![\"Pentecost-medieval\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2016\/07\/Pentecost-medieval.gif\")
<\/a>\nI\u2019ve told this story a couple of times. And, it has come to have a bit of a life of its own. I\u2019ve run across it reprinted mostly citing my authorship here and there over the years. This week I\u2019m at the Russell Lockwood Unitarian Universalist Leadership School<\/a>, helping out on faculty. I repeated it near the conclusion of my section on UU history. The response reminded me it might be time to share it again.<\/em><\/p>\n
So, here you go\u2026<\/p>\n
On June 25, 1984, Unitarian Universalists from across the United States and Canada gathered at the Ohio State University campus in Columbus for the eleventh General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. The great focus of this GA was a vote on a new statement of principles.<\/p>\n
When the document was pretty close to being finished, it was, frankly, mostly \u201cmom and apple pie.\u201d There was hardly a word in it that anyone, of almost any spiritual tradition, could argue with. It was what I would call the perfect product of a committee. Its most distinctive feature was the First Principle, a declaration of the \u201cinherent worth and dignity of every person,\u201d carrying forward a libertarian focus on the individual that had marked out English-speaking Unitarianism for its entire history.<\/p>\n
Then the Rev. Paul L\u2019Herrou made his way to the microphones. People who remember the scene say he was lanky and bearded and that he stood at the microphone with the ease of an experienced pulpit minister. He looked around, briefly stroked his beard, and then addressed the proposed Seventh Principle, which was a call for \u201crespect for the Earth and the interdependence of its living systems.\u201d In my mind\u2019s eye, as Paul stood there, the hall fell to a hushed silence. I imagine that the world outside grew quiet, as well. Perhaps one or two stars broke through the Ohio daylight, shooting beams in the general direction of Columbus. Out of the silence Paul pointed out how that wording fell far short of what it could be.<\/p>\n
Paul proposed new wording for the Seventh Principle: a call to respect \u201cthe interdependent web of existence of which we are all a part.\u201d I\u2019m pretty sure, although I have to admit there\u2019s no hard record of it, that with those words the roof blew off the convention center and a host of angels, devas, and other celestial beings from all the world\u2019s religions\u2014past, present, and future\u2014descended from the heavens, some playing instruments of astonishing beauty, while others sang a Gloria that reached out to the farthest corners of the universe. Even the stars danced in joy at the revelation of this great secret of the universe to a gathering of Unitarian Universalists in Columbus, Ohio, in the United States, on the North American continent of a tiny planet circling a middling star at the edge of one of a hundred thousand million galaxies.<\/p>\n
The call: to know that interdependent web of existence, of which we are all a part.<\/p>\n
And then it was over. The roof resealed and the beings were gone, only a hint of their song remaining in the hearts of the assembled\u2014who then voted. They accepted the proposed change, and with that decision our little band found itself marked with an astonishing charism, a particular channel of divine blessing aimed at healing this poor, broken world. I suggest that in that hour our future was articulated with as much authority as if it were from the tongue of an ancient prophet.<\/p>\n
With that call, a new Universalism has been proclaimed.<\/p>\n
For one of the better places the story is \u201carchived,\u201d together with a bit more reflection on the miracle of the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the Unitarian Universalists, I recommend this<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n