My Spiritual Journey

The Rev. Dr. Morris W. Hudgins
Northwest UU Congregation
September 19, 2010

Introduction
As a way to introduce myself, I begin with my religious journey. I begin with hometown and family. Our ancestors came from Scotland and Ireland to Virginia in the 18th century. My family did not attend church. I did attend some churches as a child, when my friends would invite me to their Sunday School. The Baptist church was my least favorite. Their aggressive evangelism and emphasis on sin bothered me even as a child, so I stopped going. I began to ask myself: Am I worthy?
I grew up in St. Louis, Mo—a true sports town. My dream as a youth was to be a professional baseball player. I was going to be the next Stan Musial. I had his stance and his swing down pat. I loved baseball. The height of my youth was when my team won the Missouri-Illinois state championship played in Bush Stadium . I said this to one of my former churches. Weeks later a young boy came up to me and said, “Did you play for the St. Louis Cardinals?” I had to confess, it was only a dream.
When I was in high school, I met a Methodist minister I admired. He became a pseudo-father figure when my father was absent, which was often. I began attending the minister’s church, and was eagerly welcomed by the membership. I sang in the choir, taught Sunday School, and became a leader in youth activities. I decided to go into the ministry when I was sixteen because of the encouragement of my church. Adults included me in adult activities and supported me in my new goal. They also passed the word that a promising young man in their church wanted to go to college, but couldn’t afford it.
One day I received a phone call from my principal. He informed me that a Methodist family wanted to give a scholarship to help make my first year of college possible. I learned later that gift was $300, but in 1964 that was 25% of the tuition, room and board to a private college. Yes, that is true. The price of education has increased.
That $300 was the encouragement I needed. The college gave me an additional scholarship, and with the small amount my parents could give, I would make it through that first year. Many scholarships and honors would follow; the most important being a full-tuition scholarship to Duke University Divinity School after graduation.
I share this to remind us that a little encouragement is all some youth need to succeed. The Methodists do a much job of supporting theological education for their ministers than we do. This is a topic worthy of discussion: Why don’t we as a church have a mission to recruit, train and support our ministers through theological school? Why did we close some of our theological schools after merger? Why don’t we support them more than we do?
College and Divinity School
Back to my religious training. My Methodist College was very liberal. The scholarship was excellent. The curriculum was broad and progressive. I studied philosophy, history, literature, and biblical criticism. This was in the midst of the “God is Dead” movement. I majored in philosophy and steeped myself in existentialism. I loved this environment and couldn’t wait to attend divinity school where this education would continue. I had one problem: Methodist colleges at the time required all students to attend chapel services weekly. I felt this was wrong. I considered leading a movement to lock the doors one Tuesday morning so no one could enter. This was the era of revolt. Even in a small college in Missouri the seeds were being sewn for revolt and change.
A few years ago I had dinner with my college professor. He wanted to check out a story that was passed from one professor to another in my college. At the end of my freshman year the chair of the religion department resigned because the President of the college would not allow the professors or the students to have input into important decisions. The story was that I walked into the President’s office and asked for information about other liberal arts colleges, so I could transfer. I wanted to know about Oberlin and Swarthmore and other schools. Dr. Mitchell said: “Morris, that took hutzpah.” The President passed along the information and was probably glad to have me transfer. I decided to stay.
My last year in college, 1968, there was an election for mayor in the small town of my college, Fayette, Mo. A number of us seniors who had turned 21 decided to vote for the opponent of the incumbent mayor of sixteen years. They wouldn’t allow us to vote because we didn’t own a house, or a car. I led a protest. I called the attorney general’s office for the state of Missouri. They called the Mayor’s office and told them they had to let us vote. It made a difference in the election.
After I entered Divinity School, I received a letter from an uncle who was a member of a conservative Christian Church in Illinois. I made the mistake of sharing my liberal theology with him. His response: “The Methodists are going to Hell! Anyone who doubts the existence of God should not be a minister.” I again asked myself: “Am I worthy?”
In my last years of Divinity School, I questioned my decision to go into the parish ministry. I considered other options. I worked in industry and then a women’s prison as a chaplain. I applied for a chaplaincy at a small college, hoping I would succeed as I had as a student.
Those kinds of ministries were hard to find. There were many divinity students who had the same doubts I did. Some students went to divinity school because they were against the war and you could get a deferment.
Here I was concluding my divinity school training, miles away from my family of origin, with my only religious relative questioning my religion and my vocation. I wondered if my liberal ideas would be accepted by the church that had supported and encouraged me as a youth. I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Was I worthy?

