While visting my Mom in rural Virginia, we attended her Riverside Community Church. It wasn't what I expected.

The church meets in a new movie theater in Farmville and makes good use of the space, with a band (electic guitar, bass and drums) and video projector displaying the words to the songs and quotes from the sermon on the big screen. Lead guitar and vocalist Bruce did a great job making inspirational music fun. Pastor Frank centered his sermon around the book of Habakkuk--a short book told by the prophet as he questioned the despair wrought upon Israel in the time of the Babylonians.

I've written about religion here before when we joined the Unitarian church last year. After attending for most of the year, we made the difficult decision not to join. We visited our local Episcopal church in Westwood several Sundays and were going to consider the First Parish UCC church in Westwood as well, but we feel we have our hands full this summer--getting out of the house on a Sunday morning is just a real challenge right now with the new baby and 2 toddlers.

One attendance at a church cannot tell everything--but I was happy to see what this church is doing and am glad my parents have found it and the community around it. The music is done very well. It's not just that they have a band up front. The songs are "psalmic" and modern at the same time. I don't know if you'd really call it Christian rock--it's more like modern hymns.

Pastor Frank's sermon was thought-provoking as well. It was interesting to see faith discussed in a manner I found similar to the liberal view described in Marcus Borg's book, Heart of Christianity. I am almost certain the Riverside Church would not agree with the liberal themes of that book, but at the core of both liberal and fundamentalist belief is a concept of faith as much more than belief. Faith is based on a "real" relationship with God more than belief in specific facts--faith is more than the faith of Assensus.

In our organized, hyper-rational world, we can be trapped by our own rationality into belief systems that are not fulfilling to us. When we hear that faith can move mountains, we automatically discount it as a metaphor. We presume the superiority of reason over faith because our work and so much of our lives depends on our ability to apply the tools of logic and reason to solve problems.

But the things that really matter in our lives are things we often solve in our hearts, not in our heads. Frank described the story of meeting his wife; that God had meant it to be. And I thought to myself how in my own life, the most important decisions--the ones that really made my life--were ones made on a leap of faith.

My wife--the church would certainly not approve of how we met in a bar, dated a few weeks, then moved in together. But I felt I was guided by some kind of certain feeling that this was right for me. I did not wrestle with questions of "could I do better?" or "am I ready?" or "is she really the one?" I just felt it was right. And it was.

In starting our family...it went against every rational impulse in my memory. Neither of us had planned to have children when we married, but after many years...we began to change our minds. Still, I was not ready. But the rational arguments in my head just didn't feel right. Ultimately, we just did it. Then we did it again and decided to stop. Then, we kept on, so now we have 3 kids under 4. I was looking at a photo of those three last night and realizing how it was not something I had planned or scheduled or even really decided upon--but really how miraculous it is and how grateful I am for it. Sometimes you have to just let great things happen.

I also thought about how faith is an ongoing process. The kids changed our lives and every day, you have a choice of how you perceive things. You do feel frustrated at times and wonder what you've gotten yourself into. But you have to keep letting it happen...faith in the decisions you made, faith in the life you will live--you will find a way...and you do. But if you start analyzing and second guessing and worrying...you sabotage yourself and your life.

I was also reminded of a darker time in my life when another type of faith saved me. In a terrible relationship, I was trying to end, but trying not to be the "bad guy," trying to do the right thing, but making a mess of things. A friend came to visit and I realized how weak I must look to him, and it shocked me into realizing that all I really had to do was let go. Stop trying to do the right thing whatever that was and just stop caring. That does not sound like a great model to live by, but it was really the recognition that FEAR was the enemy that was destroying me...and FAITH...at least in myself...was what I needed to walk away. No amount of rational thought was ever going to get me out of the mental traps I had set for myself.

I'm not planning to join a fundamentalist church anytime soon. And my take on faith is a very secular one. But there is a core of truth that speaks to us, if we let it, and which can truly save us and/or raise us up to things we did not believe possible before.

I'm posting a couple of videos here about the Unitarian Universalist church. I'm in the process of joining First Church and Parish in Dedham and these videos do a decent job of describing the overall organization.

The first video is a 30-second spot, that is designed to stir the pot a bit by asking "Is God keeping you from going to church." It's part of a nationwide campaign that includes ads in Time magazine. You may find this ad a bit superficial...but realize it is part of a campaign to get attention then educate...

The second video is long...10 minutes worth...and goes into much more substance about what this church is all about. I suspect the short ads are going to be excerpts from this one, cut down to 30-second sound bites so they are digestible by the general public.

Check it out...and if you live near Dedham, MA, come check out the First Church.

This Sunday, I attended our First Parish Unitarian Universalist church in Dedham. A month ago, as we were deciding to join, I blogged about religion and the creative class, but the sermon this Sunday got me thinking again.

