I’d like to do an experiment with you. I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to say the answer out loud. Even a whisper counts if you happen to be in a place where you are unable to make a joyful noise. Okay, ready?
What color is your shirt?
Now I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you just to think the answer. Don’t say anything out loud. Not a peep. Okay, here goes:
What color is your shirt?
Same answer, right? Well, here’s the final question in the experiment: Which one of those voices is the real you? The one that spoke the answer aloud or the one that thought the answer?
That’s a trick question because the real you is neither of those. The real you is the observer who knows the difference.
You are not your thoughts, or your actions, or your feelings. You are not what you produce or how you present yourself. You are not your clothes or your job or your possessions. You are the observer, the part of you that unconditionally exists. The part of you that is infinitely connected to the universe and its divine nature.
Some people call it intuition. Some people call it the gut. Some people call it the heart center. In her book Untamed, Glennon Doyle calls it “The Deep Knowing.” For Doyle, it feels like sinking into a low, quiet place. She writes, “it struck me that this is why we say to people,’Calm down.’ Because beneath the noise of the pounding, swirling, surf is a place where all is quiet and clear.”
In Unitarian Universalism, we often call this encounter the “still small voice,” a Biblical reference from 1 Kings 19:12. In our gray hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, our hymn #391 written by John Corrado in 1987, is a call to the still small voice:
Voice still and small, deep inside all,
I hear you call, singing.
In storm and rain, sorrow and pain,
still we’ll remain singing.
Calming my fears, quenching my tears,
through all the years, singing.
Corrado describes the still small voice as a force that will guide us, comfort us, and grow with us, if, indeed, we can find it.
I say “if we can find it” because I don’t know about you, but I often have difficulty tapping into my still small voice. I can get really centered, really grounded, and it is easily accessible to me in the quiet, intentional space where I am. Then, in less than half the time it took me to find it, I’ve lost it again. Out in the world, where my emotions get the better of me, it’s difficult to listen to what that Real Natalie is saying.
In Unitarian Universalism, that voice leads us into more love, more justice, more interdependence, more equity, more generosity, and more pluralism. We can use these anchors of our Faith to ground us in the deep and listen to that still small voice. It does take a lot of practice, though.
That is one of the main reasons we go to a Unitarian Universalist congregation: to give us space to practice listening to that still small voice and aligning it with our core values. Our gift of a never-ending search for truth and meaning means that we are always looking for ways that help us attend to that voice and then act in accordance with it. In this way, because that voice is so intimately connected to the divine, we are true co-creators with the universe. And in this way - by finding ways to attend to our Deep Knowing, by aligning ourselves toward love, justice, equity, generosity, pluralism, and interdependence, and then by using those resources to create beloved community with others who are on the same path and share those values - we can collectively shape the world. This is our great moral imperative, and it begins with each one of us.
I hope for all of us a year of Deep Knowing in 2025. I hope we create opportunities to practice sinking. I hope we gain alignment with and actions rooted in love, justice, equity, generosity, pluralism, and interdependence. And I hope we continue this sacred work of building Beloved Community, together. We can’t do it alone, but the good news is that we don’t have to.