by Tom Hook
April 11, 2021
When I first began to review this topic from Soul Matters of “Becoming”, I must admit that I was a bit perplexed and challenged. After all, most of us present here today – including myself – would be categorized in the camp of “aging out”.
So what else do we need to Become? After all, we have weathered so much in our brief stay on Mother Earth. Wars, unrest, pandemics, the re?emergence of racism. Can’t we just rest? Put our feet up and relax for the rest of the journey?
Sometimes. There certainly is a place for that. However, let me suggest that we ponder the “Story” of our life to this point and ? with courage ? the “Story” of our future.
Pádraig Ó Tuama in his poem Narrative Theology #1 writes: And I said to him
Are there answers to all of this?
And he said
The answer is in a story
and the story is being told.
And I said
But there is so much pain
And she answered, plainly,
Pain will happen.
Then I said
Will I ever find meaning?
And they said
You will find meaning
Where you give meaning.
The answer is in the story
And the story isn’t finished.
“You will find meaning where you give meaning. The answer is in the story and the story isn’t finished.”
Brian McClaren, recovering fundamentalist and author of “The Great Spiritual Migration” and “Faith & Doubt”, suggests that “People can’t see what they can’t see. We don’t see things as they are; We see things as WE are!”
And I would suggest that this tends to blur the realities of our story.
Joseph Chilton Pierce, published a book in 1971 titled, “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg”. Richard Rohr from the Center for Action and Contemplation recently expanded on this idea in his book, “The Wisdom Pattern – Order?Disorder? Reorder”.
He states, “Just as the body needs food, so the soul needs meaning, and the spirit needs ultimate meaning. Often that meaning is communicated through story. The function of all mythologies, religion, and even family lore is to help us situate ourselves inside of a safe and meaningful universe”.
Imagine, if you will, three overlapping domes:
The smallest dome of meaning is my private world of interests. We can call it “My Story,” where we proudly proclaim, “This is me!” No people in history, up until the half century or so (particularly in the United States), have had the language or the freedom for this level of personal meaning.
My Story is full of subjective, interpersonal, psychological, and self?help language. It’s the vernacular of talk shows, blogs, and social media. This language does answer a lot of questions ? so it’s understandable that we revel in it. It is very good, as far as it goes. The trouble is that it is so rich it can become a substitute for true transcendence. My Story is not yet totally The Story.
There is a second and larger dome of meaning that encloses the first. This is “Our Story,” where we declare, “This is us!” This is where most people in all of human history have lived their lives: identifying completely with their ethnicity, their gender, their group, their religion, and their occupations. My Story and Our Story are both part of the narrative. The life of the individual and the life of their group are wholly entangled.
The third dome of meaning that encloses the two smaller ones is “The Story.” By this, we are referring to the patterns that are always true—beyond anecdote and my cultural history.
The only way we can move to The Story and understand it with any depth is to walk through and take responsibility for both our personal story and our group story. Anything less we now call “spiritual bypassing.” This is quite common among many fundamentalist groups—jumping to spiritual answers or theology without any honest self?knowledge or knowledge of history. We’ve got to listen to our own experience, to our own failures, to our own sin, to our own gifts and calls. Plus, we have to recognize that we’re a part of history, a part of a culture, a religious group, a nationality, a gender, for good and for bad. When all three domes of meaning are deemed worthy of love and attention, we probably have a rather mature spiritual person.
Let’s take a more in?depth look at each of these stories:
My Story
My story describes my private life – those issues that make me special – inferior or superior – right or wrong – depending upon how “I” see it.
The dome of My Story is often all the postmodern person has left: my power, my prestige, and my possessions. It’s the little stage where I do my dance and where the questions are usually “Who is watching me? How do I feel? What do I believe? What makes me unique?” It’s a passing arena, to be certain. It will be over in a few years and is frankly not very interesting if it is all we have to talk about. My Story is not big enough or true enough to create large or meaningful patterns by itself. It is all just personal anecdotes, and some people live their whole lives there with no need for broader connections.
Perhaps we can see how fragile, unprotected, and constantly striving this self will almost certainly be. Self?focused people are very easily offended, fearful, and therefore often posturing and pretentious. If we stay in this smallest dome of meaning, we often move toward a neurotic self?image. This small and fragile self needs to be a part of something more significant—and so it creates dramas, tragedies, and victimhood to put itself on a larger stage.
This prejudice to “my” truth of My Story was recognized by Thomas Merton back in the 1950?60’s. He writes in his book, “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”:
“What we seek is not pure truth, but the partial truth that justifies our predjudices, our limitations, our selfishness. This is not “the truth”. It is only an argument strong enough to prove us “right”. And usually our desire to be right is correlative to our conviction that somebody else (perhaps everybody else) is wrong”
When we are able to move beyond this small or “false self”, it hopefully, should feel like freedom and liberation. When we become connected to Our Story and The Story and not just My Story, we no longer need to protect or defend the ME part. We are now connected to something expansive and inexhaustible; and we can become a more useful and contributing citizen.
