessible and inclusive to people with different financial means. That means accessible and inclusive to people with histories of trauma and also those who are imprisoned.

It also means that Unitarian Universalists are called to understand ourselves as part of accessible and inclusive communities, so that when we build structures that allow everyone to be part of things, they don’t come across as unfair or unequal.

Have you ever complained that someone else got a crate to see over the fence, even if you didn’t need one?  Sadly, over my years as a minister I’ve fielded way too many similar complaints.

Instead, let us tear down that fence and let everyone into the game. Let’s create space where we can all have the place we need to participate, and where we don’t resent the full participation of others.

The Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco hangs this banner in support of a permanent ceasefire now. The banner is from the Interfaith coalition of Faith Communities across the San Francisco Bay Area. Photo credit: Aisha Hauser

Recently, several people have taken the time to write to us about the ways in which we talk about Israel and Gaza, especially on our weekly talk show, Voices of Unitarian Universalism (aka The VUU). I thought that our wider community would be interested in my response.

It is correct to say that the CLF Lead Ministry Team has taken a clear stance on the current state of the conflict. We believe strongly that the preservation of life is the value that should be most paramount. I have been taught by Jewish teachers that this value is in line with the highest teachings of Judaism. We believe that all lives are worthy of preservation, even if all lives are not equally threatened by violence at present.

We also believe strongly that those with the most power to preserve life have the most obligation to do so. On a recent show of The VUU, my co-minister Christina Rivera eloquently spoke about the power imbalance present right now in Gaza, and why our stance is that Israel needs to be responsible for a cease-fire. Some have noted that Chris made them think; for this we are grateful.

We have not taken a stance on Zionism, nor will we; it is simply not our place as non-Jewish people. We understand why criticizing the actions of the State of Israel might make it seem as if we have done so, but we are clear that the actions of Israel are not on behalf of Jewish people everywhere. We have strongly opposed anti-Semitism in all of its forms, as we oppose all forms of hatred, oppression, and violence.

We have invited Jewish UUs onto the show who share our viewpoint on the abhorrent ways in which current Israeli leadership is dehumanizing Palestinians, abrogating treaty obligations, and murdering innocents. To be frank, we don’t want to feature voices who might support that. I don’t think that academically debating the term “genocide” is worthwhile as hospitals and refugee camps are being bombed. It’s a strong word on purpose.

We are committed to continuing this dialogue in the future. We are working on having Jewish UUs speak on The VUU about the ways in which anti-Semitism is rearing its ugly head around the world. When we do so, we will invite people who have been chosen by Jewish UU communities as leaders.

We hope that the CLF community appreciates the values with which we have come to these positions. We hope that you will continue to let us know how we can live out those values, when we agree and when we disagree with each other.

Interdependence has been a central concept to our Unitarian Universalist faith since our current principles were adopted in 1985, and yet, too often Unitarian Universalists have focused on the implications this has for our relationship with the natural world around us, without understanding that we, too, are part of that web.

What does it mean to acknowledge our place in the web of all existence?

Our Universalist ancestors taught us that we all end up in the same place when we die. Centuries ago, they meant that all souls would be in heaven, but I like to expand this theology and filter it through my scientific brain.

I am regularly stopped in my tracks by the unfathomable beauty of this notion that we are inextricably bound to one another. All of our being ends up in the very same place when we die—the same place it came from in the first place, the same pool of atoms and energy that has created all life since the formation of our Earth, the same protons and neutrons that will create all life for the duration of our planet’s existence.

We are one with the stars. With the planets. With the oceans and mountains and ice caps. With the forests and the deserts and the fauna running through them. We are also one with one another. This unity of existence has profound implications for how we live. We need to learn together to make decisions that consider the other beings with whom we share our fragile planet.

The theological notion of interdependence exists in relationship with other parts of who we are, and the most important has yet to be inserted into our principles. The most important concept that interdependence relies upon is accountability.

When we are accountable to someone or something, we hold ourselves responsible to them. When we are accountable, we allow others to measure our success. In justice work, we talk about accountability to those who are most vulnerable, those who are oppressed, those who are the targets of discrimination and hatred.

When we practice accountability in justice work, we take instructions from those who are most effected by the work we are doing.  When we practice accountability, we learn to live the tenets of interdependence.

We understand that climate change is changing our oceans. Carbon dioxide is acidifying them, hotter temperatures are melting ice and causing sea level rise. We understand that we are interdependent with the beings of the ocean, and that our fate as humanity requires that we address their fate.

What does it mean to be accountable to them, though? What does it mean to be accountable to the people of Kiribati, whose island nation is disappearing under the sea? How do we live understanding that our actions might determine whether or not they have a home in a decade?

