Guest Column

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Page updated 10/10/2004

Rev. Beverly Morrison Boke
First Universalist Society
Hartland Four Corners, Vermont

I've heard people say, mostly people who are not Unitarian Universalists, "If you're a UU, you can believe anything you want to believe." Well, there's a grain of truth in that statement but I don't much like hearing people say it. Because I think we do have a core of beliefs we share.

I hope you don't believe that it's okay to discriminate against people who are different from you. I hope you don't believe that it's okay to pollute the earth, the soil, water and atmosphere. I hope you don't think it's okay for a few members of a group to push the rest of them around. I hope you think everyone deserves an equal opportunity to let his or her views be known before we make a decision that affects everyone.

I hope you are working on your spiritual life, that search for truth and meaning, which transcends all religious specificity and leads you to your own connection with the divine. And I hope sometimes you'll be a part of a group studying some aspect of religion, so that your light can shine and help push the darkness away.

I hope you are pulling your oars in the community-wide efforts toward world community, with justice, liberty and peace for all people, beginning here at home and extending in all directions.

No, I don't believe its okay for you to believe anything. But I do believe that what you believe is of importance to me, and I pray there will be time in our lives when you can tell me what you believe, and I can learn from that.

Belonging to a religious community is really a simple thing. We each offer the resources at our disposal to help each other create and protect our church as an institution in our midst - no matter how un--institutional it seems. We choose to participate in the activities at our church and give them priority in our lives. We recognize this as the place where our values will be shaped and transmitted to the next generation, so we take particularly good care of its infrastructure, making it possible then for the church to survive.

"Gather the spirit - harvest the power." Your little light shines brightly, and even more brightly when the light of another joins yours.

Unitarian Universalist District Office for
Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont
10 Ferry Street, Suite #318, Concord, NH 03301
Phone 603-228-8704 · Fax 603-226-3011
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