Our Story
To continue the model of the three domes, this is the dome of our group, community, church, nationality, gender, and ethnicity. We seem to need this for our own identity and security as social beings. It is both good and necessary, but if we try to make it the whole enchilada, we end up with the culture and identity wars we have today. Most of us have to work through multiple memberships: family, neighborhood, religious affiliation, gender, country. These communities are schools for relationship, connection, and almost all virtue as we know it.
Everyone has access to this level of meaning, consciously or unconsciously, negatively or positively. We are essentially social beings and we live inside of some shared meanings, which become our reference points and our runway. Our Story is the necessary training ground for belonging, attaching, trusting, and loving.
If we are raised in a healthy family system, we generally feel positive about our group possibilities, including our religious and cultural rituals and traditions. Unfortunately, some people get stuck here and spend their lives defending the boundaries and glory of “their” group. They make plans for war, and perfect the scapegoating of others. Such group egocentricity is more dangerous than personal egocentricity.
The handy language of “us” versus “them” lifts some real burden from our private striving, and there is true comfort in being among our own. In fact, Our Story feels so sacred that most religion works at this level as a belonging system more than a search for intimacy with God.
At this point I want to pivot a bit to recognize that UU’s hold a somewhat unique position in becoming Our Story.
In many cases the My Story & Our Story of many UU’s is a process of
“Unbecoming”
According to Soul Matters there’s something deep within UUism that pushes in the opposite direction. Historically, UU’s have been “leavers” ? people who struggled not so much to find themselves but to untangle themselves from the religious identities they were given.
Many spiritual journeys did not begin with a blank slate; they began with the hunger to wipe that slate clean and begin anew. There is this important awareness that spiritual journeys are not simply about unfolding your true self, but also about untangling from your old self. Albert Schweitzer wrote:
“The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.”
Which means we are also sensitive to the fact that most spiritual journeys begin
with a goodbye ?a separation, a decision to walk away. We know that the first step is often laced with mourning, difficult endings and, all too often, isolation.
Which brings me back to the “Our Story” here at HUU.
In my time here as your Administrator, I have come to know how very passionate you are about creating and nurturing the “Our Story” of HUU and the principles of Unitarian Universalism.
Your Vision of Beloved Community maintains the you are:
- A community that helps each person discover and realize their own better selves.
- A community that renews and transforms their lives in service to each other and the world.
Through Sense?making, Care?giving and Justice?seeking you are building a better community for all in this world.
Which…..hopefully…..leads us to a clearer vision of The Story.
The Story
The largest and final dome is the realm of universal meaning. This sacred canopy is The Story that is always true, the patterns that every culture and religion discover in some manner. This level assures and insures the other two. It holds them together in sacred meaning. This is true transcendence, authentic Spirit, which informs all soul and body work. I also call it “The Perennial Tradition” that keeps recurring in every age.
The Story is not limited to any one religion or denomination, and all healthy religions and even philosophies will be telling it on some level. For example, forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true. It always heals, whether you are Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, or Jewish, gay or straight, Black or white. There is no specifically Catholic or Indigenous way to feed the hungry or steward the earth. Love is love, even if the motivation and symbols might be different.
Without the great stories that free us, we remain trapped in small cultural and private worlds. Without the great patterns that are always true, we get lost in choosing between tiny patterns.
Richard Rohr suggests that: “True transcendence frees us from the tyranny of I Am and the idolatry of We Are.” (Repeat)
The Story reflects this “perennial philosophy” or “perennial tradition” which recognizes that there are some constant themes, truths, and recurrences in all of the world religions and philosophies.
Aldous Huxley, author of The Perennial Philosophy, calls the perennial tradition a metaphysic, a psychology, and an ethic at the same time:
1. The metaphysic which recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds.
2. The psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical to, divine Reality.
3. The ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent ground of all being. This is immemorial and universal.
Huxley proposes, “Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions” (The Perennial Philosophy, vii).
This leads us to ? The Wisdom Tradition, as it can rightly be called, it is what we see as a consistent theme of The Story. This wisdom is grounded in the unchanging ? yet ever fresh ? and relevant themes of a mature spirituality. According to Cynthia Bourgeault:
1. Wisdom is not a philosophy, but a way of knowing.
2. It is a 3?centered knowing – mind, body, and emotions in an integral act of perception.
3. Wisdom is the closest point of contact between traditions.
4. Wisdom is distinguished by signature genres and teaching methods such as myths, parables, koans, and situational teachings. These can be traced back to all civilizations and peoples.
5. Teilhard de Chardin: “To understanad the world, knowledge is not enough. You must see it, touch it, live in its presence.” This is Wisdom in a nutshell.
In closing, here are some points to consider moving forward:
1. Becoming requires an attention to ? and a balancing of ? all three stories. My Story, Our Story, and The Story.
2. Unbecoming is usually an integral part of the Journey of, Order – Disorder – Reorder.
3. Periodic review of My Story and Our Story, for signs of growth and balance, are necessary for growth and balance on our journey to Becoming.
4. In the end – The Story is Mystery! There is chaos inside of order. Inclusion of paradox, mystery, disorder, and the uncertaintity principle are all elements of The Story. However, certain elements of universality have stood the test of time and history. Forgiveness, Charity, Love, Community, Respect. The Story is not over. It is unfolding and Becoming. We are all part of the larger story!
Namaste