written as an email to my father in 2016 💌
I said something like the following to you yesterday in person, and you said you thought others might find it interesting and useful. So I’ve written it below. Feel free to share it with anyone you like, although please make sure that they have my email so that they can ask questions if they like.
I grew up in the Unitarian Universalist church. I attended Arlington Street Church in Boston for many years as a child, which I loved. I participated in their religious education programs, including Our Whole Lives, the sexuality education program. I found the programs in general enjoyable, interesting, and fun; the sexuality education program has been invaluable as I’ve matured into an adult. I’m grateful to have been raised U.U. The ethics and world views I received from that upbringing still seem basically good and useful to me, and have repeatedly proved their worth in my forays into the messy complexities of modern life.
Still, I don’t really attend U.U. services these days, and am not especially interested in changing that. This is because my spiritual life has taken a different direction than that afforded by the U.U. church. For most of my life, I have been an agnostic or atheist, something quite normal for the U.U. church.
But in recent years, I have become less identified with those labels. As I’ve said elsewhere, I sometimes find theistic language and metaphors inspiring and useful. But even identifying as a theist (which, you’ll note, the previous sentence does not necessitate) is not really the point. Certainly there are theists in the U.U. church, and certainly I would be welcomed as one. But the point is that I mainly identify as a mystic now.
Mysticism is the belief that it is possible for humans to directly experience God / the basis of this universe / the One / It. I practice meditation as a means to encountering the mystical aspect of human experience. I am inspired by many mystical traditions, especially Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Christianity. I also believe that meditation is useful and beneficial even outside of a religious or spiritual context.
Again, there are certainly mystics and meditators in the U.U. church, and certainly I would be welcomed as one. Most of the U.U. churches that I have sometimes attended in recent years have meditation or mindfulness practice groups and sanghas.
But, for me, there is not a basic orientation towards or understanding of mysticism in the U.U. church. Unitarian Universalism is derived from or associated with a fundamentally theistic religion, so there is by necessity an understanding of theism there. But mysticism in Christianity and other religions is the minority (albeit the source and core) of those traditions, and so it is not necessarily as well understood or appreciated. But it is, for me, the point of all this and to be uninformed or unappreciative of it is, well, missing the point.
I enjoy attending U.U. services, and appreciate meeting the people there. But I don’t feel the need or a desire to seek out a congregation. I am grateful to be living in a community of people who are practicing a mystical path daily, whether they conceptually understand mysticism or not. Understanding or approving the word is not the point. Practicing it is. This path takes hours, months, years of our lives. In one typical (Buddhist) formulation, we must learn to practice and realize morality, concentration, and insight.
Unitarian Universalists are fine with morality, although it is usually considered ethics (this is an intellectual point for me, not necessarily a substantive one), but, at least institutionally, have no conception of concentration or insight – let alone an appreciation or even realization of it.
Ultimately, I have learned and then later seen that this is a real path, that spirituality and contemplative practice are really referring to something real, and I am interested in spending my time practicing it, deepening it, realizing it. Community is important, but I would prefer to spend my time amongst people in a spiritual tradition with a majority of people who understand that this path is real, and something you practice, with effort, over years, rather than a minority.
There is no problem with Unitarian Universalism as such – it’s just not for me, at this stage in my spiritual quest. I would encourage Unitarian Universalists to keep doing what works for them, to enjoy the people they’ve met, and to keep doing the good work they’ve been inspired to do in the world because of that tradition. But it’s good to know, too, about mysticism and contemplative practice – that these are something we do, that are real, and are really headed somewhere.