A Continuing UU Journey (February 18, 2007 by Paul Wright)
The opening words this morning came from Robert Frost, perhaps my favorite published poet. I’d like to read the last stanza one more time:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
“Two roads diverged” is really a metaphor for an entire life. We are constantly faced with new roads to take – a new job, new car, new cross country skis. And others like new loaf of bread, new bank account, new fishing lure. All of these, all of life’s myriad of decisions are really putting us on another road.
I love to read science fiction, and one interesting theory in physics and used a lot in science fiction is often called the many universes theory. One interpretation of this theory is that every time a decision is made – every possible choice is selected and a separate universe goes off with that decision.
Here’s a real example from my life:
After Kathy and I were married we jumped in our Nissan and drove to Alaska. About 10 miles into the state and an RV pulled out in front of us. Our Nissan was totaled – luckily we were not hurt very much. Going back in time from there – that morning we had camped in the Yukon Territory next to a group of German speaking people – in an RV. We got up for an early start but realized that we had locked the keys in the Nissan! It took quite a while before we decided to pop out a side window and gain access. While all of that was going on – the Germans left the campground. That put them ahead of us.
One more jump back – the previous day we had left Whitehorse with the idea of driving up to Dawson Creek. About 10 miles up the gravel road and we blew a trailer tire. We had a spare, but it wasn’t wise to continue without another. So we went back to Whitehorse, got another tire and gave up on Dawson Creek. Putting us in that campground next to the Germans that night.
It was a beautiful campground!
Every decision, whether it is a conscious or chosen by someone else, makes us who we are today. When I stop and think about it I am totally amazed by it all!
Sometimes I like to think that somewhere out there in an adjacent universe; there is another Paul (an infinite number!) who made all the correct decisions and is now the advisor to a totally peaceful, humanist world without pollution, without pain, without anything bad.
For the rest of us, in this universe, all of the decisions in our life have brought us to this point together today. It’s a pretty amazing concept and I could probably go on all day talking and discussing to potential of the theory. Let me go back to my topic.
My main purpose today is to relate to you how I got to be HERE today. Lots of experiences, lots of choices, but here nevertheless.
I plan to discuss a couple of what I consider to be distinct topics: my relationship with “church” and my relationship with “spirituality”
My first experience with religion was in the Congregational Church on the Green in Middleboro, MA. I can’t tell you if it was conservative or liberal, but probably not liberal. My parents were not very religious, and Sunday was pretty much the only day that I got to see my father because of his job. But in various stretches they sent my brothers and I off to Sunday School. This really started in 6th grade. I think that part of it was that my mom wanted the three boys out of the house for a while.
Anyway – I remember learning about Jesus and praying to God. But I never learned what I wanted to learn about. I can recall asking if everyone believes in God. My Sunday School teacher said “why would you ask that? Of course everyone does”. I asked: why did they kill Jesus? The answer was that he died for our sins. Q: But why did they kill him? A: He had to die to take away our sins. Q: but why KILL him? A: no answers
Congregational Church services are not designed for children. On a good week they would last a little more than and hour. But on communion Sunday it could go 2 ˝ hours! I used to envy my catholic friends who could be in and out in a half hour – and they could do it on Saturday! The length of the service did little to add to religion’s appeal.
My first experience with spirituality came from the little brook that ran behind my parent’s house. This was a very cold water stream with lots of brook trout – something pretty rare in eastern Massachusetts. I spent a lot of time in that brook. I wasn’t just playing – I was observing. I loved to fish, and caught a lot of those brookies – and at the urging of my elderly neighbor Mrs. Shurtleff I let most of them go. I observed closer too. I loved the mud on the bottom. I knew that there were crayfish. They were pretty obvious. I wanted to know what else. I found a couple of old white enamelized pans and used them to look closer. I put mud in one and water in the other. Then I carefully searched through the mud for everything there – all of the tiny crustaceans and insects – some not so tiny! And I transferred them to the other pan. I was amazed by the diversity – in the mud!
