Honest Doubt and Truer Faith

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Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Why did the Unitarian Universalist cross the road? To support the chicken in its search for its own path.
That’s how much we want to support the quest for meaning.

To quest for truth is to question.

Without doubt, beliefs are rigid. Try as you might to fit beliefs into neat, all tied up, little packages, life is always changing and so do beliefs.

Truth is not carved in stone and set for all time. Truths were not revealed once and forever; truths are continuing to be discovered, uncovered, revealed in our lives and experiences.

A Zen maxim goes: “Great doubt, great awakening; little doubt, little awakening’ no doubt, no awakening.”

Doubt acknowledges truth is immense. Doubt puts the big in ambiguity.

Twice when I wrote the title of this talk, I left off the T in honest, making honest doubt, hones doubt. Hone to sharpen, polish, perfect, work on, improve, practice doubt. Questioning is a process of refining beliefs and understanding.

Yet in a 2004 Pew Research poll 87% of Americans says they never doubted the existence of God; never. 81% say they never doubt there will be a literal judgment day where people will be called before God to answer for their sins.

Long-time Unitarian Universalist minister and past president of Starr King School for the Ministry Gordon McKeeman was asked about his belief in God. He said Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays he believed; Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he had doubts, and Sunday was up for grabs.

It’s true that I doubt that Jesus, or Buddha, was born and died differently than other humans. I doubt a virgin birth or birth out of a mother’s side. I doubt Jesus’ physical resurrection. I see these stories as metaphor. I know it’s a miracle when a child is born. I know someone can die and you can still feel their presence, hear their voice. I know death can remind the living of what’s most important and death can bring rebirth.

But these are not doubts that are deep and troubling. The doubt that wakes me at three in the morning is, ”Did I do what I should have done? Did I say what I wish I hadn’t said? Is what I have to offer what’s needed? Am I helping or harming? Am I living my life the way I want to…in a worthy way?

I dreamed of people at a party doing the bunny hop with stiff movements. They looked like they were doing the zombie stagger. If we are really all the characters in our dreams, I question myself. Am I passionless, stilted, just going through the motions?

Sometimes I doubt life’s meaning. Maybe it is all meaningless? Will love really conquer all? Will the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice? [as Theodore Parker and Martin Luther King proclaimed]

I was feeling low. I was like a frozen thing, like a zombie, no passion, no pizzazz. I thought I’m just treading water. I was just barely keeping things afloat. I was full of doubt about myself and the world and what was possible.

A friend listened, just listened, then said, “when the world is unsettling, when so much is discouraging, keeping afloat is pretty good.”

I began to thaw, to feel a weight off my shoulders, a little spring in my step.

One of our spiritual practices is to hone doubt, a doubt that isn’t superior and elitist, a doubt that encourages flexibility, openness, humility, doubt that wants to understand.

This is doubt that seems different than skepticism or cynicism.

Seeking is seeking out others, seeing connections, being open to new perceptions and perspectives, willing to be changed

This week the country reacted to President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Abner Mikva, a former federal judge, member of Congress, and White House counsel, said Kagan’s experience in arenas other than judicial experience is a plus. Judges talk to judges he said. This focus narrows their understanding and vision; judges need to know other points of view. Marcia Coyle from the National Law Journal said she believed Obama’s choice was made to bring more diversity to the court, to make the court more representative of America.

Whether you support her appointment or not, it is good to hear people saying better judgments are made when you are in the presence of the rich variety of voices that make up our country. This is true is matter of religion as well as justice.

Speaking on the issue of the Roman Catholic church and sexual abuse in Ireland, Marie Collis, a victims’ advocate, said when the leadership is an all-male group of people who have the same training, the same beliefs, they reinforce each other. They live in a bubble. They lose touch with ordinary people.

For us to be seekers of truth, we need to be in the company of many people of all ages, with varieties of beliefs, backgrounds and experiences.

Sometimes we’re excited about diverse opinions because we can have a lively disagreement.

It is said that wherever you find two Jews, you find three religious opinions. UUs are amazed by such unanimity.

Our congregation’s work is to build a place where it is safe to disagree. Sometimes in disagreements, I feel like something is going on that isn’t related to the issue. Sometimes it can feel competitive, sometimes attacking. What is this repressed anger? You can’t get angry at your boss or your partner or child so it comes out here. Our work is to notice what’s going on inside us and to name when things feel uncomfortable. Then we stay with the process and try again.

Community making goes beyond lively disagreement to seeking to understand.

Honing doubt calls us to build community, find common ground, listen respectfully and openly.

We share differences to be enriched by them.

I want to cross the road to put myself in places where I’m not usually, to consider other view points.

I hear some one tell about their life and my understanding grows.

In this faith, listening is a sacrament. It takes practice.

The other side of doubt is never being satisfied, always searching, never landing, never going deeper.

We’ve out grown beliefs of our childhood, left behind things we once assumed were givens. That’s not the end of the quest. What do we affirm?

Being religious is part of being human. The religious impulse, the longing for connection with others, for relating to the universe, is natural.

According to Carl Jung, ""Doubt and insecurity are indispensable components of a complete life,” and he said, “The human psyche is by nature religious and spiritual.”

If the spirit doesn’t have a place in your life, it withers. When the spirit withers,.the world dries up.

If we only know what we don’t believe, if we deny the religious impulse, such repression leads to destructiveness.

We need a community where we can worship with our authentic, true selves, a community where we continue to question. What do you affirm? Where is your aliveness?

In Delhi, Bill and I were in a government office to replace our India visas . We’d filled out the proper forms and been told to take a seat.. We were waiting and waiting, past closing. Finally someone came up and said, “Why are you people sitting here?” I thought it was the most important question.

What am I doing here? Here in the universe?

There’s got to be more to life than work.

How do we keep alive?

This week we celebrated the life of Clarissa Salter. Clarissa was a violinist, teacher, jeweler. As her physical health declined, she needed new ways to express herself. A photograph shows her confined to a hospital bed in her home, connected to tubes. Before her is a little lap top, where she is writing poetry. Clarissa continued her search for meaning and purpose. She was part of a on-line poetry group. Though she never met in person the other poets, they became a community. Some of them spoke at her memorial service. She touched their lives with her poetry. During her last days, she said she was curious about death and didn’t want to miss it. Clarissa’s body weakened, but her spirit did not dry up.

We humans need way to relate creatively to each other. Opportunities abound here: music, writing group, play reading, deep sharing, ways to try something new.

We are on a free search where we are liberated from confining thought and lifeless creed, but that’s not enough, we needed to be liberated into life.

Truer faith is being true to who you are and being in community…willing to be challenged, to be enriched, to be changed.

Why are you people sitting here? Why are we here together?

We are here to be present to each other in pain and doubt.
We are here to find passion and purpose, to grow and serve, and get inspired to act.

We rekindle the light of each other’s flames.

There is a place in us that can be reached, renewed, stirred to new life, new creativity.

Your whole self is welcomed here: mind and heart, despair and longing, doubts and faith.
My and your understanding of the world is imperfect, incomplete.
We are still learning, growing, experiencing. Truth is still unfolding, in you, in me, in us. It’s exciting to be on the search together!

Honest Doubt and Truer Faith from UU Church of Berkeley on Vimeo.