“One Light, Many Windows” is a saying amongst Unitarian Universalists and the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd. It is a quote from Forrest Church, who gave us the metaphor of the world as a vast cathedral with myriad stained glass windows. God is the light that shines through the windows and the windows are the world’s religions, the ways we see God in our own lives. This is a beautiful metaphor for the U.U. life, one where all perspectives are valued and people work together for a common goal of respecting each and every person. God shines a light on all of it, through the many windows, into a common area, where people come together. People value each window, realizing that some windows/faiths will resonate more strongly with others. People choose freely which window to venerate at any time, to venerate all windows, or to venerate none of them and just live within the space. It’s a beautiful idea. That idea brought me to church in the beginning, but it caused me to leave it in the end.
Allow me to expand the metaphor a little more to tell the story. I loved being a Unitarian Universalist. I could continue with my spiritual-but-not-religious idea with a group of people creating positive change in the community. As long as I valued and respected everyone else, I was free to believe my own beliefs, to find my own window. I was free to craft my own theology, as it suited me. I was free to find my own salvation. What can be wrong with that? It's great for so many people. Well, I worked on it for awhile and, to my surprise, I found that the theology that spoke to me, challenged me and called me was good old-fashioned Christianity. Picking and choosing from Buddhist, Hindu, humanist, and pagan theology only left me with pieces of ideas that did not mesh together in a meaningful way. It is too easy for me, in my lack of self-discipline, to only choose the ideas that already suited me, to avoid challenge, and to support my current perspective. So, the more I explored, the more I found myself sitting at the window of Christianity.
Here is where the window changed. See, windows let the light in. They mark the outside and the inside. They act upon the passive, observing people within, who receive the light. The more I gazed at one window, the closer it came, until it bent around my eye to color the entire view. I was fascinated with the story of the dying and rising God, the God who gave up his divine nature to become incarnate in human flesh, who lived amongst us, loved us, ate with us, told jokes with us, taught us to love one another, and then died in disgrace as a final act of surrender to power. The God whose act of sacrifice and surrender turned the world upside-down, defeated death, and gave new life to all; the God who came into the world NOT to condemn it, but to save it.
The mystery of the story of Christ began to color the way I saw the light of God--it became a lens. Marcus Borg calls Christianity a lens with which to see the world. What’s the difference between a lens and a window? Well, a lens is personal, it becomes the way I viewed the world, it became part of how I saw everything else I touched. Once I become accustomed to it, I could not put it away without distorting my view. Different people have different lenses, just as they have different perspectives, different experiences, and different needs. For me, the miracle of Christ changed from a lovely window at which to gaze to a lens that informed my view of everything in my life.
The view with that lens rallied me out of passivity. No longer an observer at a window, I needed to participate with others. I wanted to find people who shared that lens, meet them, talk to them, and work with them. I wanted to sing hymns, hear the gospel, pray the Lord's Prayer, and celebrate the Eucharist. I wanted to join the party. Once the light of the God lit up the lens of Christianity in front of my eyes, I rose out of my seat and into the kingdom.
No comments:
Post a Comment