Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection: Building My Own Theology?

Joy Morgenstern
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Palo Alto, CA

I’ve been thinking about today’s topic of building your own theology. Before I joined the UU church, I never knew I needed a theology. In fact, I’m still not convinced I do. I don’t really believe in God, I don’t think, but rather than an Atheist or an Agnostic, I’ve always considered myself an Apathetic — I don’t really care whether God exists. I’ve never seen how it affects my life in any way. I’m a scientist. I believe things when they are supported by good, solid, well-researched, peer-reviewed evidence. Sometimes not even then.

Yet I’ve always had beliefs and principles and a moral code that I live my life by. I’ve rejected some people’s moral decisions and respected other’s. But my moral code has always been based on what I considered my political beliefs, rather than my spiritual ones. Is there a difference? Well, I believe in things like justice and equality, and that there should be an end to oppression and war. Those things sound kind of political. Then again, I also think that people should be nice to each other (which sounds obvious, but I’m from New York City, where that’s a minority point of view). I think that we should respect people and the work they do and thank them for it. Those things don’t sound political to me, but they don’t really sound very spiritual, either. They sound more like, I don’t know, good manners or something. But, that people should treat each other decently is what I believe — does that make it part of my theology?

OK, let’s work on that word “spiritual.” That means, like, God and stuff, right? but — if you remember — I’m an Apathetic, so I don’t do that. What about things like flowers and butterflies? Anything to do with nature is spiritual, right? OK, I believe strongly in protecting the environment, so there’s something spiritual in my set of beliefs — maybe it is a theology.

But what do I believe about the big things? Who created the important things, like the Universe, intelligence, the laws of physics, chocolate? That’s what makes up a theology, right? But I don’t know about any of those things, other than that I’m glad they’re there. My theology, or my beliefs anyway, the way I live my life, has to do with what I believe are the right and wrong ways to live in the world that I want to live in.

I think that’s what it means to be a UU — you have to figure out what you believe in, rather than have someone hand you a pre-fabricated, inflexible set of beliefs that you have to fit your life into the best you can. I’ve been working on this for a long time — and I think that’s what made me realize that I belong here. A few years ago I was in the “new UU” class and Jack (one of the people leading the class) said that when he started coming he realized that he had been a UU for a long time and just didn’t know it. That made me think — coming to this church is not about converting — changing your beliefs — but about developing the ones you already have.

What convinced me that I really was a UU was when Jenise (another one of the people leading the class) started explaining the Seven Principles — which is the closest thing UUs have to anything that resembles a set of rules, or beliefs, or a creed or a theology, or something. (If you don’t know what they are, look through your Order of Service; they’re in there somewhere.) Now, there I was in this class thinking that Seven Principles are pretty cool, pretty much to my liking, I probably already am a UU, when Jenise explained what they mean not by going on about how wonderful they are and how wonderful we are, but by talking about some of the ways in which we DON’T live up to our principles. That really hit me — THIS is the kind of theology or beliefs or principles or rules or whatever we want to call it that I want to live my life by. Not a bunch of stories about an old guy with a beard who will make everything ok someday if I just follow a bunch of rules about who to marry and what to eat. Just a path, and some suggestions, and some basic ideas, and a lot of support, to figure out how I can live in a way that is right for me, that makes me whole, that makes the world whole and better and more beautiful, with an understanding that I probably won’t be able to live up to these principles because there’s always more struggle and improvement that can happen. That’s my theology, and it changes and grows every day.

 

Sermon: Build your Own! by Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern