A BLUE TRUE DREAM OF SKY
Noreen Kimball & James Ishmael Ford
23 May, 2004

James
A few years ago our denominational General Assembly was held in Salt Lake City. It was my first visit to Utah. And you know I was impressed. It’s a beautiful city, and its citizens cultivate an authentic sense of civitas. Parks and other public areas are well maintained. Every weekend during the summer the town supports bands and other activities that draw people out of their homes and into a common life. On the flight home I sat next to my friend Jan Christian, who is now minister of the UU church in Ventura, California. On that flight we talked about Salt Lake City and its many compelling features when Jan observed how comforting their faith community was. She paused and then added, “at least for people who don’t color outside the lines.” I’ve thought about that a lot in the years that have passed. It speaks to how often religion is about conserving culture, holding it and transmitting it to a new generation.

Of course this also points to something about us. We Unitarian Universalists are the religious people who very much color outside the lines. This is why it’s so often said we UUs can believe anything we want. But that’s not quite right. It seems to me that we UUs so often color outside the lines is in fact a comment on an approach to spirituality. Our path is the artist’s path; it is about a special kind of creativity, with its own expectations and requirements. Wayne Arnason, minister of the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Cleveland, and someone I particularly admire puts this together nicely.

“Every artist, every writer, every musician, who wants to create and not simply reproduce art, must certainly know the conventions, structures, and traditions of their discipline. But ultimately he or she must finally sit down in front of an empty canvas, a blank page, a silent keyboard and make the first move out of that inner emptiness that is the source of all creativity. The first brush-stroke, the first sentence, the first notes of something new are always made possible by the knowledge we have of traditions and forms, but if that is all we have, we simply repeat the accomplishments of the past.”

I suggest this speaks to how we Unitarian Universalists, in general, approach our spiritual quest. We have a structure and forms. We are inheritors of a vast Abrahamic tradition with deepest roots in Judaism, more recent roots in Christianity and particularly within New England Congregationalism. But our flowering is something new. We still retain many conventions of our Congregational grandparents, who’ve given us that form and structure. But, those are simply the lines. We’ve also inherited an artistic flair, and following more recent parents like the Transcendentalists, humanists and the new spiritualities, we’ve joyously colored outside many lines. And in this we’ve very much become artists of the spirit.

Noreen
I’m so taken with that image of us—artists of the spirit—and I’m taken with it because I have noticed that, like most Unitarian Universalists, I am capable of being immediately seduced by any discussion of identity. When James and I began to talk about the whole notion of volunteers at this Society, we immediately got caught up in a discussion of who it is that we get to be here that motivates people to work so hard. What is it that you and I identify here that is worth our loving generosity, our loyalty, our precious time? I contend that what motivates people is a dream they have. And because we are theists, atheists, and agnostics all in this together, one of the dreams we have is that this Society is a place where there will always be room for each of us at this table.

Another piece of the dream, I believe, is having a spiritual community that will nurture us whatever happens in our lives. We need to know that we can come here when we have a new baby to be welcomed. Or when we have lost someone we were not ready to lose. We come here in jubilation to marry or to be enfolded and comforted if our marriage falls apart. And what James said of us is true—we have an artistic flair. Because truly we are involved with invention here, we are involved with creation.

We’ve created this as a place to come when we need to make sense of what assails us from outside this community. We came here the night that war was declared and the Sunday after 14 students and a teacher were murdered in an American High School, and on the Sunday after nearly 3,000 people died in a terrorist attack. And when we came here after the Commonwealth finally allowed marriage to be available to all, we came here knowing that here, at least, we would find a response of unalloyed, unquestioned joy.

And I think the most hopeful, the most shining part of the dream we try to create here is the one that holds this as the place one comes to try and heal as many wounded pieces of the world as we can reach. The Rev. Dr. Clarke Dewey Wells who was minister here in the early 70’s, once described this congregation as belonging to the church universal, which he defined as “an institutional dream of a world.” Here, he said, we live “under justice and law and clean air, full of forgiveness, oranges, reconciliation; full of dancing and praise for the chance to be alive.” As dreams go, that’s not a bad one.

James
Now, a lot is at stake within this dream. The world is beautiful and it is broken. Humans have created amazing things. And through grasping and hatred and blinding certainties we human beings have poisoned the world. We need to face this. There’s trouble in River City, folks. The good news, however, is we don’t have to repeat the old patterns, we don’t have to follow an inevitable downward spiral. There can be a restoration of the world. There can be healing of hearts and bodies.

Our liberal faith offers a way through. If things are to be restored, if there is to be healing, it will come about by our own hands. We possess that possibility of healing, and it is in our hands. And with this assertion, I suggest what follows is we have the obligation to take on this healing of the world, where “justice and law and clean air, full of forgiveness, oranges, reconciliation, full of dancing and praise for the chance to be alive.” To give it another metaphor, there is a seed in our individual hearts that if we cultivate, grows and flowers and becomes as it says in the gospels a great flowering bush under which the birds of heaven may take their rest. Now there’s a dream worth dreaming...

