"Belief: Is the Force With You?"

 

Do you know what you believe? Belief is a subject I return to virtually every year. I can tell you the point of the sermon right now - let there be no suspense - "It matters what you believe." I want to present a case for the fact that what you believe is important. On some level that's obvious. One day this week Larry 's car was getting a tune-up so I drove him to the T-station for a 6:10 train. The problem was, the train departs Middleboro at 6:05 nowadays. If your belief system misinforms you, you can literally miss the boat - or the train, in this case. So, in a very obvious way, what you believe matters. But why make that point in a religious setting again and again? To shake us out of our complacency and to get us into active relationship with our belief systems.

Years ago I read a book on philosophy - I don't remember the title - today's version would be called Philosophy for Dummies, I suppose. A point made in the introduction was that it is common not to know or be able to identify the values and assumptions we live by and so they remain undiscovered and unevaluated until we are in crisis. What I took from that is that beliefs are more often than not, latent, untested forces within us. That is why, sometimes, in crisis, our beliefs don't hold. We can purport to believe certain things, and we can even believe that we believe them, because we want to believe certain things - an yet, underneath, we may not, really.

Socrates made that most famous utterance, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Today I'd like to present a corollary to that idea that Socrates would most assuredly endorse: "The examined life makes for smarter living." We all have underlying beliefs that govern the details of our daily decisonmaking. It is advantageous to know what they are.

The first thing I want to share is the existence of an excellent interfaith web site called Beliefnet.com. which offers decent information and links on all the major religions. It's a good, if uneven resource. It also offers a free test called the Belief-O-Matic which you might want to try. Don't know which faith is for you? No problem. Answer 20 quick multiple choice questions and it will instantly tell you which of the 26 major religions you practice, or ought to be practicing. (Don't you just love the internet?) Curious, I took the test. The results listed all 26 religions in the order of my compatibility with them. And there at the top of the pile, listed as the religion that I practice, or ought to be practicing, was -- Unitarian Universalism, (!) with liberal Quaker running a close second.

I am a believer that there is a certain self-interest in all of us that colors our experience of the world. Unitarian Universalism, with its stress on freedom of conscience, and respect for the spiritual growth of others, and a stated principle, the seventh, that says we are part of the web of life excites me as I imagine it does you. I perceive Unitarian Universalism as possessing a hold on the truth beyond any other religion. That is appropriate for a Unitarian Universalist minister, I know. But, as the Belief-O-Matic makes evident there are 25 other major religious perspectives working for people out there. (And actually, that's conservative - World Book says there are literally thousand of religions in existence today.) The Belief-O-Matic doesn't identify any religion as above another - as "right." It merely suggests that a certain religion will most likely "work" for the test-taker. Implicit in that is that there is no "one-size-fits-all" religion, even though many religious adherents believe theirs is right for everyone.

But there is a Buddhist belief that sounds a cautionary note that very much informs my thinking that's relevant here. Buddhism teaches that religion should be understood as a practical "tool" designed to get an individual from point A to point B in the direction of enlightenment or spiritual growth. There are many Buddhisms across the globe - very different tools - Some recognize a God and some don’t. In class at divinity school our professor repeatedly warned us against branding one form of Buddhism as authentic or "true" and the others not. Buddhism tries to offer the tool for the moment and teaches that the various forms can be abandoned when their work is done. Buddhism warns, "Don’t mistake the tool for the destination. Another way of saying that is don't mistake any religion for truth. A religion is working, i would say, if it is providing genuine spiritual growth.

I don’t believe that Unitarian Universalism is the right tool for everyone - as much as I'd like to think so, other religions can't be abandoned in its presence. The challenges that human beings face in the many contexts that life presents to us are varied - and Unitarian Universalism is more helpful for certain kinds of people and in some circumstances and not as workable in others. As an example - I have been called into the prisons occasionally. There I have witnessed individuals asking about God and salvation, seeking hope, wanting to get square with God, asking for concrete answers. Many people seek and need a religion that is structured in a way to give them exceedingly concrete answers to shape their entire lives. Thus it may not be a surprise that Islam, I am told, is the religion that has been most helpful in turning around American prison inmates.

