Divinity

It was late and there was dancing to be done, but I was leaving before the festivities were over.

“Church!” balked my friend, the former priest, at my characterization of our Unitarian fellowship, and my excuse for leaving before midnight. “What church?!” he inquired. Can you call a group of souls in spiritual quest a church? Or is that exactly what it is?

My daughter appears in a church pageant in the city every Christmas eve. It is a beautiful church with stained glass and a glorious choir. The parishioners are city neighbors, diverse but not so different from you and me. The flowers that adorn St. Luke’s in the Village fill the apse with their own incense. The robes of the priest and his acolytes tell you this is ritual in its richest form. The music often rises to a heavenly pitch that threatens to burst my heart with joy.

There is only one problem. My faith in this church’s doctrine does not run deep enough. Followed closely, the Nicene creed heels too close to the same road that wars are paved with and I shrink from its direction. As I read the Christmas eucharist I find an unsettling intemperance toward other faiths.

What difference can it make to me what faith you choose? I have never been able to fathom the ardor of faith that requires others to adhere to it. My Unitarian prayer book represents Hinduism, Taoism, Islam, Christianity among others. Does this mean there is no such faith as Unitarianism? A Sikh prayer says it best for me:

“Why do you go to the forest in search of the Divine? God lives in all and abides with you too. As fragrance dwells in a flower, or reflection in a mirror, so the Divine dwells inside everything; seek therefore in your own heart.”—Tegh Bahadur

If it is the spirit inside that is divine, why seek churches at all? For me, it is the gathering of souls that creates the church. The collective experience of faith in a greater power of goodness and wisdom. It is my link to universality. But my friend, Tom, is unconvinced that our fellowship is a “church” or that we “worship” at all.

“What do you worship?” he jibed. I had to think about this one, but at church the next morning, the answer appeared in prayers chosen by others and written by a Unitarian, Jacob Trapp:

“Worship is the mystery within us reaching out to the mystery beyond. It is an inarticulate silence yearning to speak; it is the window of the moment open to the sky of the eternal.”

Every faith can use a little skepticism, and Tom’s questioning left room for more dancing as well as for thought. Most faiths could use more of both. I love the Christmas ritual and pageantry, the music and incense and penetrating silence of prayer. But my true faith is practiced in the everyday, and my church is lit by the chalice of souls like me and their questioning eyes.