Several years ago, after I had already been a minister for several years, I had a woman in my congregation who was both a member of my Unitarian Universalist church and also a member of a Buddhist community.

She would come to church on Sunday morning for our Unitarian Universalist worship.  And then, during the week she would attend a meditation service and dharma talk at the Buddhist temple.  She was a full member of both communities, participating in worship and study, and also active in leadership roles and fellowship opportunities.

I appreciated that this woman felt connected to both religious paths and that she found Unitarian Universalism and Buddhism to be compatible and complementary.  That affirmed what I also have always loved about our Unitarian Universalism:  that we are open to wisdom from diverse sources, and that we also add something of our own.

But truthfully, I also felt a little protective of my Unitarian Universalism whenever I spoke with this woman.  This is a story about my own insecurities not a reflection on her.  I liked her.  I admired her.  But I couldn’t help thinking as I spoke with her, “Why isn’t Unitarian Universalism enough?”  Am I missing something in my faith, a need that you feel can only be satisfied beyond Unitarian Universalism?  It was clear to me what this woman was getting at a Unitarian Universalist church that she wouldn’t get at a Buddhist temple, but what was she getting there that we couldn’t give her here?”

Well I never asked her that question directly. But I eventually did get my answer.

After this woman had been attending both the UU church and the Buddhist temple for a year or more, she told me that she had signed up to take a class at the Temple, a study group, where the group was going to read a book written by the founder of the sect she was involved in.  The class would read a single book.  And they planned to take at least one year on the project of thoroughly reading this one normal-sized book.

The class would meet once a week and read together.  They would read a paragraph.  Then they would stop.  They would meditate.  They would discuss.  They would read the paragraph a second time, stop, meditate, discuss.  Then read the paragraph a third time.  And so on, until, by intention, they completely understood every concept in the paragraph down to the level of each word.  Their aim was not only to grasp the meaning intellectually, but to hold the precepts in their bodies and the language in their memories.  

Each class session they could read only two or three pages with this level of attention, so it would take a year-or-so to read the entire book.  The homework was to continuing reviewing what they had read together in class.  They were not encouraged to read ahead.  They would allow each section of writing to change them before moving on.  

My unspoken response to this, and perhaps yours, too, as I tell you this story was, “that sounds a little cult-y.”  Who was the founder of this sect, and are his words really worthy of this obsessive attention?  I actually did a little research on the Temple she was involved in to make sure my friend wasn’t getting into something dangerous.  But what I found wasn’t troubling.  It all seemed a perfectly benign form of Buddhism directed at a Western population.  So mostly I turned my thoughts back to myself, thinking, “Wow.  I would never do that.  Wow.  There isn’t any book out there, by anyone, that I would be willing to give that kind of attention, to.”

And so I realized what this woman was getting from her Buddhist practice that we weren’t offering through her Unitarian Universalist practice.

She was about to embark on a year-long course of study, where the intention wasn’t just to understand some religious idea, but to actually change herself.  The point of the class was that at the end of the year of reading she would be a different person.  And she was willing to devote herself to this work.  It was important to her, in a way, I realized, that religion just hadn’t been that important to me, at least not judged by what I actually did with my spiritual life.

She wasn’t going to read a book just to be able to say, “here is what this book is about.”  Summarized in a sentence or two, and isn’t that interesting.  She intended to actually incorporate the teaching into her life.  To end the year in a different spiritual place than she started.  To embark on a year of her spiritual life as an adventure, with some, unknown destination at the end, and to get there by intentionally stepping away from here, leaving her old self behind.  

“As we leave this friendly place…;  May the kindness which we learn…”.

To learn.  To grow, which means to change.  To deepen, which requires more than surface, fleeting attention.  To mature in her spiritual life.  To progress, instead of marking time.  She was going to take her spiritual life seriously.

We don’t do that in Unitarian Universalism.  Or at least, I didn’t, in my spiritual life.  And as a minister I realized I didn’t really offer much of an experience like that to my congregation.  That troubled me.  Isn’t Unitarian Universalism worthy of that kind of focused experience and learning?  Couldn’t our spiritual lives also benefit from an invitation to grow and deepen year by year?  Shouldn’t it be the job of the church to help people change their lives and achieve their spiritual goals?

I wasn’t interested in following the model of reading a single book for a year.  That doesn’t fit with the Unitarian Universalist value of exploring broadly and encouraging the congregation to follow diverse paths.  The gift of Unitarian Universalism is our unsettling questions about religion rather than settled answers.  So we didn’t need a guru, or a text, but I did like the model of considering a year in your spiritual community as a chunk of time, with a beginning and an end, and a journey in between, with the intention that we would arrive at the end of the year somewhere else in our spiritual life than we were when we began.

So since then, several years ago now, every year, I’ve used my summers to think about the church year coming in September through June, as an opportunity to plan a journey that I and the congregation could take together.  Focused on some important core of our lives as Unitarian Universalists and as spiritual beings generally.  The large theme gives shape to weekly themes that become steps on the journey.  As much as possible the large theme in worship might be reflected in the RE curriculum, and the Social Justice work and other programs of the church.  And, of course, we stay flexible and make room for all the other things that churches need to do, the fixed holidays, and special traditions, and remaining responsive to the news of the world and the needs of our community.  And, of course, guest ministers can bring whatever message they want to give to us.

Don’t think of it as a cult.  Here is an invitation you can accept or decline.  But do think of this year-long plan as though you were signing up for a year-long course at a community college.  Or perhaps, you were signing up to start a training program with the intention of running a marathon next spring.  Or perhaps you wanted to learn to play an instrument and signed up for private lessons.

