I’ve known the song Spirit of Life by heart for longer than I can remember.
Spirit of life, come unto me.
Sing in my heart all the stirrings of compassion.
Blow in the wind, rise in the sea.
Move in the hand, giving life the shape of justice.
Roots hold me close, wings set me free.
Spirit of life, come to me, come to me.
Carolyn McDade, who wrote the song, tells the story of where it came from. I had heard through the grapevine that McDade wasn’t happy with the way that we often sing it, that it isn’t about celebration, it isn’t about triumph. If you listen to the words, you can hear that: it’s a request, a need, a longing. And when she was asked to tell the story, here’s what she said.
She was coming home from a meeting about Central America—this in the early 80s, when the US government was supplying arms to oppressive regimes, when people, including nuns and priests and activists were being massacred. She was coming home from a meeting, as she had done so many times as a life-long activist. The reporter Kimberly French records it:
What McDade remembers most clearly was the feeling she had. “When I got to Pat’s house, I told her, ‘I feel like a piece of dried cardboard that has lain in the attic for years. Just open wide the door, and I’ll be dust.’ I was tired, not with my community but with the world. She just sat with me, and I loved her for sitting with me.”
McDade then drove to her own home in Newtonville. “I walked through my house in the dark, found my piano, and that was my prayer:
May I not drop out. It was not written, but prayed. I knew more than anything that I wanted to continue in faith with the movement.”
Spirit of life, come unto me.
It’s a prayer, a longing. It comes out of that place of feeling like a piece of dried cardboard, of feeling tired, empty, spent. That we cannot carry the load by ourselves for one more minute.
We yearn. We yearn for renewal because sometimes we feel like a piece of dried cardboard. We need renewal: a renewal of faith, a renewal of hope, a renewal of joy. I’ll tell you that lately I’ve been right there—dried cardboard, ready to be blown away.
Sometimes the candle is burning low. Sometimes it goes out. Parts of my life are good, and parts are really hard. There are parts of this work of ministry, this calling, that I deeply love, and there are parts that feel like slogging through a swamp. Like Carolyn McDade, sometimes I come home from the meeting on this or that, and feel like What was the point of that? The world’s problems seem so huge, and I’m just one person, and a tired one at that.
I’m yearning for renewal, and I’m feeling like dried cardboard. We’ve all had those dried cardboard moments, haven’t we? Stretched too thin, with no more tears to fall, because we’ve used them all up? Frustrated by the injustice of the world and despairing about how to fix it?
Yearning. And we reach for a language of that yearning, that longing for renewal. And, because we are Unitarian Universalists, because we know that language points to the mystery but isn’t the mystery itself, because we are suspicious of creeds and easy answers, this is complicated.
We want to be healed by some ancient ministry of stars, but language is tricky. For a long time we just avoided the subject all together. We didn’t talk about it; or, we spoke about it in psychological terms and not spiritual ones. We spoke about justice, but less about how to cultivate the spiritual resources necessary to stay at the work over the long haul, when things didn’t go according to plan. Sometimes we even dismissed this yearning as juvenile, something we had grown out of.
But that began to change a while ago. Partly, it was women like Carolyn McDade and others, who gathered to offer each other healing and comfort and solidarity, who expressed their yearning for the spirit of life, lived in community with one another. They kept their language open-ended, and focused on the heart. Others among us resurrected the old Universalist story of a God of love and mercy for all people everywhere, who loves us without needing us to be perfect.
As the culture has become more secular, the folks who come now to church don’t come for psychology—there are plenty of therapists to choose from, after all—they come for something deeper, something, dare we say, religious. Spiritual at least.
Some 15 years ago Rev. Bill Sinkford, then president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, said we needed a “language of reverence.” He talked about his own long night in the hospital with his son, and how he reached for that language of yearning, and prayed—with open-ended language, but prayer to God—without apology. He was, by the very act of speaking of the yearning in his heart, renewed.
And he encouraged us, whatever our understanding of the holy, the sacred, the ultimate, to cultivate a language of reverence—a sense of mystery, humility, wonder and hope in how we spoke about and experienced our lives. A language of poetry.
There was a huge controversy at the time; folks thought he was saying we all had to say God, but that’s not what he meant. And when things settled down, it began to happen. Naturalistic atheists spoke about the sense of wonder and awe and community they felt when they stood upon the shore, under the stars.
The theists among us spoke of the love of God, how they prayed and yearned and felt that presence in their heart. Unitarian Universalists who were following the paths of Buddhism, Paganism, Islam and other wisdom ways of being in the world began to speak about their own languages of reverence: their yearnings for wholeness and healing and hope, their feeling of being dried cardboard, sometimes, and needing the spirit of life—however understood—to come unto them.
