The aspect of my personal faith that seems to bring about the most confusion in friends and colleagues is that I believe I have a deep and abiding personal relationship with a God that is incapable of knowing that I even exist. I find that the confusion about this theological point rests not only with those more theologically conservative than I, but also with those more theologically liberal or secular than I. More conservative ministers and theologians are confused by... Read more
My thirteen-year-old daughter and I have different ideas about what it is that she will be doing with her summer vacation, which will be upon us in a few days. I think that the summer before she enters high school would be a good time to get a jump start on subjects she finds challenging. Also a good time to learn to type properly, or play the piano. Not to mention that there are a good number of household projects... Read more
A growing number of people in the United States define themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” Study after demographic study shows that this segment of our population is rising steadily, as people growing up in a pluralistic society reject the rigid dogma that they associate with “religion.” Maybe you’re someone who has claimed this title for yourself. I’d like to make a case for religion. To be clear, I, too, reject rigid dogma. I reject narrow-minded thinking that groups together... Read more
First, let me introduce myself, as this is my first post at Quest for Meaning. I am Rev. Dr. Matt Tittle, minister of Central Unitarian Church in Paramus, NJ. I have been blogging since 2006, most prominently at the Houston Chronicle from 2006-2010. I am delighted to begin blogging here, where I will post every other Monday. You can read a more complete bio at the “bloggers” link above. When I was kid growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, there... Read more
I have to be mindful of the baskets of flowers that hang below the eaves. Even though it has rained for four days, the eaves have sheltered the flowers from the rain. This means that though the road is washed out and water sits upon the ground with no where to go, even though the dock is below the lake’s surface and the warbler flycatchers have to hunt not in the air but up and down the hemlocks seeking mosquitoes... Read more
I moved away from Minneapolis to live in Boston and DC from 1989-2004, and then moved back. One thing I love about being back where I spent my young adult years is when I run into people I knew from the 1980’s. Recently, I ran into a woman who looked dimly familiar. When I heard someone else call her Jean, I realized why and I asked, “Are you … Jean X…?’ Yes, she answered. I said, “I think... Read more
This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of what is known today as the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians. Its first minister, the Rev. Dr. Norbert Fabián Čapek, created a ritual that is celebrated by Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists all over the world, Flower Communion. Čapek described the ceremony in a 1923 letter to Samuel Atkins Eliot II, president of the American Unitarian Association: We have made a new experiment in symbolizing our Liberty and Brotherhood in a... Read more
In his poem “Keeping Quiet” Pablo Neruda begins with this: Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language; let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines; we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. As I read it, I am thinking: The well is dry. Have you... Read more
Last week a Baptist pastor by the name of Worley got a fair bit of internet attention for declaring that gay people should all be stuck behind an electric fence – lesbians in one area and “queers and homosexuals” in another, where food could be dropped to them from an airplane until they all eventually died off because they couldn’t reproduce. OK, just for a minute we’re going to set aside things like the obvious fact that straight people would... Read more
If someone were to ask you whether you’d rather be an expert or a beginner at something (pick any activity that interests you), I’m guessing that you’d probably say “expert.” I know I would. Who wouldn’t want complete mastery of a subject? As someone who just started playing the guitar five years ago, I think it would be a lot more fun to play like Eric Clapton than it is to sit and plunk out the few chords I know. ... Read more
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