The Mysticism of William C. Gannett

I've been reading some material on the Western Unitarian controversy of the 1880s. This was an earlier reprise of the questions "what is the center of our movement?" and "what falls outside our movement?". I've read a handful of papers and tracts from the period, most of them dry, almost legal briefs, ponderously rationally laying out arguments. I expected the same of Gannett's writing, only more so, as he was part of the radical element, the sort of proto-humanists who were leaving behind much of the Christian aspects of Unitarianism. I was wrong. I could read him with my heart.

Gannett speaks of religion as the "inner central fact of the soul's life -- the sense of aspiration for unfulfillable ideals, the lightning flash of indignation against strong-handed wrong, and the white glow of reverence for the martyr... and that mystic working of spiritual elements in us which gives cheer in trial, quiet in sorrow, patience in strain...." Then this, which seems to anticipate process theology: "God-becoming within atom-limits is the imperious and blessed condition of God-realizing". Wow. "Is this Power working thus within us, Love or is it Lover?" I'm going to be pondering this for a while.

Gannett served Unity Church from 1877 to 1883. This was before the congregation moved to its present building, so his ghost is not in the physical structure. But I'm sure he lives on in the interior spiritual life of the congregation that is Unity Church.

Corn and Grass

I just returned from a couple days at a ministerial retreat at Shalom Center, a retreat center for ministers founded on an old farm in southwestern Minnesota. The center was designed to have a light footprint on the earth, with buildings set in the hillside that require minimal heat or cooling, emphasis on locally grown food for meals, a wind power plant, and surrounded by land that is being returned to prairie.

I was able to walk for a couple hours on the prairie and enjoy some time in nature and away from others. The ecological connections were palpable, the spirit of the land hung in the air. It was hard not to hear the whispers of Aldo Leopold or Wendel Berry in this place. And yet across the way corn was being mowed down by a combine, most likely to be processed into ethanol, the current speculative market expansion scheme of agribusiness. The giant machine whirred along, casting a cloud of dust, with headlights on, working well into the night. It would be easy to hate the corn and love the grass, but I know it is so much more complicated than that.

Belonging and Believing

One of our board members loaned me the book "Growing an Engaged Church" by Albert L. Winseman, a Gallup researcher. While I've become much more attached to narrative and story, my inner quant does love good data and good analysis, which Winseman provides. His data suggests that people choose to become involved in a church (or any group) when they can answer affirmatively two questions: "Am I valued?" and "Do I make a meaningful contribution?". People turn this involvement into engagement because they see clear and relevant answers to these four questions: "What do I get?", "What do I give?", "Do I belong?", "How can we grow?".

Winseman discovers a surprising thing: engagement drives spiritual commitment, not the other way around. "Belonging leads to believing", not "Believing leads to belonging", Winseman concludes. Unitarian Universalists in particular need to take note. While we claim to be non-creedal, we tussle with belief. So many of us come out of other faiths, often rejecting those old belief statements, and we come into this tradition with strong attitudes about belief. We get focused on believing (or unbelieving) and forget about the 'oh so ordinariness' of belonging. Rather that we would focus on how people can be with us, how they can belong, and less on talking about what we all should believe.

What a New Generation Thinks

Carol Howard Merritt over at Tribal Church pointed to an article "A New Generation Expresses Its Skepticism and Frustration With Christianity", which suggests that young people, ages 18-29, are increasingly dissatisfied with Christianity (defined broadly). The Barna Group, a marketing research group for churches, suggests this is not a passing fad; they claim to have longitudinal data that shows that this trend has been developing for at least ten years. A big part of this dissatisfaction is the association of Christianity with conservative values, especially homophobia. However, much of the reaction was based on people's "personal interactions with Christians or in churches" which often involved "truly ‘unChristian’ experiences."

So I wonder where Unitarian Universalism fits into all this? In general, our values stand in opposition to the ones the young people identified as unappealing in Christianity. The form of Christianity found within the UU movement, based strongly on the wisdom rather than the divinity of Jesus, might well be appealing to many of these people. Many of these young people should find our congregations to be attractive faith communities. But do we even welcome them in? I think we are learning to do this, in fits and starts, and this makes me very optimistic for the future of our movement.

Image from the Barna Group.

The Veil Becomes Thin

We are restarting our Elders program, which meets monthly in the daytime. From what I've learned from notes and discussions, the group has had a variety of formats over the years, from lectures and presentations to group discussions about specific topics. I understand the format this group enjoyed most was discussion about a topic close to their lives. One of the most successful topics last year was simply titled Mothers.

I've chosen a title for the October meeting, "The Veil Becomes Thin", and we will be invited to explore, in a time near All Souls Day, Halloween, and Dia De Los Muertos, our connections with ancestors and friends who have passed on. I hope, through facilitated discussion, we might go to interesting places with such a discussion. How are these people still present in you lives? What spiritual connections remain? How do they guide or affect your lives? I don't know this group, so I'm looking forward to this with an open curiosity and interest.

I read one piece of advice in an article on blogging: keep it short. They recommend under two paragraphs. So that's what I did today, then broke that rule by adding this paragraph! Which is what we're sometimes meant to do with rules.