with Eric Morel-Ensminger
PASTORAL PRAYER
A parishioner told me this slight variation of a common saying in AA:
“Religion is for those trying to get into heaven – spirituality is for those who’ve been in hell and trying to stay out..”
Have you ever been in hell? Have you ever felt lost, low-down, alone, down-hearted? Have you ever lost your best friend, your partner, your parent, your dream, your way? Have you ever been at the end of your rope, at a dead end, in a never-ending whirlpool of chaotic emotions? Have you ever been caught up in a cycle of confusion, frustration, apprehension, and alienation?
Maybe you’re not the kind of person who thinks about hell, so maybe you thought you were having a bad time, or going through a rough patch, or that you had been dealt a bad hand of cards in the game of life. Maybe your friends and family told you at some point to “snap out of it” or “to think positive.” Maybe at some point you began to think you had brought it on yourself and it was your job to bring yourself out of it. Maybe you’re thinking right now, “I’m not in hell, I’m just not a happy-go-lucky person.”
It doesn’t matter if you felt it once, a long time ago, or if it happens all too regularly; it doesn’t matter if your hell is based on the current economy, or post-Katrina stress, or other physical circumstances, or relationships, or physical or mental health, or biochemicals, or addiction – if you’ve ever been in hell, then spirituality is for you. And I think every one of us here, at one time or another, for whatever reason or other, has spent some time in hell, and needs spirituality in our lives, however we define that elusive term.
Right now, we’re not going to appeal to the intellectual side of your brain. Forget about definitions, we’ll talk about that later. Let’s just say, Something Larger Than Yourself., something you can put your trust in, something you can rely on, lean back on, feel supported by. If you’re comfortable doing so, close your eyes. Take a deep, cleansing breath, then another. Release the tension in your body, from your shoulders, your back, your arms, your legs, your hands and feet. Let it go.
What is larger than yourself that you believe in, trust, and rely on? Whatever that is – God, Nature, Evolution, your family, this congregation, the ideal of Love or Justice – hold that thought in your mind. Whatever it is, personify it or solidify it so that in your imagination you can lean up against it and be supported by it. Feel yourself being supported, feel yourself surrounded by positive energy, feel that you are not alone. That’s spirituality, and we all need it.
Let us enter together, in our ways, into a time of healing silence, drawing strength and comfort for the week to come.
SERMON
Like most clergy, I’ve had a lot of experience with parishioners in some kind of 12-Step program, but I got a lot more familiar on a more personal and intimate level with the steps, promises, and traditions of the progenitor of them all , Alcoholics Anonymous, when Eric and I became partners. After many conversations, Eric and I planned a service that would compare AA and UU spirituality, and this service is the result. I’m always grateful that Eric is in my life, and I’m especially grateful for his and Anaïs St. John's musical contributions to this service. (I also want to be clear that while Anaïs is a friend of ours, she is not, as the saying goes, a friend of Bill W.’s.)
This is the second time we have done this service, and so I also want to express gratitude to the parishioners of both this church and the Cherry Hill congregation who have contributed – anonymously – to this service. The service could not have happened without their help; any mistakes I make are mine alone. (I want to say at the start that what I say here about AA applies equally to any of the other 12-Step programs that have grown from it, and not just to Alcoholics Anonymous.)
I read somewhere that when the history of 20th century American spirituality is written, Alcoholics Anonymous will be judged the most significant spiritual movement of the era – which may disappoint those UUs who think Unitarian Universalism is the most significant spiritual movement of ANY era. But once you delve into both, it can be a revelation how much the two spiritualities have in common.
Before we can compare them, we’d better start by defining spirituality. This might not be necessary in churches of other faiths, but it can be a difficult topic in UU churches. (In the Tennessee congregation I served, a long-time well-respected member once offered $50 to anyone who could define spirituality to his satisfaction, and not once before he died at age 94 did he ever pay out.) The answer to the question, “What is spirituality?” seems to depend on who is answering, and interestingly, in Unitarian Universalism, those answers tend to fall along generational lines. (I say, “tend to” because in general, generalizing doesn’t work well for UUs.)
Like my Chattanooga parishioner, some older UUs in the World War II or Korean War age cohorts say they don’t know what spirituality IS; before they’ll agree to talk about it, they want a coherent definition. Others assert that spirituality is nothing more than mumbo-jumbo that can be used to coerce and manipulate people. Younger UUs are often attracted to the idea of spirituality, and consistently say in surveys that they want more of it – although, remembering how hard it is to generalize about UUs, not all of them do. Pressed for clarity, those who want spirituality say that spirituality is that which connects us to God/the Ultimate or to other human beings, or that spirituality is an inner sense of healing, wholeness, peace, and understanding, or that spirituality is when the harsh inner voice is at least temporarily stilled, or that spirituality is when one feels the underlying unity and interconnectedness of all creation. A definition that has appealed to me for years is this one by Parker Palmer:
By spiritual I mean the ancient and abiding human quest for connectedness with something larger and much more trustworthy than our egos, with our ownselves, with one another, with the worlds of history and nature, with the invisible winds of the spirit, and with the mystery of being alive.
A person active in AA wrote to me:
One simple way of understanding spirituality is to see that it is concerned with our ability, through our attitudes and actions, to relate to others, to ourselves, and to the God of our understanding…The question is not whether we will be spiritual, but whether we are moving in the direction of a negative or positive spirituality. (private email, anonymous)
Interestingly, this definition fits with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous caution that everyone will worship something – so be careful what it is.
