(1) Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose....
(9) Allons!* whoever you are come travel with me! Traveling with me you find what never tires. The earth never tires, The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first. Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop'd. I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell. Allons! we must not stop here However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here. However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.
(10) Allons! the inducements shall be greater, We will sail pathless and wild seas, We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail. Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity; Allons! free from formules! From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.
Modernity's ambiguity, confusion, and sheer madness are enough to send the dazed rushing pell-mell toward certainty and direction. The limitless reaches of science and reason collapse into uncertainty and anxiety. "Where, oh where, is our center?" is a bleat of our times. The open mind? Why it turns out to be nothing but a sieve. Even the most respected scientists say so. Take Niels Bohr's "Every sentence that I utter should be regarded by you not as an assertion but as a question. And Jacob Bronowski's [assertion] 'There is no absolute knowledge....All information is imperfect.' Modernity's only certainty is everlasting uncertainty. All that was thought to be solid dissolves in the air, adding to the pollution."
A generation hungering for certainties is like a vacuum. It sucks in evangelists of reactionary nostrums bearing conservative labels. Thus we are well launched into an era of regressive politics and regressive religion, in which the liberal spirit is at the head of the line of perceived evils, followed in no particular order by abortion, welfare, food stamps, affirmative action, sex education, the United Nations, aid to the Third World, disarmament, Soviet expansionism and on and on." (p.2)
*Allons! means Let's go! in French.
"Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me! Traveling with me you find what never tires." These words of Walt Whitman represent a uniquely American view of life and of spirituality. This view rejects the safe harbor, the tried and true formulas of religion, the church and the "bat-eyed and materialistic priests." Its spirit is seeking, restless, and individualistic... although it also seeks companions along the way. It seeks the divine in nature and in other world religions and philosophies. It seeks the divine in human companionship and love.
This poem "Song of the Open Road," although written in the 19th Century, expresses the view of many American spiritual seekers today. In that century, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, renowned Unitarian Transcendentalists writers and lecturers, and Walt Whitman, a Quaker poet, inspired this whole new approach to spirituality, an approach which was nature-based and experiential-based on each person's individual experience of the divine. It was an approach which relies on the head and the heart of each individual rather than on the authority of priest, rabbi or minister, rather than Scripture or tradition.
This view is the basis of what today we call liberal religion. It is an approach which questions and rejects most old religious creeds... It is an approach which is open to new ideas or to ancient ideas from other religions, reinterpreted (or some would say "misappropriated") to suit our modern needs.
Although most of us religious liberals are pretty clear on what we reject... Christian creeds such as doctrines of the Trinity, hell and the devil, and absolutes about personal morality, we struggle to define exactly what we believe ourselves and even more what we can agree on together. Maybe we must settle on respect for each other as fellow travelers and for the journey itself. But I think its more than these.
"Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me!"
How many of you have come from other religions than Unitarian Universalism? From churches or from temples? Although some in our Unitarian Universalist congregations were born and raised in them, most of us (90% by one survey) are converts from other faiths or come from no previous faith tradition at all. [My congregation knows that I came from Reform Judaism, although for nearly 15 years I belonged to no religion and called myself a humanist.] So what binds us together as a liberal faith? To begin with, Unitarian Universalist congregations are covenanted religious bodies which value "a free and responsible search for truth and meaning" and "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth." These are part of our basic UU principles. We are a diverse lot, seeking to journey together in mutual support and affection, sometimes joyfully, sometimes in struggle. We are travelers into the unknown, although we know the general direction and have faith in the process.
Not only are we a diverse lot, but we are rather eclectic in our tastes. We and folks in other liberal religions believe our spiritual searches should not be confined to one tradition. Many people, whether in houses of worship or alone, delve into Native American and Eastern spirituality, yoga and meditation, Kabbala, and other mystical traditions. Nothing within reason is beyond bounds.
As we are well aware, religious fundamentalists condemn this approach to religion. We hear about it from the television evangelists... how we are all condemned to damnation as self-indulgent hedonists or worse! This is certainly easy to laugh off as absurd and reactionary. Whitman wrote, "Out of the dark confinement! Out from behind the screen!" And we say "Amen!" We tend to dismiss fundamentalist summarily, often scornfully, and move on.
