St. John's

At the very first meeting of this class, Jim(ster) imparted upon us the reason he became a Methodist: he was late for Unitarian service on the same day. Most of us laughed, and I know that I joked with Jim for a few days, telling him that his was the worst excuse ever.

After sitting through an hour and fifteen minutes of the craziest service ever, I’ve come to the conclusion that this must, in fact, be a very common excuse. Universal Unitarianism is about the most wishy-washy faith I’ve ever sat in on, and wound up being the complete and total opposite of my expectations.

Jim hyped the services of being arts-centric, and to a large degree, it is. Walking into their “sanctuary,” if you ignore the weird man assigned to be this week’s greeter, you notice an art gallery. Going into the actual gathering space, there isn’t any overbearing stained glass, just simple origami, some embroidery on an unused table, and some floral arrangements. A professional accompanist played “Funeral March of the Marionette.” Fantastic. Then the children came out and paraded around the seats in store bought Halloween costumes before being whisked back to the basement for Religious Exploration Class or some cultish thing. Less fantastic.

The leader, Rev. Frank Carpenter, asked us what our favorite costume was, and I noted how the quality of Darth Vader costumes had gone down since I was a kid. A few of the more friendly denizens of the gathering hunted Bill and I out, because we had nametags designating us as new. They all encouraged us to come back next week, and to stay after the service for cookies and coffee, one of them even emphatically stating that it sounded like a whole meal…and not just cookies.

If Bill and I had thought about staying, it was quickly dispelled. I have nothing against Alice Walker, nothing against the Earth Charter, and nothing against people asking me to send positive energy to cancer patients. It’s all well and good. More awesome music was played, and a good chunk of the Gospel of Mark was read.

Then we went to the psalms. I don’t remember both of them, suffice to say that one was influenced by Native American songs. Fitting, considering that the Hopi Indians were brought up several times, but it was hard not to laugh at a group of 45-55 year old white people chanting “hey-ya, hey-ya, ho-ya,” laughing themselves, and continuing as if they knew the whole exercise was futile.

The highlight of the morning was Rev. Carpenter’s speech, wherein we learn that the words of the Bible were cultural buzzwords. “THIS IS MY SON, WHOM I LOVE,” (typed in caps to convey the awesome power of God) really meant that “we’re in the midst of a really awesome paradigm shift.” The question was weather or not we would cling to the shore of familiarity or allow ourselves to be swept up in this awesome torrent of change. I think as somebody who used to give speeches, I found the correlation kind of funny: when caught in the awesome torrent of anything remotely close to water, clinging to the sides tends to be preferable to going with the flow and drowning.

I got his point though: humanity needs to change in order to survive. The ways of the world are changing, and we need to change with them. To punctuate this, Chopin’s “Marche Funebre” was played…the funeral march for those of you who are unfamiliar. The song finished and Bill and I scurried away before anybody could force us into eating cookies and drinking coffee until the Rapture.

I suppose you could say I was bitterly disappointed with the experience. I was really looking forward to going to this place, but was completely put off by the non-committal attitude of many of the members. Global warming was bad. Possible extinction was bad. But hey…we’re in the midst of a really awesome paradigm shift!

I was looking forward to an art-centric service, but I really fail to see what purpose it served in the end. I suppose that the term “Universal Unitarian” means that you accept all faith backgrounds, but when you try to squeeze it all in while stripping the overarching moral tones in favor of corporate buzzwords, something gets lost in translation.

I went in looking for a spiritual experience, but it just didn’t pan out.

Also, why is a Unitarian place of gathering named after a saint?

St. John's Unitarian Universalist

I recently had a three week fling with a non-practicing Unitarian Universalist and agreed with him for the most part on the subject of theology. Therefore, it seemed almost natural to want to attend a UU worship service. After much careful selection between the two UU churches that Jim offered for us to visit, Mr. Paul Rodgers and I selected St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church on the basis of it having 11:00 rather than 10:30 services.

We pulled up to the church at about 20 minutes early, took a deep breath, and went in. Upon entering the door we were greeted eagerly by Howard, the official greeter for the week. Howard gave us each a name tag to fill out and then wear. He also presented a brief orientation to the church and its services. We entered into the sanctuary and sat down. I noticed a long the outside wall there were beautiful peace cranes made out of all different colored and strung across the windows. The Order of Service revealed that these peace cranes are to serve as a reminder to all visitors on the necessity of promoting peace in the world.

The service began with announcements about the church that did not make it to the bulletin. Then a beautiful rendition of Gounod's “Funeral March of a Marionette” was played on the piano while the children of the church paraded around in Halloween costumes before heading downstairs for Religious Exploration classes. The minister than suggested to the congregation that they take the time to introduce themselves to someone knew and discuss what their favorite costume was. I was instantly greeted by some of the regulars and was told to keep coming.

The service proper than began with the lighting of a large chalice in the front of the sanctuary. A hymn was sung out of their hymnal Singing the Living Tradition. Then as an affirmation, the preamble to The Earth Charter was read in unison. At this point, the minister read “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For” by Alice Walker. There was then an activity called “Wheel of Lie” which the order of service accurately describes as “A time to share a personal joy or sorrow from the past week.” It was at this point I learned that Unitarian Universalists have many different beliefs. Some ask for prayers to send to friends and family and others ask for positive thoughts to be sent their way.

At this point, the minister lead a meditation and suggested that congregation meditated on pure happiness. The point of this activity was to become purely happy. They then went into a traditional reading of Mark 1. The sermon that was delivered was entitled “Committing to the Future.” The main idea of it was that we need to commit to the future and fix the issue of global warming. He interpreted Jesus saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” more as “We're in the midst of an awesome paradigm shift.” This helped him adapt the Gospel of Mark to talk about how religion is experiencing a paradigm shift back into focusing on nature.

The service than closed with a hmyn, benediction, postlude, and then extinguishing the flame. I wasn't really that impressed with their service and was very glad to be back at home in a Christian service at 9:00 mass on Sunday night. This experience did the impossible, it made a radical protestant like me feel at home during a Roman Catholic mass.