Even though it’s been months since my last post, I’ve been reluctant to write this: Looking for Faith is on hiatus. The conversations that I’ve had here and on other Unitarian Universalist blogs have been such an important part of my spiritual life that it’s hard to say even a temporary “goodbye.” But it’s important that visitors to this site as well as longtime readers know why the posting frequency has slowed dramatically. And it’s necessary that I gracefully accept and acknowledge this change in my spiritual life. 

My passion for promoting Unitarian Universalism hasn’t wavered; in fact, it has grown. While I no longer contribute frequently to the online conversation as an individual voice, I have the chance to help other Unitarian Universalists share our faith online through my work at the Unitarian Universalist Association and at Welcoming Websites. The diversity within Unitarian Universalism is one of our religion’s strengths and it’s inspiring to help raise awareness of the many ways that Unitarian Universalists are providing hope and healing to the world.

It’s also been wonderful to stay connected with Unitarian Universalist blogger friends (including many of those I first met through Looking for Faith) on Facebook. I enjoy continuing to read about the joys and insights of these fellow UU travelers.

At the same time, I’ve been exploring other ways of nourishing my spiritual life that go beyond direct engagement with Unitarian Universalism. At the start of the new year, I found myself wondering why I felt the God’s voice had been rather quiet in my life in recent months. One possibility, I realized, was that I simply wasn’t making enough room for God.

Making more space for God required a fresh appraisal of how I spent my time outside of work. I started asking myself more seriously, “Which of my commitments are making me feel more alive and more connected with the world? Are there activities to which I’m giving time and energy that are really just habits?” And I surprised myself by spending time cleaning and organizing our apartment, and giving away a tremendous amount of old stuff.

Thankfully, all of this space in my mind, in my physical space, and in my schedule, has in fact brought new sources of joy and inspiration into my life. I’ve started taking art classes again and have excavated and organized all of my old supplies, to make it easy to dive into a new project when the spirit moves me. In addition to rediscovering an old hobby, I’ve found myself unusually drawn to trying new hobbies and seeing new things. 

So while there’s some sadness in putting this blog on pause, I’m also feeling contentment about what this blog has been; gratitude for all of the seekers and fellow Unitarian Universalists who shared their questions, insights and supportive comments here; joy at where my spiritual journey has led thus far; and desire to continue looking — in some old places and some new ones — for faith.

My Unitarian Universalist congregation (the First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts) has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the church that hosted Anne Hutchinson’s civil trial in 1637, in which she was sentenced to expulsion from Massachusetts.

In American Jezebel, Eve LaPlante uses the transcript of this trial to tell the story of Hutchinson and the Antinomian Controversy. The narrative moves back and forth, from the events preceding the trial to moments in the trial itself. As LaPlante notes, the trial transcript provides a rich written record of Hutchinson’s words (as well as those of her accusers and defenders) in a time when women rarely left behind any written historical record.

But despite the importance of the trial, both for its documentation and its impact on the course of history, I didn’t feel that LaPlante’s use of it as the central structure for the book worked well. There was something choppy and dizzying about the bumpy ride she took me on through two continents and multiple generations. (Although, given the frequency with which the key historical figures crossed the ocean between England and America, I wonder if they themselves experienced an odd sense of disconnection and disorientation). A more chronological telling of the story might have made for a faster and smoother read.

The most enjoyable part of reading American Jezebel for me was learning about Boston in the seventeeth century. LaPlante goes into delightful detail about the landscape of the Boston area at the time. Here she describes Hutchinson’s journey from her home to her civil trial; her route encompasses parts of modern-day Boston, Charlestown, Somerville, and Cambridge:

Anne had set out with William for the Charlestown ferry, almost a mile from their house. Ordinarily they made a trip of this length, roughly five miles to Cambridge, on horseback or by coach, but they had traveled on foot because of the ice, which could break a horse’s leg….

…During their four-mile walk inland from Charlestown to Cambridge, they had passed Indian encampments, a few colonial houses and farms, the expansive marshland that bordered the northern bank of the river, and deep forest, extending for miles north and west, beyond what was known. The same trip today, by subway or car, takes twenty minutes, but on foot it took the Hutchinsons more than two hours that morning in 1637. (Page 15, 2004, 1st edition).

