The Forty-Second Day - Creative Interaction - The Saving Reality

“The order of value which commands the devotion of a religious person or group is never a private possession. It belongs by right to all humans living. . . .

“In what we call inquiring religion as over against the dogmatic, . . . the religious devotees do not think that they alone have the truth about the saving reality in which all human living must find whatever supreme fulfillment it can ever have. They confess that their knowledge of it is very limited and very partial. They are just as sure of its supreme importance as the dogmatists, perhaps even more so, because they do not have the restiveness and ‘rebel doubt’ which occasionally must assail people who feel that they and their tradition have all truth about it which has been vouchsafed to humankind. But the inquiring type of religionist knows there are other insights, further knowledge, additional perspectives, and great possibilities of development in our apprehension of this most important reality. That type knows, furthermore, that this growing apprehension full of vision and more open access to God can be attained only in the way that all truth grows, namely, by creative interaction with many different minds, many different cultures, many different insights, and the pool which is of many traditions. Therefore such people go forth not to validate their beliefs, for they have no desire to validate them. They want to correct and enlarge them. They go forth not to save other people from the black hopelessness and error of their ways, but to enter into that creative interaction with them that sharing, that mutual criticism, correction and enlargement that comes from cross fertilization, fuller appreciation and interchanges of thought and spirit. Thus for inquiring religion the missionary enterprise is preeminently the way by which the road that leads to the Highest is made more plain and broad and open for all . . . It is the way of salvation for all people themselves and their cultural group along with all others. The missionary enterprise becomes the road that leads to God, for the one who has faith and inquires. . . ."


A person cannot have a sense of saving truth and not feel compelled to share it with others, all others. But how we go about this becomes all important. If we do so openly, expectantly, hoping to learn as well as teach, we will succeed. If we go forth only to convert, we will fail. The truth of God, the growth of mutuality, cannot be given or taught. It can only be grown into by those who are open to learning as well as teaching. And we know that all of the human faiths have something worth our knowing.

PRAYER

Universal God, make us want to share our religious insights in ever widening circles, ourselves growing deeper and more broad-minded, richer and more useful, the farther out from our home base we may be able to reach. God, gather us in, and help us to raise each other up. Amen.

HYMN

Gather us in, thou Love that fillest all;

Gather our rival faiths within thy fold;

Rend each one’s temple veil, and bid it fall,

That we may know that thou hast been of old.

Gather us in: we worship only thee;

In varied names we stretch a common hand;

In diverse forms a common soul we see;

In many ways we seek one promised land.

Thine is the mystic life great India craves;

Thine is the Parsee’s sin-destroying beam;

Thine is the Buddhist’s rest from tossing waves;

Thine is the empire of vast China's dream.

Thine is the Roman's strength without the pride;

Thine is the Greek’s glad world without its graves;

Thine is ]udea's law with love beside,

The truth that censures and the grace that saves

Some seek a leader in the heavens above;

Some ask a human image to adore;

Some crave a Spirit vast as life and love;

Within thy mansions we have all and more.

George Matheson

HOS, No. 418

HCL, No. 249

The Forty-First Day - Face Turned Towards The Light

"People who choose to live for God as growth of meaning will have an underlying zest which arises out of disaster as well as fulfillment. They will know that in all fulfillment there is the presence of death; and in all perishing is the beginning of new life. They will see that each individual, each order, each epoch, each aeon, can actualize but a very small part of the fullness of possible meaning that is in God . . . They will seek perfection with all their powers. But when they find it, if happily they should, they will know that it must pass, giving place to further fulfillments. Thus in all perishings and in all beginnings, they will live with their faces turned toward the light. In all things they will find the gentle might of growth and the infinite realm of possibility joined in that unity which is God . . . Their chief end will be the promotion of that growth and richness of the world's meaning which all people may share and to which all may contribute. . . . Because they discern the perpetual emergence of new possibilities, they will see that all human life is failure, and all is success, so long as they render their uttermost devotion to God.”

We men and women of this world are all hung upon the cross of a perpetual paradox, the very best we can make of ourselves and our situations must be superseded. Our victories are mere stepping stones towards a yet higher good, which stands in judgment upon our noblest efforts. Yet, if we set our minds and hearts and lives on service of the highest, even our failures will be true success. We will have the satisfaction of knowing that we served God faithfully, as best we could, provided the next step up in a long climb, and live and die content.

