What I Learned Today

I recently found myself in Corvallis, Oregon, on a Sunday morning with no definite plans. So I went to church.

This was not previously a regular feature of my Sundays, but for some time I’ve been interested in learning more about different religions and making time to attend services. A good friend recently started going to a Unitarian Universalist church and has spoken highly of the community she found there. Sure enough, there was such a church in Corvallis, and so a little before 10 a.m. I walked through its doors for the first time.

The churchgoers were all picking up nametags from a table—but not to worry, for there was a visitor’s desk clearly marked at which some other newcomers were already introducing themselves and writing out their own nametags. I felt immediately comfortable and welcome. I spoke with a few people, and then we went inside for the service.

The minister was a very impressive, prepared, and enjoyable speaker. She spoke about current events and encouraged us to think about what role we could have in improving things. She talked about how technology and culture can be both gifts and curses to us—enabling great convenience, great deeds, and great works, but also separating us from nature and from each other. One interesting quote she shared was along the lines of “waste [as in trash] is possible only if we believe that there is an ‘out’ to which things can be thrown,” which is really quite insightful. We do think of there being somewhere for trash to go that is away from us and away from our immediate world, and this is another kind of separation. If you remove that separation, then you see throwing things away as simply shuffling them around within what is, ultimately, all one place. Our place.

Two parts of the service really left an impression on me. First, at the end of the sermon, members of the congregation were invited to give their own views on what had been said (a kind of “talk back”)—and many did. Very thought-provoking (and enjoyably interactive). Second, at the end of the service, members were invited to come up and light candles for celebration or sorrow, and to relate to the group what major event they wished to commemorate. I can see how this is a great community-building exercise, and it was nice to be able to share in these people’s lives, however briefly. There were also several songs sung, and the minister led them all with her own voice (and sometimes her guitar). Very impressive!

Back home, I looked up some local UU churches and now have attended two more services (at different locations). The friendliness to newcomers was unvaryingly present. However, neither of the local churches featured a talk-back or a communal candle lighting, so those may not be standard features. But they also had their own nice touches, such as soloist vocal performances (music does seem to be a large part of the UU church!), and one even provides the sermons as a podcast!

There were two thoughts from today’s service that I particularly liked.

“A candle must give itself away. In the giving, the spending, the spreading, the sending, it finds itself.” — John Wood

And paraphrase, from memory:

What matters is not what we get by striving, but who we become as a result of our striving.

Both are full of important implications about how we choose to spend our time, at work and in the world at large. Time for some in-depth contemplation… and thought-provoking discussions with friends!

Reading, like talking, serves many different purposes: entertainment, education, enlightenment, et cetera. A few months ago, I sampled an audio lecture on “Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life” from The Teaching Company. I was so impressed by this single lecture that I purchased the entire 36-lecture course and recently started listening to it. And wow: that sample was definitely characteristic of the whole course. Dr. J. Rufus Fears is simply one of the best orators that I have ever had the pleasure of listening to, especially in a course setting. I actually finish each of his lectures feeling uplifted, energized, and excited about all of the grand ideas that we don’t often take time to meditate upon—but which are critical to our existence: Does God exist? Do good and evil exist? What is the role of duty in our lives? What about social justice? Courage, ambition, and honor? And the kicker: What is the purpose of my life?

Dr. Fears’s definition of a “great book” is not simply one that appears on an Educated Person’s Reading List, but one from which he believes we can individually derive lessons useful in our own lives, here and now. “What do great books say to you?” he asks. And even more importantly, “What personal wisdom can you derive from them?”

We’ve begun with The Iliad, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and The Bhagavad Gita, none of which I had previously read (although I did read Ilium, by Dan Simmons, which familiarized me with the story of the Iliad, in its own way). All three discuss the notion of duty and life purpose quite heavily. The Iliad advocates a personal quest to discover what purpose the gods have selected for you, and then pursuit of that goal with both courage and moderation. Marcus Aurelius, who managed to find time to write his Meditations while actively fighting to defend the borders of the Roman Empire, had a very stoic approach to life, and likewise believed that everyone must determine their assigned duty and then do it to the best of their ability, regardless of their own inclinations. The Bhagavad Gita (which I’m now in the middle of reading) makes an even stronger case for subjugating your will, your desires, your body, and your senses to your duty, being attached only to the fulfillment of it, but not to the outcome and side effects (positive or negative). I think there’s a certain danger in following your duty so narrowly, because what happens if you guess wrong about what that duty is? If you’re Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, you may end up killing friends and relatives in a misguided battle, believing that it was your duty simply to be a warrior and fight.

In terms of applying these ideas to my own life, a pre-destined duty is a bit of a strange concept to me… but a purpose in life—now that I can subscribe to. Pre-destined or not, what other reason to live on day to day than at the behest of a grand Purpose? It’s always been clear to me what mine is, whether inbred or emergent: to study and learn and grow in understanding about the world, and people, and ideas, as much as I can possibly absorb. (I’m fortunate enough to have my credo already encapsulated by someone else, in this case a song by Cat Stevens: “There’s so much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out.”) And ultimately, I want to be able to turn it around and share what I’ve learned, with anyone of like-minded interests. If I am very lucky, they’ll do the same for me along the road to find out.

I recently finished reading “This I Believe”, a compilation of 500-word essays on various people’s self-articulated core beliefs. Virtually every essay, whether you agree with the beliefs in it or not, makes for fascinating reading. Here are just a few of my favorite excerpts:

• Isabel Allende:
  “What is the point of having experience, knowledge, or talent if I don’t give it away? Of having stories if I don’t tell them to others? Of having wealth if I don’t share it? I don’t intend to be cremated with any of it! It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world, and with the divine.”
• Mary Cook:
  “One very wise man told me, ‘You are not doing nothing. Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you will ever do.’ “
• Albert Einstein:
  “Alongside the development of individual abilities, the education of the individual aspires to revive an ideal that is geared toward the service of our fellow man, and that needs to take the place of the glorification of power and outer success.”
• Martha Graham:
  “I believe that we learn by practice. […] Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.”
• Brian Greene:
  “I believe the process of going from confusion to understanding is a precious, even emotional, experience that can be the foundation of self-confidence.”
• Rick Moody:
  “I read Umberto Eco’s ‘Role of the Reader’, in which it is said that the reader completes the text, that the text is never finished until it meets this voracious and engaged reader. The open texts, Eco calls them.”
• Mel Rusnov:
  “In ordinary life, I’m a civil engineer. […] But in my other life, I am a pianist… [After gaining applause from an impromptu performance in an airport lobby,] I thought: No one smiled and clapped after my presentation on the site engineering for a new strip mall.”
• Wallace Stegner:
  “Everything potent, from human love to atomic energy, is dangerous; it produces ill about as readily as good; it becomes good only through the control, the discipline, the wisdom with which we use it.”
• Deirdre Sullivan:
  “‘Always go to the funeral’ means that I have to do the right thing when I really, really don’t feel like it. I have to remind myself of it when I could make some small gesture, but I don’t really have to and I definitely don’t want to.”

I’m not quite ready to submit my own essay, but I’m very much looking forward to discussing these beliefs, and more, with my fellow salonniers.