Many of the important sites in Hutchinson’s life can still be located in modern Boston (and other parts of New England), and LaPlante provides a helpful final chapter on visiting these sites.

The connection between Hutchison and modern-day Boston can still be easily recognized and traced, almost four centuries after her trial. But what about the connection between Hutchinson and modern-day Unitarian Universalism?

Hutchinson had two trials. The first trial, referred to above and given extensive coverage by LaPlante, took place in what was then the meeting house of the Cambridge church (which is now the First Parish in Cambridge). This trial was presided over by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts and resulted in Hutchinson’s banishment from Massachusetts. She was also tried separately by a group of ministers; this trial was held in her own church’s meeting house, in Boston. The verdict was expulsion from the congregation (which is now First Church Boston).

At the time, both congregations were Puritan. LaPlante describes First Church as “the world’s first congregational church.” It was in the first half of the nineteenth century — roughly two hundred years after Hutchinson’s trials — that both congregations became Unitarian. (Thankfully, both congregations also have materials about their history on their websites (history of First Parish Cambridge, history of First Church Boston). Now both congregations are Unitarian Universalist.

Obviously it would be inaccurate to refer to Hutchinson as a Unitarian Universalist! But can Unitarian Universalists claim Hutchinson as a forerunner of our modern faith? Hutchinson was a religious heretic who affirmed the possibility for individual laypeople to connect directly with the divine and to share the insights of that relationship with their fellow laypeople. As a woman, she was unusually powerful and respected as a religious leader and teacher. Our modern Unitarian Universalist movement also affirms the value of individual religious insight and truth, and approximately half of our ministers today are women.

But in other ways, Hutchinson theology contradicts our own. Hutchinson’s theology centered around questions of who was saved, how one came to be saved, and how one could tell if one was saved. By contrast, it may be argued that Universalism in America provided a radical alternative to the American religious obsession with salvation, and over the course of centuries helped move ideas about salvation away from the center of popular American religious discourse.

I suspect that I’m just scratching the surface here of possible continuities and ruptures between Hutchinson’s legacy and modern Unitarian Universalism. The question remains in my mind: What can Unitarian Universalists today learn from Hutchinson that deepens our understanding of our own faith? How do we evaluate her influence on and relevance to modern Unitarian Universalism?

In these days filled with returning light, may we be blessed with a renewed capacity for love, generosity, and hope. 

From year to year, the winter holiday season and its meaning shifts for me. Some of my most moving holiday season memories are of a winter solstice service at the First Parish in Lincoln that ended in a bonfire on a snowy hill, a Christmas eve worship that consisted primarily of singing carols with my family, and a retelling of the nativity story in a small worship led by Harvard Divinity School Unitarian Universalists.

Perhaps what I will remember most about this holiday season is the snowstorm in Boston this past weekend. By Friday, the flakes were falling fast, living out predictions for significant accumulation. On Friday night, Shai, a friend of ours, and I walked 3/4 of a mile to attend a party. At moments it was chaotic; we got lost at first, and it was hard to read the signs through the whiteout of snow, and my face was cold. At other moments, it was beautiful; we found ourselves on a quiet streets where snow seemed to gracefully frame each small house.

When we arrived at the party, there was hot cider, cookies and a hearty group of people. Friends had walked, taken the bus, and even cross-country skied to be there. And this wasn’t a party for a momentous occasion; no fiftieth wedding anniversary, celebration of a child’s birth, or other extraordinary circumstances. It was just the chance to be together, to baking cookies and drinking warm cider and laughing. This was the case with parties we attended the next day as well; it was a significant effort to get to them, but once there we found others had made the same effort to travel through the snow to be together.

On Sunday night, we celebrated the first night of Hannukah. This was my first time hosting a Hannukah celebration, and it came hours after another (!) snowstorm hit Boston. I was worried that at the end of a long weekend of trudging around, with the snow deeper than ever, and with the evening remarkably cold, our guests simply wouldn’t be able to make it. But once again, friends who could do so traveled through the cold, the snow, and the darkness, to be with us as we lit the menorah.

