Finding the Common Denominator

Elected this year to a board of directors for a small-med, non-denominational nonprofit, I find I am the only non-Catholic in the group. It was very open-minded of them to elect a UU, a religion they were not sure that they understood. They found the common denominator in me: compassion and dedication to the work.

While we are set up as non-denominational, we support a religious school and other projects that are administered by nuns. We start and end our meetings with prayer. Sometimes it does feel like we are speaking two different languages. For them, it all comes from God, God finds a way, God is at work, not us. For me, whatever happens with our projects happens because of people, people find a way, people are at work, and well, we are making things happen. I've never actually said that out loud before, because even when I think it, it sounds prideful, antithetical to nonprofit work.

So, imagine my surprise when I found my common denominator in the Catholic Social Teachings:

• "...all people are sacred..."
• "We believe that every person is precious, that people are more important than things, and that the measure of every institution is whether it threatens or enhances the life and dignity of the human person."
• "We are one human family whatever our national, racial, ethnic, economic, and ideological differences. We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, wherever they may be. Loving our neighbor has global dimensions in a shrinking world...At the core of the virtue of solidarity is the pursuit of justice and peace."
• "A basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition ... and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first."
• "Care for the earth is not just an Earth Day slogan, it is a requirement of our faith."

If it hadn't said "Catholic" on the document, I would have thought it was written by a UU.

I know these same teachings have been used in a variety of ways, many of which I disagree with, but interestingly, they are also becoming a test for Paul Ryan. He started it, saying the CST is the inspiration for his economic policies. Many Catholics support Ryan, if only for his pro-life-ness.

But, many others are holding him to his own standard. The National Catholic Register reported yesterday:

When he [Ryan] spoke at Georgetown University last spring, he was greeted by a statement from 60 Catholic theologians who charged that his budget plan was “morally indefensible and betrays Catholic principles of solidarity, just taxation and a commitment to the common good.”

A letter from nearly 90 faculty and administration officials at Georgetown informed Ryan that his budget plan “appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

And — if that wasn’t enough — a committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, led by Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., sent a letter to Congress criticizing the Ryan budget.


next topic: more commonality with gay rights, catholics are serious about social justice for all



Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/paul-ryan-catholic-who-looks-to-churchs-social-teaching-tapped-as-romney-ru/#ixzz23ZSWJjgT

Compassion for the saved?

So, it's not the first time I've been damned, but again yesterday I was told that I am going to hell, only this time by a family member. It seems hard for Christians to say this as the past few times this has come up it's been presented as more of a logic problem: If one doesn't profess faith in Jesus as the divine savior, then one will go to hell. Therefore, I will go to hell because I don't profess Jesus as my divine savior.

She was curious about UUs but was not reassured by anything I had to say because it was so far from the "truth." There was no arguing this point, because in the absence of reason she did not own this truth; it belonged to God. 

Like most of us, I don't like to be told I'm wrong, and even though I did not believe it and was slightly offended by it, I walked away feeling some deep compassion for this Christian who lives in a narrow world that does not include much of the rest of her family.

I wonder if it feels like saving yourself during a tsunami while watching the rest of your family drown? Will she find peace in the end that she did everything she could to try to save us, or will she know in her heart that she could have done more? What a terrible  burden and reckoning.

She added later that she loved me anyway. I imagine she is praying for me as I speak. I think I should pray for her, as well.

Do you believe in satan?

It was an odd question just two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, considering it was not the topic of conversation and it was asked by an attorney I had just hired.

I told her that I was not a christian. After declaring herself to be a bible-thumping christian,  she asked, "what are you? if it's OK to ask."

The usual I'm-a-UU-what-is-that chat followed, before she asked, "Do you believe in God?" I gave the simple, though incomplete and inadequate reply, "Yes."

"Do you believe in Satan?"

Good lord, couldn't she just ask something simple like "was it your fault?"  Since she seemed at present more interested in my soul than my legal status, my thoughts naturally ran to Michelle Bachmann and the anti-gay/christian evangelism disguised as therapy at Bachman and Associates. Maybe this was some legal version of christian zealotry.

I was wrong. She was not trying to convert me to christianity, but just trying to convince me that Satan or evil or the dark side or whatever you want to call it truly exists, and she had experienced it.

Do I believe in Satan? I told her that I don't know.

Since then, I came across Angela Herrera's article on uuworld.org,"After 9/11, can Unitarian Universalists talk about evil?" She says:

This is where religious liberalism, even though it has underestimated humankind’s capacity for evil in the past, has something important to say about evil. We are called to balance the naming of evil in the world with the need to be humble and on guard for it—not as the dangerous other that would try to trick us, but mingled right here with the best of ourselves. 

Right here with the best of ourselves...

Do you believe in satan, in evil, in the mingling of it in ourselves?

Wishing you all much peace on the marking of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and in your Water Communion/Mingling of the Waters tomorrow.