Blogger UUMomma wrote this weekend:

There are times when I feel “less-than” in the UU context because I: wear makeup; buy new clothes (hard to find cute clothes in my size on the racks, let alone in the thrift stores); eat meat–the redder the better; drive an hour each way to a job that I mostly love from a community I truly love; sometimes throw away a container that could be recycled because the cleaning of it would make me retch and heave; watch television with a vociferous appetite and prefer hearing Jim Dale read Harry Potter to me than listening to NPR these days.

What a relief that shopping in thrift stores, eating vegetarian, and other strigent requirements of the list above are not the actual qualifications for being Unitarian Universalist! UUMomma, I too would have been stricken from the rolls long ago.

Here’s my own example to add to the list: not cooking from scratch. When I hear “church potluck,” my first thought is “why do I have to spend several hours shopping for and then cooking a meal for 10 people, a meal that I know isn’t even going to be that good, just so that I can attend church?”

However, for the people who organize them, potlucks are about creating a venue where everyone can contribute something, about caring for other another’s bodies and spirits in the most basic way, and about spending social time together in a family-like setting. There’s a set of values behind potlucks (although there’s also more than one way to execute said values).

Being UU is not about particular lifestyle choices. It’s about values (such as respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person, for the interdependent web of life), about a commitment to theological pluralism (respecting the right of every person to search for truth and meaning), about tradition (understanding and relating to our history), and about being in relationship with other Unitarian Universalists. Sometimes we even debate which values and traditions really are central to UUism; but at least it should be clear that values and traditions (not lifestyle choices) are at the core of our religious life.

In the course of living out those values, many Unitarian Universalists may choose to shop secondhand, eat vegetarian, walk to work, and make other significant lifestyle choices. These are great choices.

But as UUMomma points out, these aren’t easy choices for everyone, and they often involve other trade-offs. UUMomma’s post, which describes her daughter’s desire to wear (gasp!) new clothes to school, illustrates this perfectly. Women, whether they are children, teens, or adults, face tremendous pressure to wear clothes that are, if not trendy, at least classic, clean, attractive, appropriate to the context in which they are worn, and well-fitted. The price for women who do not abide by this social expectation can be significant, and may hinder the pursuit of other values. So women have to find ways of balancing social expectations with their own sense of themselves and their ethics. (Ditto for the issue of wearing makeup, which UUMomma includes on her list).

Unitarian Universalism does not dictate a one-size-fits-all set of lifestyle choices. Instead, our religion and our religious communities should help us define our core values and come up with ways to balance among these sometimes competing values and to respond to the demands of the world in which we live.

I love novels, and as a result, I’ve read my fair share of women’s fiction (or what is more derogatorily referred to as “chick lit”). But recently, I’ve started to feel tired of the genre.

The Post-Birthday World (by Lionel Shriver) played a large part in tipping my scales of sentiment toward irritation. The novel follows a middle-aged woman named Irina through a Sliding-Doors-like drama, in which two possible versions of her life play out. In one version, she cheats on her longtime partner by having an affair with a mutual friend. In the other version, she does not. Throughout the book, the looming question for both reader and protagonist is “Which choice was the right one?”

However, despite the larger implications of this question, there never seems to be an opening for the protagonist to consider her life from an ethical or spiritual point of view. Never does Irina question the larger purpose, meaning or ethical framework of her life. And at no point does she consider whether her life actually makes the world a better place.

Of course I found this aspect of the book callous; Shriver seems to imply that the good decisions are the ones that lead the protagonist to acquire the most for herself: the most professional achievement and the most romantic enjoyment, without the influence of any moral or spiritual framework.

Shriver’s portrayal is also unrealistic. Few people are content to live life without any ethical or spiritual meaning. My guess is that most people, whether their life goals are lofty or humble, want to understand those goals as part of a larger framework of some kind of meaning or purpose.

Then I picked up Jane Green’s Second Chance, and after maybe 100 pages, I had to put it back down. It was too depressing. Like Irina in The Post-Birthday World, the character of Holly in Second Chance seems to have no ethical or spiritual framework for her life, and no interest in the rest of the world. And like Irina, Holly is a middle-aged woman stuck in a seemingly dead-end relationship, and faced with only two choices: stay in unhappy relationship or have affair.

Of course, there is a third option which neither Irina or Holly explore: talking to their partners! Yes, it’s a radical notion in these books that women would assert themselves, insist on being treated better, and listen to their partners’ feelings (or even, gasp!, see a qualified marriage counseling professional). Well, to be fair, maybe Green is going there eventually, but it didn’t look like it from where I left off.

This isn’t to say every relationship can or should be saved. Some relationships, especially those that involve abuse, should be ended as soon as it is possible to do so safely.

My point is about how healthy relationships can be improved. Healthy relationships take some work. Being in a healthy relationship requires one to develop communication skills. Healthy relationships require one to be brave enough to both express one’s deepest self, and allow another person to express theirs. This is the kind of self-development that does deserve a place in women’s literature, but sadly it is too often absent.

