Give Me a Ritual of Forgiveness Before You Ask Me to Forgive…

stones-waterI finally figured out what has been troubling me so much about the articles in the UU World on ministering to both the perpetrators and the survivors of sexual abuse in our congregations: we have no distinctly UU theology, understanding or ritual of atonement, confession, forgiveness, redemption, assurance, reconciliation, and restoration of right relationship. Now I am someone who hesitates to use the word “theology”, as it by definition implies talk about God. And I have no idea anymore what the definition of “God” is. It is a word that is constantly subject to semantic juggling in UU circles to the point where it can mean anything and everything and absolutely nothing. I try not to use words I do not understand. But it seems to me that we UU’s need some sort of grounding in theology, cosmology, ontology, morality, ethics or something that allows us to broach the subject of atonement and forgiveness. Otherwise we find ourselves begging and borrowing from other religious traditions committing the sin of sacramental misappropriation.

Here is what I know for sure about ritual: we human beings crave it. Ritual allows us to mark the meaning making events of our lives. Ritual makes room for the possibility of the presence of something larger than ourselves to show up. Ritual provides a safe framework to move through the mysteries and challenges as well as the celebration of our lives. I remember a Christian colleague talking about how being beaten into gangs paralleled the ritual of confirmation into church. His point was that we humans will find a way to create rituals out of a vacuum if necessary.

Because I so believe in the role of ritual in religious life, I find myself wanting to ask Unitarian Universalism to stop asking its people to forgive and embrace perpetrators of sexual abuse seeking redemption and restoration to right relationship until it articulates an intentionally religious process and ritual or ontological cosmology (for lack of a better phrase). Forgiveness is a process with its own timeline. It cannot be forced. Similarly we cannot ask congregations to jump to reconciliation and full inclusion of perpetrators of sexual abuse until there has been some sort of ritual engaged in not just by perpetrators and survivors but the entire congregation.

Anyone want to join me in creating a specifically UU ritual that address atonement, confession, forgiveness, redemption, assurance, reconciliation, and restoration of right relationship? Someone else is going to have to articulate the theological or ontological cosmological piece…

Rev. Lo

Been Thinkin’

Rosh HashanahMany of you probably heard the same NPR report that I did this morning. It was about the 12 Jews left in all of Egypt. Twelve. Some of those left are elderly in care facilities with no family. The synagogues are mostly closed. The building that housed all of the birth and death records for the Jewish community lies filthy and in disrepair, all the files in need of organization. The Jewish cemetery, one of the oldest at 1500 years old is unkempt and untended.

Apparently the 100,000 Jews that used to live in Egypt were expelled in the 1950’s and 1960’s when Egypt was in conflict with Israel. Jews were thought to be spies. How these 12 remained, I have no idea. And what has it been like for them to watch their history and culture disappear? Who will be left to mourn or remember? How soon before they join the worlds disappeared?

This report aired on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that is marked by a ten-day period of reflection, review, and repentance of the past year. The period ends with the High Holy day, Yom Kippur with a 25 hour fast, the symbolic casting off of sins and the tasting of apples dipped in the sweetness of honey to signify a sweet beginning to the new year.

Coincidentally I happen to be reading Simon Wiesenthal’s book, The Sunflower, which relates his Holocaust experience and the question of “the possibilities and limits of forgiveness.” A series of essays by different authors is added to the book to explore this very question of the possibilities and limits of forgiveness. One of these authors, Cynthia Ozick, has written in other anthologies of the consequences of the Jewish Holocaust. She talks about not just the loss of life that happened but the loss of potential. Of what could have been created or offered the world by those who were slaughtered. That empty void created by the loss of those voices that can never be filled.

It makes me wonder about the last 12 Jews in Egypt. After their deaths, there will be no others to contribute or carry. An entire people’s voice will be lost. I find myself struggling to find the sweet taste of the honey-dipped apple in the midst of this bitter reality.

Rev. Lo