Quotes from John A. Buehrens

The words human and humane both come from the same Latin root, humus, the earth that bears us, to which we all return and on which we are asked to walk together in humility during the time that is ours.

If orthodoxy (which literally means "right teaching") proclaims a single, authorized set of answers, we celebrate instead the open mind. We trust that our own thoughts and experiences can be as illuminating as the thoughts and experiences of those who came before us. Not that our answers will therefore be superior.

Anyone looking for the holy land might best begin with the earth that sustains us.

Holding hands together with my family and fellow travelers as the earth circled our little star coursing through the heavens, I felt two things more profoundly perhaps than ever before: We are one, and we are blessed.

Then what is the purpose of a church?" the others kept asking.

A religion is not contained in a single book; there's something religious in almost any book.

Of course, I am a heretic. The word hairesis in Greek means choice; a heretic is one who is able to choose. Its root stems from the Greek word hairein, to take. Faced with the mystery of life and death, each act of faith is a gamble. We all risk choices before the unknown. -Forrest Church

To him the Bible was written not by God, but by inspired people, drawing from both history and experience, who sought to understand better the larger meaning of life and death.

Jesus taught his disciples that the Hebrew scriptures could be summarized in two great commandments: "You shall love the Lord your God with all our heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:37–40).

The word hairesis in Greek means choice; a heretic is one who is able to choose.

A new awakening, it consecrates your life with sacraments of pain you do not understand and promised joy you will never fully call your own. Such awakenings may happen only once in a lifetime, or many times. But when they do, what you took for granted before is presented as a gift: difficult, yet precious and good. Not that you know what to do with your gift, or even what it really means, only how much it matters.

To be loyal to "the highest" in us, we must act with reverence toward all of life. By defining virtue in a cooperative rather than a competitive fashion, we seek the common good, which moves us wherever possible from "either/or" confrontation to "both/and" reconciliation.

The universalism I aspire to does neither. It holds that the same light shines through all our windows, but that each window is different.

Some parents do not want to impose religious training upon their children, preferring instead to let them make up their own minds when they come of age. This stance is only superficially "liberal," for it deprives the children of any criteria for judging. The distinctive feature of Unitarian Universalist education is that young people are introduced to many religious traditions, challenged to formulate their own beliefs, and encouraged to respect the beliefs of others.

Upon finishing this parable, Buddha said to the seekers who had been quarreling over the nature of God and the afterlife, "How can you be so sure of what you cannot see? We all are like unsighted people in this world. We cannot see God. Nor can we know what is going to happen after we die. Each one of you may be partly right in your answers. Yet none of you is fully right. Let us not quarrel over what we cannot be sure of.

wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life." Among other things, it reminds us to be humble, especially when we are sure we are right.

If God is inside us, our neighbor is inside us as well, not only inside us, but also among us, between us, intertwined with us, never apart.

WE ONLY KNOW two things for certain: "I am," and "I will die." Religion is our response. Whether it is spoken or unspoken, conscious or unconscious, inherited or chosen, we all have a religion of some sort or another, for religion is not merely a matter of belief or affiliation. It is a matter of how we chose to live.

Ours is a church of moral work—not because we think morality is a sufficient religion, but because we know no better way of showing our gratitude to God, and our confidence in one another.

Ours is a non-creedal church—not because we have no beliefs, but because we will not be restrained in our beliefs.

One reason that so many people today say, "I believe in spirituality, but not in religion," is that the products of the human spirit, the various religious traditions, can so easily become warring sects if not brought within a wider, more reasoned perspective. Unitarian Universalism offers the opportunity not only to deepen one's personal spirituality through dialogue, but to do so in a context where "the guidance of reason and the results of science" are honored.