Throughout this year, we’ve been exploring more deeply how it might serve us to embrace a revised way of expressing our Unitarian Universalist values. Some people have very strong feelings about a change from principles to values. And those strong feelings range all over the spectrum. Some people don’t really care that much as long as they get to keep the community they love. 

We hold all of those reactions and impressions in mind as we consider the final value in the proposed revision: Pluralism. We are a community and a faith tradition that has increasingly recognized that there are many ways of experiencing the world, and we become more and more aware that Wisdom invites humility as we co-create spiritual community with people whose experiences are very different from our own.

Thus, the value of Pluralism begins with celebration: We celebrate that we are all sacred beings diverse in culture, experience, and theology. We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.

It’s kind of like saying that we are all different kinds of vessels for wisdom, none of us superior to another, and none of us finished learning from one another. Maybe each of us is sacred in our own unique way, or maybe we are all sacred in the same way. Whatever the case, our sacredness is mutual. Our free and responsible searches for truth and meaning are necessarily interwoven with our willingness to learn from, and share with, one another. 

This Sunday, we’ll experience pluralism through the lens of music and spiritual language that might evoke something different in all of us. Specifically, we’ll hear and sing hallelujah in an array of different spellings and styles, and we’ll invite abundant ways of making personal meaning from a communal expression of spirituality.

On May 12, our congregation will take time to celebrate the plurality of different places we are in life. Many of us are crossing thresholds of one kind or another, whether that may be an educational threshold, or downsizing, or getting a driver’s license, or giving up a car, or any number of other changes we might be making. That service will be followed by a special meal provided by Harry’s Kitchen Crew, and a conversation led by the Board in preparation for the Annual Meeting (which is June 2). 

Music will again be the centerpiece of our worship on May 19, when Melanie DeMore will join us as we consider what it means to be sacred. What makes it challenging to see ourselves and our bodies as sacred? And is it possible that embracing our own sacredness could allow us to celebrate the sacredness of others more fully? 

Finally, on May 26, Dr. Allan Georgia will share a bit about spiritual calling, both his own personal calling and his response to that call, as well as our calling as Unitarian Universalists living in a specific place and time. 

May our community continue to evolve into a place where we balance the freedom of our searches with our responsibility to one another as we co-create a space of mutual love, curiosity, respect, and celebration.