“The Church of What We Know”
I’m a Unitarian Universalist (UU). I enjoy attending church services, but I’ve never felt as though my presence on any given Sunday mattered much. I’ve noticed, though, that often the less I feel like attending but do, the more good I get out of it.
A case in point came up a few months ago. After some back-and-forth with myself—I want to go, I don’t want to go, etc.—I Zoomed into church.
The service featured Peter Mayer, a UU singer-songwriter whose name sounded vaguely familiar. My ears pricked up during the first song he performed, “The Story of the Universe.” Like any good bard, he told a story, and this one began with the narrator’s encounter with a pair of apparent evangelists going door to door. But when he politely declined their proselytizing, he notes, they weren’t Jehova’s Witnesses; rather, they were carrying the gospel of the universe—the facticity of the universe and everything in it, existence itself and the great privilege of being. That, the song implies, is the real good news: that we’re here at all, along with everything else in the universe that we know of—not only the material constructions but also the processes that made and continues to make them. There’s no need to supply an explanation for existence; the mystery itself merits worship. The song points to the wonder of both what we know of the universe and our own awe in knowing it. This is good, I thought. This is where I am.
Mayer followed the song with a talk, “The Church of What We Know.” He elaborated on the themes of the song he opened with, noting that the universe as science describes it is worthy of the reverence that religious people reserve for gods. This perspective places science itself in the position of priest. Given what we know, and neither more nor less, the 7th Principle of UUism elaborates and directs an appropriate relationship between oneself and the whirling, dynamic, astronomical everything, whether human or nonhuman, organic or inorganic, terrestrial or nonterrestrial, explained or indecipherable.
Given the reputation UUism has among the unversed as a non-religion that doesn’t “stand” for anything at all, this 20-minute address describes and details it—at least, what it is to me—more completely, succinctly, and intelligibly than any other explanation I’ve ever come across. And it dovetails with the core of my understanding of the sacred and my reverence for it.
Mayer followed his talk with more songs, all of which resonated with me. I turned to Dyke and said, “I bet you anything he’s going to sing ‘Blue Boat Home.’ It just belongs here!”
“Blue Boat Home” is an often-sung UU hymn that turns on the metaphor of Earth whirling through the universe as a boat sailing the ocean that we are fortunate to experience for whatever time we whirl with it. It’s my favorite hymn, and I’ve made clear my wish that, if ever Dyke is tasked with putting together a memorial service for me, I want this song to form its linchpin.
And, sure enough, Mayer’s final song was “Blue Boat Home.”
And then I realized why Mayer’s name sounded vaguely familiar. He wrote my favorite hymn, and my favorite sermon.
It was an hour worth getting out of bed for.