We understand that modern agricultural systems are wreaking havoc on our planet, on its soil, on its beings, on pollinators and birds and animals. We feel our interdependence with the earth when we eat. What does it mean to be accountable to this knowledge?  How do we change our behaviors to take into account the needs of those most vulnerable to this change?

At CLF, we also understand that the addiction of dominant U.S. culture to mass incarceration is a direct descendant of the systems of oppression that founded this country. The United States began with slavery and genocide and continued into an era of terrorism at the hands of private individuals, and now it is the government itself practicing that violence.

We ask ourselves often what it means to be accountable to our incarcerated siblings, who are the targets of this violence. We ask ourselves often what it means to be accountable to Black and brown communities torn apart by systems of injustice. And now we are asking how our larger faith movement might be accountable to the voices of our incarcerated UU members. It changes the way we do things to practice that accountability.

I have heard some recently say that accountability is something they fear—because accountability requires those of us with power in this world to exercise that power as power-with, and not as power-over. It requires us to take directions, to listen, to understand relationship.

Instead of being something to fear, however, I invite us to think about accountability as the way in which we live our commitment to interdependence.

There is a famous joke about early-20th century U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, who was known as a person of few words. One day, it is said, Silent Cal, as he was known, went to church and his wife Grace stayed home. When he got home, Grace asked him what the sermon had been about. “Sin,” replied Cal. “What did the preacher have to say about it.” Grace asked. Cal paused, sighed, and replied, “He was against it.”

Theologians for millennia have disagreed about the nature of sin, and whether and how sins are ultimately reconciled. Some have declared that, thanks to the great harm done to people perceived as committing sins in the name of religious judgment, it is not even a useful concept.

I believe that having a moral code is useful, and that looking at our actions through the lens of that moral code is a worthwhile exercise. I also believe that we, as Unitarian Universalists, need to be careful not to make “sin” into a permanent mark against someone. Sin is not a useful concept if it is used to make people into the dehumanized “other.”

James Luther Adams, a famous 20th century Unitarian/UU theologian once wrote, using the unfortunately gendered language of his time, “It cannot be denied that religious liberalism has neglected these aspects of human nature in its zeal to proclaim the spark of divinity in man. We may call these tendencies by any name we wish, but we do not escape their destructive influence by a conspiracy of silence concerning them.  Certainly, the practice of shunning the word ‘sin’ because ‘it makes one feel gloomy and pious’ has little more justification than the use of the ostrich method in other areas of life.”

I agree with Adams.

So what is a Unitarian Universalist theology of sin?

Many Christians define sin as that which separates us from God. This, of course, asks humans to pretend that we know what it is that God wants, and we know the danger that thoughts like that have wrought in humanity. I believe that sin is defined as a separation in relationship as well, just not necessarily our relationship with a divine.

Once again, I turn to Adams, who declared that Unitarian Universalists “deny the immaculate conception of virtue and affirm the necessity of social incarnation.” What does this mean? Virtue—and its opposite, sin—are defined by relationships. There is no such thing as goodness or evil in and of themselves—both are defined by the effects of our actions. The effects of our actions on other people as well as on the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.

Sin is what separates us from one another.

Sin defines people as “other.” It makes them invisible when they are right here in front of us. Sin silences. Sin abuses. Sin gaslights. Sin knowingly harms another and then blames them for overreacting to that harm. Sin creates systems of oppression that target people for who they are, and makes those systems of oppression replicate themselves again and again.

My colleague the Rev. Molly Housh Gordon draws upon womanist theologians in her understanding of sin. She writes, “I have come to think of sin as an ethic of domination that desecrates particular lives as well as perpetuating sinful systems. Drawing upon the work of womanist theologians like Emilie Townes and Delores Williams, I conceive of sin as the exercise of control over another in a way that objectifies, or, in Williams’s words, ‘invisibilizes’ others and our connection to them. This domination destroys difference—tearing the fabric of the web of life.”

Gordon continues, “Sin is the acts of domination and annihilation that result in part from our illusions of separateness. Our sin is every moment that we forget or violate our relationships within the web of interconnection that binds together all creatures and our world.”

Sin is what separates us from one another. It is what breaks relationships. It is the point at which one stops listening, the point at which one stops caring. It is the point at which we believe another to be irredeemable.

And sin is something we all must grapple with. We all do it. And we all must seek redemption for it when it occurs. It might not be a permanent mark on our souls, but it certainly is a permanent part of life as we know it, since none of us is perfect.

If someone asks you what your minister had to say about sin, you can tell them I’m against it. 