That was spiritual to me.
I didn’t just fish in that little brook – I fished whenever and wherever I could. Lakes, rivers, ponds. That was spiritual.
When I was about 14 I realized that I didn’t believe everything that was discussed at church. To me, it seemed that even if I disagreed with one thing, I should not be a part of it at all. I had another question: How could everyone in that church believe the same thing? With my doubts surfacing, I deduced that everyone was faking it – logically there was no way that they all believed – and practiced – everything that was preached. My sojourns in the brook and my fishing trips had turned me into a scientist. To my eyes there was no proof of anything in religion.
By the time I was 16, I realized that I did not believe in a god. That’s a pretty big step, and not one that you just come out and share with your parents. I said before that my parents were not strictly religious, but they did, and do, believe in God.
Then I was off to Northland College – a small liberal arts college in Northern Wisconsin. 1200 miles is a long way for an 18 year old. The drinking age was 18 then too. That added its’ own facet to my spiritual journey.
College brought a lot of new ideas, new experiences. For the first time I was exposed to others who did not believe in a god. And many of them were not afraid to share that information. That was pretty new.
Initially I studied biology. Life, in all its tiny details is an amazing topic to study. I learned about cells and their chemistry. About ecosystems and their relationships. And I learned about my place in those ecosystems and the environment as a whole. I learned more about evolution, and the rational development and progression of life.
Those experiences were also spiritual.
I also developed an interest in history. It had always been there – just pushed to the back behind the biology. Someone had challenged me in high school: how can you make money in history? But though the study of history I learned about religious war and conflict. I learned about war in the name of peace. I studied the history of religion and how it has changed over time. I was impressed and concerned by the amount of death in the name of God.
I studied philosophy and world religion’s – and I learned how closely related all religions really are. Many just slight differences of opinion, but enough differences to kill over. In my eyes they were all the same.
To me, a rational study of biology and history does not lend itself to a readiness to believe in religion.
I always had a love of music, and in college I was very involved in the choir. I loved to sing nearly all music. Sometimes it was difficult during the Christmas season – I was singing, but not believing what I was singing. Virgin birth, three wisemen, and a star are just not rational to me. But the music was, and is, spiritual – and beautiful.
In college I met Kathy. That was spiritual too. But it was through her that I first learned about faith. Faith is different to different people – but I certainly don’t have it. And at that point in my life it seemed totally illogical.
But despite my questions, examples and disbelief, Kathy has faith. To those of us without it, faith is really a challenge to understand. I think that I was beginning to understand that religion/faith/spirituality is different for each person. I still could not understand it – it just wasn’t rational to me. And that meant a lot.
In college I also discovered hunting, which allowed me the opportunity to roam the woods – with a purpose.
That was and continues to be spiritual.
I did have some challenges to my atheistic spirituality.
After college I took a position as a fisheries biologist in Alaska. Sounds pretty glorious - Alaska and fish – every fisherman’s dream. It really wasn’t glorious – it was hard, dirty and dangerous work. I went out on commercial fishing boats to monitor, count, sort, weigh and sample the fish that were caught. Has anyone seen the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch”? That’s pretty much it. Lots of fish, crab, wind and waves. The last two don’t go together with fishing boats.
They say that there are no atheists in fox holes. While I did not have the opportunity to serve in a fox hole, I did work in the Bering Sea – kind of a big, wet, fox hole. Toward the end of my first contract, the boat I was on got caught pretty far from land with a big storm coming up. We had to hang around a long time to pull in all of the fishing gear that we had laid out on the bottom. By the time it was all in, the waves were about 15 feet. We started to sail for the Pribilof Islands in the middle of the Bering Sea. Really just a couple of rocks with a lot of seals and sea lions. We were going against the wind – fishing boats have a top speed of about 10 knots or 12 mph. Pretty hard to move against the wind at that speed. The winds were blowing about 70 mph, and the waves kept getting bigger. Pretty soon they were over 25 feet. I was pretty worried – OK, scared. The skipper of the boat seemed to take it all in stride so I tried to stay calm. The waves got bigger – 30 feet. Then 35. It was impossible to do anything except lay in my bunk and hold on. Then one of the crew came around passing out survival suits – I already had mine available. He said not to get them out, but to be ready. Mine was out of the case, laid flat, and all opened up ready for me to climb in. At that point I faced my challenge. I pretty much figured that I had nothing to lose – so I prayed. I hadn’t done it in a very long time. I just knew that I didn’t want to be in that water, and who knows what might happen.
