Living Lives of Spiritual Integrity
My obsession with the question of covenant continues. Given that it is holy week, I want to try to take the question deeper into spiritual practice.
Many of us have been through the sometimes laborious and sometimes facile process of developing a covenant for group behaviors. Usually included are things like “speak from your own experience,” “avoid triangulating,” “assume best intentions,” etc. These are all really important and necessary concepts for how to be in community together, and it is easy to assume that everyone shares them – until you discover that they don’t. So I’m not trying to belittle this practice. Indeed, I lead groups in it all the time.
But it doesn’t quite bring us to the level of depth I think I desire for religious community, whatever the structure of that community.
What if we went as deep as this:
This is our covenantal rule:
Hospitality – Living one’s life in service to others, in a commitment to welcome guests in love and a spirit of prayer.
Social Transformation – affirming the moral obligation to direct one’s effort toward the establishment of a just and loving community. It is this which makes the role of the prophet central and indispensable in liberalism.
Racial Reconciliation and Healing – Denying the immaculate conception of virtue and affirming the necessity of social incarnation. Only by the work of our hands will we live into our ideal of a society healed of the wounds that separate us.
Community – all relations among persons rest on mutual, free consent and not on coercion. We freely choose to enter into relationship with one another in shared mission and a common life.
Conversion of Life – Revelation is continuous. Our tradition is a living tradition because we are always learning new truths.
Humility – holding that the resources are available for meaningful change and justifying an attitude of ultimate optimism – hope.
Stability – pledging to worship and work for the permanent transformation of Unitarian Universalism.
Prayer – practicing a spiritual discipline.
The field staff of the UUA Southern Region recently adopted this rule for how they hope to live up to their mutual covenant. Sue Sinnamon, Director of Lifespan Faith Development for the Southeast District, developed it based on her spiritual direction practice.
I think we all crave to live lives of spiritual depth. What would it mean for all of us to live according to such a rule? What would be the rule for your community?
