In the video I posted yesterday, my colleague whom I dearly admire, Christine Robinson tries to briefly define our nebulous Unitarian Universalism.
She raised the famous anecdote about Hillel who when challenged to explain the whole of the Torah while standing on one foot replied “Do not do to your neighbor what you hate. The rest is commentary.”
Christine then said she couldn’t explain Unitarian Universalism while standing on one foot, but, still, gave a pretty good and still pretty brief explanation by her best lights, saying we Unitarian Universalists have a Protestant history, an agnostic theology and a democratic government. (Well, she could have stood on one foot and said that. However, being of the preaching fraternity she felt obligated to explain a bit further…) I really like that description, particularly the “agnostic theology” part. Well, worth much reflection…
But, I want to give my own shot of the one foot variety.
Knowing that with our far reaching interests, and frequently conflicting views, it is a doomed project…
Still…
On one foot:
Unitarian Universalism teaches the preciousness of the individual, the fact that each of us is woven out of each other and the world, and how this knowledge leads us to act in the world as if everyone is a relative.
Okay, that’s as long as I can stand on one foot. And I know there are missing parts.
But I think this is Unitarian Universalism in a nutshell…
Or, at least, my Unitarian Universalism…
Someday I hope to live up to it.
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