The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

Advanced Spiritual Geometry

by the Reverend Richard R. Davis

March 11, 1007

The way I see it, there are good triangles and bad triangles.  Or, if you don’t like simplistic, judgmental labeling of geometric figures, I’ll make a cause and effect observation and say that there are triangles that promote health and happiness, and there are triangles have socially destructive consequences.   Confused?  Good, I do take a certain impish delight in confusing people because it’s a good way to stir up the brain and get your attention.   You must be thinking, “What the heck is this guy talking about?  Is he planning on saying something intelligible?” 

            To which I respond, I am going to talk about something important for the health of religious communities, and I hope and believe you will find it intelligible.

            First, consider the bad triangle.  It begins innocently enough; it just kind of sneaks up beside you and oftentimes, you don’t even recognize it for what it is until it is too late because no one has named it or told you about it.  Having fallen into my share of bad triangles over the years, I speak with some authority here.   

Here’s one typical scenario:  You experience some difficulty with someone or you just don’t approve of something that he or she says or does.    In fact, it grates on you so badly that you can’t just let it go.  So, later on, when you are with a friend or colleague - someone you feel you can trust - you unload this burden and tell of your woes.   Your friend, naturally enough, is sympathetic and supportive of you.  It feels good – you’re able to get something off your chest – at least indirectly. 

            Or another typical scenario:  You may be the person to whom someone comes with their negative thoughts and feelings about another person.  You want to be friendly and supportive, so you listen to their honest concerns and gripes.  You may even enjoy this a bit –  by being taken into confidence by another he or she is implicitly saying that you are someone who will understand, someone who can be trusted and someone who can help. 

            Voila!   Now you have a triangle – that is, an unpleasant situation that began with two people (or parties), now has a third person in the mix – it’s a triangle.  These kinds of triangles bring  distinct feelings of gratification for two thirds of the participants.   First of all, by speaking of your displeasure with someone besides the person whom you see as causing it, you have avoided an unpleasant confrontation - that feels nice and safe.  You have also had an opportunity to vent your frustration instead of keeping it all bottled up inside - that feels good, too.

            But sometimes you have to wonder – just because something FEELS good, does that mean it IS good?    

            Consider how consequences of this kind of a triangling dynamic:  Does it solve the original problem?  Well, no, because no energy has been put forward toward a solution, just into digging deeper into a hole of frustration, which actually amplifies the problem.  Does it bring better understanding?  Well, this is not likely, because this triangle only serves to solidify one interpretation of an issue because the “offending” party has had no chance to offer his or her perspectives on the matter.  Are human relationships improved?  Well, no, in fact they probably get worse because the third party in this triangle will almost inevitably feel some pressure to take sides, and it’s not unusual for things to go further awry.  This third person may well feel as though she or he has to “fix” this problem (hence the phrase “getting triangled”) and may spread the story to other people, making things even more complicated and far from resolution.  This triangle often leads to increased polarization, which then leads to the birth of factions.   Does this triangle bring more trust into relationships?  Well, no, if fact this triangle – built in certain secrecy - destroys trust and sometimes destroys people’s reputations.  Overall it has destructive consequences on communities and organizations. 

            It’s good to raise your consciousness about this triangling dynamic in human relationships because then you are better prepared not to unwittingly play a role in their creation.  It’s really good to know about this if someone brings their problems with another person to you and tries to lay it on your plate, implying that you have to fix it all.  It’s good to realize that although trying to “fix” such problems might seem helpful, it is probably not going to help, and will, more likely, hurt.  It’s good to have awareness of this triangling dynamic because you will be more likely to realize when you are about to start building one yourself.  Having the awareness of such destructive triangles gives you the option of having one of those little spiritual crossroads moments when you can pause and ask:  “Do I really want to go down this path?  Do I really want to play a part in constructing such a triangle?” 

            A primary motivating force in the creation of such triangles is the fear of conflict.  And many of us fear conflict for good reason – the mere thought of it may stir up very painful memories of past conflicts that still fester like unhealed wounds.    Then, too, we don’t get much, if any, training in how to engage in fair, honest, respectful conflict with others.  So we have a cultural tendency to see only the destructive and not the creative aspects of conflict.  Conflict gets bad press.  

            Yet without good, creative conflict we’ll always be walking on eggshells, down a path that leads nowhere except to a realm of false peace and harmony where no one is really happy or comfortable.  Healthy communities have lots of conflict – not mean spirited, ego bruising attacks  – but healthy conflicts of ideas and opinions and perspectives, so that these can be tested and probed for soundness and so that true feelings do not get buried underground where they can grow into resentments and grudges.  Good conflict creates sparks, the sparks that are necessary to light the fires that warm us and the chalice flames that remind us of our highest and holiest values.

            But oftentimes there is a great temptation to avoid conflicts because there doesn’t seem to be a good foundation of trust.  If we feel that a conflict will end a relationship, result in a job termination, wound someone who is so vulnerable, or explode in our faces – as well it might – then who can blame someone for avoiding what doesn’t feel safe?   So there is this conundrum – good conflict – the honest sharing of differing thoughts and perspectives – is so important.   Yet most of us don’t have good training in how to engage in good conflict or enter into those difficult conversations of life, and there is a legitimate fear that it will turn ugly and hurtful.  No wonder conflict avoidance is so prevalent.

            But what if you could enter into a good, honest conflicts and have difficult conversations with a high level of trust that they would be fair, mutually respectful, not demeaning?  - a type of interaction wherein both parties would probably be better off afterwards?  Win win situations where truth was the victor.  Think of the creative possibilities!

