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By John T. Crestwell, Jr.
July 14, 2002
I am thankful for the
opportunity to share with you today. A special thanks to Dr. Bell,
Den, and of course my beautiful wife, Sharon. Now, I hope I won’t
keep you for no more than 2 hours. Just kidding… Just kidding. In
all seriousness, give me a few minutes to share with you from the
topic: Don’t Be Shy! Don’t Be Shy! I’ll get to that in a second…
Friends, I’m excited today, excited to be a Unitarian Universalist!
Some of you may or may not know, I am working on becoming a UU
parish minister. I have a few courses to take and a few other
things—but I look forward to learning more about our great heritage.
I am also excited about finding my place in the universe. I have
struggled for some time seeking to find a place where I could be
myself; been seeking a place where, as John Spong says, I didn’t
have to leave my brain at the door!”
I have gone through a sort of metamorphosis mentally, going from a
fundamentalist toward a liberal free-thinker. And for me, this
change has been an extraordinary ride that I am still enjoying very
much.
For a time, I was an outspoken, Bible quoting Christian Theologian.
Then during and after seminary, after learning a few things and
struggling to reconcile what I was learning, which seemed to me to
be primitive and forced religious concepts on God, nature and
reality, I became, for a short time, a shy, reserved contemplative
guy. The difference was I questioned everything I heard but I didn’t
articulate my concerns. At that time, life became an experience of
cause and effect and many things for me were subjective and
relative. Life became a random journey. Those in seminary I shared
with told me, “John, this line of thinking is sending you down the
wrong road.”
In recent days, I have become an outspoken philosophical talkin’,
rational speaking, lover of humanity. I am a new man, having found
my place in the universe! I did not think such a place existed! I am
so glad it does here at Davies.
Now, I know many of you have taken a similar ride in attempting to
discover THE SELF, the highest form of actualization for me… And you
know, this is a life-long process of discovery, and at times, it is
difficult when you change or become something others don’t
understand. And sometimes you have to deal with the “drama” from
those close to you who don’t know what in the “heck” you’re becoming
or what you have to deal with when you are “outside the box.”
You hear negative comment after comment and there is something in
you that makes you want to look certain folk straight in the eye and
say, quoting the Gospel of Thomas, “How does such wealth come to
dwell in such vast poverty?” But you realize that is arrogant and
you simply say, “Friend, you just don’t understand what I feel and
believe and what I have seen and experienced.” But you never tell
them really what you believe do you? You shy away from the
confrontation because the battle seems to be too difficult to bare.
Those looking you in the eye seem to be so far from where you are
that you say to yourself, “It’s not worth it.” BUT IT IS!
You know, there comes a time when you have to stand up and decide
who you are going to be. You know that deep inside you have to be
true to yourself because that is where your peace exists. And being
true to yourself is being expressive about what you believe! There
is a larger reason to do this as well, and I will get to that.
I have been doing some standing recently, but not without
persecution. As I have moved to become an advocate, a promoter of
our faith, I have heard and seen certain negative subtleties that
really get next to me! I’m trying to deal with these things the best
I can but I can’t help but being a bit agitated.
My mother said, not to me, but to my wife, “UU IS A CULT.” You’ve
heard that one haven’t you? We are the most rational of all faiths
and we are a cult? Go figure that one out. Then my sister-in-law
says, “Unitarians? That’s the Moonies, right?” You have heard that
one two? I know this is not new stuff, just new for me. My former
Pastor of the Methodist Church I was reared in has apparently heard
I have joined a UU church. Sharon and I used to get his weekly
e-letter but all of a sudden we have been dropped from the list.
Now, I do believe I kept my membership there. But I guess since my
money is not there…well, I’m not going there today.