In the 1940s, as the German army began to impose its totalitarianism across Europe, many people fled in fear of their lives. At the time, the Unitarian Service Committee (USC) committed itself to rescuing as many refugees as possible. Their work was dangerous, and they saved the lives of many.

The documents created to help these refugees escape needed an official logo, so Dr. Charles Joy of the Unitarian Service Committee hired a graphic designer, Hans Deutsch, himself a refugee, to create one. The flaming chalice drew upon ancient religious symbols to be an official seal for the USC. The communion chalice, the holy oils used for blessing in many religions, the altars of Greek and Roman times, and lights put in the window as a symbol of hospitality are all evoked by the flaming chalice.

Throughout World War II, this symbol guided refugees to safety on travel documents, business cards, and in the windows of otherwise hidden offices.

After the war, the flaming chalice gained popularity as a symbol of Unitarianism, and then later of Unitarian Universalism. The ritual lighting of the chalice in UU worship became widespread in our congregations in the 1970s.

Our flaming chalice is still a symbol of life-saving welcome. Where it burns, its light beckons us all to live up to our shared principles and participate in the liberation of all people.

Often, when people find out that I was a scientist before becoming a minister, they make assumptions about how my brain works, or about how I must see the world. These assumptions are based in a perception of science as cold, distant, and rational. And while it is true that I bring a certain rational brain to bear on collecting and analyzing data, that skill is reserved for when it is truly needed.

Instead, my science background invites me to see magic and mystery in the world around me. It invites me to wonder at everyday occurrences—to find the special and the sacred in the blooming crocus, the varied songs of the cardinal, the laughter of children, and the storm blowing in from across the river.

My science background invites me to see all of these things as intricately interconnected to all of existence, and to marvel at how complex it all is.

My science background invites me to realize that the depth of that complexity means that it is impossible that humans will ever understand it fully.

Too often, people see science as an attempt to do just that—to understand everything fully. But any good scientist will tell you that every new discovery brings with it a new depth of understanding of what is still not known. Every question answered means two more questions asked. As Physicist John Archibald Wheeler once said, “We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

My experience of science is that it asks me to see our world as full of wonder. Full of possibilities for understanding. Full of questions that are exciting to pursue.

Many times as a graduate student in cell biology, I holed myself up in a small, dark room with a very large microscope for hours as I experimented on immune cells taken from lungs.  My experiments examined the movement of those cells, and on testing whether the proteins I studied stimulated those cells to move.

It was amazing and humbling to understand that the things I did on the large scale made those cells move on the microscopic one. There, in that small, dark room, looking at those very tiny cells, I could not help but be overwhelmed by my connection to a vast and unfathomable universe.  I could not help but be filled with a sense of wonder and awe.

PHOTO BY DREW HAYS ON UNSPLASH

In this world away from that microscope room, I also see wonder and awe everywhere.

I want to invite you into this wonder-full way of experiencing the world. This way in which everything is an exciting and sacred thing.

When next you read about a scientific study, I want you to imagine the scientists who produced it. I want you to imagine them in their labs, or field stations, or conference rooms. Imagine them asking questions—lots and lots of questions. Imagine them getting more and more excited by the questions before them. And then imagining them figuring out how they are going to ask those questions in their work. Not how they will answer them—but how they will ask them.

When next you experience something you don’t understand (and for me, that is almost every moment of every day), ask questions about it. Change your questions and see if it changes your experience of that thing. Ask other people what their questions are and see if those questions change your experience. Enter into the world of wonder. It’s a wonderful place.

“We are writing this in pencil, not etching it in stone.”  — from the Article II Study Commission Report 1/17/23

One of the defining characteristics of our Unitarian Universalist faith is that ours is a “living tradition.” We do not etch our faith in stone precisely because we hold sacred that it must change. It must adapt to new challenges, it must meet new understandings, and it must evolve based on new experiences and connections.

Members of the Article II Study Commission & some UUA Board/Administration Liaisons (l-r): Dr. Paula Cole Jones, Dr. Rob Spirko, Maya Waller, Becky Brooks, Kathy Burek, Rev. Meg Riley, Rev. Cheryl M. Walker, Satya Mamdani

This change includes our most central language as well, which is why our Association’s Bylaws mandate regular reviews of Article II of the UUA Bylaws, better known as the Principles, Sources, and Purposes of Unitarian Universalism.

The current version of how we articulate the center of Unitarian Universalism is the seven Principles. Those principles were introduced to us in 1985, and were a significant change from the concepts that preceded them. Their passage was not without disagreement, some of which was rooted in a love for the 1961 language.

In mid-January 2023, the commission that has been faithfully working for the past two years released their proposal for an Article II that leads our faith into the future. Most dramatically, it replaces our Principles with seven core Values, each of which comes with a charge to each of us, expressed as a covenant.

