Holy, holy, holy

Olivia LeganNews Magazine Editor-in-Chief The majority of my friends are atheist and I can sympathize with their exasperation with religious institutions. They seem filled with hypocrisy and hatred. However, it makes me sad that flaws of in modern religious establishments are turning our generation away from spirituality and a religious community. I was not the most receptive to church at first either. I’ll admit that I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Community Church of Santa Monica.  As a cranky eleven-year-old, I was not thrilled to get up at eight on a Sunday. Nevertheless, my resilient mother somehow managed to get me into the adobe building on the corner of 18th and Arizona Avenue, and my life was forever changed.My first day, children in the pews around me rushed to the front of the chapel with cans of food for the homeless before filtering into youth groups. I was in Religious Education. As I learned long division in school, I gained a well-rounded view of every significant religion in the world, from Hinduism to Wicca at the Unitarian Church.  We visited synagogues, temples and churches around Los Angeles. Over the next two years, we tackled the big questions concerning life and death to form an individual sense of meaning.Religious Education culminated with my Coming of Age ceremony. Everyone in my class wrote their own credo explaining their beliefs, a hefty task for awkward adolescents. This daunting mission made my youth group incredibly close.  We traveled to New York City for a UU United Nations Spring Seminar on climate change, where we stayed in a 200-year-old church with 60 other teen UUs. We drove the eight hours to San Francisco with the Pasadena congregation to work with a street ministry in the Tenderloin ghetto. Every Sunday we discuss our lives, plan community service trips, teach the younger youth groups and more. My youth group is a family that has always been there for me.There is also the pleasant surprise of meeting Unitarians in random places. The glimpse of a UU chalice necklace or tattoo is followed by excited shrieks and hugs. It is rare that I meet a UU who is not a warm, genuinely interesting person.A few weeks ago I attended a service at the church, where our minister recited a section of one of my favorite Allen Ginsberg poems:“Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!”Suddenly I realized that this was what my community at UUCCSM has done for me.  Because of my UU family, I see the holiness and pure beauty in nearly everything. It was through the church that my eyes were opened to human rights issues. From the Unitarian Universalist (UU) principles and my youth group’s volunteer efforts, I learned that all human beings deserve respect.  It may be clear at this point that Unitarian Universalism is not your standard religion. It is devoid of discrimination and judgement. I find it to have the pure goodness that is at the core of every world religion. Tragically, this kernel of kindness and acceptance is surrounded by scandal, worship through fear and antiquated oppression of minorities and women in many modern religious institutions. Unitarian Universalism is the polar opposite — I even interned at their office at the United Nations where they battle for women's rights, gay rights and awareness of climate change. I feel so lucky to have found the Unitarian church, because without it, I probably would have been too repulsed by the hypocrisy of many religions to welcome the beauty at their center. I get upset when people are ignorant and hide their hate behind the Bible. They give religion a bad name and are scaring progressive, open-minded young people away from spirituality and a potential religious community. My plea is this: even if you are sick of the polluted religious establishments of our modern world, read up on the history of Buddhism or think about what Jesus Christ really would do or watch a video on mystical Judaism. Find the truth and "Love thy neighbor as thyself" at the core of every belief system and integrate that into your daily life. Then again, maybe we are just particles randomly colliding, but it's nice to believe in something larger than ourselves.olegan@thesamohi.com