In last weekend’s general assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, fittingly held in Boston and reported in the Globe, some startling language was heard.
I don’t mean the common words that punctuate rap records — no, these words really got the attention of the audience:
[Rev. Victoria Weinstein:] “I’m talking about the hot-button words, like `God’ and `spirit’ and `spiritual’ and `soul’ and `sacred’….”
…there was some audible gasping during [UUA president William] Sinkford’s opening speech yesterday, when he remarked that ‘souls are saved one at a time.’…
Prodded by a new president, a onetime atheist who had a conversion experience in a hospital room, the Unitarian Universalist Association is embarking on a freewheeling debate over whether to reverse its decades-long drift away from what…[the Rev. Mr. Sinkford] calls the ”language of reverence” and instead begin to ”name the holy.”
As the saying goes, the wellsprings of grace are infinitely deep.