The values are centered on Love, named as a spiritual discipline that holds us together, and are named as Interdependence, Pluralism, Justice, Transformation, Generosity, and Equity. There’s even a beautiful graphic representation of them in the report. There are more words, of course. And most of what we love about our current Principles lives on in some version in our Covenant.

Of course, this is the central document for the Unitarian Universalist Association, centered in the United States. It is not the guiding force for UU congregations outside of our Association—including non-UUA member congregations elsewhere in our world. It remains to be seen how this understanding of Unitarian Universalism might ripple out and be transformed as it meets the realities of other cultural understandings of our faith. I hope it changes as it does so. It’s a living tradition, after all.

I hope that CLF members will read the report and reflect on this new way of understanding our Unitarian Universalist faith. Delegates to the 2023 UUA General Assembly will vote on a final version of this proposal in June. We will likely hold engagement sessions over the next few months as materials come available to do so. Keep your email open for such announcements.

From the Article II Study Commission Report: a visualization of the new proposed language for Article II, defining six Unitarian Universalist Values, all centered in Love. Graphic design by Tanya Webster.

Our hearts break open for the pain of the world. For the pain of our planet, whose delicate balance has come undone, and for all her creatures. For mudslides and floods, for rising seas and melting ice, for storms and droughts.

Our hearts break open for the pain of nations. For the cries of war, for the brutality of despots and dictators. For bombs and guns, trained on enemies whose hearts beat the same as ours. For leaders whose greed goes unchecked while their people starve, whose anger defies reason and ignores compassion.

Our hearts break open for the pain of communities. For hatred that marches down the street, and for history that has not yet been relegated to the past. For acts of terror that leave blood in their wake, for cries for help that go unanswered, for every time those sworn to protect instead inflict harm, for the brutality of our carceral state.

Our hearts break open for the pain in our homes. For sickness and death, for abuse and its aftermath. For those we desperately want to help but cannot. For relationships that require constant work, and for the anger that erupts to signal yet more work is needed. For children who struggle to keep up, bodies that no longer do what we want them to, and siblings who lose sight of what is most precious. Our hearts break open for the everyday pain that being connected and vulnerable brings to us.

PHOTO BY BRUCE HONG ON UNSPLASH

Our hearts break open for the pain in our hearts. For the mistakes we’re still beating ourselves up over. For the imperfections we have yet to embrace. For relationships we have lost and fear are irreconcilable, amends we have yet to make with those we have hurt, and the unfinished business of forgiving ourselves. Our hearts break open for life.

If you care about the world, your heart breaks open on a regular basis. If you care about another person, your heart breaks open on a regular basis. This business we call life, it breaks our hearts open wide. Again and again. And as our hearts break open, we have an opportunity to put them back together differently—to put them back together connected to one another.

Juana Bordas, in her book Salsa, Soul, and Spirit, challenges us to move from “I” to “we,” from the individualism rampant in modern-day European and Euro-American society to a collectivism found in Native American, Latino, African, and African-American communities. As Bordas writes from her own experience, “Latinos cherish belonging, group benefit, mutuality, and reciprocity. Interdependency, cooperation, and mutual assistance are the norm.”

Forming real relationships in community means engaging in the vulnerability of exposing our hearts to the world. And it means finding ways to engage in healing our hearts together—as one community, as a “we” instead of simply a collection of individuals. Forming real community means finding ways of mutuality and connection.

Beloved, you are not alone. You are part of a “we” that extends beyond your understanding. Let us knit our hearts together in community and commit ourselves to mutuality, curiosity, reciprocity, and cooperation.

//

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor del mundo. Por el dolor de nuestro planeta, cuyo delicado equilibrio se ha roto, y por todas sus criaturas. Por avalanchas de barro e inundaciones, por el aumento del nivel del mar y el derretimiento del hielo, por tormentas y sequías.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor de las naciones. Por los gritos de guerra, por la brutalidad de déspotas y dictadores. Por bombas y cañones dirigidos a enemigos cuyos corazones laten igual que el nuestro. Por líderes cuya codicia crece incontrolable mientras su gente se muere de hambre, y cuya ira desafía la razón e ignora la compasión.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor de las comunidades. Por el odio que marcha calle abajo, y por la historia que aún no ha quedado relegada en el pasado. Por los actos de terror que dejan sangre a su paso, por los gritos de auxilio que quedan sin respuesta, por cada vez que los que juraron protegernos hacen daño, por la brutalidad de nuestro estado carcelario.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor en nuestros hogares. Por la enfermedad y la muerte, por el abuso y sus secuelas. Por aquellos que queremos ayudar desesperadamente pero no podemos. Por las relaciones que requieren un trabajo constante, y por la ira que estalla para indicar que se necesita más trabajo. Por los niños que luchan para no quedarse atrás, por los cuerpos que ya no hacen lo que queremos que hagan y por los hermanos que pierden de vista lo más preciado. Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor cotidiano que nos causa el estar conectados y vulnerables.

Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por el dolor en nuestros corazones. Por los errores por los que todavía nos estamos castigando. Por las imperfecciones que aún tenemos que aceptar. Por las relaciones que hemos perdido y que tememos son irreconciliables, por las enmiendas que aún tenemos que hacer con aquellos a quienes hemos lastimado y la tarea pendiente de perdonarnos a nosotros mismos. Nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren por la vida.

Si te preocupas por el mundo, tu corazón se rompe y se abre regularmente. Si te preocupas por otra persona, tu corazón se rompe y se abre regularmente. Este asunto que llamamos vida, nos rompe y abre el corazón de par en par. Una y otra vez. Y a medida que nuestros corazones se rompen y se abren, tenemos la oportunidad de volver a unirlos de manera diferente, de volver a unirlos conectados con otros corazones.

Juana Bordas, en su libro Salsa, Alma y Espíritu, nos desafía a pasar del “yo” al “nosotros,” del individualismo desenfrenado de la sociedad europea y euroamericana de hoy en día a un colectivismo que se encuentra en los nativos americanos, los latinos, las comunidades africanas y afroamericanas. Según escribe Bordas a partir de su propia experiencia, “los latinos valoran la pertenencia, el beneficio grupal, la colaboración y la reciprocidad. La interdependencia, la cooperación y la asistencia mutua son la norma.”

Formar relaciones reales en comunidad significa comprometerse con la vulnerabilidad de exponer nuestros corazones al mundo. Y significa encontrar formas de participar juntos en la sanación de nuestros corazones, como una comunidad, como un “nosotros”, en lugar de simplemente una colección de individuos. Formar una comunidad real significa encontrar formas de reciprocidad y conexión.

Amados, no están solos. Son parte de un “nosotros” que se extiende más allá de su comprensión. Unamos nuestros corazones en comunidad y comprometámonos con la colaboración, la curiosidad, la reciprocidad y la cooperación.

Religious scholar Karen Armstrong has studied the teachings of religions large and small all around the world. And she has, as we all have, witnessed the strife in our world: the pain, the isolation, the injustice, the inequality.

And yet, she realized, no religion teaches that those things are acceptable.  All of the world’s religions, in fact, teach compassion.  They use different words and different concepts to talk about it, but all of them teach their followers to treat other people with kindness and respect.  All of them teach their followers that moral, good people help others.

In her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Armstrong asks us first to learn about compassion.  What do the religions of the world say about it? What have we been taught about compassion—from our heritage, from our families, from our experiences? And most importantly, what does Unitarian Universalism teach about compassion?

We’ve got a principle about it, certainly.  We covenant to affirm and promote, among other things, “justice, equity and compassion in human relationships.” And yet, how often does our practice of this principle stop with promoting justice?

What does it mean to promote compassion in human relationships?

How would our society be different if we made it the norm that we try to feel one another’s pain—that we suffer with one another instead of watching one another suffer. Justice and equity only require the latter—it’s compassion that requires the with.

Our Universalist heritage also encourages us to compassion. The promise of universal salvation, at its most basic, is that all of us are going to end up in the same place when we die (we can disagree about where and what that place is). I don’t think of heaven as a realm for the soul that is outside of what we know—I think of it as right here, in the midst of the world that we know.

Your being, mine, and everyone’s—all part of one, interconnected, closed system.  I am regularly stopped in my tracks by the unfathomable beauty of this notion that we are inextricably bound to one another. The promise of our connectedness requires us to realize our unity with all of creation.

In his 1945 work A Religion For Greatness, Universalist minister and theologian Clarence Skinner emphasized our religious call to work toward the unity of all beings, which he defined as “the coherence of what may seem to be separate, into a oneness. Unity,” he wrote, “means an operative harmony, a functional relationship which belongs to all the parts of a whole.”

Later in this work, Skinner also wrote, “This great religious experience of the unities and the universals, however, tends to direct [humanity] outward toward what is greater than the atomistic human.”

Clarence Skinner pushed to expand the notion of Universalism that his spiritual ancestors had developed.  He called us to a “cosmic mind-set” in which we all realized our connection with—indeed our unity with—everything that is, everything that has been, and everything that ever will be.

We are one with the stars.  With the planets.  With the oceans and mountains and ice caps.  With the forests and the deserts and the fauna running through them.  We are also one with one another.

