The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Oregon

Publications

The Road Not Traveled

by The Reverend Richard R. Davis

May 6, 2007

The primary requirement toward preparing for Unitarian Universalist ministry is earning what is called a Master of Divinity degree.  If there is a more pretentious sounding degree, I don’t know what it is.  I am not a master of anything; my ignorance will always infinitely exceed my small bit of knowledge – I’m just along for the wild, exciting, unpredictable ride of life, hoping to do what good I can to make it meaningful for myself and others. (Truth be known, to be an “expert” in some field you only need to be relatively less ignorant than most others.)  In order to obtain this degree you must attend an accredited theological school – one that meets certain academic and professional standards.  I went to a very fine seminary, had some great professors, worked hard, learned a lot, and am grateful for the experience.  Yet, it was also a socially isolating experience because most of the time I was at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta – which had about six hundred students from a broad swath of Christian traditions - I was usually the sole official, non-trinitarian heretic.  I felt like a lone wolf much of the time because as a Unitarian Universalist I did not have a shared faith with my fellow students.  Which is not to say that I was treated badly, but I was definitely a theological outsider.  Unlike most of my UU colleagues in the ministry who studied with at least a few other Unitarian Universalists, I made no lasting friendships in theology school. 

            But I did have good friends during this period of my life – several of them at the place where I worked five nights a week from four o’clock to midnight to support myself and pay my bills.  This dream job for a graduate student just fell into my lap – I worked at the front desk of a post production facility where film editors and sound technicians and all sorts of other interesting people associated with the entertainment industry gathered.  I really fit in well there.  So well, in fact, that right after I graduated from theology school I was asked to accept full time, well paid, career track position.  It was a stunning offer – hands down the best job offer I’d ever had up to that time.  Had this option been available to me earlier in my life, I probably would have taken this path.  And this offer was very tempting.   I thought deeply about this, and finally I had to say “No, thank you, I am choosing another path in my life.” 

From time to time, I think about this decision and how different my life would have been if I had taken this other path.  I wonder what I would be like today.  I don’t doubt I would be different.  How you choose to spend your life is the biggest investment you ever make, and the return on that investment, for good or ill, is profoundly significant – it will shape your mind and your character. 

It’s hard for me to imagine how I would have turned out had I chosen this other path, but I can take note of how being a Unitarian Universalist Minister, someone who spends a great deal of his life in this Association and in this religious community, has shaped me.

In my twenties I began a meditation practice in Zen Buddhist settings, but over the years, I had drifted away from this, little by little.  Ironically, in theology School I convinced myself that I did not have time to meditate or have any spiritual discipline – there were too many lectures, too many books to read, too many papers to write about theology for me to have time to actually practice it.   Indeed, my meditation practice was close to becoming a spiritual relic from my idealistic youth which was going to be placed far back on some shelf in the storehouse of my memory.  Theology school may have been valuable in equipping me intellectually and professionally for ministry, but frankly, the experience wasn’t good for my psychological and spiritual health.  The demands and pressures I faced led me to live an unbalanced life – too much academic and psychological pressure, too much social isolation, too little free time to relax and restore my soul, too little sleep, too many all-nighters as I crammed for finals.   It took a toll. 

Had I accepted the other attractive job offer I don’t think that any daily spiritual practice would have again become a part of my life.  For one thing, there would have been little or no support for such a thing among my co-workers, many of whom were young men who liked to party late into the night and always sleep in on Sundays, unless there was some important weekend gig.

Yet when I joined a Unitarian Universalist Congregation and entered into the ministry, it dawned upon me that I was answering a call to make a firm ongoing commitment to seek wisdom.  I had enough earlier experience from challenging discipline to realize that the regular practice of it could deepen my wisdom and understanding, and that if I was going to be a good faith member of religious communities committed to seeking truth and understanding then I had to do what I could to move forward on that path.  So I made a vow – twenty plus years ago – to have a daily meditation practice.  In a world where anger and hatred, fear and anxiety, dread and despair often seem to gain the upper hand in people’s hearts and minds, I am profoundly grateful for a disciple that leads me on a path away from this, and I’m grateful for a community where I can practice with others and find support – I am surely better for it.

Yet I do have a natural tendency toward the meditative and contemplative life – and it’s not so remarkable that I use my connection to our religious movement to ground myself in such a practice.  What is more notable, I think, are some other ways that my connection to this congregation and to our larger movement keeps me growing, holds my feet to the fire, and continually reminds me of certain things I would tend to forget or ignore.

Ever since my early teens I’ve been a liberal news junkie -  I like to stay abreast of what’s going on in the world.  Give me a New York Times and a block of free time, and I’m a happy man.   Had I taken this other path in life I think I would have continued to read and absorb news of the nation and the world and maintain a lively interest in the flow of events.   Yet, like many so called “enlightened liberals,” I think I would have continued to fall prey to a dangerous illusion - the illusion that holding “enlightened views” – not being a racist or homophobic or jingoistic or intolerant of diversity – is sufficient unto itself.  I can well imagine that I would have found some nice, self- congratulatory enclave of open minded souls who would “tsk, tsk” the bigotry and ignorance of the world while doing precious little about it.