When I was working at SRPEDD, the regional planning agency not far from here, I used to get into heated political arguments with an ultra-conservative on the staff. To him, I felt the L word, "liberal," was a dirty word. I finally looked it up in the dictionary and said to him, "Liberal means generosity of spirit. How could you not be in favor of that!" I couldn't understand him at all. It was as if we spoke different languages.
I looked "liberal" up again recently. It also means to be free from prejudice and bigotry. It is to be generous and tolerant. It is to support individual freedom of action and expression. It is to favor progress or reform in political or religious affairs. It is to be open-minded and not bound by tradition. And this is what many of us sincerely believe in. Despite our open-mindedness in other areas, we are convinced this is the true and right way.
Let us stop for a moment. Maybe we can learn something learned by looking a bit more deeply into the difference between the world view of religious fundamentalists and our own. By doing this, we may gain a greater perspective on each. According to political analyst George Lakeoff, religious fundamentalists view the ideal life as modeled after the disciplining, hierarchical family, with the strong father as its head. Religious (and political liberals) view the ideal life in terms of the nurturing family, which is essentially egalitarian.
As an aside, most people have a bit of both models in their heads, which makes us complicated creatures indeed. We are surprised when we find our opposite tendencies cropping up unexpectedly, maybe in moments of pressure.
To continue: religious fundamentalists, who find their meaning in the authoritarian model, are threatened by our bold, freedom-seeking approach to religion. They can't comprehend why people would leave the security of the tried and true and strike out onto new paths. In their world view, as described by Lakeoff, religious beliefs and personal morality are givens, which must be accepted without question. So are our social roles in life as stern fathers and obedient mothers, sons and daughters. We need simply to obey God's commands as seen through the church and follow our given path. In this way, they say, we will find security and salvation. To deviate from the path is wrong and quite dangerous. For those of us who value individual reason and experience over authority, this view is really mystifying... and wrong-headed.
Criticisms which we may take more seriously are from some moderate intellectuals, those who are closer to us in outlook. Sociologist Robert Bellah, who wrote Habits of the Heart, is one of those critics. He accuses liberal religion, particularly American do-it-yourself religion, of being excessively individualistic. He is concerned with the American culture's narrow, self-centered focus on material success and family, along with its shallowness and moral relativity. Bellah spoke to Unitarian Universalists at our UU General Assembly some years ago and warned us we were very much a part of this culture of rampant individualism. We needed to grow up, out of our rebellious adolescence and become mature and more concerned with building a strong religious community. I think Bellah may have overstated the case. But I also think we took this criticism to heart. And now we are more intentional about building nurturing and supportive religious communities.
Unitarian Universalists have been accused of being "hip and trendy" ... as if we were not serious about religion or our core values. I would argue, however, that this is a gross overgeneralization. Many of us are serious about studying and practicing what may be called alternative paths... whether Buddhism, neo-paganism, or Native American spirituality. And there are a substantial number of us who are converts from Judaism, which I would hardly call New Age or an alternative spirituality. (Yes, I know the same could be said of Buddhism.) We of Jewish backgrounds also bring our heritage with us into this big tent of Unitarian Universalism. I think the real challenge is to be a "both and" religion, where we keep BOTH what is valuable from our past rooted in the Protestant Reformation, AND what we've picked up along the way from Transcendentalism, humanism, Buddhism, Judaism and many other rich and varied sources.
And many of us would argue that being in a liberal religious community is a way to correct these excesses of shallowness, rootlessness and moral ambiguity. In community, we are reminded to cultivate compassion, to care about each other and the world. We are reminded to help out when there is need and in disasters and, in Adrienne Rich's words, "to cast [our] lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."
There has been an historical connection between religious liberals and progressive political issues, from the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage to modern issues of the environment, civil liberties and civil rights, women's reproductive rights, and economic justice among a host of others issues. Not everyone identifies themselves as an "activist," but there is certainly a lot of sympathy and support for activism as well as more conventional works of charity. "Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me!" We will do this work together... not only of reconstituting the world, but of reconstituting our liberal religion.
Let's look a little deeper at what it means to be a religious liberal. Jack Mendelsohn is a retired Unitarian Universalist minister, I think now in his 80's, who was active in the civil rights movement of the 1960's. He was a friend of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and traveled with him around the country and the world.. His now classic book Being Liberal in an Illiberal Age: Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist, was first published in 1964 but is still relevant today. It offers us a thoughtful, articulate picture of Unitarian Universalism, a helpful guide to the perplexed... which include many of us who have a difficult time saying exactly what we believe as UUs.
