(2007.01.21) Under These Beams: Who We Yet Can Be

This morning my intent is straightforward.

I hope to inspire in each one of us thoughts about the future of what goes on under these beams, our immediate future over the next several years of our shared ministry here, and the much longer term future, as we contemplate what people might say at the 350th anniversary of this Old Ship Meeting House, or even the 400th.


I’ll begin with an image to ponder:

A tree’s branches reach out to the sky only as far as the tree’s roots spread beneath the earth. At least so I’ve been told.


Our first task, then, I would affirm, first and last we might well say, is to be sure as we live into the future that our spiritual roots are deep. “Spiritual” is a slippery word. What do I mean by deep spiritual roots? I’m talking about careful and considered ethical reflection about our personal lives. I’m talking about careful pondering concerning the larger issues of the day. I’m talking about practices here when we gather together, across the street in the parish house, or in the midst of our own lives, practices and habits of the heart which nourish our spirits or souls, practices – whether meditation, prayer, reflective walks, listening to or playing music, sharing poetry, thinking deeply – practices which nourish our lives at the deepest levels. You know what I mean.

So I hope that in the years before us we might as an Old Ship community find yet more ways to nourish our spirits and our lives in such ways, to deepen our spiritual roots. And in so doing we may find ourselves more able to effectively reach out to bring more love, kindness, peace, and justice, reach out to heal and to help sustain the earth and all her creatures. Each day, with each person we meet, each person in our lives. Each day and for a long time to come on this earth we share.

Maybe it’s all as simple as that.

For a tree’s branches reach out to the sky only as far as the tree’s roots spread beneath the earth.


Which leads me to this reflection: As we well know, this meeting house itself was built from old growth trees, some as old at the time as six hundred years.

And you know, tears come to my eyes when I think of that ancient forest – what splendid trees they must have been, those trees cleared to build this house as well as the homes of those early settlers from whom we are inherit this Old Ship.

Tears come to my eyes, too, when I think of the first peoples who lived here before our European ancestors arrived, the first who worshipped on this ground in their way long before we did in our way; yet who were displaced from this ground by disease and violence and too-often broken treaties in order to make way for our ancestors.

And so, to think about this in another way, whatever else we yet become, it feels to me that we must honor those trees, and that we must honor not only those we usually think of as our ancestors here at Old Ship, we must honor those who were displaced, those who died… honor them all through the ways we strive to live now.


I don’t mean to suggest, by the way, that those early generations of Puritans, those who set these posts and raised these beams, were, evil people. They were, after all, living according to their best lights. And over time their theology evolved. So that we are who we now are - for better or worse! – because of who they were and who they came to be. We inherit their legacy. Yet I do like to think that we also inherit and can choose to embrace and be embraced by the spirit of the trees that made this house, and maybe even a bit of the spirit of those who worshipped amidst those trees for generations before they were cleared, that we might learn something of their ways on the earth to help guide our way.

So, back to the question, a little more specifically – who can we yet be?

Well, as I’ve said these past two weeks (you might be tired of hearing this!) in spite of sometimes faltering steps, we can trace an evolution here toward ever wider welcome and inclusion and care, along with an evolution toward embracing the goodness in human nature and the goodness and value in our human reason as we grapple with the largest questions of our lives.

To begin with, then, may we continue in this spirit. And so, may our worship and our educational programs – our “soul work” as I described it last week – help us to continue in this spirit, to strengthen the ties among the generations, young and old, here at Old Ship as we all strive to live more effective and caring lives.

All to the end that each of us, wherever we go during the days when we are not here together, brings a little more light, a little more love, a little more reason, a little more peace to the world, this interdependent and diverse world of humanity and of all life.


