Middlebury College has never officially indentified with a particular religion. In fact, non-religious students could spend all four years of college without witnessing or being involved in any event of religious worship. Despite fading into the ebb and flow of life on campus, most of the world’s spiritual or religious traditions do exist here and are practiced by a wide variety of students from diverse backgrounds.
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UU), which combines two traditions — the Unitarians and the Universalists — is a relatively young religion and has only been in existence for about 100 years. The Unitarians originally were Christians who did not believe in the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, while the Universalists originally were Christians who believed in the inevitable reconciliation of all members of the human race with God. After the two religions combined, it might have been expected that their religious creeds would meld together, too. But today’s UUs follow no religious creed at all. Without past scriptures and a fixed set of religious views, defining UU belief remains, even for congregants, a difficult concept and “a tough explanation,” said RJ Adler ’11.5, co-leader of the UU student organization at Middlebury. In an attempt to reach out to the student body, the UU student organization at Middlebury recently organized “Soulful Sundown,” a laid-back group meeting of campus UUs in an attempt to grapple with that exact question.
Defining UU faith in concrete terms is, in fact, impossible, as UU member Matt Sunderland ’11 explained.“If someone asks you, ‘what do Unitarian Universalists believe?’ it’s a trick question because you can’t say what Unitarian Universalists believe. You can only say what you believe as a Unitarian Universalist,” said Sunderland.
Adler echoes the same sentiment in his sermon on the nature of Unitarian Universalism.“The faith is personal because one person may accept this new idea that another person has and another person won’t accept the same idea into their own belief system,” he said.
Unitarian Universalism is not just a religion that caters to the individual; it is practiced individually, as well. “I meditate every day and feel a strong bond with divinity,” said UU member and Alexander Twilight Artist-in-Residence Francois Clemmons, “but don’t feel that it’s my ‘job’ to make everyone else do the same thing that I do. It’s just too personal.”
One would think that such a religion would make a congregant feel isolated, but this is not the case, for the spiritual journey of a Unitarian Universalist cannot be taken without the free exchange of ideas.
“I have found a community that’s made up of profoundly thoughtful atheists, Buddhists, former-practicing Jews, agnostics, those who follow Druid/feminine energies, and other naturalist variations … It’s a rich human experience and inspires me to follow my own search,” said Clemmons of his relationship with the others in his congregation.
For Elizabeth Davis ’12, co-leader of the UU organization at the College, community has played a key role in her connection to the religion. “For me,” said Davis, “it is a lot about community; it always has been. My parents sing in the choir and until I went to college I knew probably 80 percent of the people in the church. We have a lot of people in the church.” The UU community is an active one, conducting weekly sermons, Sunday school and holding conventions and overnights to connect the youth of different congregations in their support of social reform and integration.
While the Unitarian Universalists cannot be tied down to one particular set of beliefs, they are not without some form of spiritual guidance. The UU church has seven basic principles that it teaches to aid in the process of openly viewing and experiencing the world.
“They were drawn up when the religion was drawn up,” explained Adler. In accordance with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, congregates acknowledge the following:
* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in their congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within their congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which they are a part.
These, however, are simply stops along the path of Unitarian Universalists’ “spiritual journey.”
“Why would a journey be so important? Isn’t being at the end what’s really important?” asked Adler. “I don’t really think so … Unitarian Universalism stresses this journey. It is not a religion like others, because we don’t know what happens at the end … By having the end be unclear it helps people pay more attention to how they are going to get there. It is similar to the ideas that philosopher John Dewey had about education. He said that education is not a means to an end but an end within itself. Spiritual exploration would be pretty boring if we weren’t allowed time to explore.”
Though having so much leeway in religious expression can be exciting, it can be daunting as well. Many turn to religion because it is a marked pathway that can light the way to self- and spiritual discovery.
“Some days I feel I can understand the comfort of having to have a belief system and being able to really connect with a belief system that other religions have. It’s hard sometimes [not to have that], but most days I’m just loving the community I’m surrounded by,” said co-leader Rebecca Chin ’10 on the occasional difficulties of the free-form spiritual journey.
This liberty is, for many, precisely the motivation for joining the UU church. “I don’t miss the liturgy and ritual of the traditional church I grew up in,” said Clemmons of his switch from fundamentalist Baptism to Unitarian Universalism. “I found it far too constraining. It’s important to me to have a spiritual base that’s non-judgmental or dictatorial about life’s most important search: who are we and why are we here.”
Adler summed up the nature of that search at the conclusion of his sermon, “Unitarian Universalists are in the business of searching for our own personal beliefs and are taking a different road to enlightenment,” he said. “This road just happens to be much less well traveled, riddled with potholes, and we’ve lost our map. We’re still driving on as we are pretty sure that we are going in the right direction and, if worse comes to worst, we know that we can always get back on the interstate. But for now we’re happy to be on a backcountry road.”
Religion Realized: Unitarian Universalists set the fire of spiritual discovery aglow
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