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From Certainty to Wonder:
The Complex Nature of Faith and Religious Tolerance
A Sermon for Prairie Crossing Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Cathy Moon

Sermon:

We were meeting with a church representative, who was explaining to us about the commitment we would be asked to make in terms of our time and our resources. After years of church shopping, punctuated by bouts of discouragement and ambivalence, my husband and I had finally decided on a church we would call home. I listened carefully to the church board member who sat across from us as he explained what it would mean to take the next step-to sign the registry and become members of the congregation. The religious influences from family, community, and education that had shaped me… my years of questioning, belief, critique, doubt and faith… all swirled around inside me in that moment. I felt myself poised in a transitional moment, ready to move into a new phase of my spiritual and religious life.

Suddenly, the minister bustled into the room and joined us. He entered the conversation smoothly, complementing the lay member's pragmatic descriptions of church membership with his explanation of the theological significance of joining the church. When he had finished, he asked if either of us had any lingering doubts about joining the church.

The question touched that place deep inside me that understood exactly what I was doing… that I was crossing the deep divide between who I had been and who I had decided to become. It was a cultural crossing for me, replete with all the fears, doubts, and misgivings that come with letting go of the known, of sacrificing connections to home and family and community, of releasing myself from beliefs and practices etched in the bones of my being. Did I have any lingering doubts? You bet I did! My eyes instantly welled up with tears as I tried to put words to what it meant to me to make that decision, to become a member of the church the two men in front of me were representing.

I don't remember what I said, but I remember my voice was thick with emotion. There was no way they could have missed it. I'm sure they weren't expecting such a response, because they shifted in their seats and then carried on as if they hadn't noticed the emotional intensity of what I expressed. They finished their pre-membership commitment talk, gave us our folder of printed material, and sent us on our way.

I never joined that church. Intellectually and ideologically I had never found a church that suited me better. But I realized I needed more. I needed a church that could not only tolerate but also support the messy, miracle dotted, heartfelt, wrenching, passionate, somewhat kooky, and totally illogical aspects of my faith… the aspects that somehow live nestled up beside my logical, analytical, intellectual, inquiring, critically engaged, skeptical, questioning mind. My intellect had been okay with the idea of joining that church, but my body rebelled, urgently reminding me of my doubts and longings through the tears that threatened to expose me from the inside out.

What is it that compels us as humans to find a religious home, a faith community? Given the vastly different religious and spiritual experiences of people at individual and cultural levels, it is no wonder that ruptures happen in and between religious communities. What is much more amazing is that we still believe in the idea of the religious home, that we come together at all.

Many years ago, after months of disappointing and discouraging church shopping, my husband and I found a Methodist church we decided to join. It was a relatively easy decision for my husband because he had grown up Methodist. But it was an angst-ridden decision for me. The minister, in his new member orientation, won me over. He talked about how people who came from various religious backgrounds brought with them the gifts of those traditions. I don't remember all that he said, but I do remember him talking about the deep understanding of ritual that comes out of the Catholic tradition, and the biblical scholarship that comes from the Protestant tradition. In so many words he not only said, "See what we have to offer!" (which is what many churches express in attempting to lure new members), but also, "I see, and value, what you have to offer this congregation." He let me know that I did not have to disown my religious past; his words enabled me to see my beliefs and traditions as gifts to the church I was joining.

And what was my religious past, my faith tradition? It was… well, I think this poem I wrote a few years ago might give you some sense of it. It's called, Catholic Girl.

I was raised a Catholic girl.
Family of twelve-mass every Sunday-sit in the front pew-confession on Saturday- twelve years of Catholic schools-who is God-God is the creator of all things-fish sticks on Fridays-first Holy Communion-mantilla on the head-stations of the cross-scapular-rosary beads-genuflect-no doubt about it-bona fide Catholic!

The thing about being Catholic
Is it's like wearing a scapular in summer;
you slip those laminated pictures of the saints over your head
on a hot August day
and they suction to your back and chest
so the plastic backing and your skin are like magnets-
they won't let go of each other.

Being Catholic sticks to me in my love for ritual…
the murmured Latin words;
the priest in his silver-threaded garments lifting his arms high,
dropping down on one knee, sitting, standing, kneeling;
the steaming gold container lifting, dropping ,lifting, dropping,
sending clouds of incense wafting down the isles,
floating over the pews, entering my nose and eyes;
the words I recite by heart, I know so well they are like breathing.