Respect is not the key word that comes to mind when I am faced with religious views that I feel are harmful or that I disagree with. What I strive for is not so much to have respect for them as to have compassion in relation to those holding those views. I need to remind myself that, in a practical sense, beliefs, and systems of belief (like religions) are tools that remain viable for people as long as they tell them what they need to know when they need to know it.

Genuine beliefs (I don't mean beliefs that are necessarily true - just something genuinely believed) can be a source of power. Did you read in the paper recently about the petite woman who picked up a heavy car that had fallen on her husband while he was working under the chassis? Under any ordinary circumstance, this woman wouldn't have been able to lift half the weight she did. But her belief that if she didn't pick up the car her husband might die, focused her energies and gave her strength that would have been otherwise unavailable. It's important to recognize that power flowing from belief because, like any force, it can be used for good or ill. Our beliefs exert power whether we are aware of it or not.

Let me tell you an interesting story. In 1911 two researchers investigated the story of a horse named Clever Hans that seemed to be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, spell and solve problems with a high rate of success. The horse's owner claimed to be mystified by the whole thing. Researchers who studied Clever Hans noted several things: Clever Hans, would answer questions for anyone, no matter who was or was not present. But if the horse couldn't see the questioner, he couldn't answer the question. Likewise, if the questioner didn't himself know the answer to the question, he couldn't answer it... Ultimately, the researchers figured it out: any forward inclination of the head of the questioner would start the horse tapping an answer... then, when the experimenter straightened up, or in any way moved, raising an eyebrow was sufficient, he would stop tapping... even the dilation of the questioner's nostrils was a cue for the horse to stop tapping."

The truth was actually pretty bazaar. Unwittingly, people were giving Clever Hans the correct answers to their own questions by communicating their expectations to him through completely unconscious signals. Is there any better argument for why we need to become more conscious of what we believe? We not only send unconscious signals, like Hans the clever horse, we pick up these messages from one another all the time. Our world is colored by these kinds of communications more than we know, more than it should be.

Studies have shown that teachers in classrooms unwittingly communicate their beliefs to their students. When teachers were given fictitious IQ's for their students, some high, some low - the performances of those students changed accordingly over time. Students who were reported to have higher IQ's ultimately did better in performance, and, equally bright students that had been labeled with lower IQ's did less well. If we are not aware of our thoughts and beliefs we risk reacting to the signals of the world like Clever Hans. Our lives can be diminished because we can create what we expect, being blind to the truth of the talent, skill or resources before us. We can also tend to become what is expected, blind to ourselves, not knowing where our own passions lie, or the unleashed talents and power available to us. No wonder Aristotle was moved to say "The unexamined life is not worth living!"

How do we come to know our beliefs? How do we come to know the self within? How do reclaim this power available to us? The Belief-O-Matic may be able to comfort us with a label - but it cannot do the hard work of revealing our healthiest motivations and ideals or pointing us in a direction of genuine spiritual growth. It is up to us to put aside the superficial tasks of running our lives for occasional centering moments. Develop a place to think - a place to listen - drive in the car without the radio on - wake up in the morning and take a walk without headphones - lie in bed awake and let your mind wander through the recent events, consider your relationships with people. Challenge yourselves with growth-producing reading. Seek wisdom and guidance for your own thoughts and actions. We need to be able to give private voice to our uncertainties and fears in these moments. These practices are what can help us to get past the autopilot of responding to life by reading superficial cues. We can do better than Clever Hans.

When we move from life-o-matic to a deeper place of consciousness, then we connect to something beyond ourselves - -to the spirit of life ,to love, to the great mystery of the underlying creative force in the universe. All roads, hopefully, seek to lead here. May you consciously strive to be one with this force.