            This is where the good triangle comes in – the triangle called covenant.  

First, a crash course in the theological genesis of covenant.   Three or so thousand years ago the ancient Hebrews conceived of a remarkable notion that had great ethical potential, although this was far from evident in the beginning.   They came to believe that they had a special relationship with their God, Yahweh, and that if they were faithful to this God, then this particular God (there were other gods - this idea arose in a polytheistic context) would be faithful to them.  In the beginning, from the perspective of our modern sensibilities, it seemed like a distasteful thing involving animal (and perhaps even human) sacrifices to a rather capricious-like tribal deity. 

Over time, however, their idea of God and Covenant evolved into something much more spiritually exalted.  The Hebrews realized that the best way to be faithful to this God – who began his career as a rather primitive, tribal deity, but later evolved into a compassionate, transcendent God of all embracing Love – was to treat one another as they believed that God willed – namely, with never failing love, compassion and respect.

Now I wish I could tell you this worked like a charm but, in fact, the Hebrews had a fairly poor track record of living according to this covenant.  According to their own scriptural admission, they were always in hot water for being a stiff necked, hardhearted, disobedient people who violated the spirit of this covenant.  So the great classical Hebrew prophets – Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah - arose to challenge the people to abide by their covenant with God – not by observing meaningless rites and rituals but by living in compassionate, covenantal relationship with one another.  These prophets especially called out for the rich and powerful to repent of their reprehensible social and political behavior and begin to show concern, compassion and caring for the poor, the orphans, the widows and the strangers.  These were the first cries for social justice in human history, so far as we know.  And this was a blessed consequence of this notion of covenant – a unique relationship endowed with sacred meaning, mutual trust and respect.

            So the covenant, which was originally conceived as a relationship between two entities – Yahweh and the Hebrews – evolved into a more spiritually stable, triadal – or triangular – form.   The covenant now involved three entities – each person, God (symbolizing their highest and holiest ideals), and other people.   When this covenant was truly understood and practiced, it was one beautiful triangle -pure gold, the kind that doesn’t get tarnished with time.

Fast forward a couple of thousand years to the origins of our religious movement.  Both the Unitarian and the Universalist narrative begins with a rebellion against creeds  - especially creeds concerning the trinity, original sin, and eternal damnation.  Creeds are common ways of thinking about theological matters that bind many religious communities together.  We couldn’t do that because we didn’t and don’t all think alike.  We just don’t do creeds.  But if you don’t do something to glue religious community together with some common understanding, it all falls apart. 

            So we turned to covenant.  Our covenant today is more commonly known as our Principles and Purposes where we list the seven principles of our faith and name its six main sources.  These are prefaced with the words “we COVENANT to affirm and promote (these principles).”  It’s a binding vow.  And this covenant, as it is observed by us in our lives, has a triangular shape.   

Consider the first Principle wherein we affirm “the inherent worth and dignity of every person.”   When you look at another person - any other person - with this principle as a constant spiritual referent, then you have a beautiful triangle:  You, the other person and this lofty principle that challenges you to see the sacred worth in them, especially when you may be tempted to see the worst.  Our covenant – our Principles and Purposes – serve as that third reference point that gives our relationships spiritual stability.  We say they are seven principles, but they are really one truth as viewed from different angles.

The late visionary architect Buckminster Fuller showed how you can build a stable, nearly indestructible geodesic dome simply by fitting together triangles– did you know it’s the only human made structure that grows stronger as it increases in size?  Think of the strong and stable loving, compassionate, accepting, understanding, forgiving religious community that can be built when we use the triangle of our covenant in each of our relationships – our relationships with one another, with society, the world, the entire “interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”    

            Our Principles and Purposes serve as a good covenant for our entire religious movement.  But a number of congregations have discovered that it is good to build upon this to create their own Covenants of Right Relations because there is more sense of ownership and involvement when you are directly involved in forging such an explicitly behavioral covenant. 

            We Unitarian Universalist have a special call to create and successfully live by such covenants because that is our religious specialty – covenants instead of creeds, and because in a world riven by bitter schisms, sectarian clashes, polarized political discourse, mean spiritedness and cruelty, we need to show that it is possible for there to be unity in diversity, that people need not “think alike” to “love alike.”   Have a Covenant of Right Relations is not going to be a “been there, done that” kind of process.  It’s a way of being together, day by day, year by year – it’s a transformative practice that requires a certain level of spiritual maturity and patient persistence.

We are called to become especially skilled at living in covenantal relationships – skilled at bringing our best selves forward as we engage in safe, affirming conflicts of ideas and perspectives that create new opportunities, skilled at listening to one another with respect, skilled at seeing one another through the eyes of love and compassion.  More specifically, we are called to hone our skills in such areas as nonviolent communication, in mediation, to learn to build on our strengths through the process known as “Appreciative Inquiry,” to become adept at entering into the inevitable “Difficult Conversations” we have in our relationships.

In a word, we are called to be adept at keeping our covenant in heart and mind as that constant third referent as we relate to one another.

            May the unique Covenant of Right Relations you begin to create this afternoon be a living covenant that you each take to heart, may it be that constant third reference that allows you to build a spiritually stable, loving community – the kind of community that UU theologian Alice Blair Wesley speaks of when she notes:  “At our best, we are a loving people joined in a covenant to find and live out together the ways of love. … Our covenant – to find and live out together, insofar as we can, the ways of love – is open to all who will enter it with us.”