The topic of the sermon was "Why don't we grow more?" and was not about personal development, but about why the UU has small congregations. The key message I took away was that Unitarianism has been, for so long, a kind of "take it or leave it religion" that existed primarily as an alternative to orthodoxy. If your mainstream church says your beliefs don't measure up...you can join the Unitarians because they'll take anybody.

For a long time, I was not interested in joining a church because I felt I didn't need any church at all. If some church told me I was going to go to hell...well, I didn't really care. Every time I thought about religion, it was in the context of extremism--not personal experience. I read about fundamentalists. I heard of intolerance. I believed the media story of a culture war dividing our Nation between God-fearing, self-righteous Christians and godless, atheist, secular humanists.

I knew of Unitarianism for years...and I knew it provided an alternative...but why bother? If that's all it was--a social club that met on Sundays united in the belief that all beliefs were valid...what the heck good is that? It felt like a solution to a problem that was easier solved by just not caring.

We need a little more than the absence of judgment. And I think the UU can provide it--and has to provide it--in order to grow. We must identify and serve the unmet and perhaps often unrecognized spiritual needs of critical/creative people. What are those needs?

I think there is a need to feel a part of something greater and to learn to find that need in your community. We cannot all find the perfect job that allows us to work at saving the world every day. We can do many little things--such as the great ideas on CoolPeopleCare.org, but how do we tie it all together? I think we need social organizations of some sort--because sometimes the best good we do is just listening to someone who needs to be listened to.

I think there is a need to find faith that what we do is not all in vain. The good in our lives should not be like exercise that we force ourselves to do at the gym 3 times per week. Each person will have different motivations, but I think the key to living with grace is to find that overall faith--so that we make "goodness" a part of our lives. And we need something more so we can forgive ourselves for not being perfect...we need a way to stop keeping score or believing that we need to keep score.

I think these kinds of needs could probably be met at one level just by joining a service organization...but again, to extend my health club metaphor--it really needs to be more than a chore. Church gives us permission to talk about spiritual matters in a language of faith and an environment of support and caring. We're not just holding a fund raiser so we can donate a big check to some cause. We are participating in a collective good.

So how can a church like that grow? Do good stuff. Ask the community what needs to be done. It gets very practical, very quickly...the community does not need to be lectured on the nature of God. Maybe what the community needs is something mundane like cleaning up vacant lots that have become overgrown. Or maybe there is a need for poor people in debt to be counseled on how to avoid foreclosure or bankruptcy. What resources do we have in our congregation? What kinds of activities would unite our existing members? What assets do we have that could be used to support non-members doing good--e.g. using the meeting house or parish hall. The list could go on forever.

I think there are two types of needs--the spiritual ones are the ones that the leadership of the church can help us fulfill and the practical ones are the opportunities for us to participate in a shared, community good. Nobody has time to do anything...but then again, it is amazing how we find we can make time if we know that our efforts will be appreciated.

For readers of this blog who thought perhaps with my last post, I had truly gone off the deep end into yet another tangent, tonight I will connect the dots...eventually. My writings of the past year have gone in many directions, but they are all an effort to follow the thread of inquiry begun with the idea of how people like me-who identify with the "creative class" described by Richard Florida in his books--find empowerment in our communities.

Part of the thread, offline, is my interest in finding a church that I can join in my community. I want to find a church I can be comfortable in both for myself, and for my young children because I feel that while I grew up Methodist and then stopped going to church, my children will not have the benefit of any religious foundation unless we make it a practice in our lives.

Since I'm not a member of any organized religion, I don't have a default...and neither does my wife. One church we visited mentioned a book club on their website to discuss the book, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith by Marcus Borg.

I picked up a copy of the book and found it to be something that almost immediately helped me to see religion in a different light. I can't do justice to the book here, but basically Borg describes how a "new paradigm" is emerging within some Christian churches that helps provide a path back to faith and practice for many of us who have become "hung up" on the "belief" requirements of organized religion.

The "old paradigm"--which still works well for many people--emphasized religion based on beliefs, with a focus on the afterlife as the objective. If you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died for our sins on the Cross, you will go to heaven. Now that is a simplistic formulation, but I don't think many would argue that it's the basic starting point in most Christian denominations.

For many people today, it doesn't really work for them. First of all, I'm not worried about the afterlife. It's not that I don't care or that I reject the idea of heaven and hell and believe there is nothing but death for us, but I feel certain that whatever force brought us into this world with a capacity for self-awareness will take us on to something equal or better when our bodies expire. Secondly, I cannot accept any religion that imposes strict belief requirements. So what happens to all the Jews? What about all the peoples of the world who are not Christian or who came before Christ? Are they all just, pardon my French, F---ed?

