I believe...

I belong to a Unitarian Universalist church. UU is a very liberal religion, where one can pretty much believe what they want and still be accepted. In our church there are Christians, Buddhists, Jews, atheists, humanists, pagans, you name it. I love it partly for that reason - it is so open. But that's also a source of frustration one can have with this faith. There is no creed, nobody telling us what to believe. A common joke is that leading UUs is like trying to herd cats.

This year I have been part of the teaching team for the Coming of Age (COA) class. This was a year-long curriculum geared towards 8-12 grade youth. We met for 2 hours approximately every other Sunday morning as well as a day long and an overnight retreat. Before you start thinking I'm being a superhero for commiting this amount of time, I will tell you that there were 5 leaders and we only needed two per session, so I didn't have to teach every session. Plus, I missed the overnight retreat because I was in Hawaii.

Anyway, I was a little apprehensive about teaching this age group because my only experience with teens is when I was one myself, and I'm not too keen to re-live that experience. But I really enjoyed teaching this class. They kids weren't as scary as I thought they would be, and they really did have some poignant things to say.

Tonight we had the closing ceremony. The youth and their families, as well as the leaders, minister, and interested members of the congregation were invited to the church for a dinner and celebration. During this time, each youth had a turn at the pulpit to read their Credo, or faith statement. This were something we'd been developing with them all year. It is important to have a Credo in this faith, because otherwise it is hard to articulate to others what you really believe. And you can be a UU and still believe. In something.

I am so thrilled and impressed with all of the kids tonight. Each Credo was well thought out and it was obvious that they had learned about their UU religion and themselves this year. The underlying theme was that to be a UU was to be helpful to others. Also, many of them don't necessarily believe in the afterlife, so most of them stressed how important it is to live each day to its fullest. Each statement was a couple of pages long, but here are some other noteworthy quotes from tonight:

I don't know who created the Earth. But it doesn't matter how the Earth came about, only what we are doing on it now.

Until the COA class, I didn't really know anything about the UU religion, except that I was the only kid in school who didn't go to church within 5 minutes from his house.

In school, we are taught a lesson and then tested on it. In life, we are tested, and the test teaches us a lesson.

I believe that God exists for each of us in whatever form we believe it to be.

I don't believe in heaven in the traditional sense, because I don't think there is enough room in the sky to comfortably hold all of the bodies.

Things happen for a reason, and even the bad things can teach us a lesson.

My faith is formed from my life experiences. And I have had some pretty rough life experiences, but I have learned about resilience and hope.


Anyway, I wish I had taped the Credo statements, because they were all very insightful. I took something home from each and every one of 16 kids that spoke today. And I was inspired by these youth to write my own Credo today. Here goes:

I believe in God not as a figure in the skies, whom we can talk to and who can judge us, but in a spirit that connects all living things, especially people. We can send positive and negative energy to each other or to the world in general.  In addition, we can choose which energy we want to accept. I am a scientist, so I am always searching for answers to the unknown. I cannot rely simply on faith.  There is a great deal about this world that we do not know, but I believe that at some point these questions will be answered by science. As the questions become fewer and fewer, traditional religions will play a smaller and smaller role.

However, there is energy, even in the form of thoughts, that can affect others. Hope works because people use it to take action. Prayer works because people feel that people care. I also believe in luck – good or bad. However, we can also make our own luck by our actions. Think about the times you have felt especially lucky or unlucky. Certainly you had at least a small role in the events. For instance, if you choose to repeatedly drink and drive, someday you may be unlucky enough to get pulled over, or worse. If you are successful in life, sometimes it is a matter of being at the right place at the right time, but you played a role in getting yourself to that place.

I also believe that the older I get, the less I know. I am learning things about myself and others all of the time, and these lessons can come from the most surprising places. Recent events in my life have caused me to re-think some things I thought I knew. I suspect that in a few years, new events will change me again. We never really grow up.

It is our connection to this earth and to other humans that is the most important. I do not believe in much of an afterlife. In fact, I am fairly ambivalent about it. Karma, as it were, does have a role (meaning that the energy you spend and send out will be matched for better or worse), but it does not happen after we die; it happens as we live. You may only have one shot at this world, so make it worthwhile. And never stop learning.

Or something like that.