I started thinking about what I
would say today when I read this quote: “We do not see things as they are, we
see them as we are.” Now I don’t want to
take too long dwelling on who the original author is, but suffice it to say is
that it has been attributed to author Anaïs Nin, the Babylonian Talmud,
philosopher Immanuel Kant, professor of philosophy G. T. W. Patrick, British
writer and journalist H. M. Tomlinson, Management guru Steven Covey, and
Anonymous. If you want to explore who
wrote this quote there is a great article I can refer you to.
“We do not see things as they are,
we seem them as we are.” Have you ever
had an intense emotional reaction to a situation or experience or a
word/phrase/quote, while others around you seem unfazed by whatever set you off?
I was the Worship Committee chair, gosh, some 30 plus years ago, at Bay Area
Unitarian Universalist Church (BAUUC) in Texas, I brought a speaker in, his
name is David. A little background on
David. He is a clinical psychologist and
he was a colleague of mine at a local clinic.
I had brought him in to speak to the congregation one time previously,
and he talked about managing stress from a psychological and spiritual
perspective. Everyone loved his
presentation. David is also an
Evangelical Christian, but he knows about Unitarian Universalism. He and I have talked a number of times about
our differing faith positions.
This time David brought his
evangelical mother and brother to BAUUC to hear him preach/speak. I was his Worship Associate sitting behind
him as he spoke. David began to preach
about his belief in Jesus and how everyone should believe in Jesus in order to
be saved from eternal damnation; just to remind you he was preaching to a
Unitarian Universalist congregation.
This is certainly not what he and I had discussed when I asked him to
preach.
Needless to say, I felt my gut twist and began to sweat
profusely. And I could see many members
in the congregation react as well, but here’s the thing, some expressed anger,
some expressed confusion, some seemed to tune it out, and some seemed to be in
deep reflection.
During the sermon, I felt not
unlike famous Universalist John Murray’s wife, Judith Sargent Murry, when
Universalist Hosea Ballou preached in her husband’s pulpit back in 1793. Murray believed in Universal salvation, but
also believed in the Trinity and in purgatory as a pit stop before going to
heaven. Ballou believed in Universal
salvation without purgatory, and he believed in Unitarianism—that there was
only one god and Jesus was a spiritual human, not a divine being. Murray’s wife arranged for one of her
congregants to get up and shout after the sermon, “This is not what is normally
preached in this church.” There was a
point during David’s sermon when I thought I might be compelled to do the same
thing.
After the
service, what I realized was that I was one of those people wounded by my past
Christian faith, and I did not want my bruised worldview and my unhealed issues
and my precise expectations about what should be preached from our free pulpit
to a Unitarian Universalist congregation to influence what other people were
experiencing during the service. Their
responses belonged to them. I also
realized that each person in that service was given the opportunity to look
within, to step back from their expectations, and consider what they would take
away from this message. 
Let me tell you a couple of stories
about what can happen when you release your spiritual or religious expectations
and authentically open up to an experience without trying to control it. I do have one caveat about all this. If you have had such a painful experience
that it traumatizes you when you are reminded of it, I do not recommend putting
yourself in a situation that will activate you.
Know that if you find yourself activated during these examples or during
any worship service or activity in this congregation, please take care of
yourself. If you need to leave, if you
need someone to be with you outside this sanctuary, if you need to close your
eyes and meditate/pray, please know that we care about you and want you to find
the way back to yourself, feeling grounded once again.
Rev. Marlin Lavanhar is the minister of one of
our largest Unitarian Universalist churches.
The church is multi-racial and very pluralistic. Marlin preached at General Assembly 2015
about an experience that challenged him to go with the experience rather than
let his expectations control him. He
said: “[A] white member of the church walked into my office one day. He is a
staunch humanist, a lawyer, about 60 years old. He said, ‘Marlin, I want to
tell you something that I would have never told anyone in this church and never
have. I grew up Pentecostal and to this day I still speak in tongues.’”
Marlin went on: “I tried not to look too surprised. But I
was shocked. I asked ‘How often?’ and he said, ‘Probably about once or twice a
week.’ He described it as a kind of meditation that allows his mind to rest.