PRAYER

Evolutionary God, teach us to accept the limitations of being human, yet always to strive to overcome them, that Your City of Love may be progressively realized through us. Amen

HYMN

Out of the dark the circling sphere

Is rounding onward to the light;

We see not yet the daylight clear,

Although we see the paling night.

And hope, that lights its fadeless fires,

And faith, that shines with steadfast ray,

And love, that courage re-inspires,

As morning stars, lead on the way.

A Look backward, how much has been won;

Look round, how much is yet to win!

The watches of the night are done;

The watches of the day begin.

O thou, whose mighty patience holds

The night and day alike in view,

Thy will our dearest hope enfolds;

O keep us steadfast, patient, true.

Samuel Longfellow

HOS, No. 99

HCL, No. 208

The Fortieth Day - Palm Sunday - Working With God To Rear a Realm Of Meaning

“People throughout history have come to think that serious work is concerned almost entirely with procuring the necessities of existence. All else, such as education, art, politics, friendship, home life and the like, are of interest to people who see it as a form of recreation or as a means of promoting the economic enterprise. We must unlearn this lesson which the ages have taught us. The serious business of living for human beings is to transform this planet by way of political, educational, artistic and other activities into a place where growth of meaning in the two forms of development of personality and growth of culture can fulfill itself most abundantly.

“In the past it has been the function of institutional religion to constrain them for purposes of social conservation. In the future it must be to release humans for purposes of social creativity. It must release them into the freedom of God. In deep creative community of meaning we must work with God to rear a realm of meaning, rooted in the economic order, but flowering in the highest spiritual outreach of imagination.

“It is the cardinal function of the church to turn our hearts to God so that such meaning may grow. It must keep us eager, expectant and alert for this growth. Growth of meaning we must seek above all else. The beastly labor of struggling for bare existence is past, if we can learn how to distribute what we are able to produce. The distinctively human labor of developing a world of meaning, may not be ours. The prison walls of hard necessity are crumbling. We are free, almost, to give our all to God, as we never could before. Also we are free to ignore God as never was possible in the past. If we choose the latter course, the zest of life will gradually, inevitably fail until at last we seek death because living will not be worth the trouble.”

Man’s high calling is to create upon this earth an integrated world of meaning in which the highest potentials of all participants are called forth and exercised. In our time, we stand at the threshold of such a possibility. It awaits only our willingness to share our knowledge and our creativity more wisely and more widely.

PRAYER

God, as we confront awesome opportunities, arouse in us an equivalent dedication to the common good, and determination to share all that we have and are with our human kindred under every star. Amen

HYMN

These things -shall be — a loftier race

Than e’er the world hath known shall rise

With flame of freedom in their souls,

And light of knowledge in their eyes.

They shall be gentle, brave, and strong

To spill no drop of blood, but dare

All that may plant soul’s power firm

On earth, and fire, and sea, and air.

They shall be simple in their homes,

And splendid in their public ways,

Filling the mansions of the state

With music and with hymns of praise

Nation with nation, land with land,

Unarmed shall live as comrades free;

In every heart and brain shall throb

The pulse of one community.

New arts shall bloom of loftier mould,

And mightier music thrill the skies,

And every life shall be a song

When all the earth is paradise.

]ohn Addington Symonds

HOS, No. 360

HCL, No. 190

The Thirty-Ninth Day - A Web Of Necessary Mutual Support

“God is in the economic process. We cannot intelligently and devoutly shape history until this is seen and felt. . . . Today the entire planet is becoming one community, not in love, not in mutual understanding, and cooperation, but in interdependence. The superhuman power of God is shown shaping the lives of men into oneness that they never intended and which is, more often than not, contrary to their purposes. Physical things, human purposes and living organisms of all sorts are woven closer and closer and wider and wider into a web of necessary mutual support. The growth goes on wherever there is production for exchange. It is God at work in the economic process weaving a web of unity that can grow into community if we will do our part . . . The church as the prime established institution of religion must awaken humanity's loyalty, love and sensitivity to God in this realm of production for exchange, so that its economic striving will be corrected, inspired and directed by the intimate sense of this divine presence at work shaping history through these activities. The church must develop criteria which will enable us to know when our economic striving runs counter to the working of God in this field of endeavor. . . . With such criteria sufficiently developed, and with people awake and sensitive to the presence of God, the church should be able to say: This is the way God is moving. Therefore that bit of social structure that stands in the way must be stopped. With adequate criteria the church can speak with authority and insight and save us from the chaos and ruin of fighting against God."