This unity of existence has profound implications for how we live.

This unity of existence calls us to suffer with those who suffer, because we are they and they are we.

This unity of existence calls us to practice compassion. Our faith teaches us we must.

In April of 2019, I led a youth and adult delegation from the local congregation I serve on a service-learning trip to Pine Ridge, South Dakota. We engaged in a year-long series of learning sessions about Native American history, with an emphasis on the history, spirituality, teachings, and practices of the Lakota people.

Our time at Pine Ridge began with a tour of important sites on the reservation. I wrote this after returning from Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre of nearly 300 Lakota people by the United States Army. I was reminded then that our interdependence transcends not only place but also time—and that in order to make a better future we must learn about and atone for the sins of the past.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses

(Pine Ridge Reservation, 4.14.19)

How do you prepare
to visit the site of genocide?
Where the soil has been stained
with the blood of innocents?

If you’re Jewish, perhaps
you find a small, smooth stone
and carry it reverently
to place on the grave of
Lost Bird, infant survivor,
kidnapped and sold and displayed
like a trophy.
We remember you, you might say.

I took a walk with friends
up a steep, snowy hill
to pray,
to see the sun set,
to feel close to the Earth.
Along the muddy path
the meadowlarks trilled and chirped
from their hidden nests
amidst the dry grass
blessing the journey
with their song.

At Wounded Knee, we listened.
First to an oral history of a people who survive, told
with sage burning for purification,
eyes closed in memory of
the inherited trauma of generations.

And then,
after the stories,
to the meadowlarks.
The lost birds singing
through time
across borders
announcing the holiness
of the ground on which we stood.

Rev. Dr. Michael Tino preached this Sermon on December 5, 2021 in the Church of the Larger Fellowship’s Online Sanctuary

Our Universalist ancestors believed that a powerful, radical love awaited them at death, a love so powerful as to be able to cleanse them of even their most vile sins, a love so radical as to be freely available to all. In the days when John Murray ran aground on a sandbar on the coast of New Jersey, it was a wild and heretical theology, this stuff of Universal salvation.

Over the ensuing two hundred and fifty-one years, a theology that holds that all people will ultimately be saved, a theology that rejects the eternal damnation of hell in favor of a reconciliation with a greater love, that theology is not so wild anymore. It is barely even heretical in some corners.

And yet, since Thomas Potter convinced John Murray to preach Universalism  in his little chapel, our faith has struggled with the question of what Universalism calls us to in this life, before we die, right here. After all, if we’re all going to be saved anyway, why bother doing anything in this life? Why even bother being good?

Through the generations, our Universalist ancestors came up with decent responses to these questions. And today I want to call us to an answer that Clarence Skinner gave us some 80 years ago.

I don’t always agree with Clarence Skinner, 20th century Universalist theologian. For starters, his history of embracing eugenics is more than a little problematic. 

But in particular, I think he led us astray by claiming that big-U Universalism was little-u universal—that we uniquely had a religion for all people and should strive to make it so. That’s modernist, colonizer talk right there, that little-u universal religion stuff. It asks us to point to the existence of a truth that is equally valid for all people, and to claim as that truth a theology of white Europeans and Americans. I don’t believe such a truth exists, much less that white folks would hold it, so I don’t do little-u universal religion.

But when Skinner asked the question “What does Universalism demand of us in this life?” he got to some things I find worthy of holding up. 

Universalism, he insisted, call on us to fight the perpetuation of racism. In his 1945 work “A Religion for Greatness,” he wrote that racism is based in selfishness, superstition, and distortion. “If we ‘see life steadily and see it whole,’” he wrote, “we can appreciate all the parts. the part becomes misunderstood only when we see it without relationships, as an end in itself.” Each race, each culture, each difference in humanity, he wrote “has its own genius and each may contribute to a life that is ‘rounded, divine, [and] complete.’”

I believe it is our call to once again make our faith a radical, prophetic, challenge to the way things are. It is time to reclaim our place as the wild heretics pushing society forward, pushing theology forward, pushing humanity forward. It is time to re-think the powerful love our ancestors believed awaited them when they died as a powerful love available to us in the present, while we live.

I believe it’s time to re-think our theology of Universal salvation as a theology of universal liberation, right here.

I believe it’s time for Universalists to claim the radical, powerful love that our ancestors once attributed to God as a possibility of humanity.

Not as an automatic of humanity—we all know that real evil exists in our world, and that systems created by humans perpetuate evil daily—but as a possibility. Which makes our call, as Universalists, making it happen.

