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By John T. Crestwell, Jr.
October 3, 2004
“Amazing Grace how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found,
blind but now I see.”
These very telling words were written by an Englishmen named John
Newton in 1748. Newton was in the shipping business and was a part
of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. On May 10, 1748, his boat came
upon a major storm and Newton, in fear, began to pray. As the story
goes, he began to feel calmer and assured, and by the time the storm
subsided, Newton realized that his god helped him make it through to
the end. Later, Newton realized that not only was his spirit moved
by the event but his consciousness was pricked. He was changed
forever. He eventually left the slave trading business and became a
preacher… A good story…
If you’ve read Newton’s words you feel the passion, you know the
writer was moved by something. You know, the author of the now
famous hymn, was reborn in 1748.
I can relate to Newton, but in a different way. I was reborn eight
years ago and just three years ago, I found a place that accepted
what I thought were strange beliefs. I am not referring to a visit
from a deity that told me what I am to do. I’m not speaking about
feeling like a wretch or some bad person needing a priest. But I am
referring to finding myself and finding the religion called
Unitarian Universalism. I had a great awakening. I was asleep but I
woke up and freshly rested, my eyes were able to focus on a faith
that gave credence to my new religious philosophies… I’ll get back
to that, but I think it is important for us to remember that when we
are physically born into a family, the mores and folklores of the
family and culture are instilled into us. And we don’t normally
question, right away, the social and religious customs we get from
them. Most don’t. Most of us just follow the conveyor-belt of
life. Your mom and dad did it you have to do it too. This is the
cookie-cutter version of life. We all come into life, as John Locke
put it “tabula rosa” –a blank slate, and our families and
environments and our experiences fill us with ideas about God,
nature and reality. And then we live. As we live and experience
different things our awareness changes. We find love. We experience
the pain of loss.
We win, we lose. We experience the thrill of
victory and the agony of defeat. In that process, our innocence and
naiveté, over time, are lost. And I call this our first GREAT
AWAKENING, when we see that life is not easy, that life is not
cookie-cutter, and that many things we were told were flat out not
true and done to protect our young fragile psyches. You know, like
Santa Clause… I’m still upset about that one… And from that day
onward, we are not the same. We are reborn in a sense, and must look
forward not back as Betrand Russell suggested in the reading this
morning. It is the “happening” that changes us.
Something
significant pricks our consciousness and we begin to question the
things planted in us years before. This is when we start moving to
(what I always refer to as) that existential edge of life. We begin
to question our existence. “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?”
It’s Rev. Don’s experience growing up in a school just integrated
seeing his African American best friend killed (changed his
worldview); it’s Dr. Chris Bell’s tours in Asia in the military (he
realizes The Great Spirit has to be bigger than one religion’s
exclusive claims); it’s Emerson’s realization the God is beyond the
dual and must be experienced naturally, intuitively, and not
dogmatically or empirically; it’s John Wesley’s experience at Aldersgate where his heart was strangely warmed and he realized his
religion was real to him; it’s Betrand Russell’s frustration with
the English aristocracy and religion in general; and it was my
frustration with a Christianity of my youth that more and more did
not fit who I was becoming in my young adult years…
Yes, something
pricks our awareness of life and we begin the search for answers to
our quite complex questions. The questions only lead to more
questions but it is not the destination but the journey that calls
us. And as a seeker and a free spirit my thirst needed to be
quenched.
In a real sense, we all start out philosophically and theologically
lost and can sing in agreement with John Newton when he says, “I
once was lost.” But being “found” is something else. Being found
means you have moved beyond the adolescent ignorance of believing
everything you hear, to a new reality where you are true to your own
search for your personal truths and you are honest with yourself. It
means when we talk particularly about religion, you do not believe
in something because someone told you it’s true but because it is
what YOU really believe. It means you are not religious because you
are afraid of life, rather you are pious because it is heart-felt.
There is a difference. That’s what Walt Whitman revealed to us in
the reading for new members today. He said in essence that you don’t
have to look through mommy or daddy’s eyes; you don’t take my word
for it either. Your truth must be found by you. You are the “master
of your fate the captain of your soul.” “You shall listen to all
sides,” Whitman says, “and filter them for yourself.” Being found is
not a destination but a journey. The song Amazing Grace is poetry to
me describing an inner peace that is discovered when we realize we
are looking at things through our own eyes and being true to
ourselves.