We live in an age in which economics rules the roost. Giant corporations seeking the highest possible profit, irrespective of the means they employ, the people they hurt or the resources they use up forever are in the saddle. The theory is that if everyone is selfish enough, the whole will benefit. But it is not working out that way. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer until there is a social explosion and many get hurt. The Church and its members have the responsibility to find and demonstrate a more excellent way

PRAYER

Transforming God, Your command is that we love and serve each other in all our doings. We cannot do this while we exploit our fellow humans. If we grow rich on their poverty, we condemn ourselves. We become despicable in Your eyes, and our affluence cannot last. Correct us, God, and, in Your great mercy, help us to reform and redeem ourselves. Amen.

HYMN

Let there be light, oh God of Hosts!

Let there be wisdom on the earthl

Let broad humanity have birth!

Let there be deeds, instead of boasts!

Within our passioned hearts instill

The calm that endeth deadly strife;

Make us thy ministers of life;

Purge us from lusts that curse and kill.

Give us the peace of vision clear

To see our comrade’s good our own,

To joy and suffer not alone:

The love that casteth out all fear.

Let woe and waste of warfare cease,

That useful labor yet may build

Its homes with love and laughter filled.

God, give they wayward children peace!

William Merrell Vories

HOS, No. 397 

HCL, No. 201

The Thirty-Eighth Day - Political Endeavor In A Time Of Social Crises

“It is the part of religion in all times, but especially in times when people undertake the shaping of history, to equip each individual with a loyalty and a way of worship that will enable each one to combine perspective with energetic action; patience with passion; sympathetic understanding of other ways, with zeal for one’s own chosen way; driving forth, with a sense of high tragedy in all human undertakings; a single-eyed zeal that never flags, with experimental resourcefulness; ability to preserve poise when history-making issues are at stake. . . .

“This is the aid which religion can bring to political endeavor in time of social crisis. Without some such union of religion with political action there is little hope that we will be able to exercise that degree of social control which our times require. On this account we say that religion and politics must work together in the new era toward which we are moving. . ."

Mahatma Gandhi once said that anyone who thinks that religion and politics have nothing to do with each other doesn’t know what religion is. The task of religion is to keep politics from becoming idolatrous or demonic, to keep the molder and maker of events on the track, and to sustain him or her through good times and bad. Thus, to keep the realms of this earth growing towards the most meaningful City of our God.

PRAYER

God of Power, You have entrusted the earth and its future to us humans. You have given us the knowledge and the power to make it a paradise. If we do not make it according to Your growth of meaning, it quickly becomes a hell of selfishness and strife. Help us to turn it towards Your heavenly hope. Amen.

HYMN

From hill and glen, from square and street,

Of this vast world beyond my door,

I hear the trend of marching feet,

The patient armies of the poor.

Not ermine clad or cloth’d in state,

Their title deeds not yet made plain,

But waking early, toiling late,

The heirs of all the earth remain.

The untaught brain shall yet be wise,

The untamed pulse grow calm and still;

The blind shall see, the lowly rise,

And work in peace time’s wondrous will.

Some day, without a trumpet’s call

This news will o’er the world be blown;

‘The heritage comes back to all!

The myriad monarchs take their own!’

Thomas Wentworth Higginson

HOS, No. 343

The Thirty-Seventh Day - Loyalty To A Higher And Richer God

“The chief political function of religion in the difficult and dangerous times of social reconstruction is to provide us with an object of loyalty which is vastly higher and richer than any specific objective. The great danger in such times is that we will focus all our passion and all our loyalty on some definite goal. Such goals we must have, and we must strive for them with all our powers. But a noble religion enables us to pour out our passion and energy for this specific objective not as an end but as a metaphor of that which is infinitely higher. . . .

“When we have a mastering devotion to the unfathomable and unexplored riches of the wholeness of God, we are able to pause worshipfully to recover lost perspective. We can take note of ignored interest. We can discern the inevitable tragedy of all limited human endeavor. Most important of all, we can do this in such a way that energy for action is increased rather than diminished by this worshipful recovery of the higher vision. We are able to be objective in our survey and treatment of all the factors in each concrete situation. In the midst of confusion, hate and passion, we will not become either demonic or despairing, either fiendish or futilitarian.”

