Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“Questions for the Minister”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
Questions for the Minister
Every year we have a sermon
based on questions that you have submitted to me. I am always amazed at the variety and depth
of the questions you ask and I enjoy the chance to respond in this special
way. Let us begin with a burning
question.
Why
are we here on Earth? In a related
question, another person asked, Is there an inherent purpose to our lives or
do we create it ourselves? What are your
thoughts?
Weeeell…, I never get the easy questions, do I?, like
what’s my favorite color – purple – or my favorite recent movie – “Little Miss
Sunshine” – noooo…, it’s the huge questions, which
burn brightly for everyone, for all time.
You realize, of course, that any answer I give will be inadequate, but I
will begin, and I hope that we will all continue attempting to answer these
questions throughout the rest of our lives.
Why
are we here? Perhaps we do have an
inherent purpose, and, we also create purposes for ourselves, so that we are
here to work out all of these purposes – to figure them out and to try to
unfold them in our lives. For me, an
inherent purpose is to love. I believe
we are all born to give and receive love, but then, I am a romantic. From a more rational, perhaps scientific view
on this issue, it seems that in order to survive, we are all born to grow,
change, learn, and work with our environment, certainly all challenging to our
spirits, but crucial to our lives, and perhaps inherently purposeful. However, it is in the unique way in which our
individual lives and our particular environments interact, that we find what
exactly are our personal purposes – a creative process
for us. For we can certainly survive if
we do a variety of things that are meaningful or at least useful, but we will
thrive if we do that which we are most called to do, that brings joy and
goodness to us and to our world. I
believe that the purposes we work out for ourselves should expand on the
inherent one of love – loving responses to the world by which we make this a
better place to be.
Is
Unitarian Universalism a religion? If
so, does it influence the world in the same manner as other religions?
Yes. Though some doubt it, Unitarian Universalism
is a religion. Not in some of the usual
senses of the word – we don’t all worship God, and we don’t have a systematized or
institutional set of beliefs or practices.
We are, however, a religion, in the oldest sense of that word – by being
bound together in a search for the universal, and well-being for all. Like other religions, we influence the world,
but we have always had a much greater and more positive affect than our size
would warrant, and not in a way that is imposing or compulsive, as can be true
of other religions. We have a great
regard for acceptance and truth and justice and we are willing to charge into
the world as a small band of people to bind our purposes together and make the
world a better place.
Does
our UU faith necessarily require belief in “something” – e.g. a “force”, a
“presence”, or “god” (for some)? What
would an atheist UU “believe” in, if anything?
Is there room for such a person?
Perhaps
the most difficult thing to understand about Unitarian Universalism from an
outside perspective is this question about the belief in God. Some folks out there don’t think that any of
us believe in God, which is not true. And
it’s equally false to assume that, because we look like a church from one’s
youth, that we all believe in
God. Others who know us a little bit can’t
imagine how any religion could have some who believe in God and some who do
not.
More
interesting to me is that we have such a variety of beliefs about God or the
ultimate force or the sacred or the holy or the spirit. We don’t just name many names, we have many
different definitions and experiences when it comes to what
is at the heart of our faith, and it crosses lines all the time. I remember one UU atheist from my intern church
who had a faith in the power of prayer, for example. Another UU I know feels herself to be both
Jewish and Pagan. I’ve heard a Humanist
minister speak who says he is an atheist, but sometimes talks about God because
he doesn’t have any better word for what he wants to say.
But
to get back to the question, we have no creedal test, no belief that must be
believed in order to be a Unitarian Universalist, and this includes any sense
of God. Some Unitarian Universalists use
the word God and believe a variety of different things. Some UUs are
uncomfortable with God-language, but resonate with talking about the sacred,
the holy, the spiritual, the universal.
They might talk about a “force” or a “presence” in their lives, or they
may talk about a universal connection or a greater power uniting and residing
in all, and this may be similar to a mystical theology heard in all religions,
or may seriously stretch the usual parameters of God-talk. Others don’t know what they believe and would
generally describe themselves as agnostics.
We are also a haven for many who are clear about their atheism, and
there aren’t many other religious homes for them. Some atheists don’t believe in anything more
than a material, physical understanding of the world, and that is just fine
with us. You’d have to ask atheists what
they believe, and you would undoubtedly find many answers and much to inspire.
Please
expand on the description of our community:
“people of many beliefs and one faith”.
Can we go beyond semantics? I
love this description of our community.
I don’t know where it came from – probably from this wise
question-asker, but it is apt and really captures something very true to say
that we are “people of many beliefs and one faith”. The ‘many beliefs’ part is easy. We have many beliefs about God or Spirit,
death, morality, and what makes for meaning, etc. We honor many religious traditions and come
through that diversity.
How
are we one faith? In the sense that we
are faithful one to the other and faithful to the larger vision of liberal
religion that is unfolding in our Unitarian Universalist tradition, we are one
faith. In the sense that we share values
such as acceptance, openness, compassion, justice, and integrity, we are one
faith. In the sense that we are together
on a religious journey of seeking, of hope and love, we are one faith. In the sense that we support and uplift each
other through all the jumble of our lives and through the complexities of
having many beliefs and practices, we are one faith. In the sense that we apply our highest
collective good for the ultimate good of the world, we are one faith uniting
one world.
As
a pacifist, how does one answer the question – well what about Hitler?
