Rev. Andrew Brown, minister at Cambridge (UK) Unitarian, has been translating Norbert Δapek, founder of the Czech Unitarian church, and close friend of Tomas Mazaryk, first president of Czechoslovakia. This was written in 1925 as both the country and the church were being organized.
This is a bit of UU history, and a statement of principles still relevant.
https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2024/12/let-us-fully-think-through-our.html
And Daowu says of this need to act, that it comes not through an interpretation of the image of the interdependent web, not through reading the Wealth of Nations, not through solid Marxist analysis, not through righteousness of any sort, certainly not righteous anger, a dreadful seducer beckoning us to a confusion of ends and means: but rather like someone turning in her sleep and reaching a hand behind her head to adjust her pillow.
Just this. Ends and means, one thing. Our interdependence and you and I, one thing.
It becomes our broken song. It acknowledges fully and without hesitation the cracks in everything. It remembers the call to Thanksgiving and Humiliation. It recalls the horrors of days. And endless failures. And it sees something else. Joys small and great. Beauty. Loves, small and great. In the very same place. At the very same time. Found as we loosen the death grip of our knowing and slip into the mysteries of not knowing.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind/2023/11/a-zen-meditation-on-our-american-thanksgiving.html
Rev. James Ford, UU minister and Zen teacher
The teacher who urges doctrines subversive to existing authority does not, if he is a liberal, advocate the establishment of a new authority even more tyrannical than the old. He advocates certain limits to the exercise of authority, and he wishes these limits to be observed not only when the authority would support a creed with which he disagrees but also when it would support one with which he is in complete agreement. I am, for my part, a believer in democracy, but I do not like a regime which makes belief in democracy compulsory.
"Sorrow is better than fear. Fear is a journey, a terrible journey, but sorrow is at least an arrival. When the storm threatens, a man is afraid for his house. But when the house is destroyed, there is something to do. About a storm he can do nothing, but he can rebuild a house." β Alan Paton
UU Doug Muder posted this quote today. I was disappointed several days ago when UUA posted some things in anticipation that were based more in fear than in rebuilding. I think we have gotten into power rather than trying to understand everyone's needs and fears. Eight years ago, we responded with fear and loathing. This time I hope we will respond with love and understanding for everyone, instead of condemning half of the country as foolish or evil.
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While he is talking about politics, I think it is also applicable to UUism, which is increasingly aligned with progressive ideology (and we embody the educational elite he describes - not religious group in the US but Hindus has more education or post-graduate degrees).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXptmBE3QFo
Ken Burns and Kristina Tippett, shared by a member of our congregation. At about 18:40, they start talking about the role of religion needing to be reclaimed, and I think that what UU has tried and failed to do in the last few decades, and still needs to, is in there somewhere.
I think we have a long road to figuring out, to summoning a kind of common moral vocabulary, not just for being religious, but for being alive, being human beings in this century. I will say that I have never in my lifetime felt that overtly theological language, or let's say spiritual technologies, that our great traditions have carried forward like contemplation, that those things have never been more relevant than they are before. Just language, like language which has practices attached, which is true of our, you know, lamentation, confession, repentance, redemption. Those are words and actions that come to us from this part of the human enterprise, nowhere else, and I see people reaching for those. I see young people reaching for what those things represent for, you know, being drawn to that language, being drawn to communities of service for example. Even without this upbringing, I think a lot, I have thought a lot in these recent years about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian. Bonhoeffer's situation was that, in Nazi Germany, the church had been absolutely co-opted by fascism. It had fallen away completely. And he began to speak of something called religionist Christianity. And what he was saying is that Christianity had brought truths into the world which would survive even if the institutions failed. And he said the institutions will always fail. I don't think you can make a one to one comparison of Bonhoeffer's Germany and 21st century America, but this notion of religionless Christianity or religionless religion feels resonant to me. And not just in the fact that we are religionless, you know, compared to previous generations, but what that means is that we are inside this project of looking again at what those truths are that we need, and those, really, those moral muscles, and again, those spiritual technologies.
There is also a transcript if like me you would rather read than listen.
http://revthandeka.org/todays-white-niggers-part-1
I had not seen this, from earlier this year, until just now, and have only read part 1 and part 10. She says some of what I have been trying to say in various comments, but much more powerfully.
A thoughtful post by Rev. Cynthia Cain. She gives some history and background; I would recommend following all the links, and the links from them.
From a link from a link:
"Racism is real. White privilege is real. Systematic white supremacy is real. But until we can all share our pain and our suffering and our imperfection with each other in compassionate and mindful ways, we are doomed to staying where we are. "
http://ajerseygirlinkentucky.blogspot.com/2019/06/why-you-should-read-gadfly-papers.html
WWUUD stream 