Faith Curriculum Library: Tapestry of Faith: What Moves Us: A Unitarian Universalist Theology Program for Adults

Taking It Home: Sophia Lyon Fahs

The emotional impulses that urge [human]kind to be religious are a part of human nature everywhere and apparently always. We truly need to be religious. — Sophia Lyon Fahs

What core emotional needs of yours are foundational to your personal Unitarian Universalist faith? Reflect on how these needs might be better nurtured in your immediate faith community. Might this be a topic for small group ministry work or another kind of spiritual group work?

Are children part of your life, or do you know some children in your congregation? Pay attention to the way they engage with the world. Engage them in conversation, inviting their questions, thoughts, and feelings about the wonders of life.

Faith in Action

Reflect on what Fahs said about the dissolution of traditional human categories and dualities:

The ethical questions we must face almost never present merely two clear cut possibilities—the right and the wrong... The development of moral and spiritual values today involves not so much the courage to fight for the right against the wrong, as the patience to understand the wrong, its causes and its meanings. It involves also learning the arts of negotiation and empathy... The unique historical memories in our special religious cultures call today for less loyalty and more understanding, less praise and more honest self-criticism. Our direction needs to be forward.

Join an interfaith project in your community where you can explore and express with people of other faiths what you have in common. In their calling to the work you share together, do you observe some of the impulses and needs that Fahs described? Are these the same impulses and needs that drew you to commit to your Unitarian Universalist faith community?