The ancient Gnostics said that there were three levels of
interpreting life. The first is literal. What you see is what you
get. What you read in the Bible or Koran or Hindu Gita or Upanishads
is what it is. The second is allegorical or metaphorical. Look for
the moral of the story. Look for the themes and symbols that
convey a deeper message. Look well beyond the literal for the heart
of the message. Then, third, when you GET IT; when you see beyond
the prose and the poetry, you reach another level and the words live
within you. The final stage transcends the first two: you don’t need
the Bible or any religious book any longer. You live what you’ve
read for now you have it and it has you and you are absorbed by it
all. This is the highest level of actualization for the Gnostics.
And so, the Gnostics confirm what Whitman said because now you are
“filtering for yourself.”
I think this is why I like Bertrand Russell. We heard from him this
morning… Sinatra has a song, “I did it my way.” Betrand Russell is a
man who lived HIS WAY! Russell won the Noble prize for Literature in
1950. He was a renowned philosopher, mathematician, essayist, and
social critic. He was an eclectic and broad thinker. He died in 1970
but today he is very well respected as one of the great minds in
English history. But during his lifetime, as he did things “his
way”, he was ridiculed quite often for his very bold stances and
ambiguous theories. He was an Agnostic who was anti-war,
anti-nuclear and atomic weapons, and anti-Christianity. One of his
more popular books is Why I Am Not a Christian written in 1927.
Now, Russell also promoted the idea of polyamory (we’ve heard this
before in small UU circles); that in an urban setting with large
populations, committed relationships weren’t needed, and more
conducive in rural environments. Of course he had been married
three times and had countless affairs so I’m sure this shaped his
philosophy greatly. And I have been told that in the 60’s in America
many used his thoughts on relationships to promote the “Free Love”
movement. Some of you probably know what I’m talking about… But I
digress don’t I…
Anyhow, as a result of his convictions,
particularly around war and disarmament, Russell was dismissed from
jobs, jailed for his anti-war stances and banned from various
religions institutions. Here was a brilliant man and scholar, whose
consciousness was pricked early on and he did it his way. I like Betrand Russell because he was true to himself but above all else,
he was a thinker and believed in the power of using one’s
intelligence and not tribal instincts to solve problems. I like what
he said, “We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the
face and not be subdued by the terror that comes from it.” And he
argues that religion uses fear and becomes the “Opiate of the
people” as Marx says. But when you look through your own eyes and
you don’t take things second or third hand, and you filter for
yourself, you don’t live with that fear anymore. You don’t preach
hell, but hope and courage. And you develop as Russell put it, “A
fearless outlook and a free intelligence.”
Well here I am. I shared with you that I was reborn eight years ago.
Most of you know what I am about to say but I say this for the new
comers and visitors today… I was a Christian fundamentalist from
age 16 to 26. From about age 27 onward, something began to fester
and grow in me and I could not accept what I was learning
religiously. My mind was wrestling with all sorts of things. I had
studied Christianity in the Methodist church I was reared in. I had
done Bible studies with Jehovah’s Witnesses. But ultimately I
thought my call was to be a Methodist minister, just like my
eventual Father-in-law. In fact, in my first two years of college my
nickname was Reverend. Basically, I would give sermons in my Public
Speaking class. I got an “A” because I kept the students saying
“Amen preacher.”
Slowly, as I began to wake up wiping the sleet from my eyes,
metaphorically speaking, I began to ask lots and lots of questions.
The more I experienced, the hungrier I got for answers to my
questions. I began to see that my religion was not for me. This
became glaring for me in seminary. The crazy part is I wanted to be
a preacher but did not know where I could be one and still be true
to myself. I had moved from reading religious books literally to
reading them symbolically and I began to understand the power of
myth in culture. What religion was there for me? I began wondering
if I was a theist, that is, was God personal to me any longer? What
religion was there that could allow me time to grow and the space to
question? I became more Agnostic believing in a Higher Power but
not knowing what it does in life. I began enjoying the Asian
religions with their images of a universal deity for the many not an
exclusive patriarchal deity for the few. What religion could I
participate in and be a minister too? Am I insane? We all want
somewhere to be recognized and accepted and nurtured and loved. We
all need fellowship. But where was I to go. I didn’t go anywhere. I
went inward and began writing and spending a lot of time reading
about varying philosophies.
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