Living Liturgy;
A Unitarian-Universalist Liturgical Theology
in Theory and Practice
Aaron McEmrys

"Season cycle moving round and round
Pushing life up from a cold dead ground
It's growing green
It's growing green, well
Darling don't you ever stop to wonder
About the clouds about the hail and thunder
'Bout the baby and its umbilical
Who's pushing the pedals on the season cycle?"
 -XTC

Introduction

Unitarian Universalists gather together for worship every Sunday. Many congregations sing hymns, share moments of silence, listen to and reflect on a sermon, read in unison, pass an offering basket, or hold open a space for the sharing of joys and sorrows. Others may do some of these things and not others. Some congregations observe special days or events in special ways that other congregations do not.

All of these observances and practices are part of liturgy, which German theologian Friedrich Schliermacher refers to as the "sacred and symbolic" expressions of our religious feelings and beliefs. It is hard to imagine something more central to congregational life and more worthy of serious reflection than the sacred and symbolic ways we express our deepest religious and spiritual commitments. Yet all too often it seems that congregations may put more thought into how a committee meeting should run and how this or that way of doing things reflects our UU values than how our liturgical practices affect and reflect our shared religious life.¹

While many Unitarian Universalists know their various church liturgies by rote, which may be as comforting and familiar as an old bedspread, they are less likely to have considered why it is that worship happens this way instead of that way; why they sing this instead of that; sit down here and stand up there. The fact that most UU congregations meet for worship on Sundays instead of Saturdays may be liturgically significant in and of itself, yet this is not something one often hears discussed or reflected upon.

Our religious life will be enriched by reflecting on these and other liturgical practices, and will be further enriched not only by understanding the significance of our liturgical acts, but by modifying or even creating new liturgies which better reflect the principles and commitments; concerns and aspirations of individual congregations and our Unitarian Universalist movement as a whole.

This essay will present one approach to this issue, laying out a theoretical model for the development of Unitarian Universalist liturgical theologies. This model includes a sample liturgical calendar, which will be used to illustrate both practical and theoretical claims. Examples from various small group and congregational settings will be used throughout to further bridge the divide between theory and practice.

A Sample Unitarian Universalist Calendar
for the Liturgical Year 2006

Section 1: A Theory of Liturgy

"The liturgy of a church", Aidan Kavanagh writes, "is nothing other than that church's faith in motion," and "the liturgical tradition" a "dynamic condition within which theological reflection is done. 

In this way, liturgy belongs to the field of practical theology, that is, the "technik for maintaining and perfecting the church."³ Its task is to "bring the emotions arising in response to events in the church into the order called for by deliberative activity."⁴ Liturgical frameworks keep individuals and their religious communities affectively grounded in the pious feelings that are their foundations. Religious communities form around shared feelings of piety and the "sacred and symbolic" expressions of those feelings.⁵ Liturgy is one of the ways practical theology can accomplish its primary aim, which is to "give coherence to our activity and making it clear and deliberative."⁶

We do this by first making claims about the nature of existence based on our shared pious feelings, which we call doctrines. Doctrinal claims give us conceptual "space" to hold onto and reflect upon our feelings. We then develop continua of dogmatic practices ranging from "macro" practices like liturgical calendars to "micro" practices like individual liturgical acts, often in the form of ritual.

Ritual acts invoke in us the pre-rational, affective state of our pious feelings because they function as conceptual metaphors for what has first been experienced in the body. Through ritual "I Think" can be unified with "I Feel."

Even for people new to a ritual or its affiliated religious community, these ritual/liturgical acts can still be transformative. New individuals will be increasingly physiologically and psychologically affected by the intermeshing of the rest of those present. To share in and benefit from ritual does not require full community identification or identical feelings of piety. At its most basic level, ritual has its roots in the "facial expressions, gesture, tones and words; and so becomes to people a revelation of the inward."⁷ Through exposure, immersion and then "mimicry," any person can be affected and begin the process of fellowship.⁸

Liturgical ritual helps us "re-set" ourselves individually and collectively. We go into ritual in one state, experience another in the ritual act, and emerge in a third state that is more in alignment with our pious feelings and in which our sense of inextricable intermeshment with everything is reinforced.

