“Fount of Wonder”
By Rev. Nastasha Ostrom
Preached Sunday, June 18, 2017
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Raleigh
“Spirit In Practice”, a Unitarian Universalist Tapestry of Faith class for adults, features a story by Rev. Erik Walker Wikstom called “The Wandering Teacher”. In the story, a man comes to aspiritual teacher with questions in his heart. He tells her that he is not a theist and doesn’t follow a spiritual discipline, but still feels that there is something he needs in his life.In response, the teacher asks him, “When do you feel most alive?” and when he answers, “When I am playing with my children” the teacher replies, “Then play with your children and you will find what you seek.”
We are all seekers, religious seekers with deep spiritual needs. We need hope, comfort, renewal, connection, meaning, inspiration, healing, community, wholeness and more. And we come to religious communities, to thisreligious community, in order to have those needs met.
Each faith community seeks in its own way to meet the many needs brought into its arms. We are no different. When people come to us with spiritual needs, we fulfill those needs in many ways.
To those seeking healing and justicein a society that devalues so many lives, we teach that each person is valuable and should be treated with dignity. To those seeking connection in a society that so often isolates us and separates us from the natural world, we teach that all of existence is interconnected and should be treated with respect. Our congregations are cradles where we nurture deeply held values like these that heal, inspire and challenge.
Sometimes newcomers wonder where our beliefs and values come from.Sometimes lifelong UUs wonder that! The answer is our 6 Sources. The things we affirm and promote in Unitarian Universalist congregations come from direct experience of the sacred, from justice advocates, from the world religions, from Jewish and Christian teachings, from Humanist teachings and from the teachings of earth-centered traditions.
The first of these Sources is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” Unlike the other 5 sources, which focus outside of us on received words and received traditions, our first Source begins with us as individuals and our unique personal experiences of “that transcending mystery and wonder”.
There are countless ways that we might encounter mystery and wonder in our lives, and countless ways that we might understand and name it. Some call this transcending mystery and wonder God or Goddess, others Universe. Still others might call it Love, Spirit, the Ultimate, the Transcendent, the Sacred, the Ground of Being, the Divine, or simply Mystery. You may have felt its presence, as in the story, while studying religious writings, spending time in nature, caring for others, caring for yourself, or playing with our children.
Perhaps during the story you were reminded of other examples, maybe even ones from your own life. Maybe you’ve encountered transcending mystery and wonder while looking up at the stars through a telescope. Our universe is so, so big, and we’re so small on this one, tiny, beautiful planet. And yet we can gaze upon the majesty of the cosmos and imagine what is out there beyond us. We are often simultaneously humbled and uplifted in such moments.
Perhaps you’ve experienced transcending mystery and wonder while tending a plant or a garden. I once fancied myself a balcony gardener, and used to step out onto the balcony each morning and evening to water my little tomato plant. Each morning when I went outside, I found that the leaves were greener and the little tomatoes were bigger. I realized that even with all of my education, I only had the vaguest sense of how soil, sunshine, water and air interacted each day to produce such beautiful growth. I was in the presence of a wonderful little miracle each morning, witnessing how forces alive in the world, forces not of my making, were creating and sustaining life right in front of me.
There are so many different ways we may individually and collectively experience the miracle of existence that dwells within, among and beyond us. Birth and death. Nature and the realm of human relationship. We may not all have the same experiences at the same times or places, or give those experiences the same names, but all of our diverse ways of knowing mystery and wonder are affirmed as valid and valuable here. Spiritual knowledge is not the special property of just one person or just one religion.
As Christian tradition reminds us, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Unitarian Universalism affirms that we are all spiritual beings. We are all “born of the Spirit”, and as such we are all endowed with the capacity to directly the sacred.
Furthermore, our own individual experiences of the sacred are affirmed within our Unitarian Universalist faith communities as potential sources of wisdom for us all. Where, after all, do our other 5 Sources come from? Each and every one of them has its origins in people. Real people just like you and me experiencing for themselves the sacred.
The great sages, mystics and prophets of the ages are not the only authorities on religious knowledge. You too know a thing or two of vital importance about sacred matters, because you too have the capacity to touch the sacred, however you might personally name it.
That being said, the power of our 1st Source lies in its emphasis on experiencing the sacred, rather than on naming, defining or thinking about it. A few years ago I taught “Spirit In Practice”, the class from which our story this morning came. I soon discovered that my students preferred to skip the actual spiritual practices in the class in favor of talking about them instead! We UUs can sometimes get so bogged down in debating the language of reverence, trying to find the best possible words to describe the sacred, that we may forget to actually take the time to try to experience it for ourselves.
For this reason, our 1st Source is in some ways countercultural within our faith tradition. It is a challenging Source, and good medicine for us when we get so lost in our heads that our spirits are neglected.
Our religious movement has long been marked by our discomfort, even skepticism, of emotionality in religious expression. We were Puritans once, after all, back in the earliest days of our movement.
But our 19th century Transcendentalist forbearers, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau, yearned and advocated for a more intense, direct spiritual experience.
The Transcendentalists believed that each and every person is capable of directly encountering and obtaining knowledge of the sacred by spending time in the natural world. They taught that one need not, and should not, rely solely on teachings passed down from others about divine matters, but could obtain spiritual wisdom right from its sacred source. Thoreau once complained that “We check and repress the divinity that stirs within us to fall down and worship the divinity that is dead without us.” The Transcendentalists had little use for received tradition.
Of course, the Transcendentalists were not the first people in the world to ever affirm our human capacity to directly experience the Ultimate. Buddhists do so as well, as do Pagans and others.
Our 1st Source reminds us that, far from being confined to a 19th century American intellectual tradition, “direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder” has been “affirmed in all cultures”.
However, it is important that we name and claim where this idea comes from within our own particular tradition. We can sometimes unintentionally remake others’ spiritual wisdom in our own image, cutting away vital aspects of experiences that are similar to but also different than our own in our effort to reduce them to fit into the mold of our own worldview. We can honor and respect one another’s wisdom, and the wisdom of other faith traditions, without stealing it or changing it to try to make it conform to our own tradition.
If we can do that, if we can approach wisdom derived from our own and others’ direct experiences with the same care and respect with which we approach the sacred itself, our spiritual lives will be enriched.
Unitarian Universalism is like a sacred pool fed by six springs, six Sources. Here, we may rest beside these living waters and be comforted and healed. Here, we may drink and be nourished and refreshed for the challenges and adventures ahead of us. And here, we may bear witness and be inspired by the visions of a better possible world reflected here.
Our 1st Source invites us into personal relationship with the forces that create and uphold life, forces at work within, between and beyond us. The wisdom you bring here through your own encounters with mystery and wonder is needed and valuable within this community.
As the Teacher in our opening story asked, “When do you feel most alive?”
Go, and do that.
May you have a close and intimate encounter with the sacred mystery of life. May you be filled with wonder that breaks your heart wide open and makes your spirit soar.May you, as some of the Christians among us say, have life, and have it abundantly.May you, as some of the pagans among us say, never hunger and never thirst. Amen and blessed be.