In 1915, ten years into his ministry and two decades before he became a professor at Tufts, Clarence Skinner published “The Social Implications of Universalism.” Here’s some of the non-problematic part of what he wrote:

“Universalism was born out of the new humanity; it is the gospel of the new heaven and the new earth. It throbs with hope. It was part of the great world movement to reinterpret life in terms of a regenerated, buoyant, self assertive human nature. Universalism believes in the world and in its potential goodness. It repudiates the gloomy and disastrous outlook of the old anti-social theology. It is not frantically searching for an escape from life.”

He continues, “Only those theologies which frankly and persistently align themselves with the world, and openly champion its potential goodness, can logically enter the great reformation of the twentieth century. They alone believe that salvation comes in, by and through a saved world. This is social salvation. All others believe that salvation comes by escaping from a world which is inherently unsavable. That is the individualistic, anti-social, mediæval faith. Goethe once said that the ideal is not an escape from reality but a completion of it. The Universalist conception of religion is not that of an escape from reality, but that of the harmonious and spiritual development of all the elements of real life.”

How do we persistently align ourselves with the world? How do we openly champion the potential goodness in our midst? What is our call? It is the collective liberation of all of humanity.

And not just the spiritual liberation of all of humanity, but the physical and emotional liberation of humanity as well. These things cannot be separated.

As long as we are not naming the white supremacy culture in our midst and openly, explicitly, constantly working to dismantle it, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

As long as listening to the voices of those who have experienced marginalization and naming the ways in which racism is systematized in our society are somehow controversial things to do, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

As long as violent, extractive capitalist systems are allowed to make policy—to block action on climate change, to enact colonial foreign policies, to abrogate the bodily autonomy of people with uteruses, to let this deadly virus run rampant in communities of color and schools because we insist that certain adult bodies are needed to show up for work, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity. These evils exist because someone is making money off them, and their money is power in a society that falls short of the radical love that is possible in this world.

And as long as our siblings are locked behind bars, as long as their bodies are fuel for the fire of our prison-industrial system, as long as we insist that punishment by dehumanization is a necessary response to breaking laws, as long as our nation’s constitution allows a loophole in our abolition of slavery for incarcerated people, we are failing in our call to champion the goodness of humanity.

And let’s make no mistake—the systems of injustice that I’m talking about today, these systems are using the very beings—the bodies and the spirits—of black people, indigenous people, people of color, of poor people, of disabled people, of queer people, of women and transgender people, as fuel for the creation of wealth for a very small number of folks.  

Let me repeat that—the very bodies of those who are marginalized in so many ways around the world are being used as fuel. Our systems dehumanize people and then turn them into commodities to be used.

As surely as the fires of hell that John Murray rejected burned, human systems of evil burn. 

And so it is our call as Universalists to reject that fire consuming our siblings.

It is our call as Universalists to amplify the radical, powerful love that we know humanity is capable of.

It is our call as Universalists to work for the liberation of all of humanity—for the spiritual emancipation that Clarence Skinner wrote of in 1915 as well as the physical emancipation so desperately needed in 2021.

“Light the fuse,” Skinner wrote, “and the fire will reach the bomb.” It is time to set off a love bomb on our world. It is time to act like we are worthy of the God of John Murray and Hosea Ballou, the God of Olympia Brown and Joseph Jordan, the God of Gloster Dalton and Amy Scott. Like we are worthy to call ourselves inheritors of a faith in which all are saved, in which all are free, in which all are loved.

It is time for us to practice radical, powerful, life-saving love. Liberation and salvation. Right here. Right now. Over and over again.

About a decade ago, my husband and I traded in our old cell phones for iPhones, a move that heralded a subtle but profound change in our lives.

You see, wherever we go, we have instant access to the internet in our pockets. With Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Movie Database and other sites at our fingertips at all times, most questions that come up in conversation can be answered in a matter of minutes. Our shorthand for this phenomenon is “no mysteries.”

There are many fewer mysteries in our lives since this technology attached itself to our hips. And that’s not always a good thing.

You see, I love mystery.

I love being surrounded by the unknown and the unknowable.

I love living in a universe whose known parts are dwarfed by the immensity and vastness of those parts yet to be discovered.

I love being a human whose knowledge is just deep enough to reveal all of the things I do not know and never will.

As a child, I devoured mystery books by the dozens, graduating quickly from The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew to Agatha Christie and beyond. I was invariably upset at the end when everything was tied together neatly.

What makes a good novel, I guess, isn’t the stuff of real life, in which the right answers are, more often than not, never known. I’m pretty sure there’s not a single book in which Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple gathered people together at the end and pronounced “I haven’t the foggiest idea who did it.”

Now that would be a mystery. And I’d love it.