 This holiday season, I’m finding meaning in togetherness. It’s no one story or set of symbols that’s moving my heart, but rather the lived experience of seeking out and finding ways to spend time with family and friends, during the time of year when we have the longest nights and seemingly the coldest days.   

From Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association

Usually it takes fifteen minutes to vote in Cambridge, Massachusetts; this year it was an hour. The line at my polling place stretched out the back door of City Hall, around the corner, and down to the video store.

A diverse group of Cambridge residents stood waiting on this unseasonably warm day to cast our ballots. As I moved closer to the door, I saw a woman from my church’s religious education committee and waved. She came over, her teenage daughter beside her. “I just wanted her to see this historic moment,” she said.

When it was my turn to vote, I did so with a sense of pride in my presidential choice and my decisions on statewide initiatives. On both issues, the long line filled with my neighbors and fellow Cantabridgians reassured me that the outcome for Massachusetts would be positive.

Soon after voting, I was driving my husband and three Unitarian Universalist friends up to New Hampshire to volunteer for Obama. The highway was lined with colored leaves, yellow, red, brown and orange.

Southern New Hampshire, where we knocked on doors, was having a beautiful day too. In the first neighborhood that we visited, cute houses lined the short streets, and in seemingly no time we had covered our ground. Our task was to knock on the doors of Obama supporters and ask if they had voted, and then to note their reply. Everyone we spoke to had voted already, except for one woman on an oxygen tank who said her husband would drive her to the polls at 3pm.

Our next neighborhood was on the ocean. A friend and I took a break to climb up the sandy slope to the beach and watch the waves come crashing in. Later, as the sun was setting, we drove a few minutes away to a marshland area, where we had a few remaining Obama supporters to visit. As I knocked on the door of a small trailer, I peeked up through one window and saw straight through to a second window on the other side, and to the deep blue sky beyond.

By the time we made our last round, it was so dark that some of our teammates carried flashlights. And when we piled in the car to drive back to Boston, we knew the day of voting was almost over, and the results would be announced soon. When we received a text message from my best friend saying New Hampshire and Massachusetts had been declared for Obama, I screamed and pounded with my fist on the roof of the car.

And when we learned, later in the night, that Obama would be our next president, I cried. I spoke to my parents, who were elated. And to one of my mom’s best friends (a Hillary supporter and champion of women’s rights) who was overjoyed and told me she never thought she’d see the day. I called my brother, a former Harlem school teacher who had been an early supporter of Obama. And we opened champagne with another couple, also from our church, who had volunteered for Obama in his primary run.

We were overjoyed and teary-eyed, but too tired from a long day to go dancing in the streets. Maybe we showed our age. Judith Warner writes in the New York Times:

It is, I suppose, in part a matter of temperament, whether one shouts or weeps at happy transformative moments. But I also think it’s a matter of what has come before. The young people joyfully frolicking in front of the Bush White House never knew the universe whose passing was marked by Obama’s victory and Jackson’s tears.

I had the odd sense of my husband and I standing on the cusp of two generations. We’re too young to have experienced the civil rights movement, but too old to consider Obama’s victory our coming-of-age moment (for me, that was protesting the bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and the lead-up to the war in Iraq).

I’m not so young that I quit my job or left school to volunteer for Obama — but I’m so grateful to those who did. And so grateful to all of those who laid the groundwork for this day through decades of struggle. It’s not just a moment for young people and not just a moment for African Americans — it’s a moment for all Americans who celebrate the significance and possibilities of Obama’s presidency.

Now I am focused on what is possible. My mind is racing with visions of what can now be accomplished.

We — all Americans concerned about justice, equality and compassion — are just getting started. The day after the election, there were reminders of how far America still has to go. The passage of Proposition 8 in California was a stark reminder that the American dream is still not available to all. As Rev. Keith Kron wrote in his blog post:

…only time will tell if yesterday really leads to more than one new day in America. We will have to continue to work on issues of race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, the environment, and many more.

But for the first time in years, I feel that a better future is possible — if we in America continue to advocate for it. Now, I am excited for the progress that our country can make on fighting global warming, expanding health insurance coverage, making our economic system more fair, welcoming immigrants, and defending the civil rights of all Americans. And I’m elated to think that each of us living in this country has the chance to be a part of this new moment, to make real what is possible.