On a more hopeful note, there are of course women authors who write entertaining and engaging books while still dealing with larger issues. Two that I’ve enjoyed recently are My Sister’s Keeper (by Jodi Picoult) and Certain Girls (by Jennifer Weiner). While neither of these are great literature, I think they are a marked improvement in terms of portraying female characters who are grappling with moral issues (as in My Sister’s Keeper) or the question of their relationship to the larger world (as in Joy’s portion of Certain Girls).

In Julie Schumacher’s essay, “A Support Group is My Higher Power” (published in the New York Times earlier this summer), she describes her participation in a Jewish women’s support group during her daughter’s struggles with depression. An atheist and a non-Jew, Schumacher nonetheless finds comfort in the group, and comfort in her daughter’s belief in God. These two aspects of the essay struck me as related in some way to Unitarian Universalism.

Unitarian Universalism, unlike most other religious traditions, welcomes people from a wide range of religious and theological traditions. Our communities welcome atheists, Christians, theists, Buddhists, agnostics and people from many other traditions. Rather than seeing diversity as a weakness, contemporary Unitarian Universalism is a religion that emphasizes the possibility of unity among people with a common purpose, although not always a common belief system.

Sometimes the argument is made that without unity of belief, it is hard for people to “go deep” together in discussion and in making meaning of their life stories. I disagree. Schumacher provides a wonderful example of how in a completely secular context, she was able to find comfort and meaning among people with different beliefs but a shared experience of parenting struggling teens:

Although I still don’t believe in God, I have come to believe in support groups. When I joined the Jewish women’s group, I worried that our monthly lunches might involve tears, handholding and episodes of recrimination and regret. They do in fact involve all of those. And I have found that the company of people who share the particular content and form of my unhappiness is a balm I cannot do without.

Fortunately, our meetings aren’t only about commiseration. They are also — Christian metaphor here — about rebirth…

In banding together to tell the truth about our own and our children’s suffering, we have found resilience; and we have kept the terrible vacant loneliness at bay.

The act of joining together to listen to one another, to comfort one another, and to help one another experience “rebirth” is what gives the group its healing power.

Schumacher also describes the paradox that while she herself does not believe in God, she is able to value and encourage her daughter’s belief in God. Schumacher sees that this belief helps her daughter hold on to life. Again, I sensed a parallel between Schumacher’s approach and what is needed within Unitarian Universalism. Because one of the seven principles of UU congregations is “acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations,” we Unitarian Universalists are (or should be) in the strange position of encouraging another person’s spiritual growth, even if that growth leads them to theological beliefs that differ from our own. What matters, in my view, is that a fellow Unitarian Universalist’s beliefs help him or her to find greater love and wisdom.

Schumacher writes of her early resistant to her daughter’s decision to convert to Judaism, and of her later embrace of that decision:

Having raised my children to be compassionate disbelievers, I did not support her plan. I feared she was entering into a foreign belief system, a foreign language, and (to me) a set of inexplicable rituals — which, of course, she was.

Maybe I would have felt differently had I known that her faith would later help her survive more than 20 months in the abyss of severe depression. Ironically, agnostic that I was and still am, I sometimes found myself arguing during those terrifying months that she should cling to her belief in the divine, to any slender hint or reassurance that, during her darkest, most dispiriting moments, she was not alone.

I’m writing again to share a few more resources that have been developed in the last week in response to the tragic shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

• The Unitarian Universalist Association’s Knoxville News Page. This page offers links to a variety of resources, including reports from the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) and UU World, statements from Rev. William Sinkford (UUA President), appropriate texts for use in worship, and trauma response resources.
• “Supporting Our Friends in Knoxville,” a UUA blog where comments of support and condolence may be left for the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and Westside Unitarian Universalist Church communities, and where information can be shared about vigils at UU congregations. Readers have offered hundreds of well wishes.
• The UUA’s list of vigils that have taken place or will be taking place to show support for the congregations in Knoxville.
• Last week’s Interdependent Web, I pointed out key posts from UU and non-UU bloggers responding to the tragedy. More recent posts from UU bloggers addressing the tragedy can be found via UUpdates.net
• The Knoxville News Sentinel has been extensively covering the shooting and subsequent developments; all of their coverage of the shooting and subsequent developments can be found here.

There has been an outpouring of concern from Unitarian Universalist individuals and congregations around the country and around the world, as well as from many, many people who are not Unitarian Universalist but have spoken up to express support and condolences.

Hi friends, I’m writing with a few updates on Knoxville. The UUA has a website page with links to key resources addressing the Knoxville tragedy (including a link to a new UUA-sponsored blog, which is a place for sharing support and well wishes for the congregations impacted). It is heartening to see that UU individuals and congregations around the country are holding vigils and other observances of support for the Knoxville congregations. Some of these gatherings happened yesterday evening, as Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and Westside Unitarian Universalist Church joined with members of their local community and with UUA president Rev. William Sinkford in a vigil (see KnoxNews.com)

Also, as we continue mourning the deaths of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger, and keeping victims and survivors in our thoughts and prayers, there is an update from about an hour ago, letting us know that the conditions of the four victims who remain hospitalized has improved. I find this last piece of news a particular comfort to hear.