“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
The same year that our 5th and current Meeting House was built- 1836- a group of writers and thinkers met in Cambridge and decided to start a new club. Its members included a whole bunch of Unitarian luminaries (including Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Frederick Henry Hedge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Parker and James Freeman Clark.) They were full of new ideas and critical of mainstream Unitarianism which at the time still relied on Biblical miracles as proof of religious truth and thought of Jesus as a supernatural exception to humanity rather than an example of the best humans could be. They accused conservative Unitarians of intolerance, rationalism and following stale tradition. They called themselves “Hedge’s Club” but others named them, disparagingly, the “Transcendental Club”.
Their conversations, debates, writings and experiments led not only to the Transcendentalist movement
but to what historians call the “Unitarian civil war”. In the end, the Transcendentalists won out and Unitarianism expanded to include those who embraced Transcendentalist ideas about spiritual wonder and vast curiosity, universal “brotherhood”, the ability of persons to commune directly with the divine, the presence of the sacred in the natural world, and the need for social reform. In many ways, our faith still reflects Transcendentalist ideas today.
As we approach the end of another church year, I wonder how North Parish might evolve, whether any of our rituals have become stale, and what new ideas are percolating in your conversations. Opinions? Insights? Send me a note or grab me at coffee hour. I’m always interested in what you have to say, what’s going on in your lives, and what questions or conundrums you’re wrestling with these days.
Hope to see you at the Meeting House,
Rev. Lee
P.S. This Sunday is the Bridging service for high school seniors and the second full moon of the month- a “blue moon”. Don’t forget to look up!
To make an appointment with Rev. Lee, click here.
Email: RevLee@northparish.org
Phone: 978-687-7948