July Thoughts

Here are some things to ponder over the summer about the nature of religious community.

We religious liberals come together in settings like KUUF -- in fellowships and churches -- in search of a particular kind of community. We want community in which we can be ourselves, honestly and forthrightly. We want one where we can be stimulated by ideas and values that make a real and positive difference to life.

We want a community where we can be at rest and be restored after long hours and days and weeks of dealing with a world that seems more concerned with controlling others than with enabling them.

Furthermore, we want a community that will energize us and send us back into that world with our values strengthened, our ideas clarified, and our commitment to life intensified. We want a community that will contribute to the religious, intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical life of the larger community. We want it to stand for fairness and justice; we want it to show others the meaning of compassion.

We want a congregation of persons that is both a sanctuary in which we can restore our spirits and a springboard to give us the momentum to make our lives count in the larger community.

It is a profound characteristic of such a congregation that it is not set up to do anything for anyone. Rather, it is made up of persons who are all on an equal footing and who are all equally responsible for supporting and enhancing it.

This responsibility is met when the members of such a congregation recognize that their loyalty to and love for one another is matched by an equal loyalty to and love for the community that contains them.

This means, ultimately, that each person is responsible for the health and integrity of the community to which he or she belongs and that this community is only of value to them as far as they support it and involve themselves in its life.

This is a basic dynamic of religious congregations. The great aspect of KUUF is that there are so many people who understand this – and do this.

Don Vaughn-Foerster