By golly, I really DO belong among these people

Yesterday at church it was the first Sunday back for the "new church year." The church year follows the school year because they have simply accepted the fact that this is the Pacific Northwest and even the most spiritual of people are gonna pretty much spend their weekends hiking and kayaking. So they scale it way back for the summer. I went a few times during the summer, and it was nice - quiet, meditative. This week when I went back, I was almost put off by all the hustle and bustle in the place.

Now, this is only my second year as a Unitarian, so I was pretty pleased when the minister started his preachin' and informed us that he planned to expound on the principal principles of Unitarian Universalism, which he'd had a chance to revisit in a new way while off on a retreat at a Trappist monastary in rural Oregon (probably hiking and kayaking like the rest of us). I was pleased because Unitarian Universalism prides itself on being a tolerant faith, based on the belief that revelation of truth is continuous, and we all experience it uniquely. No creeds, no dogma. So even though it's a centuries-old faith tradition, it can seem pretty mushy, what with the Christians and the deists and the humanists and the naturalist-pantheists, all respecting each others' modes of revelation all the damn time.

I certainly didn't mind a little clarification to start out the new year. And lo and behold, if he didn't preach about the Creative Force of the Universe! There's a great creative force which is greater than us and precedes us, and we do not control it; we have free will only to try to obstruct it, or try to align ourselves with it.

Apparently in his opinion - which any Unitarian Universalist is free to disagree with, vehemently - belief in a Creative Force of the Universe is one of the principal priniples of Universalist Unitarianism. Who knew. I guess it makes sense, given that Darwin was a Unitarian.