“However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us, we are permitted to receive it but a little while.” Walt Whitman, "Song of the Open Road”
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Midland is a medium-sized congregation in eastern Michigan. It is large enough to support comprehensive religious education, a choir, and many lay ministries, including Covenant Groups and Social Justice. It also has the warm, welcoming qualities that come more easily to a smaller congregation.
At the Sunday service on September 5, congregation members came to the front of the worship center to light candles, share joys and sorrows, and celebrate their birthdays.
Interim Minister Rev. David Pyle gave his first sermon to the Midland congregation, on the topic “Faith Amid Transitions.” Rev. Pyle contrasted Jesus’ parable about building one’s house upon a rock instead of on the shifting sands (Matthew 7:24–26) with the Buddhist view of embracing impermanence. A liberal faith, he argued, is flexible, able to adapt and evolve in an ever-changing world.
There is only one truly enduring temple described in the Hebrew Bible, Rev. Pyle pointed out. It was a tent—the tabernacle that the Israelites carried over the shifting sands of the wilderness. The temples built on solid ground were all destroyed.
Pyle applied this example to the dangers of seeking so-called "solid rocks" to stand on, such as American exceptionalism, consumerism, and fixed religious doctrines. As Gautama Buddha said, all suffering is caused by seeking stability in a world of transience. “I want a spiritual home that can move as I move, grow as I grow,” Pyle said.
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