I’ve been feeling like dried cardboard, but I know that renewal will come. In time; you can’t force it. I know some of the things I need to do to set the stage. Reaching out to friends is one of them. Singing, that’s essential. I need to take Sabbaths. It’s really important to have that quiet, Sabbath time, because in the midst of a complicated life, when time is running down and urging us on, we need to put away our phones and lie on the hammock, and let Sabbath time renew us. We need to get out into nature and let water, sky and earth renew us for the journey, And I need to pray. To express my yearning, in the language of poetry and metaphor.
In time, renewal of the spirit, renewal of faith, will come. It was this kind of thing that we Unitarian Universalists began to talk about as part of the conversation about the language of reverence: our yearning, and our experiences of renewal.
We yearn, we seek, we long to be connected and renewed and inspired—and it’s right here. The holy isn’t gone from the world, it’s everywhere. Miracles happen every moment, if we open our hearts and minds—our friends, music, Sabbath time, nature, poetry—these things are each a sacrament, a sign of the holy in the world. In the beloved words of UU musician Peter Mayer, “Everything is holy now.”
I know there are moments that don’t feel like that, and suffering, pain and injustice are real. But even in these hard places there is holiness, there is compassion and solidarity and mercy and truth.
I may feel like a dried-up piece of cardboard right now, but these practices of holiness, of sacrament, have carried me through the journey before, and I know they will again. It’s the journey Bill Sinkford made from his son’s hospital room to the pulpit. It’s the journey Carolyn McDade made from the meeting about Central America to the piano. It’s the journey I’ve seen so many people make in their own lives, from a place of trouble and sorrow to a place of hope, solace and peace.
Each spring we celebrate renewal, as life comes back, but there really isn’t any seasonal limit on renewal. Open yourself to be renewed. Open your heart to all that is holy everywhere, every-now. Open yourself to life and love, even in your sorrow and grief, your fear and pain, for this too shall pass, and life is a gift, not a project. The Holy is here, is now, however you see it and feel it and name it— right here—so trust it will come.
And when it does, rejoice and be glad, and share your good news in this world which needs more than ever to be renewed as well.
Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110131244/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_04/01.mp3
There’s a difference between ambivalence and paradox. In ambivalence, we are torn – our feelings conflict. In paradox, we accept and admit our own tensions - our feelings generate creative energy from the dynamic of opposites. (Sarah York, Unitarian Universalist minister)
Feeling good about today's Temple of Horus for #godauction at Gaia Community Unitarian Universalist! Time to get my head in the game for Aspecting pic.twitter.com/NEQHH6XT4y
Being a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and a former (technically) seminarian: how both white liberals and white conservatives manage to apply the same White Wash to diversity, particularly in religion, spirituality, philosophy, and ethics, both academically and practically.
“Our Unitarian Universalist values call us to respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person. So, it’s a matter of integrity — to act in alignment with who we say we are.” (from the article) https://twitter.com/Derekunit/status/1146067788080930816 …
At some point—no later than 1976, possibly as early as the 1950s—two men came to the Buddhist Church of San Francisco and asked the minister to conduct a wedding ceremony. He agreed. (The Unitarian Universalist church in SF, for context, started conducting them in 1958.)
Have a great day at Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. From co-religionists across the Atlantic in the county of Suffolk, England. #UUGA
Unitarian Universalist activism training in the USA..... https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1140026802968125440 …
I got turned onto him in grad school and then wrote a weird paper about him and Unitarian Universalist phenomenology or some weird shit. #ProjectiveVerse
I'm a Unitarian Universalist. Some in our Fellowship believe in Jesus. Some are Jewish. Some are Atheists. We even have a Buddhist monk. All are welcome. Truly.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I aspire to be... but Northeastern Wisconsin does not offer many chances to call out racism, being mostly European. But I call out Trump whenever possible.
Pete Seeger was of course a committed #Unitarian Universalist. We interviewed him for a Unitarian magazine that I co-edited not long before his death. He complained that fellow Unitarians are bad hymn singers because they're always checking to see if they agree with the words....
Peter Seeger was a Unitarian Universalist of course :-)
Liberal churches like Unitarian Universalist #UU and secular churches like the Washington Ethical Society provide vital community infrastructure w/o promoting a right-wing agenda. These institutions are lacking in rural villages and the vacuum creates opportunities for
Speaking as a Unitarian Universalist who is somewhat atheist, but all humanist, leave it up... People can pray if they want, offer up thoughts if they want. Everyone can empathize. If they criticize, ignore. Take the good thoughts, leave the bad. I'm sorry for what's happening.
Check out a Unitarian Universalist jam. NO dogma, no Jesus, no god if you prefer it that way. (Atheist here and I love the peeps at my spot) Shit, I even belt out the 5-fold amen at the end. Community is really important. Good luck!