I like Mendelsohn's description of liberalism as a way of walking and acting in the world. It's more than a set of abstract principles, but it is a set of values and attitudes. He says, "It means celebrating and practicing the importance of persons: their inherent freedom to think, speak, associate, hear, read, see, and learn; not perfect freedom, but responsible freedom, become manifest in the particulars of our lives." While contemporary use of the word liberal sometimes carries with it negative connotations of unrestricted freedom, it historically meant something quite different. It was used in the early 1800's to describe the theological movement that birthed Unitarianism. Early liberal theology called for the reformulation of Christianity, emphasizing the use of reason, science, freedom, and experience while focusing on the human goodness. And when early Unitarians like William Ellery Channing spoke of their liberal faith, they were affirming the use of reason and the right to examine all statements of doctrine and belief with a critical eye and the freedom to make choices about one's own beliefs.
Mendelsohn describes the four bedrock liberal convictions which were the foundations of his social activism. I'll describe them briefly here:
The first it is that each life is a precious gift which we as the recipients did not plan, create or originally shape. But human beings are endowed with human consciousness, not only a drive to be, but a drive to be fulfilled. The best way to express gratitude for this gift of life is reverencing not only one's own life but others. As Mendelsohn says, "We do not live alone. We live together. We depend on one another. To forget that is to become spiritually lost, like fiery particles flung off from the solar system and quenched meaninglessly in outer space." (page 9)
His second liberal conviction is (quote) "separating the essential from the nonessential is what I call being spiritual." There has never been, nor will there ever be, enough time or opportunity to learn everything, to do everything, or care evenhandedly about everything. We can never be completely satisfied or satisfiable, adjusted or adjustable. ... To be spiritual, for me, means knowing all of this and still offering up thanks for the privilege for being what we are. There is in us the stuff out of which new, affirming experiences are fashioned. So build we up the human beings that we are." (pages 9-10)
The third liberal conviction is "power, ethically understood, is the ability to achieve moral purpose.... A liberal (and liberating) faith... must come to terms with the realities of power. Social action is the exercise of power. Ethical social action is the exercise of power for implementing the demands of justice, equity, and love." (pages 10-11)
Martin Luther King, Jr., taught that "one of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites. Love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love....What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." These words are to Jack Mendelsohn (and to me as well) a manifesto for an empowered liberalism. I say with him, Amen!
His fourth liberal conviction is "Nothing is settled; balance is blessedness." Knowing that we are a changing and evolving faith, our challenge is to balance innovation and tradition. As we are on our religious journeys, seeking new experiences and new ideas, we must also respect our liberal religious history. Yes, we can be proud of our adventurous journeys on the open road... even while accusations are thrown at us from the religious conservatives of being "trendy" or "zealots of the latest." But, as Mendelsohn writes, "We also have a magnificent history bequeathed to us by the labors and sufferings of forebears, known and unknown: thinkers, confessors, apostles, prophets, and martyrs. We are a rooted people, we liberals, who should be overwhelmingly respectful and proud of our traditions and inheritance."
Despite life's difficulties and struggles, we religious liberals are hopeful and guardedly optimistic (but, hopefully, not naïve) about the future and about the overall goodness of humanity. We are inheritors of William Ellery Channings' view of "the glory of the human soul."-while at the same time bringing a 21st century understanding to our human complexity.
Despite life's ambiguities, we religious liberal at our best show patience and courage -- digging deeper for true understanding. We resist the temptation to run away and find refuge in easy answers. We are devoted to reason and the scientific method. The real challenge for liberals may be discovering where our true hearts lie, making commitments more than merely holding opinions. Despite the awareness that we will probably never know the full truth about anything for all times, we must ultimately end our journey ... or at least pause along the way... and act on our principles of justice, equity and compassion in human relations. Humbly admitting our limited vision, we must have faith in our instincts and stand on what we do know.
Allons! Whoever you are come travel with me! Our paths may weave and our ultimate destinations may be different, but we can journey together and help each other on the way. Blessed be the journey... and us travelers along the open road. Amen.