Which leads to me to my hope that together we can continue and with increasing effectiveness will share the urgent work of our time, beginning with our welcome to all, so important in our time of culture clash and religious fanaticism, beginning with this welcome, with our efforts toward mutual understanding, a welcome – by no means incidentally – which right now includes our work for full marriage equality, that the day will come in the lives of most of us here when the right to marry for all, gay or straight, is not only guaranteed and upheld, but embraced and celebrated, and not only in Massachusetts, but everywhere the sun shines or the rain falls.

Yes, may our future include nourishing the spirit of welcome, which has been so much a part of our heritage.


And may our shared lives in the months and years to come include much else besides:

May we also become ever greener here at Old Ship – reducing our energy use, encouraging us each to be better ecological citizens as global warming and climate change dangerously accelerate. We could do no more important work than to be among those who help through word and deed to guide our society and our world to ecological sanity and health.


And may we seek to be among those who are known as peacemakers – daily to be sure, yet also may we be among those who help on the larger stage to guide our nation toward that all too elusive understanding that there is no way to peace, that peace is the way.

And may we be among those who understand that to grow peace we must plant seeds of justice. Whether through our support of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, our social justice and plate collection grants, our service to Father Bill’s, Habitat for Humanity, Friends of the Homeless, the letters we write, the words we speak. May we indeed be among those who grow peace by planting seeds of justice.

In short, may the branches of our faith, nourished by deep roots, reach widely indeed.


Now, a not incidental word about the religion practiced here. As you know, we, the people of First Parish in Hingham were gathered, a generation before this meeting house was raised, as a Puritan congregation. Then we grew and evolved to embrace a Unitarian Christianity in the late 18th and 19th and centuries and into the first half of the 20th century. Now we proclaim a Unitarian Universalism which encourages the free search for truth from whatever source – ancient scripture or modern poetry, science or our own experience of wonder, a Unitarian Universalism which welcomes humanist and atheist as well as theist and pantheist, and which challenges us to bring more love, compassion, and peace to the interdependent web of life of which we are a part. And isn’t this great!!

Yet… will those who worship here always call themselves Unitarian Universalists? Perhaps.

But history suggests that other changes may yet someday be in store beyond our current sight. Whatever the changes, though, may we always, with passing years and unfolding generations, be true to the spirit of all those who have come before, whether Puritan, Unitarian Christian, or Unitarian Universalist – true to the spirit of seeking and service, the spirit of welcome and inclusion and love, a spirit which knows that broad and wide service rests on deep spiritual and ethical roots.


Finally… may there always – in the years to come which we will share, and for generations to come beyond our sight – may there always be here good humor and laughter and joy, music and poetry and art. Life is sometimes far too hard to navigate without the nourishment and relief of joy and laughter, poetry, music, and art.

So, yes, may those who gather here always take the big challenges of their lives and of our shared life with utmost seriousness of purpose. But may they never lose perspective, may they always have a capacity for joy.

Why, after all, would humanity and civilization and the fullness of nature be worth sustaining and saving if it were not for such gifts?

In 75 years we can hope that a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the opening of the Old Ship Meeting House will take place right here, under these beams. I’ll be gone. Indeed, most of us here today will be gone, though some of the children who have been here today may well be here then. Perhaps some of our own children or grandchildren, nieces or nephews, will be here then.

And what would we want this congregation to be like for them, and for their children… even unto to the seventh generation? What would we want the world to be like for them, and for their children, even unto the seventh generation? War a distant memory… climate stable?

And what would we hope they would be moved to say about us and our struggle to be true to the legacy of the past, the needs of the present, and our visions for the future? What would we hope they might say in gratitude for gifts we passed along, just as we pass along the gift of this, our Old Ship Meeting House?


Well, these questions I leave for all of us today as we celebrate our Old Ship Meeting House, and as we recommit ourselves to honoring the past by nourishing the present and by living with integrity and respect, reason and love, into the future.

May our roots always be deep, that the branches of our lives will always be wide, reaching out with a universal embrace of life and love.


So may it be.



Updated Feb 04, 2007 Written by Rev. Kenneth Read-Brown