Our greatest human failing is the tendency to give our all for limited, human objectives — to build the family company and fill the family coffers; to put one’s own city or country above all else; to forget that in God’s Being-Becoming we are all bound together, so that if one is hurt all are ultimately hurt, and if one rejoices, all ultimately shall rejoice. It is not easy, but God’s command is to give ourselves for the well-being of the whole.

PRAYER

God of all, help us be more deeply aware of the bonds that bind us to all men and women everywhere, and to all the generations past, whose victories are summarized in us, and all who are to come who must receive their world from us. Help us to pass on this world to those who will come after us as a more harmonious place. Amen.

HYMN

Hail the Hero workers

Of the mighty past!

They whose labor builded

All the things that last.

Thoughts of wisest meaning;

Deeds of noblest right;

Patient toil in weakness;

Battles in the night;

Chorus: Hail, then, noble workers,

Builders of the past,

All whose lives have blest us

With the gains that last.

Hail ye, hero workers,

Who today do hear

Duty’s myriad voices

t Sounding high and clear;

Ye who quick responding,

Haste ye to your task,

Be it grand or simple,

Ye forget to ask!

Chorus

Hail ye, hero workers,

Ye who yet shall come,

When to this world’s calling

All our lips are dumb!

Ye shall build more nobly

If our work be true

And we pass life’s treasure

On from old to new.

Anna Garlin Spencer

HOS, No. 330

The Thirty-Sixth Day - Religion Shaping History

“Religion is the way in which we endeavor to deal with the superhuman. Increase of human control over the social process does not mean that we will be any less dependent upon the growth of meaning, which we have seen is the reality of the superhuman in our midst. It does not mean that God, working in ways that are beyond our power, will be any the less operative in history. Quite the contrary is the case. We shall be more dependent upon the superhuman growth of meaning than we have been in the past. . . . When we are constantly reconstructing the social order in basic ways, there is bound to be great loss of old meanings. Therefore the meaning of life will decline, swiftly and fatally, unless there is continuous growth of new meaning. 

“This danger that people in times of social control will ignore their dependence upon God for growth of meaning, is no mere speculative menace. Again and again it has happened that when people have achieved means of control over their own ways of living, they have neglected to give highest loyalty and prime concern to growth of meaning . . . They have not yielded themselves to the creative, transforming power of growth of meaning . . . They have not given supreme devotion to God. The consequence of this refusal to give primary importance to the superhuman growth of meaning has been a steady decline in the meaning of life . . .

'“We are being tested again in this old way. We will be exercising more power and so have more at stake. Can humanity be trusted with power to direct the social process in human history and still remember that it is made for God and God alone? Or will we throw off that ancient allegiance and divine sovereignty and so find ourselves in a world full of activities but so barren of meaning and value that life ceases to be worth the living?

“Which way we shall go will depend very largely on what sort of religion we develop." 

We live in an age of burgeoning human power, power to command material wealth from the earth, power to change the course of human evolution. Yet it is power also to pollute the atmosphere and the great waters, and to set human against human in wars which could wipe out all human life. We desperately need guidance in how we wield that power, and humility in the face of its divine and demonic potentials. It is not by chance the age of power coincides with the dawn of folly.

PRAYER

Our God, You are that Power which appears in and rewards mutuality of life's relations. You seek to make us more sharing, more supportive, more enhancing of one another. You have bound us indissolubly to all the generations of the past, and those yet to be. Help us to live and work in this realization. Amen.

HYMN

From age to age how grandly rise

The prophet souls in line!

Above the passing centuries

Like beacon lights they shine.

Through differing accents of the lip

One message they proclaim,

One growing bond of fellowship,

Above all names one Name.

They witness to one heritage,

One Spirit’s quickening breath,

One widening reign, from age to age,

Of freedom and of faith.

Their kindling power our souls confess;

Though dead they speak today:

How great the cloud of witnesses

Encompassing our way!

Through every race, in every clime,

One song shall yet be heard:

Move onward in thy course sublime,

O everlasting Word!

Frederick Lucian Hosmer 

HOS, No. 423

HCL, No. 231