I think about the dream. I think about creativity, which I suggest is nothing less than the holy spirit. And I think about what our spiritual tradition is and might become through a skillful cultivation of that spirit of creativity. Speaking of this perspective the great Universalist preacher and thinker Hosea Ballou, said, “If you can’t reduce it to practice, have none of it.” A good rule of thumb for a creative spirit.

Our way is a practical spirituality. For the most part among us we believe faith without works is no faith at all. In our artistic way our canvas is our lives, our instruments are human relations. And more, this is about our relations with the whole of the natural world. But we start that motion outward here, we begin that turn from the most private and intimate into intimate relationships: here. We gather on Sundays, we gather at other times (such as today’s barbeque), and in these gatherings we engage each other and the world, we challenge and are challenged, we become ever more intimate. It is in this communion with one another the divine, that which is bigger than our egos is revealed. Then slowly out of this covenant of presence to ourselves, to each other, and to the world as it reveals itself; we grow deeper, and always in this, out of our reflection and growing insight, always we act. This is our way.

Noreen
No one who has been coming here for any amount of time could disagree—powerful things do happen here. Changes of mind, changes of heart—revelation even, happens here. But how, and why, and in answer to what catalyst? I believe that we are people who have probably always believed, though not always consciously, that it is our role, always to be involved in the work of changing, and healing the world. And of course we know that alone, we cannot do it. But, as Rebecca Parker says, “together—that is another possibility, waiting.”

But this community thing can be tricky. It’s easy to sound sentimental and even highfalutin about it. What John Haynes Holmes called “a beloved community” can become an abusive community pretty quickly, if you’re not careful. In my dream community, people give out of love and joy, not out of guilt. Everybody helps, all the tasks are acts of love, the burdens are light, the time passes quickly. The opposite of that is when the same people stay late, again and again, and work alone, and when resentment replaces joy. When that happens, the flavor of the community changes to one where some people take advantage of others.

I believe this Unitarian Universalist Society functions well, healthfully, and joyfully, embodying our principles and purposes. We have a reputation, in our Massachusetts Bay District, of having a gifted, talented congregation with strong lay leadership. But, the life of all religious communities is cyclical, and we have lost many of the incredibly generous and hard-working mainstays of this community in the last few years. Many others have already begun, or are poised, to take their place. This is a perfect time to come here, to decide to participate. There is a real mindfulness about involvement now, so that our community will stay as effective, as healthy, as joyful as it has been.

This morning we do two things. First, we make this service a time to thank those whose generosity with labor, time, and money have kept us strong. And second, we make this service an invitation to each person present to help create “a beloved community that affirms and empowers, that stands as a prophetic witness to the benefits of the examined life, that ministers to its members, nourishing, and nurturing the desire for spirituality and a caring community.” And, in addition to all those exalted things, we are a community that has always offered a warm response to entreaties for help folding the chairs and the tables, for bringing food to the memorial services, for help cleaning closets and repairing the organ. And contributing more than a token amount to the every-member canvass. And above all, I see us as grateful for our many gifts.

James
This I believe is where we find how our simple gathering together into this spiritual community, our willingness to be present, is the way toward healing and reconciliation for the whole world. Our little congregation, well maybe it’s not that little; shows the way. We start with ourselves. We create our covenant of presence, our willingness to be together, to be comforted and challenged in equal parts. In this gathering where we bring our attention and care, something powerful happens; the great furnace of the heart is fired up, burning the dross and revealing the gold, what we actually can be. How can we not be grateful for this?

Now, with regard to that notion of being grateful. Noreen and I thought this would be a great morning to say “thank you.” Our congregational year is nearly over—and there are many here who have contributed enormously to our lives in this congregation. Only a few who’ve contributed have been named so far. Now, we need your help. We’ve inserted a colored card in your order of service and offered you a pencil when you came in this morning. We’d like you to take a moment right now to write a thank you note. Just a word or two that says thanks for making this community what it is.

On the other side, write the name of the person who should receive it. If you don’t know the person’s name, just write the task, such as child care person, or person who makes the coffee, whatever. As the service ends and wherever you choose to leave our ushers will be ready at the doors with baskets to collect those cards. Over the next week or so we’ll try hard to get those cards to the right people. And if one card isn’t enough, just raise your hand and we’ll bring you another.

(a brief pause)

So, now its time to draw our service to a close. I’d like to end with something from a famous Unitarian Universalist, well known for drawing outside the lines. From e. e. cummings:

i thank you God for most this
amazing
day; for the leaping greenly spirits
of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and
for everything
which is natural which is infinite
which is yes

(i who have died am alive again
today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this
is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:
and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching
hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely
being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake
and
now the eyes of my eyes are
opened)

Amen