This I Believe, Like a Candle Flame
by Ellen RockettWhen I was in 8th grade, my parents started going to the local Unitarian Universalist (UU) church, and I came along. Never having been to a church and not being religious, it was a new experience for me. There are a lot of jokes about UUs, who have no common creed, just Seven Principles regarding how we should treat each other fairly. "The UU church is where atheists with kids go." Although we have no common belief other than "the inherent worth and dignity of every person" and the other six Principles, the UU church provides a community built from its members' very lack of common creed.
As a youth in the Unitarian Universalist church, I have discovered my spiritual (although not so much my religious) side. I go to weekend-long youth conventions—two hundred teenagers with only their teenagerness and UUism in common, and I find a home in the differences between us. When I see these youth sharing their joys and their concerns with several hundred other people in a caring, supportive environment, I have hope for the human race. Because these people who stick out like sore thumbs everywhere else have come together, suddenly they are all sharing in their uniqueness instead of being ostracized for it. Because of them, I have a belief in myself to be different, allowing me to believe in my own choices.
When the weekend is over, I come home to a world where there are walls and people don't share their hearts out. But I still believe in my family and my fellow students, who are almost family. When I'm at home, I light candles and sit in the dark—it's very relaxing. Just pondering the night and the wick away. At school I have a lot of people I know, some better than others, some better friends than others. High school is tough. Everyone has different views, and not everyone has learned that the way they express those views can hurt other people. But what gets me through each day is my belief I feel through the warm darkness and the flame that I lit the night before. This I believe, that if my race of fellow teenagers pooled their love and care like the warm puddle of light from a candle flame, we could commit miracles.
With this to warm me, I can feel the primary principle that I believe in. It doesn't matter if there is a supreme being, it doesn't matter if there is only a supreme physics equation determining our universe. Either is equally possible, but in the belief that I hold, neither matters here and now. I can make the world better if I just believe in my fellow humans, their "inherent worth and dignity" that guarantees them all rights and respect, no matter how far-out-there they are. And I know some pretty far-out-there people.
Ellen Rockett is on the web at www.rockettium.net.
For more information contact youth @ uua.org.
Last updated on Saturday, April 19, 2008.
