This I Believe...

I was asked to speak at church for a "This I believe" service. I'm not much of a public speaker, but I accepted the challenge. I was given plenty of time to come up with what I wanted to talk about and write my speech. I thought about it all summer, but the following is what I ended up with. I must mention that Scott helped so much! He helped me to articulate the thoughts that were a little jumbled in my head. Thanks sweetie!

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I believe in Star Trek’s United Federation of Planets. It’s a vision of the future where race, gender, number of limbs, and birth world are unimportant compared to the principles of peace, acceptance, and inter-planetary community. It’s also a well known example of a group displaying respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. But why is it that our planet appears to be taking such timid and excruciatingly slow steps towards this future?

In the same turbulent decade in which Gene Roddenberry hatched the Start Trek vision, John Fitzgerald Kennedy famously declared, “We have nothing to fear but fear it self”. Yet in almost 50 years, it seems like fear is growing stronger than ever. We’ve created a whole culture of fear. News outlets are constantly in a panic about the latest anecdotal threats to our health and safety. Soon parents will again be bombarded with Halloween candy warnings (never mind that there’s never been a recorded case of true candy tampering that was not tracked back to their own parents). Many of our religious communities seem to grow and thrive on a message of fear.

This is not new. Human fear of the unknown or the “other” is natural and was probably useful in helping us to evolve. But if we’re ever going to unite as a planet in order to join the Star Trek Federation, we are going to have to move beyond fear. We must consciously decide to embrace and learn about the “other” before our natural fear can melt away atop the pillars of common ground and shared experience. Easy? No. Necessary? Yes.

This kind of global understanding can’t be rushed or forced upon people. It has to happen slowly, almost imperceptibly when viewed in the time scale of one human life. My optimistic side compels me to believe this is already happening today. The Internet and technology is making our world smaller. Though it may seem a horribly messy process online, at least a global dialogue has begun. Online communities are slowly taking hold in certain corners that encourage meaningful exchanges of ideas and frowns upon those persons intent on increasing the fear level in our society.

These are grand ideas, but our day to day lives present much more humble opportunities to show courage in the face of our fears. Sometimes small kindnesses like a smile at a stranger or a note to a friend in need are what is needed to continue to break down the culture of fear.

When discussing this essay with Scott, we remembered how scary it was for us to come to Wildflower Church for the first time. In 2002, the Belief-O-Matic quiz had told us that we belonged in the UU community. However, it was scary for both us to make that declaration to our families that we wanted something different then the Catholic Tradition we were both raised in.

It wasn’t until considering our children’s religious education that we found the courage to take this step. It’s amazing how we have so much more courage to do things we believe are good for our children than for ourselves alone. So in the spirit of going “Boldly going where no man (OK, just us) had gone before” we loaded our minivan and came to Wildflower Church for the first time in May of 2009.

We were seeking a religious identity for our children (and a box for them to check). Quickly though, we fell in love with the UU ideal of learning about and respecting ALL of our world’s religious traditions. We’re excited (and a little jealous) that our children will be raised in this community and we are grateful for all your help in teaching them.

Our biggest surprise in this process has been how much Scott and I value our time here. Sunday morning is something we look forward to and the moments of reflection have enriched our lives in ways that we didn’t expect. Joining this community has been a wonderful reward for facing our fears.

Thank you for welcoming us into this beloved community.