Sunday, February 15, 2009

Even Unitarians can be succinct. See?

I have become enamored with six word stories.
(http://www.smithmag.net/)

I'm a Unitarian, a religion infected with verbal hemophiliacs (of which I'm a textbook case). As an attempted cure for myself, I have managed to sum up all major aspects of my life in six words each.

Life story: I was right to take detours.
Love: I married up. (So did he).
Friendships, female: Loving you, important. Laughing together, critical.
Friendships, male: When talking, imagine words cost 1.00.
Environmentalism: This is going to take forever.
Art/Writing: Good stuff out there intimidates me.
Death: I can't believe there's no bargaining.
Babies: I see why nobody tried explaining.
Preschoolers: But they sleep through eventually, right?
Teenagers: Maybe I'll be omniscient again later.
Homemaking: I make a world I love.

"Hey!" you declare, "Isn't religion missing from your list of major aspects of life?"

Why yes, I answer, I saved it for last. As a part of our National Identity Initiative (albeit an only tangentially related part with no official blessing and mostly just for fun), I challenge all Unitarians out there to come up with the six word story of their religion. Impossible, you say? Two examples that I didn't write: "Find us and ye shall seek" and "We will question all your answers." A few examples that I did write:

God/no God, whatever. What next?
There are others like me? Really?
We footnote all the deep words.
Some questions still unasked--as yet.
Same church community--different price tag.

So, the gauntlet is thrown down, fellow UUs (all three of you now following this blog)! Six words--what can you do?

Liz


As a footnote, my favorite six word stories from the website:

Became more like myself every year.
Birth, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence...
Giraffe born to a farm family
Accidents cause people--son is wonderful.
After your jump, the net appears.
Alas, a farewell to legs. Next!
Awkward girl takes chances. Fun ensues.
Found Jewish princess. Good-bye succulent pork.
Tried men. Tried women. Like cats.
His love letters had bullet points.
Arthur-ectomy taking years! Beware: wed cautiously.
Lived in moment until moment sucked.
My family is overflowing with therapists.
Screw cleaning. I have twin boys.
Hope my obituary spells "debonair" correctly.

7 comments:

Sara said...

Very funny - I like the challenge.

those are my 6 words.

Kari said...

"Faith alive with heart and spirit."

and this from a friend in my congregation (I linked to your blog in my facebook status last night):

UUs Free searching progressive caring community

And thanks a lot for this. Now I'm hooked on six words. I'll never sleep or eat again.

teawithseanandmarie said...

Fair Trade or bust: Religion Style

Robin Edgar said...

I can be a bit of a verbal hemophiliac myself but I can also be extremely succinct when I put my mind to it. How about two words -

UNSAFE SECT?

Specifically referring to the fact that Unitarian*Universalism has a very poor track record when it comes to dealing with clergy misconduct of all kinds, including clergy sexual misconduct, and/or other internal injustices and abuses that make U*U congregations unsafe according to the UUA's own definition of what constitute Safe Congregations.

Erica said...

Liz for me I thought of (specifically regarding my experiences in the youth movement):

Acceptance when you need it most.

I am totally fascinated with your story Robin and will now be reading through your blog, sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with the Unitarian Congregation of Montreal.

LizJames said...

Hey Kari,

Were your last three sentences six words each on purpose? :-)

anne said...

ok ... i'm game...

Good? Evil? Choose Good. What's Good?