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Section Banner: Members of the Atkinson Memorial Church, Oregon City, Oregon, standing in a circle around a chalice, holding a candlelight vigil. Photo courtesy Pat Lichen.

"We didn’t learn yesterday that tragedy is a part of this world..."

Rev. James C. (Jay) Leach
Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte, North Carolina
July 27, 2008

    We didn’t learn yesterday that tragedy is a part of this world. We didn’t learn that alongside those countless random acts of kindness
      there are also random acts of unimaginable cruelty.
    We didn’t learn that certain occurrences in life
      defy all of our efforts
    to make sense,
        to understand,
        to come to terms with.
    We didn’t learn these things yesterday
      when a gunman violated the sanctity
    of a Unitarian Universalist sanctuary
      just 250 miles away from this one
    No, we didn’t learn those things just yesterday. For who of us here tonight did not know such things already? But, for each of us and for all of us, what was underscored, on a summer Sunday morning when this room was also filled with worshippers
        gathered in the name of our shared liberal religion
    was a stark and most unwelcome message
      about the way things really are.
    It is as harsh, as bleak, as severe as this:
      there are, in fact, no absolutely certain sanctuaries.
    There are no settings where safety can be guaranteed. Randomness, senselessness, tragedy, to these all barriers are permeable,
        all places and people are vulnerable,
          and because of these
        all illusions of unqualified security
          are, sadly, just that: illusions. …
    And so, we grieve. We grieve for a community of our co-religionists,
      rent apart on a day of youthful celebration.
    We grieve the loss of a hero who intervened
      and of an innocent participant
        in this awful drama.
    We grieve the loss of innocence
      of children who gathered to sing and dance
        and left in blood-splattered clothing with questions
    for which no one will ever offer ample answers. In the full embrace of our liberal religion,
      we grieve the abject despondence of a soul so lost
        that he would resort to such wanton violence.
    And we grieve the implications of a society struggling so to balance freedom and responsibility,
        access and accountability,
        individual rights and communal safety.
    We gather with heavy hearts tonight
      and hold yet within their laden confines
        our sense of deep connection
          to those with whom we share this liberal religion.
    We gather seeking the comfort of shared sorrow,
      to meet in our pain and to bear one another’s pain. …
    There is … no way to pack off all of our grief
      and send it safely away in a vessel,
        down the river rapids and away from our wounded hearts.
    However, this community of faith can be a vessel. Not one that allows us to let go and leave behind all of our sorrow. But one that opens its doors and its arms and invites us in,
      sorrowing though we may be,
      grieving though we may be.
    And if tonight we cannot leave our grief here,
      we can, nonetheless leave knowing
        that we do not grieve alone.
    Now, of course, in reaction to such events
      we each have some impulse to redouble our efforts
        to make our lives and the lives of those we love
          as secure as possible.
    As well we should. Just because life is a risky affair
      we need not court risk through foolishness or naïveté….
    That we cannot guarantee safety
      in no way excuses our failure to do what we reasonably can
        to provide for it.
    But, my friends, let us be careful not to cross that very faint line
      between protection and protectionism.
    The hallmark of liberal religion has been our openness,
      our acceptance,
      our welcome,
      our refusal to establish unnecessary barriers
        of creed or culture that would restrict access to this faith.
    Our present conflict of emotions
      may tempt us to compromise on our identity,
        to look now with an overly suspicious eye
          at those among us who are not known to us.
    In fear we may be tempted to give up too much of our freedom
      for a false sense of security.
    But have not the events of these past few years in our nation
      taught us the peril and the price of such an approach?
    Too often we have allowed to go unchecked
      those who offer us security at the high price of our liberty.
    But in such a trade we end up with neither security nor liberty. As this tragic story continues to unfold
      it appears more likely now
        that this perpetrator was, in fact, motivated
          by some ideological animosity.
    In his woefully disturbed and distorted mind, he saw us as the enemy. Thus it has always been. Our forebears often paid a price for their religious principles. They regarded the values of freedom and reason and tolerance
      as too important to compromise or recant.
    Some of them paid with their lives to gain our religious freedom. I will be honest with you tonight, my beloved community. I do not wish to pay that price. I have no interest in being a martyr for this faith. But I have known for quite some time now that free religion is never free. Though it rarely, rarely exacts injury, much less death from us,
      it does ask a great deal from us.
    For too long and too often
      we have emphasized freedom
        and downplayed responsibility.
    For too long and too often
      we have implied that our religion
        is about nothing deeper than a kind of fast food spirituality
          in which you are invited to “have it your way.”
    For too long and too often
      we have implied that this liberal religion
        is a take-it-or-leave-it,
        join-it-or-not,
        support-it-or-not,
          sort of thing,
            an easy come, easy go religion
              where commitment and expectation
                are forbidden terms.
    But, my friends, what we stand for matters more than that. The things that offend some who oppose us
      represent our deepest values.
    I don’t wish to pay with my life,
      but, I do intend to continue paying a great deal
        to help create and sustain this liberal religious congregation
          and to extend the reach of our liberal religion.
    A religion that is not at odds with reason
      but that also understands also that religion is more
        than an mere intellectualizing
    and must also move our hearts and souls. A religion that challenges each individual adherent to
      the deepest possible spiritual experience
        rather than constricting him or her to some
          prefabricated creed or doctrine.
    A religion that stands on the side of the oppressed,
      that advocates for the have-nots of this world.
    A religion that honors the fullness of worth and dignity
      in each person
        whether she is straight, gay, bisexual or transgender.
    A religion that honors our deep relationship with our mother the earth
      and calls us to ever deeper stewardship of our fragile planetary home.
    A religion that values its children and youth
      and believes they can and should teach us
        even as we seek to teach and lead them.
    A religion that calls its participants and the world
      to interpersonal, relational, societal and global peace.
    That’s what we are about. That’s what we share with the members of
      the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
        with the Westside Unitarian Universalist Church
          and with every other member of our liberal religion
    throughout this nation and world. We’re reminded, in these sad days, of that interconnection
      as we see the name of our religion
        in headlines and internet stories
    and on the televised news. We say, across the miles that separate us tonight
      from those sisters and brothers of our faith
        in our neighboring state,
    we hurt with you, we cry with you, we mourn with you. But too, our friends,
      we stand with you,
        even now deepened in our commitment,
        ever resolute in our values,
        determined to continue to shine the beacon of liberal religion
          into a world that so desperately needs the gospel of our good news.

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Last updated on Thursday, June 3, 2010.

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