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I bring you good news. (This is a practice of our regular guest minister, Leland. I think it’s great that he does this.) This week, a judge in Connecticut struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriages as unconstitutional. A man wrongly imprisoned years ago for a crime he did not commit was freed and paid restitution amounting to over $700,000. And perhaps the best news from my point of view: Google refused to cooperate with a Federal request for details on search information by users of its engine. Hurray! I continue to have hope. My favorite lyricist, Robert Hunter, wrote this week in his online journal

I love it when something uncanny happens to demonstrate there's still plenty of magic and mystery in life regardless of the stranglehold of flint nosed politicos and their cuttlefish culture. I could almost swear that there are subtle ways something opposed to all this lets us know that not all is lost - that something watches out.

Do I believe in this "something"?

A synopsis of my spiritual journey would begin with me fervently believing in the Lutheran church in which I was raised, reciting the Nicene Creed every week. Do you know that creed? I would’ve tried it from memory, but I know that my memory will fail me at moments like this, when I’m up in front of a group of people, and so I looked it up:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. (Straightforward enough, but now it gets complex:)

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. (Whew!)

Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man (but wait! didn’t this creed just say that he wasn’t "made"?); and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son (proceeds from but is the same person as?); who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets. And I believe one holy catholic and apostolic Church. (OK. Now we’re getting down to brass tacks.) I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Now I am a member of a church that is pointedly without a creed. I do, however, have a credo of my own, which comes from Walt Whitman, and goes like this:

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

I must admit: I explored, during my college years, the inside of my mind, utilizing tools not currently sanctioned by our government. I traveled, I read Hermann Hesse, I questioned, criticized, and carefully read the Bible. I attended om circles; I almost went to Findhorn--a community in Scotland where they communicate with the spirits of plants. I did work with auras. I became a full-time volunteer community organizer, on the extreme left wing of the American political landscape.

What did all this leave me to believe in?

Primarily, it left me believing that there might always be something new to believe in, just around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you. And the concept behind this, in our Unitarian Universalist tradition, is that revelation is not sealed (the phrase is Samuel Longfellow’s). The early Catholic Church fathers closed the canon of revealed truth (though they did leave an out by granting the Pope infallibility), but UUs believe that each of us, because we have inherent worth and dignity, can directly experience the sacred. This is the most radical notion among religions, that the ultimate authority is within each of us, not outside of us.

In turn, this points to another basic belief of mine: people are good. The world is good. Our physical bodies are good, as are the capacities of our minds and hearts. This life is all we will know of heaven. We should be good to each other. We may entertain dark thoughts about the state of the world, or about the direction in which it’s all headed, but we should , I believe, continue to explore our own minds and souls, and work for the freedom of others to do the same.

Philip Pullman, the author of a great trilogy entitled His Dark Materials, was the subject of a recent profile in The New Yorker magazine. Although he believes that the impulse currently at large in the world toward theocracy--the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned--will ultimately triumph, he says:

But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender--I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference...We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win.

That’s why I come to UUP. To learn again each week how to act right in the face of so much that is wrong. To sing and to play music. To hear new poetry almost every week. Because in these arts reside the revealed truths which every person is capable of knowing and communicating.

When I first started attending a UU church (First Unitarian Church of Oakland), at the very first service I went to, the minister, Rob Eller-Isaacs, gave a reading from "the prophet Kurt Vonnegut." I almost whooped! The vistas that opened up in terms of my spiritual life, from that one phrase. Doesn’t matter what he read. It was the fact that he called a living writer a prophet.

I was already working in libraries at the time, and I began with that service to view my work and my work place as holy. Collecting, preserving, and making accessible the written word of humanity ties in perfectly with all of my exploring, all of my longing for continuous revelation of new truths. I am extremely lucky to have work like this: work that swims in ideas, that is committed to freedom of intellect, that is not uncomfortable with completely contrary points of view sitting side by side on the shelf, ready to be found by the reader.

This is something I also get from UUP--a feeling of "gee, what might I hear this week?" What ideas to challenge, comfort, aid, or afflict me?

In the end, it all comes down to freedom. Bob Marley, criticized at one point in his career for putting out an album of songs that contained little that was overtly political, focusing instead on Kaya, or the good herb in which all Rastafarians believe, responded by saying that he only sang about one thing ever, and that was freedom.

If I had a motto, it would be the phrase from our Affirmation: "To seek knowledge in freedom." That’s it! This I believe.