When we participate in a liturgical act, we are affectively altered. We become aware of the fact that we are being, or have been, altered, and then we reflect, cognize, on the nature and circumstance of the alteration, organizing it conceptually. The activity in which we are altered is liturgical, but the reflection and conceptualization that follows is theological. This process of alteration, awareness and adjustment is at the very heart of the religious quest. Thus, liturgical structures serve as "roadmaps" to guide us, invoking states that link our doctrines to the affective states that gave birth to them, and also make it possible for us to guide others there.

Although writing about theatre, director and theorist Peter Brook's observations are equally applicable to liturgy when he writes:

"A play has no reality except now, the moment when everything combines, making a whole greater than the sum of its parts. When a performance is over, what remains? Fun can be forgotten, but powerful emotions also disappear. When emotion and argument are harnessed to a wish from the audience to see more clearly into itself-then something in the mind burns. The event scorches on to the memory an outline, a taste, a trace, a smell-a picture. It is the play's central image that remains, its silhouette, and if the elements are rightly blended this silhouette will be its meaning, this shape will be the essence of what it has to say." ⁹

Thus when affective states and conceptualizations cohere, one can experience in that moment something that is neither thought nor feeling, but something greater than the sum of its parts in the null point between the two. Schleiermacher writes that "this relatedness of the sensibly determined to the higher self-consciousness in the unity of the moment is the consummating point of the self-consciousness."¹⁰

Thus, through a process of affective alteration and adjustment, liturgy provides a means of "liberating the spiritual energy of the congregation" from whatever interferes with our path toward fully consummated self-consciousness.¹¹ 

One religious community achieves this kind of spiritual freeing-up through a simple water ritual before each meeting. Pottery basins are set on stands just outside the doors leading to the sanctuary. As community members are about to pass through the threshold into the area where the service is to be held, they may stop if they like (most do) and dip their hands in the cool water in the basins. The act of stopping at the threshold and dipping hands into cool water serves to help congregants "re-set" themselves both symbolically and physiologically. While most of the time individuals dip their own hands in the water, it is not uncommon for couples, family members or other close friends to dip and rinse one another's hands before going in for the service.

There is a small sign above the basin explaining to people that as they dip their hands in the water, they are invited to relax and try to mindfully set aside or release for a time anything that might be preventing them from being fully present-each traveler rinsing the "dust from the road" as it were.

Then, after the lighting of the central flame, the basins are brought to the altar where a prayer is made over them. The prayer acknowledges that the dust of many roads and many life experiences has been rinsed into the basins, and calls for the contents of the basins and the assembled body to be transformed, renewed and more fully alive. Sometime after the meeting the basins are taken outside and used to water the community garden.

Liturgy exists to develop and nurture our pietistic self-consciousness, which, as Schleiermacher writes, is composed of two elements: "the one expresses the existence of the subject itself, the other its co-existence with an Other."¹²  This is why participation in a community is so important-our pious feelings are inherently relational, and "lead necessarily to the development of fellowship or communion."¹³  Jerzy Grotowski articulates this when he writes that "his/her growth is attended by observation, astonishment and desire to help; my growth is projected onto her/him, or, rather, is found in her/him-and our common growth becomes revelation."¹⁴  Liturgy, therefore, must function below the levels where differences appear, close to the inner life; expressive to all people in the community.¹⁵

When we engage in liturgical acts, individuals become more integrated in themselves and within their religious communities. Through the coherence of shared feelings and expressions of emotion we "mutually regulate our body states,"¹⁶ and experience the feeling of being inextricably interwoven with other members of the community; past, present and future-and with god. Liturgy also creates a space where "individuals in a community ritual create an equal access zone" where the full spectrum of emotionality can be evoked and contemplated, "and know that all these feelings have a place in their shared world."¹⁷ Liturgical theologian Aidan Kavanagh describes the manifold effects this process has on the spiritual and social development of congregations:

The dynamic patterning that takes place in liturgy is one of "experience, memory, reflection, and reappropriation-carried out by real people in always changing circumstances which affect the process and are affected by it. This is how the assembly constructs its own story, its own history, and in the construction constantly rediscovers and constitutes itself under grace for the life of the world."¹⁸

Many Unitarian Universalists celebrate Flower Communion as part of their liturgical year. This liturgical event, begun in Prague by Unitarian Minister Norbert Capek was brought to Unitarian congregations by his wife, the Rev. Maja Capek before the Second World War. Maja Capek was unable to return to Prague when war broke out, and it was not until after the war that she (and the rest of our denomination) learned that Norbert Capek had been murdered in a Nazi concentration camp.