In grade school we used to line up by twos,
the boys in their blue pants, blue ties,
the girls bobby pinning lace doilies to their heads.
When we entered the church we'd dip our fingers in holy water,
making the sign of the cross on our foreheads,
feeling the water trickle down the sides of our noses,
tickling as it went toward our mouths.
I'd quickly lick at it,
unsure if I should take it in
but wanting to taste that mysterious mix
of salvation and spit.

Being Catholic sticks to me in my impracticality.
At mass with my family,
I whisper to my teenage son
the difference between Protestant and Catholic beliefs
about Holy Communion.
I tell him the Catholic doctrine says that bread and wine
actually become the body and blood of Christ.
"Ugh," he says, "that's disgusting!"
I'm sure I've told him about this before;
he seems to want to forget it
because he can't make sense of it.
I, on the other hand,
have come to know
that there's a lot about life that doesn't make sense,
so the non-sense about Holy Communion
makes perfect sense to me.

Being Catholic sticks to me in images rich with care and embellishment.
I remember it in the carved wooden pews;
the painted stories on the ceiling that reminded us, with strained necks,
how we sometimes have to be uncomfortable to really see;
the stained glass windows that created bright rectangles of color
on arms and faces and clothes;
the plaster carved Stations of the Cross lining the walls;
the heavy wooden door of the confessional, breathing secrets through it;
the holy cards with worn edges carried deep in my pockets;
the bread split apart every Sunday to remind us of our brokenness.

There is no sense in all this embellishment, this ceremony,
this elevation of ordinary lives.
But it sticks to me,
to my skin, my senses, my bones, my way of seeing things.
It leaks out in how I make my art
and how I make my life,
lovingly, longingly, impractically rich
with care and embellishment.

Our religious practices and traditions are part of our cultural identity. I can no more stop being Catholic than I can stop being Caucasian or female. It doesn't matter what church I go to; being Catholic is in my bones. Though everyone doesn't have such a strong sense of religious identity, everyone has had some sort of spiritual or religious experiences in their lives, and these experiences-the good, the bad, and even the absent experiences-form a significant aspect of our cultural identities.

Given that we are all now gathered in a worship service, I would suggest that the aspect of cultural identity formed by these experiences is a meaningful one to those of us sitting here. Religion may have come to us through bible banging hell and damnation sermons, thrice daily prayers uttered while kneeling on prayer mats, watching other people leave for church while our own family stayed home, ritual meals at grandparents houses, or any other of the ways religious sensibilities are passed down from generation to generation. And now we are here together, attempting to sing with one voice in spite of the potential cacophony our varieties of religious experience might produce. As Huston Smith suggests:

What a strange fellowship this is, the God-seekers in every land, lifting their voices in the most disparate ways imaginable to the God of all life. How does it sound from above? Like bedlam, or do the strains blend in strange, ethereal harmony? Does one faith carry the lead, or do the parts share in counterpoint and antiphony where not in full-throated chorus?

One might wonder just what is it that brings us-in bedlam or harmony-together. Given that gatherings like this are called faith communities, one would assume it is our faith that brings us together. But what does faith mean for those participating in a liberal religion in which personal experience, conscience, and reason are the final authorities? The beauty of Unitarian Universalism is that the quality of our faith is not judged by adherence to particular religious dogma or creeds. We are free to seek the truth of our faith as we understand it. Yet when it comes to faith, this same free, liberal position poses certain dangers.

Before I address what those dangers might be, let me talk about faith-how religious scholars define it-so we have some basis from which to examine this slippery concept.

The word "faith", as used in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word Pi'stis, which is a noun-verb hybrid. It refers to a physical action, based upon a mental belief and sustained with confidence. Thus, the English translation of faith as a noun doesn't quite convey was intended by the New Testament term. It is more than merely belief, confidence or trust; it is also action. In the history of Christian thought there are two general understandings. First, faith is understood as belief in some truth or doctrine, such as the nature of God, the historical Jesus, or the Incarnation, even though the object of faith may not be perfectly intelligible. Second, faith is understood as the basic orientation of the total person in a trusting relationship with a gracious God. From this perspective, doctrine is but an attempt to express or make faith intelligible, and not the object of faith.