I knew I had found the right college for me when the essay I was asked to write was to ponder “a question with no provable answer.” I should have re-examined my intended major, though, when I wrote my es say on belief in God—it would have saved me lots of time wandering in the desert of cell biology.

I became a scientist not because I thought it would be a way to find answers, but because it was a field based on questions.

I loved asking questions, probing their depths, removing successive layers of ignorance to reveal deeper and more numerous questions at every turn.

PHOTO BY AARON BURDEN ON UNSPLASH

I loved the mysteries of science. I loved making guesses at the unprovable, amassing evidence for the unseeable, moving deeper into the unthinkable, and asking more questions than I ever answered.

I loved contributing to the mystery of the universe.

Ultimately, the mysteries of science weren’t enough for me, though. I moved on to being part of a greater mystery, a greater question: What is the purpose of our existence?

I know that there will never be an answer to that question that satisfies me. Rather than turning me off from the pursuit, though, it ignites my love, my passion, and my drive.  I am energized and fed by the pursuit of unprovable knowledge—I am inspired to pay closer attention to all that I experience, lest I miss a clue, a path to the ultimate or an experience of the true.

I love mystery, and I love thinking that there is an unknowable love that surrounds us all—a love that can be sensed, but whose source remains beyond our comprehension.

It is this mysterious love that drives my ministry and asks me to seek connections with all the beings with whom I share this universe.

In their 1991 song “Mysterious Ways,” the group U2 sang of love that came from an unknown and unknowable source. Their song has the added bonus for me of mysterious meaning: people have debated for almost 30 years whether the song is about love between two humans or the love of God, referred to in the feminine. The band members aren’t saying. Good for them.

In that song, they sing:

One day you’ll look back,
and you’ll see
Where you were held now by
this love.
While you could stand there,
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling.

That mysterious love holds us now—and yet we have no idea where it comes from. One day, it might be clear, but for now, just go with it. Just feel it, just kneel before it and make yourself humble in its presence. Wherever it comes from, whatever it means, whoever or whatever is its ultimate source—just let the love surround you.

It’s all right, they conclude, she moves in mysterious ways.

REV. DR. MICHAEL TINO 
Lead Ministry Team, Church of the Larger Fellowship

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

—Taoist philosopher, Lao-Tse, sixth  century BCE

PHOTO BY JUNE WONG ON UNSPLASH

Philosophers and theologians throughout the ages have pondered the roots of peace, and have come to the conclusion that peace between and among people is not possible without smaller bits of peace, especially peace within oneself. “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me,” the popular song goes.

Peace within oneself is the challenge of centering: How do we center ourselves? How do we go within and cultivate peace?

Many people turn to spiritual practices to do this. Spiritual practices are regular things that we do that connect us with something greater than ourselves, and there is not one right way for everyone to engage in them. We each need to figure out what it is that gives us that feeling of inner peace, of centering.

But the trick to spiritual practice is doing it regularly, and if we’re already overwhelmed by the world or our circumstances, one more thing to add to our day is just one more thing to knock us off of our center, one more thing to cause anxiety instead of cultivating peace.

I have begun to think about this differently.

Instead of carving out twenty minutes to sit in meditation, or an hour to walk a labyrinth every day, I find moments of spiritual centering throughout the day.

In giving advice to people in caring professions about cultivating peace and centering themselves, psychologist Ashley Davis Bush writes about “micro-practices,” one-moment-long glimpses of peace and mindfulness. Bush encourages people to fit them in throughout the day—in the pauses and cracks around other things, with no pressure or timeline or necessary outcome.

Take a breath. Notice how the air moves in and out of your body. Just one long, slow, deliberate breath.

Drink a glass of water. Feel it fill your body and think about how you will absorb that water.

Take just a moment and visualize in your mind something that makes you feel happy, or calm, or connected, or grounded. Choose an image and come back to it­—just for a few seconds—throughout the day.

Choose a few words to guide you, and repeat them in your mind every now and then, whenever you’re feeling unmoored. “I am grounded,” perhaps, or “I am loved.”

Spend a moment acknowledging the difficulties in your life right now. They are real. You are real. Your pain is real, too, but it does not own you.

Find a way—a small way—every day to connect to another person. Write a letter to your pen pal. Smile at a friend, or if it’s safe to do so, a stranger. Help someone out. Cultivate the knowledge that you are not alone in this world.

Think of something you’re thankful for. Take just a moment to feel gratitude.

Say something kind to yourself.

These practices don’t need to be long—ideally they’re just a minute, a moment, a breath. And they are all ways to connect to our center, to cultivate peace within our hearts, and to connect to something beyond our individual being.

Let peace begin with you. Let peace begin in your heart. Find your center, a little bit at a time.