Once I got over my initial
disbelief & quietly checked my own prejudices, I was struck hardest by
realizing that this is a central part of his spiritual life, and he has spent
30 years in our congregation and has never felt he could tell anyone in our church
without being judged negatively and maybe even made to feel like an outsider.”
How would
you react if someone shared with you that they have a spiritual practice that
seems radically different from what you might expect to exist in a Unitarian
Universalist congregation? How would
your expectations influence your reaction?
How aware are you of how your expectations and past experiences
influence your reactions today? And how
do your reactions influence how welcoming you can be to someone who walks
through those doors thirsting for the life-saving message of Unitarian
Universalism?
I say life-saving, because I have
seen people’s lives saved by finding a Unitarian Universalist congregation, a
place they can feel safe, can be affirmed and loved for who they are, just as
they are, loved for how they choose to live their lives, loved for who they
choose to love, loved beyond belief.
Let me
share another story. There was a
15-year-old girl whose mother brought her to the Unitarian Universalist church
I served as a last resort. Prior to that
her mother had taken her to church after church trying to find a community
where the girl could feel she belonged. But the same disappointing pattern
happened again and again. The girl would go into the religious education class
in each church they visited and introduce herself. As the group got to know her, she would
eventually share that her father was an atheist. Her peers would sometimes gasp. Many times they tried to convince her that it
was her responsibility to convert her father.
Often she was socially rejected.
This happened in church after church, Sunday after Sunday.
Eventually her mom brought her to my church. She was scared. So many bad experiences. So hard to be hopeful. She went to the religious education class as
she had so many times before. She
introduced herself, and because she didn’t want to form relationships only to
go through the pain of rejection again, she decided to get it over with and
blurted out, “And my father is an atheist!”
There was that familiar pause, but then an unfamiliar response: “Yeah,”
said one of the other teens, “so is mine.
Now tell us more about you.” And
just like that, she was home.
Notice how
her negative experiences shaped her expectations. She and her mother could have given up on
finding a community where she could belong.
Where she could be loved for who she was, just as she was.
Have you ever felt that the
expectations people put on you got in the way of being in relationship with
them? At work? At home? Here, in this congregation? Have there been times when your expectations
and the expectations of others conflicted or created pain even though you each
had the best of intentions, both hoping for a new friendship or an opportunity
to deepen connections, to be your most authentic self?
What do you think are some of the
expectations people have when they enter the doors of a Unitarian Universalist
church? In this congregation, how do
your expectations interact with the expectations of someone new to this
congregation? Without even being aware
of it, sometimes we project expectations that to a visitor might seem like a
wall to climb over or a river too broad to cross, without help, without our
help.
And I am not only talking about
what happens in this congregation, I am also talking about our everyday
lives. How do we let our expectations
get in the way of relationships with people who, for whatever reason, seem very
different from us? Are you aware of any
of your expectations that might influence your behavior, decision-making,
engagement with someone new or someone you would like to deepen a relationship
with?
Now here’s a question for you:
“When you meet someone, perhaps in this congregation, for the first or second
time, do you leave the conversation knowing more about them, or do they leave
the conversation knowing more about you, about your
experiences/ideas/beliefs/expectations?”
How would the way you, we, welcome a person into our lives change if
you, if we were more focused them?
Putting aside our expectations and trusting what unfolds.
Years ago, there was a book called
Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.
The premise of the book was to have a successful loving long term
relationship with your spouse or partner, you needed to approach your spouse or
partner as if they were from another planet, in other words each time you
approached your spouse or partner, you would engage with them without
assumptions that you knew anything about what was going on inside them or any
expectations about how they would react, no matter how long you had been in
relationship. Think about how that might
work in your life, with people at work, at home, in this congregation. What would change?
This might
crack open our ways of seeing others, and spring board us into new ways of
thinking about and of being in relationships.
It would mean doing a little less trying to control our conversations
and relationships. It would involve
trusting reality and the people in our lives, even when it or they don’t meet
our expectations.
“God, [goddess, universe, reality, humanity, mother earth,]
give us rain when we expect sun.
Give us music when we expect trouble.
Give us tears when we expect breakfast.
Give us dreams when we expect a storm.
Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.
…play with us, turn us sideways and around.”
(with slight revision from a reading by Australian
cartoonist, poet and cultural commentator Michael Leunig).
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