Faith in Islam is called iman, i-m-a-n (not to be confused with imam, i-m-a-m, a religious cleric). Iman is a whole-person submission to The One God (Allah), which includes belief in the heart, profession by the tongue, and the body's performance of deeds consistent with Allah's will.

In Judaism, faith or emunah is the essential connection, or "covenant," between Israel and God. As an inherited trait, emunah is always present in every Jewish soul, though not necessarily conscious. The Jew's innate readiness to fully devote his or her life to the service of God is the essential expression of his emunah in God.

Finally, some people define faith as unjustified beliefs in the absence of tangible evidence.

Faith then, deals with the recognition of our relationship with the inexplicable divine. What is contentious is the origin and object of that faith. The beauty of Unitarian Universalism is, as I have suggested, that we have the freedom to choose what makes most sense to us-faith as belief in certain metaphysical truths and religious dogma, or as a trusting orientation to the ineffable nature of God; faith as a mental state, a belief in the heart, profession by words, or right action; faith as a thing inherited or a quality cultivated; faith as illogical fantasy.

But there are, as I have suggested, dangers inherent in such a free, liberal position... First, this freedom may cause us to be overly reliant on our intellect, a head-over-heart and mind-over-embodied approach to faith. In turn, this intellectual assent may cause us to be suspicious or intolerant of those varieties of religious experience that are based on intuition, emotion, the body, or the unfamiliar.

Let me address first the danger of intolerance. For a religious fellowship that affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person and encourages open dialogue on questions of faith, it might seem a little strange to be talking about the danger of intolerance. At the risk of preaching to the choir, however, I'm going to proceed with this line of thinking. And I'm going to address this topic by saying that I've been-in small and sometimes subtle ways-both the victim and the perpetrator of religious intolerance, all within the company of like-minded people who advocate inclusion, democratic principles, religious freedom, and social justice.

As a person whose cultural identity is intimately linked with Catholicism, I can't tell you how much it pains me to hear people identify themselves as recovering Catholics… as if Catholicism is a disease or an affliction one can never hope to be rid of. It's not that I have no sense of humor about being Catholic. Oh, the stories I could tell! And it's not that I turn a blind eye to the discriminatory and abusive practices done in the name of the Catholic Church. Instead, it's that alongside my sharp criticism of the Catholic Church and my calls for institutional change there lives the historical roots of deep faith. This is who I am-Catholic in my bones. When a person says to me that he or she is a recovering Catholic, though I understand it is intended as a joke I also recognize in the statement evidence of internalized intolerance, and it stings every time I hear it.

Being on the receiving end of religious intolerance has not, unfortunately, made me immune to being a perpetrator of the same. I'm very good at respecting and honoring other people's religious practices as long as they are within my realm of experience and comfort, and consistent with my beliefs. But expose me to people who close their eyes and wave their hands in the air as they pray or speak in tongues or come to the altar for a laying on of hands or ask if Jesus is my personal savior, and I have been known to roll my eyes and make snide, judgmental remarks when such persons are out of earshot. It's easy for me to forget that every religion seems bizarre-including Unitarian Universalism-to those who don't practice it.

This brings me back to the first danger I mentioned-the danger that our free and open search for religious truths might cause us to be overly reliant on our intellect, a head-over-heart and mind-over-embodied approach to faith. The danger here is that we might miss the point entirely. St. Augustine put forth the idea that we believe in order that we may understand, that theology is faith seeking understanding. This suggests to me that intellect, while an important partner in faith, might not be what we should be leading with. Too much intellect might distract us from the messy, mysterious, illogical, kooky, fallible vagaries of faith already there within and around us, ready to be nurtured. The role of my curious, sometimes doubting, sometimes skeptical, sometimes gullible, sometimes believing intellect is to nurture what is already there. Jesus echoes this sentiment in his behavior toward the epileptic boy whom he is asked to heal. He merely reminds his listeners that he will not be with them always, that the miracles they seek from him are already within them. Jesus doesn't really do anything, just gives this reminder and expresses his frustration. The boy is cured by what come from inside him, not from something Jesus does to him. In the children's story about the carrot seed, perhaps it was not only the tending and watering that nurtured the carrot to grow; perhaps it was also the patient witness of the boy and even the expression of doubt from other family members. Perhaps faith is like the carrot seed, there but hidden, waiting for the right time to bloom amidst both certainty and doubt.

