Born Again UU

UU Carnival recently asked, "Are you a Pop-UU?" and it's a question I've been thinking about a lot over the past week.

UUism and and of itself is a more academic faith than many. Our members overwhelmingly hold college degrees and our core principles challenge us to be active thinkers rather than passive followers (Principle #4: We covenant to affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning").

But are we too intellectual? Too high-brow? Too... snobby?

I've heard from UUs at a variety of other congregations that they often feel like, yes, we could - as a group - stand to tone it down a bit. But I feel lucky in that at my congregation in particular, I don't often get this vibe. Sure, the people I attend church with are, for the most part, very educated in a formal sense, they enjoy the arts and the culture that the East coast offers, and are exceedingly liberal politically. We can share a bottle of wine, talk politics, environmentalism and NPR, and attend the theatre together. But at the same time, we can spend our afternoons knitting and stuffing our faces with junk food, gossiping about the latest celebrity mishap over brunch, or hit the local roller rink, rather than the art gallery.

Maybe it's just because I'm new to UU (one year, officially, and counting) and I just happened to stumble upon a really down-to-earth group of folks, but I'm more intimidated by the UU-intellectualism I've stumbled upon online. I can relate to other bloggers who have said,

"when I try to read other’s blog posts over what I’m sure are interesting, relevant topics to Unitarian Universalism, I get lost in a sea of big words that I’m sure have a meaning and citations that reference scholarly works which although I assume exist I doubt I’ll ever have the chance of hearing about again, much less reading, and much, much less understanding. "

These issues alone were one of the biggest intimidations when I was deciding whether or not to start a UU-themed blog. I really wanted to discuss my relationship with UUism and share my personal development as a UU, but was afraid I would end up sounding too silly for anyone to care.

I've since gotten over that, thanks in some part to Spirituality and Sunflowers' post that inspired this UU Carnival topic.

Yes, I'm "highly" educated, I love a good glass of red wine, and could sit and talk progressive politics for hours. But I'd just as soon split a bottle of Two Buck Chuck (or a cold can of beer), go bowling, watch American Idol, and surf my favorite gossip sites until the wee hours of the morning.

Does this make me a bad liberal? Or worse yet, a bad UU?

Hell no, it doesn't. In fact, I think it just makes me a more interesting one ;)

The one thing I do have to remain aware of is a slip into competing dichotomies. Are there intellectual and non-intellectual UU's? No, there are UU's -- and just like any other group (or perhaps moreso than most) we are a diverse crowd. And we should celebrate that whenever possible, both internally and emotionally, and when in community together.

After all, if we religious misfits can't blend together in a UU environment, where else are we gonna go?