In all these examples you start the year with an intention to know something, or be able to do something, or simply to be someone, different, at the end of the year, than you are now.  You could make the same kind of intention in your spiritual life.  And today, the first Sunday of our new church year is a good time to make that kind of intention.  And I offer this church year as a help to you to do that.

If you signed up for a community college course you would have to spend the next year studying.  If you hope to run a marathon next spring, you will need to spend several days a week running and gradually increasing your strength and endurance.  If you want to play the saxophone reasonably well a year from now, you will have to get a saxophone, and a teacher, and you will have to practice, practice, practice.

That’s how we get better.  That’s how we gain a skill.  That’s how we grow and change.  We study.  We work.  We train.  We practice.

So for this church year, I’ve chosen a theme that begins with spiritual practice, and then, after the first of the year, switches to talking about the goals of religion.  First the personal goals of religion, that is, what we hope to get for ourselves, personally by doing this work.  And second, for next spring, the social goals of religion, that is, what we hope as religious people to get for everyone, for the world we share, by doing our religious work.

So first, for the fall, we’re going to look at the “what” of religion.  What do people actually do, to work on their faith?  What are the actions we take to move us forward in our faith, to deepen and grow in our spiritual lives?  Generally, we’re going to call the “what” of religion “spiritual practice,” and there are dozens of spiritual practices to match every personality and interest.

And then in the winter and spring we will look at the “why” of religion.  Why do people bother with their spiritual practice?  What are they hoping to achieve?  What’s the point?  Spiritual goals are as diverse as spiritual practice.  So we will look at several possible personal goals in January, February, March, and then we’ll look at the social goals of various religious paths in April, May, and June.

So that’s our year.

Now, I realize that all of this talk about faith, spiritual goals, spiritual practice, even religion, is probably making some of you squirm in your seat.  You’re probably wondering whether a course in spiritual practice and spiritual goals is something you really want to sign up for.  So let me begin by giving some definitions that I hope will make everyone feel included in this project and welcomed on this journey, even if the language I’m using isn’t the language you would choose.

So when I say spiritual, I mean spiritual in a sense where I sincerely believe that every person in this room, and indeed every person everywhere is spiritual.  I don’t mean spiritual in the sense of spirits or spiritualism.  It’s not about believing in supernatural beings, or complicated theologies about the afterlife, although those beliefs are certainly welcome here.  Remember it’s our values that unite us as Unitarian Universalists not our beliefs.

I mean spiritual, in the sense that the root of the word spirit is the same as the root of the word inspire, which itself just means to breathe.  If you are alive and breathing you are spiritual, in my opinion.  Human beings are spiritual beings because all of us in one way or another engages with the three questions of conscious existence that are the concerns of spirituality:  Identity.  Purpose.  And Meaning.

“Who am I?”  “What should I do?”  and “Why does it matter?”

How you answer those questions defines your theology.  And you can answer those questions in an atheist or a theistic way.  But everyone asks those questions because they are essential to charting our way through life.  And those are spiritual questions.

Identity.  Who am I?  What is essential about me?  What is unique and different about me?  What does it even mean to talk about a self?  Do I have a soul separate from my body?  And generally, who are we?  What does it mean to be human?  Are we kin to all animal life or is there something different about human existence?  Are we immortal?  Responsible?

Purpose.  What Should I do?  Should I go to school?  Should I get married?  Should I follow my dream?  Should I be more practical?  Should I live for my own pleasure?  Should I be of service to others?

And Why does it matter?  Which is the question of meaning.  Who cares?  Or perhaps, “what” cares?  Are there universal values, or only human values, or only cultural values, or only personal preferences?  Why should we be “good”?  And is there even an objective way to judge between good and bad, or better and worse?

Again, how you answer those questions is your theology.  As Unitarian Universalists we create our own theologies from the six sources that are listed in the front of your hymnal:  your personal experience, people you respect, insights from the world’s religions, the Judeo-Christian tradition, humanist teachings, reason, and science, and our relationship with the earth itself as our natural common home.

But that you ask those questions makes you spiritual.  Who am I the same and different from others?  What should I do, among all the options of life?  And why does it matter?  Engaging with those questions in a deliberate way makes you religious.  And what you do to engage with those question, plus your answers, constitutes your faith.

So I hope those definitions will make it possible for everyone to join in to the work this year without getting bogged down in a discussion about language.

Spiritual practice, for me, is simply the work that we do to regularly engage with and return to the spiritual questions of Identity, Purpose, and Meaning.  Who am I?  What Should I do?  And Why does it Matter?

And finally, I bet, that most of you already do something like a spiritual practice, even if you don’t call it that, or consider it as such.

In fact, I know that all of us have a spiritual practice, because the first one I want to talk about, the one I’ll talk about next week, is the one we’re all doing right now:  gathering together regularly with our spiritual community in the act of worship.

After that the categories of spiritual practice will broaden widely:  communal practices like singing, music-making, studying. Personal practices like paying attention to what we eat or don’t eat, movement practices and physical exercise, prayer and meditation, communing with nature.  And in December public spiritual practices like taking your faith into the larger community to Side With Love through activism, volunteer work, public witness and so on.

And lastly, an invitation.

If you have a spiritual practice that you already engage in, I would love to have you share your practice from the pulpit on a Sunday.  I would love for your community to hear what we all are doing and get to know each other better.  I’m happy to give you a few minutes on a Sunday to explain what you do, tell us how you got started, share what makes it easy or difficult to keep up with your practice, and describe what effect your spiritual practice has had on your life.  I’d love to have a testimonial every week so there’s plenty of opportunity.  Come and talk to me and I’ll sign you up.

Are you ready for a year together?

Are you ready to step off from where we are and with excitement and mystery see who we can be at the end of the year?

Are you ready to do the work?

OK then.  Let’s go.