By any of these definitions, we can see that it’s possible to be spiritual without believing in a particular brand of religion, and without having a concept of a personal God – and this is the first thing that AA and UU have in common. For both, spirituality is about being lifted outside yourself, and connected to something larger than yourself – what that is God-as-you-have-come-to-know-God, a congregation, an AA group, Nature, or even, as Eric ironically calls it, the Great Foot.
So what’s the difference between spirituality and religion. Again, another thing that AA and UU share is that adherents can argue the distinction nearly forever. (For both AA and UU, there’s the endless discussion of whether in fact they ARE religions.) While there may be a fine line between them, I think the difference is that religion is organized and institutional, and that spirituality is amorphous and personal. A parishioner sent me this, a variation a common theme of AA: “Religion works for people trying to get into heaven, spirituality works for people already in hell trying to get OUT.”
The main point for both AA and UU is that is that YOU are not God. You are not in control of everything; the whole world does not revolve around you. Page 62 of “Alcoholics Anonymous,” affectionately called the Big Book, says, “First of all, we had to quit playing God,” and a favorite AA catchphrase goes: “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about.” So, humility and tolerance are central to AA spirituality. In AA meetings, you can be helped by a person who is a member of a formerly despised and distrusted group, and you must always be open to that possibility. While humility is not specifically mentioned in the UU Principles, a certain level of it is required to be members of theologically diverse UU congregations. Tolerance and humility are absolute necessities for those trying to live in sacred covenant with people different in background, experience, belief, culture, and lifestyle. To be a member of a UU congregation, a person needs to have the ability to listen, the willingness to be changed, the acknowledgement that you are not the only one right.
A related concept in AA spirituality is that of release or surrender, sometimes referred to as “powerlessness.” A famous AA expression is “Let go and let God,” but God is not necessary to letting go. Another parishioner wrote to me:
It does not have anything to do with giving up or passing responsibility or giving in to – it has to do with a sometimes hard-to-attain state of consciousness in which one adopts an attitude of surrender [while] fully maintaining one’s sense of dignity and individuality. (private email, anonymous)
“Release” happens a lot in UU congregations, it’s just we don’t call it that. Release happens every time members stay in relationship even though a congregational vote does not go their way. Release happens every time members forgive each for slights, for losses of temper, for temporary lapses in behavior. Release happens every time a UU meets another who gets on their nerves. Release happens every time we let go of anger or frustration around something in the congregation. For both AA and UU, surrender is important, only in AA it is explicit, and in UU, implicit.
Another important element of AA spirituality is gratitude. I’ll make a grand sweeping statement here and say that ALL spiritualities worthy of the name stress gratitude. No one can be whole and healthy without an appreciation of all the gifts and blessings that God or Life or Fate shower upon us daily. We do not, thank goodness, have to earn love or beauty or even life itself. It’s all just grace – a gift you don’t have to deserve. You don’t have to figure out who or what to thank – just be grateful. 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart once said, “If you say only one prayer in your life, ‘Thank you’ would suffice.”
In addition to humility, tolerance, release, and gratitude, in the 5th and 9th steps, the spirituality of AA depends on an ongoing self-awareness that leads to atonement and reconciliation. These are also important practices in Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism – indeed, of most religions. We are human beings – we make mistakes, that’s a given. Spiritual human beings, fully actualized human beings, what in Yiddish are called “mensches,” go further: acknowledging missteps, attempting to make amends, moving toward right relationship. UU congregations would do well to ask more of the spiritual disciplines of self-awareness and forgiveness from their members, since too many church conflicts explode due to self-perpetuating behaviors without regard to how others and the community are hurt.
Another commonality between AA and UU is the practice of sharing our stories with, telling of our journeys to one another, and respectful deep listening. In AA, it is said there is really only one story – “what it was like then, and what it’s like now.” You’ll see below our Principles in the hymnal the sources of the Living Tradition of Unitarian Universalism, and the first source is “direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit.” We UUs transmit and share those experiences with each other, formally in covenant groups and small group ministry, in worship services, and more informally, at coffeehour, at suppers, at church picnics. This sharing is vital. A Roman Catholic nun active in AA wrote:
The link that AA makes between faith and one’s own lived experience is at the root of AA spirituality, as I have come to know it. [T]hat link is forged by telling and listening to and reading one another’s stories – stories of desperation and of recovery, stories of a ‘faith that works.’ (“Sister Molly Monahan” in an interview published online)
AA and UU share that expectation of a “faith that works” – that you will find fulfillment and live out your spirituality by helping others. People in AA say that their sobriety depends on the paradoxically selfish act of helping another person stay sober. People in UU have long held that our liberal faith is shown in “deeds, not creeds” – actions, not words. UU shares with AA this assumption that faith is only faith that works.
Humility, tolerance, release, gratitude, self-awareness, atonement, reconciliation, sharing our journeys, living our faith in the world in all we do – these are hallmarks shared by both AA and UU spirituality. And they are all qualities needed by folks who’ve been in hell and are trying to get out. I guess that means pretty much all of us.
AA and UU – perhaps the TWO “most significant spiritual movements” of our time, share similarities and have much to teach each other. May we learn from the wisdom of AA spirituality to strengthen us and our movement, and be a force for good in the world. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
BENEDICTION
May we know a new freedom and a new happiness.
May we not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
May we comprehend the word “serenity” and my we know peace.
Our service here is ended, but service to others
remains a continuing responsibility and
and an ever-renewing source of joy.
Go from here, and make peace.
(adapted from The Ninth Step Promises, p. 83-83, The Big Book)