Along with the gift of my Catholic upbringing, which has helped me to accept with ease the messy, illogical, miracle-dotted nature of life, I also have had the privilege of being an art therapist. In this role I have been given the opportunity many times over to have my faith tested, to believe even when I doubted, to plant small seeds and wait. Art has been my ally in this. It not only requires faith; for me, it generates and sustains it.

Ryan began outpatient art therapy with me when he was 13 years old, the normal upheavals of adolescence further rocking his already rickety self-image. He carried inside him the stories of the women who had abandoned him-the birth mother who had disappeared from his life and the stepmother who had recently moved out, only visiting on weekends. Naturally, he regarded me with some suspicion.

His father and stepmother told me they wanted him to act normal. Instead he acted odd, the kind of boy of which other kids made fun. He ate junk food that made him fat and watched television all day, and he tried to kill himself. He seemed to think that no one heard his odd, stuffing, numbing, slicing claims of who he was. I offered him my listening eyes and ears and hands and helped him shape his truths into visible forms made of wood and clay and twine and paint, so that what once was invisible, now became a thing to be reckoned with on its own terms.

Ryan seldom talked about his feelings, as his parents wished he would. But his art spoke volumes. One day he decided that he wanted to go outside to make something. "What?" I ask. "Fire," he said. So we went outside and gathered rocks to make a ring to contain the fire. We braved poison ivy, prickly vines, sticky pines, and ants to gather the moist, musty logs that were to fuel our fire. As we began to stack them, tepee style, it started to rain. We ran inside.

Ryan was disappointed, but I said, "Let's build a fire inside." He eyed me suspiciously, as if it was I, the therapist, who was behaving a little crazy that day. But I simply grabbed a bag of clay and got to work. He caught on and we shaped clay balls, called them rocks, and formed a fire ring. We found dowel rods to be our logs and once again built our tepee-style fire. Ryan unwrapped red, orange, yellow, and blue crayons, and stuck them in the top of our 'logs' to make the flames of our fire.

After the 'fire' was built I asked, "But what will we burn?" He replied instantly, "Evil." "Hmmm," I wondered out loud, " where will we find evil to burn?" Without saying a word he opened his mouth and reached inside with thumb and index finger poised to grasp. He pinched his fingers around the invisible strands coming from deep inside him. He pulled them out, one by one, and deposited them in the fire. He stared at our created fire as if he could see the flames lick at and devour what he offered to them. I stared too, in awe and amazement.

When he was finished, we stood and watched the 'fire' in silence. The flames wrapped themselves around their prey: colored tongues of red, orange, yellow, blue hungrily devouring while we bore witness.

In telling you about what happened with Ryan, I have told you a story about one of my good days as a therapist when I had the sense to shut up and listen, to be with someone, to wait, to believe in their abilities to heal themselves. I can assure you, every day is not like that. However, this is a true story, and it is remarkably like the miracle of the epileptic boy who healed himself from the inside out. I tell this story not as an exemplar, but as a way to remind you that these miracles of faith and healing happen in our everyday lives. I am hoping to remind you of your own stories of faith and healing… Of the times when you too were able to allow your faith to lead, even when the outcome was uncertain. Of the times when you trusted, beyond all logic, in the small seed, the grain of mustard, and you were able to get out of the way enough to allow faith to work in and through you. Of the times when you have lived with your uncertainty long enough to experience wonder.

Was my experience with Ryan a mountain moving experience? Have your experience been mountain moving experiences? Do any of us have the potential to move mountains? Perhaps not alone. But if each of us, with our rich and varied traditions of faith, pick up a mustard seed or two… who knows what might happen. I do not know. But I have faith.


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Harvey, V. A. (1964). A handbook of theological terms. New York: Macmillan.

Krauss, R. (1945). The carrot seed. New York: Harper & Row.

Moon, C. (2001). Prayer, sacraments, grace. In M. Farrelly-Hansen (ed.), Spirituality and
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