I was a new, unmarried, 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force going through flight school. My hair was shorter than today. I went to the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento for the first time with a sports coat and tie and my short hair to find most of the congregation looked as if they had just come from the Woodstock concert. At 23 I was ten years younger than anyone else at the service. The church building was the center for anti-everything protests. I felt like I was carrying a pro-choice banner into a pro-life rally. The California UU’s were going through one of their hugging stages.

Now, I was a north-easterner who was raised by a pair of non-emotional Lutherans. We did hug occasionally, but this wasn’t a funeral. After services those members that did shake my hand did it with a sense of obligation and with a look of skepticism in their eyes. The service was on a high intellectual plane, the music was all very classical and the hymns that were sung were done with the congregational enthusiasm of a wake. After the service no one mentioned coffee hour to me. Out of courtesy for my obvious discomfort no one said much to me at all and after attending a few times I stopped. I felt unwelcome at my church

The year was 1980. "Mash" was now a series on television. The Beatles were still on the radio. "Halloween the first" was at the movies, and that same actor had moved from Sacramento to the Whitehouse. The eastern bloc countries were embroiled in their own conflicts. The moral majority was now touting its brand of morality to America.

I had lived in Las Vegas and Oxford, England. My hair was still short. I was now a married Captain with one child, flying fighter/bombers in upstate New York. I regularly attended a small UU Fellowship where the yearly program revolved around the term schedule of the small state college.

The average age of that congregation was still ten years older than me. The most common first name of the members was doctor.

At one of the services the speaker remarked that, "as Democrats and liberals this is how we should react to some proposed legislation." Well, I’ve done some things I haven’t been proud of, I’ve even voted for a Democrat more than once, but I had never been called a liberal Democrat before. I again felt unwelcome at this church.

I have had some fun with these two stories over the years. I think from these events I have learned some lessons about myself and our denomination’s real diversity. In the 1820’s Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter of an orthodox congregational preacher, characterized Boston society saying "All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarians. All the trustees and Professors of Harvard College were Unitarians. All the elite of wealth and fashion crowded Unitarian Churches." Ten years later Channing was still sensitive to remarks about his Unitarian churches from his orthodox colleagues who maintained Unitarian views "are suitable to the educated, rich, and fashionable and not to the wants of the great mass of human beings." How has our church evolved since Channing’s day?

In both California and New York State I found elements of our churches that were unwelcoming. I was different, I felt different, and I was meant to feel different because I was thought of categorically. This is being the Outsider of whom Peter Fleck speaks. In California no one asked what I thought or felt about the state of the world. What I thought and felt was written in my short hair and sports coat and tie. I too was unwelcoming, I too looked at California UU’s categorically. I did not see the members of this church as individuals, but as others who were different from me.

I was young and no doubt would change ideas as I grew older. And yes, I did change and now the long-haired California rebels are probably stockbrokers or bankers. But how have we both really changed? We, UU’s, are passionate in our beliefs and should ‘bring the good tidings to all the afflicted and all those who mourn,’ as one of our songs suggests.

In California I was angry. Angry that I felt unwelcome in my church. That anger did not allow me to see past my categorical thinking to the real people of that church. They were as passionate as I was to see a world of justice; we had just chosen an alternate means for arriving at that just society. How often in the next thirty years did I allow categorical thinking to obscure the individual? In the political arena we allow this thinking to speak for the individual.

Categorically Republican’s are capitalists who only think in monetary terms, the economics of greed, if you will. Democrats are all bureaucrats who want more power and money to create their public organizations to control our lives. In the seventy’s it was worse than just stereotyping. Many political foes demonized their opponents.

I have heard many UU's talking about the Religious Right or the Right to Lifers in ways that demonize or objectify them as people. Listen to the rhetoric about the Serbian leaders, or listen to political ads for governor or senator. It is easier to attack people when we can turn them into objects rather than relate to them through similarity.

In my view when demons are created, we have given the people we demonize too much power. We have made them supernatural. What are these people, but individuals who feel passionately about their causes? When the Sacramento UU’s made me feel unwelcome by categorizing me they denied that I had the same goodwill that they so wanted me to see in them. Likewise, when I looked at their customs and dress, I did not see our sameness. I saw our differentness.