Then, my biggest supporter, a man who taught me a lot about
ministry, my Father-in-law, a longtime Methodist preacher, District
Superintendent, a liberal free-thinker who helped me get started—now
all of a sudden all of our religious conversations are about why
Jesus is the Savior and the only way. And this is from a man who
wrote his seminary thesis on the non-existence of Moses. But because
Sharon and I have gone crazy, lost our minds by joining the
Unitarian Church—all of a sudden, he has become VERY fundamental. I
guess you can tell it bothers me a bit. He even said to me, “John,
you have made a choice about what you want to believe, but what
about the kids, they have to be given the opportunity to choose
too.” My kids are with him now and I was not asked but told that for
a week they will be in Vacation Bible School. I don’t have a problem
with that, but I do have a problem with the “American Way” which
seems to not give us a true opportunity to choose, but rather, we
naturally are given specific, dogmatic ideas without our choosing
and life is not experienced but dictated.
We simply follow the conveyer-belt of life, that says one size fits
all, and if you are a part of Judeo Christianity in America, you are
excepted product, you fit, and if not—you are rejected product.
I watched some men bundle cigars and out of a bundle of 50 there was
always one, two or three, that was not facing the same direction as
the other cigars. An aficionado told me,
“..those are the ones that were rejected. And I said, “What do you
do with them?” And he said, “We either grind them up and use them
for something cheap, or we throw them away.”
This is the mindset. Either you are in or you’re out, orthodox or
unorthodox, treasure or trash, hot or cold. Lukewarm is not good. I
like my baths lukewarm . Not to hot and not too cold.
This is the mindset that needs to change! And I know it’s an uphill
battle in working to create this change. It is this ideology that
moved me away from Protestantism toward Unitarian Universalism.
So today I am feeling pressure from many sides, as I know many of
you are; the fight between traditionalism and personal truth.
Choosing your own way, as opposed to the way being chosen for you.
But this is why I chose this faith, because this is a faith that
historically likes to fight. You don’t mine challenging
traditionalism. You don’t mine speaking truth to power. Yet it
seems, from what I see, in my own experience, we have shied away
from the fight. We have become very introspective and internal—and
maybe we’ve always been this way, I don’t know. We’ve become passive
and contemplative. We have lost sight of the revolutionary spirit.
Why do I say that?
Put simply, because the masses do not know about us. When you are
mistaken for the Unification Church that is a problem. When you are
told, “UU’s don’t believe in anything.” That is a problem. When you
hear on TV just this week that the founding fathers were ALL
Christian, and people don’t know that WE WERE THERE and have been
throughout history, carving out many major parts of legislature in
America. That is a problem. And I will say that this has happened
because we allowed it to happen.
We are so intelligent, so actualized, that we have decided not to
rock the boat. We just want to do our thing and we hope others don’t
ask us about our religion, our system of beliefs. We have become
intellectually shy and passive.
Now, I cannot say, “God commands!” You’re too smart for that. But I
can say, very strongly and very definitively, “HUMANITY NEEDS YOU
NOW! HUMANKIND NEEDS THE UU FAITH TO BE HEARD RIGHT NOW. WE NEED TO
BOLDLY GO WHERE WE HAVE NOT GONE IN A WHILE OR BEFORE! And where is
that? You may ask?
We have to move our thoughts from our head to our hearts. I’m not
asking you to become a rational fanatic. That is just as bad as an
irrational fanatic. I am saying that when others are talking
dogmatic nonsense, you need to give an antithetical word to help
balance out the dialogue. Whether it’s your neighbor, friend,
brother or mother. Be there to give your point of view.
Then when people say, “UU’s don’t believe anything.” You be there to
say, “No, we believe many things, etc. etc, etc. Or you could be
nasty and say, “well, perhaps sir you believe anything, and that’s
your problem.” Don’t do that .
Now, let me add this… To be a voice for positive change, we all have
to learn more about our Association, its goals and plans. This will
help us when others ask about our Faith. Then, we can articulate
what we are all about, clearly. I spend a lot of time on the UU
website to stay in the know of what’s happening. I encourage you to
do the same.
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