It’s much harder to get away with this in Unitarian Universalist communities.  Even if you are personally inclined to stay aloof from the world, there are too many others around you who will challenge you to become more aware of the suffering and injustice and inequities and oppressions that affect too many, who will remind you that a religion that does not lead to a continual call for social justice, that does not seek to engage with the world and help transform it, is impotent and finally, meaningless. 

Alas, where so many people in our consumer culture are led to seek meaning is in the acquisition of things.  Had I taken that other path I would have made good money, and there are lots of places to spend good money in our society, a society in which we consider an ever-expanding economy a sign of health - which if you look at it from the ecologically sane perspective of sustainability, is akin to saying that someone who keeps gaining weight, year after year, is experiencing ever more robust health.   In theology school I saw my friends at work driving nice sports cars and saw their fancy stereo equipment in their nice condos, and I heard of their plans to acquire more of this.  

Such gleaming commodities are a tempting lure, but as a fishing lure is to a fish, so is the lure of material goods to many American consumers.  They look all bright and promising, but in the end you find that you haven’t been truly fed, you’ve been hooked to feed an economic system that will never be satiated.   The goods that are dangled before us promise us pleasure, comfort, leisure, convenience, but so often, the end result is bored, distracted souls, alienated from what is real – community, meaningful connection to nature, to the sacred.   In the privatized world of virtual consumer reality, life is distorted – getting an ipod for yourself is more important than working for health care for the uninsured, building that home theatre comes to have a higher priority than building a public park, driving a BMW is more important than supporting public transportation or advocating for the building of safe bike paths. 

Unitarian Universalist religious communities – where I’ve spent the past twenty one years of my life - critique this consumer culture that habitually places private gain over the common good, that values production, consumption, and affluence, over stewardship of the earth and human community.  Being in such a countercultural community has made me more aware and makes me feel more responsible for living simply, for being aware of my footprint on the earth.  Had I taken the other path I probably would have swallowed that lure of material gain that promises so much fulfillment yet results in such feelings of spiritual emptiness.   

Here the emphasis is less on getting and more on giving.  Every Sunday when we receive our offering, when I see you place your gifts in the plate and bring food forward for the Marion Polk Food Share, and when I see you volunteer for the Interfaith Shelter Network Program and volunteer your time and energy here, I am reminded that one of the foundation stones of a good life is based not on getting, but on giving.   As the ancient Buddhist saint Shantideva put it:  “Whatever joy there is in this world, All comes from desiring others to be happy,  And whatever suffering there is in this world, All comes from desiring myself to be happy.” 

 Here I have been challenged to be more generous, more giving, to focus less on my personal desires and more on the needs of others.  And I have found meaning in this, my association with this movement and this congregation has trained my heart in the direction of seeking more and more to find ways to offer, to give, to be generous. 

And as I look around the world, I see so many others who are hurting.  All of us know sorrow and loss at some point.  Most of us tend to hide our hurts because there is a default social pressure to mask our true selves, but look deeply into any human face and you will eventually see the shadows of sorrow, of sadness, of pain cross over from time to time.   This is disconcerting - maybe that is why we tend to hide this from one another.   We don’t know what to say or do, or how to fix it when someone is experiencing profound sorrow or despair.  And we can’t fix it.  But we can show our caring and compassion to one another, and that can make more difference than you might imagine – As one member told me after her father died:  “I never knew how much it would mean for me to feel wrapped in the arms of love.”  And in this religious community we strive to make this happen.   Being part of religious community such as ours provides me with so many opportunities to express my care and concern, and this enables me to look at the world more and more through the eyes of compassion.  How tragic that we feel we must keep our sorrows and pain private.   How disturbing it is to see people retreat more and more into solitude, even in public places where they plug in earplugs instead of plugging into meaningful friendships.   A recent study shows that the number of people who do not have a good friend has doubled in just the past decade alone.   It is good to be part of an intentional spiritual community that strives to connect people. 

Like most who walk through these doors, I am on a spiritual journey.  And I need to do that in a community that does not dictate beliefs and creeds, that allows for honest exploration of many different sources, that does not provide pat, easy answers.  Here is a place where I regularly feel the call to explore the meaning of this wondrous mystery of life and death.  Here is a place where I regularly hear the call to keep reading, studying, expanding my mind, deepening in wisdom, opening my heart, centering my spirit and building meaningful relationships with fellow pilgrims on this quest.  Here is a place where even when my spirits flag, I find an underlying sense of hope that has been passed down to us, which we will pass on to those who come after us.  In a word, being in this setting, day after day, year after year, engenders a type of growth that does not occur automatically.  Had I taken another path that once lay before me, I sometimes wonder what I would be like today.  It’s hard to imagine, yet I do imagine that I would feel a sense of regret in having passed up an opportunity to be part of something greater than myself. 

My hope is that as you reflect on our own life you can conclude that the unique community we have created here adds a similar depth of meaning to your lives. 

The paths we choose to take, the cultural, social, spiritual environments we select to live in are not neutral, passive backdrops, but are infused with a power to shape our character and our perspective for good or ill.   So I am profoundly grateful that you have chosen to be here, to help create this community, to be part of a larger liberal religious movement that adds such a great depth of meaning to my life.  No one could build such a meaningful structure – this community of memory and hope - alone.    The 19^th Century Unitarian Minister Henry Whitney Bellows once noted that “religious communities and other such vital institutions are the only instruments, except literature and the blood, by which the riches of the ages, the experience and wisdom of humanity, are handed down.”