In Unitarian Universalism, you can bring your whole self: your full identity, your questioning mind, your expansive heart. By creating meaningful communities that draw from many wisdom traditions, and more, we are embodying a vision “beyond belief:” a vision of peace, love, and understanding.

We have more than one way of experiencing the world and understanding the sacred. What we call our “Living Tradition” draws from six sources of inspiration from scripture to poetry to modern-day heroes. How do you experience the world? How do you make meaning? What beliefs and traditions are yours?

These are the six sources Unitarian Universalists affirm and promote:

• Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
• Words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
• Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
• Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
• Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;
• Spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

Throughout history, we have moved to the rhythms of mystery and wonder, prophecy, wisdom, teachings from ancient and modern sources, and nature herself.

The Reverend Kathleen Rolenz