Witnessing

[zvi]

I … rather envisioned people saying something here? I guess I'll go ahead and goose the discussion a bit, but I'd like people to can do intro posts or talk about practice, beliefs, intuitions, congregational life, anything that relates to your life as a religious person.

Okay, so, one of the things about me is that I'm a (non-UU) preacher's kid and some of the time I use Christian language to describe congregational practice that makes sense to me, but I'm an agnostic more-humanist-than-anything-else, and I'm not talking about Jesus or any god.

Are you publicly a Unitarian Universalist?

When people discuss religion in daily life, do you clarify the religious tradition to which you belong, rather than sticking to a single vocabulary of Christian sounding words like church or pagan sounding words like magic or Buddhist sounding words like meditation?

Do you proactively witness the tradition? Do your internet profiles include UU identifications*? Do you wear chalice jewelry or t-shirts? Do you have spare Principles & Sources cards to whip out of your business card wallet?

Does your family know what kind of religious community you belong to? Do they know that you don't only celebrate the holidays you grew up with, but now incorporate rites and practices from other traditions, or have given up rites and practices all together?

How do we tow the line between being open about our religious life and being proselytizers? Is being open on this issue part of your religious belief system? If you believe strongly in a specific faith tradition, like Islam or Judaism or atheism, alongside with your UU identification, do you prefer to identify that way? Is UU too complicated to talk about?

*Speaking of, can anyone recommend a more attractive icon than this one? It displeases me.

P.S. If anyone wants to reframe the questions, feel free? I know I stacked the deck with the implication that coming out is better, but if your coming at these questions from a whole other angle, feel free to lay that groundwork with your own questions and then answer those.

Comments

[shoshanna_g]

Wow, so many big questions! And me with only a few minutes in which to answer them, because I'm about to go away for several days.

I am very publicly a UU. I wear a flaming-chalice necklace, which was a birthday gift from my best friend (who is married to a UU minister), and I talk about going to church and so on. However, I will say that it took a couple of years for me to be comfortable saying things like that! I grew up with a lot of unspoken prejudice in my family against religion, a silent message that of course it was all right for Those People (the less educated, more foolish, lesser people). Now I feel as though claiming a religious identity (for UU values of "religious") is a way of fighting back against that: this is what a religious person looks like, you know? But I still kind of worry sometimes that people will think I'm weird, or conservative (or Christian) when I say something about church.

I don't carry P&S cards, but I'm a lay chaplain, so I carry my own business cards, which are fold-over cards and have the seven principles on the inside. (And coming up with an elevator speech, a quick explanation of UUism, was one of the things I was asked to do in the application process!)

My family know, and have no problem with it, except that I think my mother, who was most clear with the unspoken messages when I was a kid, is a bit wistful about me not professing Judaism,which is our heritage, though no one in our family has been religious for a couple of generations. (In her own later years, however, she has joined a synagogue! She says she likes the scholarly traditions.)

UUism is complicated, which is part of what makes it fun to talk about!

[zvi]

Oh, I'm glad it's not just me! I've been very slowly dipping a toe in atheist waters, and every time you turn around there, someone is saying how religion is a terrible thing which ruins men's lives by sucking their brains out their ears, and so I get sort of handflappy and uncomfortable, because saying, "Not all religions are like that," is generally inappropriate, but at the same time, I'm a UU. No one makes me believe stories about a giant sky father coming to rescue me! Or damn other people to hell! Or decide my fate based on the alignment of the stars the night I was born, or any of that sort of thing. *sigh*

If I read the link correctly, a lay chaplain has only ceremonial duties, not pastoral or administrative ones (not directly related to the ceremonial ones, I mean, I assume you have to sign the paperwork for marriages.)

That's very exciting for your mother! I, too, am developing an interest in religious education, although perhaps not with quite the rigor of Torah studies.

Anyway, welcome and well met. It would be lovely, when you got back, if you could post an entry discussing a little bit about how you came up with your elevator speech? I still feel a bit at a loss for words when I have to discuss such things.

[shoshanna_g]

Nope, definitely not just you!

If I read the link correctly, a lay chaplain has only ceremonial duties, not pastoral or administrative ones

Yes, that's right. I am, in fact, explicitly forbidden to do pastoral counseling; I'm not trained or qualified for it. Although obviously there's a certain amount of counseling that happens as you see people through a major lifecycle ritual, especially a funeral! But I've seen the guideline phrased as "when the ceremony is over, my relationship with them is over," which is a nice succinct guide.

And I would be glad to talk about my elevator speech when I have time to write something up! I has Thoughts.