Borg lays out a number of key themes, but perhaps the most enlightening is his dissection of the meanings of faith:

• Assensus - faith by belief. I am asked to believe as factually true, things I cannot prove.
• Fiducia - faith as trust. In order to swim, you must have faith you will float.
• Fidelitas - faith as loyalty and a commitment of the heart. The opposite of this faith is idolotry; represented today when we feel our priorities are wrong. We are happiest when we live in a manner that is true to not only ourselves but honors and respects all around us. It is easy to find examples of how lacking our society is in this faith today, but also to see a growing consciousness about issues like the environment that demonstrate many are looking for ways to act more faithfully.
• Visio - faith as a way of seeing the whole, of seeing "what is." This kind of faith sees the world through a perspective of optimism and growth. It does not require us to be naive or ignore tragedy, but urges us to stop internalizing negativity and accept the possibility that just as "more" is, more is possible.

As an analytical person, I found I had the most problem with Assensus, but the other forms of faith are core to my existence. Borg's book describes how these other meanings of faith--that are more matters of the heart, than the mind, are the true essence of Christianity.

Belief is still necessary, but actually, in many ways, it is not enough. The other meanings of faith point towards a way of living this life, not just making sure you get into heaven when you die. By the time I had finished the book, I could understand the truth of much of the religious language that previously "bothered me" due to my over-analysis and literalism. After all of that, you are back to a place where you realize that instead of writing lots of cumbersome language about collective consciousness and whatever, it is a lot simpler to simply acknowledge that people figured out a way to talk about this stuff thousands of years ago...so just do it and recognize the existence of God.

As to "Why be Christian?," he has a chapter on that, and I don't want to re-write the whole book here, so I'll just say it's not enough to rationalize and metaphorize everything...there is a necessary commitment that is more than just an intellectual argument.

Before I started writing this, I found a discussion on Richard Florida's Creative Class blog about religion. Florida initiates the discussion, back in April 2007 with this observation:

It's clear that creative types are moving away from organized religion to less hierarchical and more organic forms of spirituality and spiritual expression. And for reasons similar to other large-scale organizations, organized religions are having great trouble responding in a forward looking way.

A number of "Creative Christians" responded, illustrating how their faith fits with their creativity and in some cases echoing the kind of "belief issues" I had.

I suspect there are MANY people stuck in the same ideological trap. We are rich in faith, we just don't know it. In a work context, we contribute to things like open source initiatives and create helpful resources for others because of our faith in the principal that if everyone did these kinds of things, we'd all be better off. We strive to be true to ourselves in everything we do, but, perhaps without a bit of Christian perspective neglect the idea that we need to be true to broader, collaborative principles as well. And to be motivated at all, we must have faith in a vision of how our living the whole of our lives contributes to a positive future of growth and fulfillment.

I think many us have no interest in "organized religion" because it seems like the antithesis to creativity and individuality, and we perceive the belief requirements and political positions of most churches to be irrational and offensive. I have to admit, when I see people writing in religious terms like the "Good News of God's Kingdom" I've come to expect a bunch of stereotypical, fanatical rhetoric. But Borg's book helped me realize:

1. Personally, I am a Christian, not an atheist, not an agnostic, not a deist, pagan, naturist--whatever. Returning to a modernized Christian faith based on heartfelt faith rather than rational quibbling means I don't have to just spin my own spiritual philosophy out of random thoughts.
2. Religion has to be organized to be meaningful in a community. The point is not just to line up your own belief system so you can sleep at night, but to interact with others to reinforce their faith. When you understand faith as being not just believing a bunch of rules, but living and acting in accordance with principles of trust, fidelity, and an optimistic vision of the future, I think we can see a significant role for religion in creative, diverse communities.

As I ran up the hill and approached a bend in the road, I noticed. I noticed how the early morning fog hung suspended between the trees and over the green, but turning brown fields of late September. I noticed the momentary quiet between what had been a steady stream of cars on this back road. I looked up and noticed the many small white clouds outlined and illuminated by the the fire of a sun that had risen an hour before.

For a few seconds, the moment was somehow different from the rest of the run or the day. I no longer noticed my footsteps on the road. I cannot recall what music was playing on my ipod. Instead I could almost hear the sound of the fog resting on the earth and the light burning through the fog and blowing through the clouds like a soft, but unstoppable breeze against a chime. There was "more." There was more than can be described by the senses because of a greater feeling of "oneness," of a captured moment in time when I could briefly be aware of a greater living sense I was passing through...it was not finding something in myself, but noticing something that already existed everywhere.

I wanted to go back and take a picture. The image is a snapshot in my mind and if I were a great artist, I would paint that scene in a way that stands out like some of the great paintings of Monet. That's what it reminded me of. But it is too late to take a photo now. And the place itself is not special or unique; I have run past it many times and will run past it again tomorrow. But some combination of factors, including my own susceptibility, combined to create this moment of place for me and the revelation that it is not remarkable that such places exist, but that in such a moment the "More" is revealed to us to be everywhere. It is just difficult to notice most of the time.

As a "hyper-rational" sort of person who never writes in religious terms, it is hard for me to use the appropriate words to describe the experience. It was not a euphoric rush of endorphins after running 5 miles, and it was not a personal epiphany--not a "eureka moment" where I found the answer to something. No vision or prophecy or anything like that. But it was a feeling of noticing the truth of the belief that "God is everywhere".