Tillich—A Bolt of Lightning
Then something happened. My last year in divinity school I took a course on the Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, my favorite theologian. In this course I read one of Paul Tillich’s sermons. He spoke to my condition. Here is what he wrote in a sermon titled, “You are accepted”:
. . . the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from or where we are going. (p. 199, The Essential Tillich).

What was Tillich writing about? He was writing about a new concept, at least to me, of grace. Tillich loved to challenge old religious beliefs. This next paragraph caught my attention even more than the former. Tillich wrote:
Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Savior, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. (p. 201)
My self-doubts made me question what faith I had, but I never doubted my abilities and my compassion. I did, however, question my religion and my vocation. My experience taught me that I could fix this. I could do something, call someone, apply for a position. Tillich’s words were a warning. I couldn’t do anything to provide security for myself and my wife. But I still didn’t feel like I had all the answers. My separation from family and the Christian Church would not go away.
I no longer felt the encouragement I received as a youth. I was losing passion for ministry. Again, Tillich’s words spoke to me. He seemed to know about my indifference when he wrote:
(Grace) strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us.
Again, I wondered what I could do. Tillich had the answer. Grace happens, and life is transformed, he said, not when we try to force it. “It happens; or it does not happen.” When I read these words, I was ready for Tillich’s ultimate message. His words were like lightning. Here is the strike that hit me straight-away:
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” . . . nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance. (p. 201)
At this moment, my doubts, my feelings of indifference, my loss of direction, my estrangement, all went away. I could enter the next stage of my life with a faith in myself, with a confidence, and with new vigor.
A few months later I met with the ministers in the Methodist Church responsible for my ordination. I wondered if they would ask me about my views of Jesus: Was he the Son of God? Was he born of a virgin? Do I believe in the resurrection. In my presentation, I gave them the best Tillichian theology I could muster. It worked. Instead of asking me these questions they made a statement: “It seems you have been influenced by the theology of Paul Tillich?” My answer was “Yes.” They then asked me what my wife thought about ministry. I also wondered if they would ask view of drinking and smoking. This was the first year ordination committees had the choice. Some asked and others didn’t. I was glad they didn’t.
Unfortunately, I still had concerns about the Methodist church. I didn’t like the idea of learning where you were to serve at an annual conference. The bishop had all the power and authority. I interviewed around the country and accepted the call to a ministry in Richmond, Virginia.
I began ministry with many questions. The older members of the church I was assigned to in Richmond, Virginia, didn’t relate to Tillich. The young adults of the church did sympathize. One of them attended the First Unitarian church and told me about it. I decided to become a Unitarian Universalist. That would begin a new phase of my ministry.
A New Call—to Unitarian Universalist Ministry
My new faith made it possible for me to apply for a ministry in the Unitarian Universalist Association a year later. A member of the UU Fellowship in Boca Raton knew the minister in Richmond, Bill Gold. She was on her way to New York. Bill Gold arranged a meeting. She called Florida and said, “Get him to Florida.” This was a church with 80 members and a budget of $33,000. They had $12,000 in the bank. They were people with great faith. I would receive a salary package of $10,000, the same amount I received as a Methodist.
It should be no surprise that my first sermon in a UU church was on the theology of Paul Tillich. I talked about God as the ultimate concern of humans. It went well and I had found my calling once again. Now, 35 years later, I reach back to those experiences when I need guidance, feel indifferent, or question myself.
In Boca Raton I followed one of the leading humanist ministers of the 20th century, Robert Terry Weston. I received his blessings, and the encouragement and support of Unitarians and Universalists who were experienced church people. I became their project. They loved me and I loved them.
The woman who made that call in 1973 and said, “Get him to Florida” died in 2007. She was 105 years old. I preached in Boca Raton when she was 101. She still played the piano in church.
The first request I had as a new UU minister was to sign the “Humanist Manifesto II.” I did. I studied humanism and saw that it was broadening. Humanist Manifesto II was more comfortable with religious language than Manifesto I written earlier in the century. I was also becoming more comfortable with religious language. I needed to fill the void of existentialism. I needed a “what I believe” more than I needed a “what I don’t.”
Those affirmations would come when I would study Unitarian Universalist history and theology. I would go on to receive a Doctorate of Ministry from Lutheran Theological in Philadelphia. I would be inspired by the courageous lives of Unitarians and Universalists who faced religious persecution in Transylvania, and Poland, England and America. I connected with the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker, Transcendentalists who challenged the rational religion of their forebears. They also challenged my dependency on reason alone.
I was also inspired by the social reformers of the 19th century, the men and women who challenged the institution of slavery, opposed war, worked toward women’s suffrage, making education accessible go all, improved conditions in mental institutions, and advocated for prison reform. These were the true reformers. They were models for even the most conservative of Unitarians and Universalists, many of whom owned slaves, and owned the businesses that wanted to keep the status quo in the 19th century. They should be our models today.
Mystical Naturalism
If protest and revolt were part of my religious journey of the 1960’s and ‘70’s, deepening of religious conviction was my journey in the 80’s. I began to travel and witness the magnificence of nature in the Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains of the Southeast, the even more grand heights of the mountains of the West, in Colorado, California, and Utah. I built a cabin in West Virginia and explored the rivers and streams, and the wildlife closer to home. I affirmed that if there is a god he, she or it must be found in the natural world.
In the ‘90’s I had the privilege of exploring the scenery and making connections with Unitarians and Universalists in England, Ireland, and Transylvania. I visited Scotland, Germany, Austria, France and Hungary. I was appointed to the Unitarian Universalist Funding Panel and then Chair of the International UU Funding Panel. I was able to combine my commitment to (world ) and to my love of nature.
Religion became a way of connecting with people who have been reformers for over 400 years, who faced persecution, held on to their faith, fought against repression, and many died for their convictions. I was inspired by their love of this world and their suffering to live in it even when they were not free.
I continued my support for the principle of the worth and dignity of every person—including African-Americans, women, and the new movement that spread through our nation and our association, the rights of gays, lesbians, and transgender men and women. I helped to found the Religious Network for Gay and Lesbian equality in the Triangle of North Carolina. I didn’t know at the time I would need to support a good friend and colleague, a classmate at Duke Divinity School, as he was removed from fellowship in the United Methodist Church. I knew that if things had happened differently, if I had not been introduced to Unitarian Universalism, that could have been me.
If equality was the theme of my spiritual journey in the 90’s, racial reconciliation followed in the new century. From Cincinnati, Ohio to North Carolina and Virginia, I took part in projects to right the wrongs of former generations. The message of Martin Luther King, Jr. came alive in communities of liberal religion.
Conclusion
Finally, during this same period I deepened my involvement in the Southeast UU Summer Institute, where I would meet my future wife, Marti, and I would become more committed to a life in the Southeast, the Thomas Jefferson District, and building a home near the mountains that I came to love. One early foggy morning at SUUSI I was walking to Muse Hall at Radford College, now Radford University. I couldn’t see the large building where I was headed. When I came closer I began to hear a faint sound. It was the sound of bagpipes. Dick Scobie, the head of the UU Service, was on top of this tall building playing the bagpipes. The closer I came, the louder I could hear the song. The song was “Amazing Grace.” My memory of Paul Tillich’s sermon on acceptance and grace came back to me. Here in this community I knew I was accepted and affirmed. Isn’t this what we want in a religious community? One of the surprises of the Summer Institute was the opportunity to meet and get to know musicians who inspired me. At SUUSI you are able to listen to nationally known touring musicians every day. These musicians articulated my mystical naturalism better than I could. One of them is Peter Mayer. His song, “Holy Now” Peter reveals his journey from Roman Catholicism to liberal religion. It goes like this:

When I was a boy, each week.
On Sunday we would go to church
And pay attention to the priest.
He would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
The morning, outside I stood
And saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is holy now
It used to be a world half-there
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it wither a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now
And everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is holy now
Everything, everything
Everything is holy now
When I was in Sunday school
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
And I remember feeling sad
That miracles don’t happen still
But now I can’t keep track
‘Cause everything’s a miracle
Everything, Everything
Everything’s a miracle
Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn’t one
When holy water was rare at best
It barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
Like I’m swimming in a sea of it
Heaven’s second rate hand-me-down
But I walk it with a reverent air
‘Cause everything is holy now
Read a questioning child’s face
And say it’s not a testament
That’d be very hard to say
See another new morning come
And say it’s not a sacrament
I tell you that it can’t be done

When I first heard that song, I knew my theology had changed. Yes, like you, I could think of things in this world that are not holy—the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mistreatment of children, the unfair balance of the world’s gifts, the man who enters a church in Tennessee and opens fire when children are singing from “Annie.” They are so many things we humans do that are not holy. But the world of nature; it is holy. It is a miracle. It is mysterious. It is wonderful. And we are fortunate to live in it.
This is the theology I affirm as an adult. When we walk in this reverent air, and see the red-winged bird, everything, everything is holy now. From the Smokey Mountains to the wide Missouri, from California to Atlanta, everything is holy now, everything is a miracle. Let us cherish this day, this sacrament we are given. Let’s take care of it, and leave it for our children better than we found it. This will be judge of our faith, our holiness, and our religious journey. Amen.