When I got married, more than a few years ago, my groom to be and I planned a rather non-traditional celebration of our union. We invited everyone we knew to a join us on a friend’s farm to dance the night away under the glow of a full moon complete with a pot luck reception.
We incorporated a variety of rituals into the ceremony that held personal meaning for us but we also shared vows that were rather standard. We made a promise to one another to love, honor and cherish each other – through sickness and health – until death might end up parting us.
And even though we were legally wed, we knew that the promises we were making had nothing to do with the contractual aspect of this marriage. We were making a promise to the way in which we wished to live our lives in relationship to one another and in relationship to the world. We were, in more current UU language, creating a covenant of right relationship between the two of us.
Even though those words were spoken with the utmost of sincerity, I am certain that we did not have a clue as to what the living of this promise made to each other might actually look like as the years unfolded.
In the early bloom of our love we spent countless hours talking late into the night. We shared our dreams and hopes with abandon. It was easy to love and be loved by one another. I am grateful that that initial foundation of our love for one another was built with an intention that has served us well over the years, but there have been many times when it was much easier for me to fall into routines that felt more habitual than intentional.
There were seasons in which my personal search for purpose and meaning resulted in frustration, withdrawal and depression. And there have been the inevitable changes that occur simply because life, as John Lennon noted, is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. Through the living of life, words and actions have occurred that seemed contrary to the promises we made on our wedding day.
But the covenantal aspect of those promises were not. Our commitment to the way in which we wanted to be in the world and with each other has been at the heart of this decades long relationship – a relationship that has seen us through our particular assortment of highs and lows.
While we have not had any official re-commitment ceremony as some people do, we do, from time to time, take the time to consider if we are living into the vision of life that we say we want to.
A covenant is not a contract. It is not a legal agreement that gets signed and tucked away. Rev. Victoria Safford says “A covenant is a living, breathing aspiration, made new every day. It can’t be enforced by consequences but it may be reinforced by forgiveness and by grace, when we stumble, when we forget, when we mess up.”
I like this definition. I like the idea of creating ways of being with one another that combines our best intentions with enough spaciousness to leave room for forgiveness when we mess up – because messing up is something that is part of the complexity of being human. It is something that happens in our personal lives, our work lives, in this beloved faith community.
This covenantal approach to faith is something that sets Unitarian Universalism apart from many of the Protestant Christian traditions from which we evolved. We come from a tradition that does not require us to commit to a particular creed in order to be a part of this community. Rather than asking what we believe, we ask, what are the values that we hold dear and how will we walk together as we strive to live those values.
Do you all know that UUCV has a covenant? Bonus points to you if you do and extra points if you know what it says. As a refresher for all of us, it seems like a good idea to look at it now:
So here we go:
We, the Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley, covenant to embody the seven Principles through:
How does that sound? Is this something that resonates within you? Is this something that you have incorporated into your way of being?
I find that holding each other to living the convent – to living in right relationship can sometimes be easier to read on paper than to live out in action and deed. When our feelings are hurt, when we are frustrated or angry it can be easier to lash out or stuff our thoughts and feelings inside. But when we take such a path, rather than the path of seeking forgiveness or calling one another loving back into community we sabotage our professed ideals.
Many of us are uncomfortable with conflict. I know that I grew up in an environment that did not teach me how to disagree respectfully. What I really learned was to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself so I wouldn’t stir things up. I believe that there is a real art to graceful disagreement.
We know that we do not all think alike. We know that when we work together we are going to sometimes see things differently and we are going to sometimes mess up. And I think we also really long to stay in relationship even if we are not sure how to do so.
Isn’t that what draws us here? Isn’t it the desire to be in relationship with others – to be able to bring all who we are to this place that calls us onward, calls us inward, that leads us here? Don’t we make the space in our lives to be a part of this community because we believe that how we are in the world, who we are together, matters? And isn’t it by being together here that we have a safe space in which to practice how to do this living of our values in real time?
This covenant, this promise that we make to one another is an ideal – it is a way of being together that is tied to our spiritual growth. The concept of spiritual practice is aptly named. We need practice to become our best selves. It is in community that we get to bump up against others and through those bumps we get to help each other smooth over the rough spots by our willingness to remain in relationship through whatever challenges arise.
When many people engage in relationship with one another, the opportunity for collective growth multiplies and frankly it is only through being in relationship with each other that we have any hope of creating the Beloved Community – not just within these walls but within the world at large.