Sometimes, today, when I think of that time, I think more about the praying, and less about the fear and the waves. I haven’t prayed since.
I think that was religious? Maybe spiritual?
A science minded person could look at that and say: the odds were that it would all come out OK, and it did. End of story. Rational, logical.
The religious person might look at that as proof that there is a god. After all I prayed – and I stayed dry. End of story – give the credit to god.
For a long time the act of praying then bothered me a lot. It was as if I had purposefully gone against my non-belief. In that case my non-belief might actually be belief. I think it gets pretty confusing.
The following year Kathy and I were married. That was spiritual – and it happened in a Catholic Church.
I went to graduate school and studied a lot more history. I learned more about slavery, and women in history (not unrelated). I learned more about war – especially the US Civil War. I kept asking myself and others – How can there be a god if all of that is/was allowed?
If there is a god – who is an all powerful, omniscient, good god – why would all of the bad stuff in the world be allowed to happen?
There is of course the standard answer – people have free will. To my rational mind, this is an answer that has been created where there really is no answer. Pretty convenient.
Enough of my rant.
I drove an over the road truck for a couple of years. I learned a lot from that – and all that time alone was very spiritual.
Then came Ben, and Bethany. Still an absolutely amazing events in my life. The feeling of connection – with Kathy, with my family, with history – is strengthened, supported and enhanced through this act of reproduction.
Definitely spiritual.
Kathy and I had pretty much been at odds until that time over religion. She believed in god, Jesus Christ, and the Catholic Church. I believed nothing. God was made up, Jesus a teacher, and the Catholic church…
It was Kathy who looked for a way to get us all together spiritually. And this came in the form of the Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Washburn WI. I remember thinking – I don’t believe in anything, how can they believe what I believe? How can I accept what they believe? IT WAS A CHURCH! Something that I was completely opposed to – the very idea of “Church” made my skin crawl.
My only experience with a UU church came when I was in high school and I went to a UU church to sing with my high school choir. All I remembered was that it was the first church I had ever been in where they played a guitar.
That was spiritual.
Kathy took Ben (about 3 at the time) to their first UU service. It was their Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. She came home and told me about what had happened:
At a point in the service, the group was standing in a circle singing “We Shall Overcome”. On his own, Ben began to walk around the inside of the circle shaking everyone’s hand. People were crying with joy at what he was doing – looking them in the eye, deliberately shaking their hand.
I thought – wow. A place like that might be a place that I could go.
I couldn’t help wondering again, How can they all believe what I believe? How can I believe what they believe? How can we fit in?
And so we went, and shortly after we signed the book and became members of a church together – that was spiritual
I had another opportunity to learn about faith. My job required me to manage the food service at a summer camp each year. A new camp became available – managing the food service at a kosher Jewish camp. So I went to NY and learned about kosher, and I read a lot. And I went to camp to learn even more.
I learned that, at least the people in attendance there, were totally devoted to their belief. That is probably the first requirement of keeping a kosher kitchen. Otherwise, it would be just too easy to let it all go – the take the easy path. Faith in god, faith that they have chosen the correct path, faith in their religion. Lot’s of faith.
What I learned was that – even if I don’t understand it, it’s OK for other people to have faith. I don’t need to understand it. It’s their road – their choice. I can respect their faith. Even if it is not rational – to me.
And I learned the beauty of the UU church – it is not necessary to believe what everyone else believes. Everyone is able to create their own road. Or, as suggested earlier – every road is possible for our choice.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Thank you.