Some
of us are pacifists, followers of nonviolence – there’s a UU Peace Fellowship that
promotes this – but many of us do not take that ultimate step of profound faith
in the goodness of humanity and the hopefulness of peace. When people do, the question of whether they
would have used only non-violent means to stop even one as dangerous to the
world as Hitler is usually brought to them.
It doesn’t help that one of the great Christian pacifists of the 20th
century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was arrested,
imprisoned and died in Nazi Germany for supposedly plotting to kill Hitler – he
had likely changed his mind in light of the great suffering he watched his
people experience.
I
have struggled personally with this issue myself and I do believe that it is
possible to bring peace and justice to the world through non-violent means – I
believe it is probably the only way in this age of modern weaponry, which kills
massively and anonymously and unjustly.
I believe that war usually only makes things worse, and never fully removes
the evil it is opposing. And yet, I
haven’t been able to fully call myself a pacifist. I’m more like a seeking pacifist, or a
pacifist in formation, for about 30 years now.
We
are all confronted with evil happening in our name, against our good, though
not as intimately as people face evil in times of great oppression and
aggression, as happened in Nazi Germany.
But evil is a reality around us and we certainly do not kill in
order to stop that evil. We continue to
use structures of government and protest and our own clear heads and open
hearts to oppose evil. I believe these are
our most effective tools.
As
far as I understand, pacifists would say that even the horrendous evil
perpetuated by a Hitler could be contained, stopped, and transformed by the
united truth-force, soul-force, of a non-violent and very organized and
actively-seeking-the good large body of people.
I believe that – almost – I want to believe it, and I’m willing to work
to make it a reality, aren’t you?
What
does it take to become a successful minister, as you are, in a UU church? I’m asking a very general question, so treat
the question as a list of qualities need(ed) to become
a leader from most necessary qualities down to the least important.
A successful minister?
Thanks for the compliment. I am a
grateful minister, for any success is owed to all of us. Unitarian Universalist ministers go through a
rigorous process of preparation and examination and ongoing renewal in order to
enhance the qualities that make for a good minister. Just this past week, I was with other
ministers in our district, listening again to a presentation on clergy conduct
and misconduct. How timely – Rep. Foley,
in explaining his own misconduct, spoke of being abused by clergy in his past. We have a grave responsibility to the future –
our actions speak volumes because of our role and the way people see us, as
stand-ins for God or the Universal or Truth or Hope.
I
believe that the first quality that we ought to seek as ministers is humility,
which is not easy for people who are given a free pulpit every week, becoming
the center of attention. It takes a
continual return to humility to keep finding our footing in every area of
ministerial life. In order to believe we
still need to learn and grow, whether about how to make boundaries that prevent
us from clergy misconduct, how to meditate, how to improve our counseling or
preaching skills, how to better organize, or how to better understand a piece
of wisdom literature, we need humility.
Oddly,
the other extremely important quality for a good ministry is almost the
opposite of humility – it’s owning the ministry, knowing that you can lead and
be both prophetic and pastoral; it’s a deep assurance in yourself in this role
of minister. This is not easy. I remember considering the ministry but
thinking that there was no way I could be a leader, not in that way – I
couldn’t imagine that kind of self-assurance.
My UU minister at the time wisely counseled that the people I serve won’t
know any better and will believe that I am a leader, and will therefore call
forth the leadership qualities from me.
Ministers
need the qualities of humility and self-assurance for a good ministry, but
perhaps most of all, they need compassion.
Compassionate love is truly at the heart of ministry. After that, it would be good to have
wisdom. And patience
and good communication skills and a sense of fun. As long as I’m talking
about the ideal, how about deep faith, unending hope, sweet holiness, and
overflowing joy? Obviously, I am
still working on this project of being a good minister.
How
do you deal with the unending number of people who need financial and emotional
support? How do you say no when you
must?
Many
needs are met by many hands and hearts.
We have a caring congregation who puts compassion into action regularly. I used to run out of our budgeted outreach
funding half-way through the winter, and in the past have had to turn down many
requests for financial assistance, the ones which came from beyond the
congregation. Since establishing our
crisis fund, though, I have been able to respond from the abundance of this
congregation to every material need that has come to me, both from within and
beyond, and that is deeply satisfying, and you deserve much gratitude for your
collective kindness.
I am
moved by those who come for emotional support – they don’t want to be a burden
– mostly I have to assure people that it is okay – my time is your time. My time for pastoral care is time out of time
– holy time. I pray, I reflect, I try to
listen fully. I am far from perfect, however,
and sometimes actually quite obtuse, and so I am regularly very grateful that,
in this congregation, many hearts respond with compassion, and together we give
our support. If I needed to, I would
gently say no to any crossing of boundaries that would make our interactions
inappropriate, but that has not happened.
Together, we say yes to life, to hope, to love.
Is
there anything in your life that you would want to be appreciated for but
aren’t?
I
used to think about how sometimes the little, effortless things I did would
often receive great acclaim, while the huge boulder I was pushing uphill behind
the scenes was not even noticed – I bet you know what I mean. But I haven’t thought that in a long time. I believe that the ministry is fairly
transparent and so you see me laboring in the fields of this great and
marvelous service, and you are regularly so grateful that I cannot ever feel
want in that area. And I’m blessed to be
appreciated at home. I want to end with
appreciating you, which I don’t do often enough. You have taught me how to be marvelously
grateful, and I keep re-learning the lesson.
Thank you.