I don't have one, but want a flaming chalice tat, to go with my Unitarian Universalist beliefs. Maybe on my wrist.
We send Christmas good wishes to all Unitarians and #UU congregations in #Canada, and the #USA - from our two congregations in the county of Suffolk, in the East of England. May Unitarian values of the worth of *every person* prevail in 2019. #peace #love #goodwill #justice #hopepic.twitter.com/hBEDULL43o
Beacon Press is an imprint of the Unitarian Universalist Association..... https://twitter.com/BeaconPressBks/status/1073241835722694657 …
The yellow stoles you see are worn by Unitarian Universalist ministers...…. https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1072858108374982656 …
President of the Unitarian Universalist Association (USA) with other faith leaders at the USA-Mexico border opposing the politics of hate. Arrests of clergy then took place, as reported in today's Guardian newspaper. https://twitter.com/sfrederickgray/status/1072491654727254016 …
If only Sean Hannity knew how many of those white steeple churches in Massachusetts are Unitarian Universalist churches that don’t necessarily believe in Jesus at all https://twitter.com/seanhannity/status/1070508123356577792 …
I turn to you to renew my life I turn to the world, the streets of the city.... Personal things in the bag lady’s cart Rage and pain in the faces that turn from me Afraid of their own inner worlds. This common world I love anew..... (Thandeka, Unitarian Universalist theologian) pic.twitter.com/6biDM6z2mV
Beacon Press is an imprint of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, USA...... https://twitter.com/BeaconPressBks/status/1061254148358881285 …
Comment from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (USA).... https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1060216588996132864 …
Dear Dr Mason, British Unitarians are praying that sanity, compassion and justice- seeking prevail in today's midterms in the USA. Our thoughts are with Unitarian Universalist congregations and the USA in general in these troubling times. (Rev Matthew Smith) #Midterms
"Web needs more #love" not hate. British-born Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee is a #Unitarian Universalist and this BBC article today reflects Unitarian values.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46071883 …
The Unitarian/Unitarian Universalist community is represented at the World's Parliament of Religions taking place in Toronto right now..... https://twitter.com/ICUUinfo/status/1058413809486970885 …
From the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.... https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1057293296677122053 …
Comment from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1057016744408162305 …
The safest religion now must be Unitarian Universalist. A religiously-biased gunman wouldn’t know whom to shoot.
Comment from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee... https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1055584118602391553 …
Comment from the Unitarian Universalist Association in the USA #BelieveSurvivors #BelieveWomen https://twitter.com/UUWorld/status/1048731825487667205 …
Comment from the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of the USA.... https://twitter.com/sfrederickgray/status/1048228806098673664 …
We agree with Larry the Unitarian Universalist about this.... https://twitter.com/LarryLaddUU/status/1047813718963376128 …
Unitarian Universalist, which means I make it up as I go along. Though I'd say I'm Unitarian Universalist Christian with some leanings toward Theravada Buddhism and religious humanism, even though I am no humanist.
President of the #Unitarian Universalist Association of the USA, the Rev Susan Frederick-Gray, outside the Supreme Court with other protestors today...... https://twitter.com/sfrederickgray/status/1045287989780377600 …
In our faith we believe women. Comment below from the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association in the USA. https://twitter.com/UUWorld/status/1045319705957937152 …
Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.... https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1041003422055579650 …
It's Primary Election Day! At the Unitarian Universalist Church on Elmwood Avenue awaiting the arrival of Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul as she makes her stops around WNY. @NewsRadio930pic.twitter.com/vihowuMLyl
Message from the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association. https://twitter.com/sfrederickgray/status/1040197140063166464 …
Just looked Mike and there appear to be about 36 Unitarian Universalist congregations in North and South Carolina.....
Beacon Press titles are published under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association in the USA..... https://twitter.com/BeaconPressBks/status/1038046224799158272 …
Comment from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) - USA https://twitter.com/UUSC/status/1036560709021261825 …
We're looking forward to seedballing next Sunday with the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City! Their... http://fb.me/xyFX8Riz
We're looking forward to seedballing next Sunday with the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City! Their... http://fb.me/xyFX8Riz
Crys Matthews has a show on 03/04/2017 at 07:30 PM @ Unitarian Universalist C... in Media, PA https://www.reverbnation.com/q/6vie0r #concert
Crys Matthews has a show on 03/04/2017 at 07:30 PM @ Unitarian Universalist C... in Media, PA https://www.reverbnation.com/q/6vie0r #concert
G'mornin'! — attending Worship: Reflections on the Women's March at Foothills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship http://fb.me/3tdJdE87k
G'mornin'! — attending Worship: Reflections on the Women's March at Foothills Unitarian Universalist Fellowship http://fb.me/3tdJdE87k