In upstate New York the speaker made me feel unwelcome by assuming UU’s were all alike. This fellowship wanted to be diverse, but kept finding that that diversity looked remarkably familiar, just like themselves.

Our Journey to Wholeness program seems to forget this also. We don't have to look different to be different. Jokingly, I have said, "There are two types of people in the world "those that I have insulted and those I will insult." The New York speaker meant no insult and did not believe he was being exclusive with his audience. He truly thought he was being inclusive. He too had a passion for what he thought was right and just. But his means of pursuing that justice were not mine, and by his assumption he made me feel unwelcome.

We have other ways of making people feel unwelcome. On a search for a congregation a few years ago I had an interview with an old Unitarian Congregational church in rural New England that described itself as Christian Unitarian. I asked what would happen if four pagans would show up at a meeting. One of the interviewers told me he would suggest that they would probably feel more at home at the church 20 miles south. This dynamic of belief has become one of those issues that are dividing us. Many of our meetings founded in the fifties were humanist congregations. Many are now growing but the new members are more theist and looking for "spiritual services" and do not object to using the G word occasionally. Here through categorical thinking the theology of the member has become an orthodoxy or right thinking.

Categorical Thinking has been addressed by Our Faith in Action Office in Boston which has developed a program to educate our congregations about Categorical Thinking especially with our choices of Clergy. Yet in March 1997, the Washington Office of our Faith in Action Department said in their monthly newsletter. (Quote)"Speaking of Iraq, I attended a three-hour meeting at the Pentagon last Friday instigated by Dr. John Hamre, Deputy Secretary of Defense. I can honestly say that I was very impressed by his honesty and his humility in dealing with Iraq and many other items. There were about twenty of us there from various religious communities: the folks recognized for questions on Iraq happened to be three Muslims, one Quaker, and an Evangelical Lutheran just back from the Middle East. The conversation was frank, nuanced, acknowledging difficulties and ambiguities. It gratified me to see this highly principled man working in such a place --"(end of Quote)

"It gratified me to see this highly principled man working in such a place"--- I think there is some categorical thinking and orthodoxy in this statement. Shouldn’t we expect to see a highly principled person working in the Pentagon? Shouldn't we all respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person-even those working for the state or federal government?

One January about fifteen years ago I had to take a four-week course in Denver. Now my wife, Dee, will probably say that I always seem to disappear at difficult times, like when the moving van arrives. She will also tell you that the January average snowfall in Caribou, Maine, where we lived at that time was over 80 inches. And, yes the snow shovel isn’t my favorite tool, but duty called. So I packed my downhill skis and went to Denver.

Unfortunately I developed an infected sinus, so I couldn’t ski the first weekend. Instead I went to the Unitarian Church. This was an old church with a large circular sanctuary. At the beginning of the service they asked for visitors to identify themselves. I was uncomfortable introducing myself to 200 strangers.

I don’t remember much about the sermon, or music or the readings, but I do remember two people who came over to invite me to coffee after the service. I remember Denver UU’s as welcoming. I don’t know much about the Denver Congregation, what any of their theology, political or sexual orientation was but what ever it was as far as I was concerned they were living it.

Well, the year is 2000. Mash is still on the cable someplace. The Beatles "Michelle" plays only on Musak in elevators and easy listening stations. "Halloween, H20" is in video where Jamie Lee Curtis now baby-sits with white hair and the Exorcist is back in the movies. The eastern bloc is now defunct. The president is now a Democrat my age who is preparing to retire. My hair is still short, but my hair tonic of choice is now solarcane not vitalis. Some of the leaders of the moral majority and the Religious Right are out of jail and back on television being moral. I am no longer ten years younger than most members in churches, have retired from one career, been to grad school a second time and my daughter who was born in 1980 is now looking at Graduate Schools. I have now come to feel that what we believe either in theology or economics or politics is no longer so important. What is important now to me is how is what I say I believe reflected in the way I intereact with the world. My Christian colleagues might say "Be careful how you live your life, it may be the only gospel anyone reads."