The basic ritual is a simple one: congregants bring a flower with them, place them on or around the altar, and take another flower home with them after the service. There are countless variations on this basic ritual, but they are all linked both historically and symbolically. "By exchanging flowers, we show our willingness to walk together in our Search for truth, overcoming all that might divide us. Each person takes home a flower brought by someone else-thus symbolizing our shared celebration in community. This communion is essential to a free people of a free religion."¹⁹

More important than the liturgical event is the congregation's individual and collective experience of Flower Communion through time. Through the ceremony, many congregants are reminded of Dr. Capek's courage and commitment, of the qualities he embodied that we wish to nurture and affirm in ourselves. Through Flower Communion we are not only reminded of Capek and our brothers and sisters in Prague, but through the ritual act of "re-membering" we can feel ourselves spiritually re-connected with each other and with those who have gone before us.

This reminding is a critical function of ritual. Dr. Capek understood this well, saying before each Flower Communion, "Infinite Spirit of Life, we ask thy blessing on these, thy messengers of fellowship and love. May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts, to be one in desire and affection, and devotion to thy holy will. May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike."²⁰

Every time a person in a congregation experiences a Flower Communion all of these feelings and ideas are likely to be reinforced. Every time one sees the bright explosion of flowers, rubs a thumb across the thorn of a rose, or breathes in with surprise the blur of fragrances-one's physiological state becomes ever more coherent with social, historical and spiritual layers of meaning. Also reinforced is the felt-sense that "we are a People who do Flower Communion." It is the embodied felt-sense of "We are a People," in all its varied forms, that makes this not only a spiritual experience, but a religious one.

Liturgy can guide us into a state of enmeshment with all that is and engrave that state into the living tissues of our bodies. Making sure liturgy is embodied is particularly important because our bodies are the storehouses of our lives, containing a staggering amount of data that is primarily stored and can be primarily accessed through felt-senses. The body is essentially a biological computer, and has an almost faultless memory.²¹

It is important to remain cognizant of the interdependent relationship between theology and liturgy. When we are altered by a liturgical act, we adjust-and the nature and quality of our adjustments will affect subsequent liturgical acts. How we conceptualize and understand these adjustments to our newly altered states gives birth to new theological perspectives and insights-and hence to new liturgical practices. ²²

One example of the way these alterations can lead to new liturgical practices include what was originally a new member induction ritual developed by the author and which has evolved considerably since then.

In its original form, the induction itself begins with opening words and an Invocation by the minister. Then someone who was inducted last time reads the names of the new members. The new members, meanwhile, have gathered outside the church doors. The congregation turns to face the center aisle, standing or sitting as is appropriate to the group-and begins the chant. The words, "SOYINABLARGA FOTTAHOANYA"²³ themselves have no hard conceptual meaning as far as our English-speaking ears are concerned, instead the meaning emerges physiologically and requires congregants to be attentive to the simultaneously emerging feeling-states. Very loosely translated, the chant expresses feelings of transition/journey between isolation and togetherness; light and shadow; clarity and confusion; brokenness and wholeness.

New members are then led into the church by another inductee from last time. They walk single file down the center aisle as the chant continues. They are led to the altar where they pause, strike the gong, pause soaking up all the vibrations. They choose a votive candle (which is then lit) to commemorate their induction, and then face the congregation and join the chant. The chant continues until a) it ends naturally or b) the gong is rung again, louder. There is a time of silence and feeling, and then room for clapping, cheering or other expressions of welcome.

By observing the affective states of participants before, during and after the ritual, it became clear that the gong, while appropriate symbolically, did not work affectively, or physiologically. Its tone and vibratory quality interfered with the experience people reported of feeling "unified" with one another, of experiencing individuality and collectivity simultaneously.

Participants discovered that as they became more comfortable with the process, their voices and breathing became increasingly coupled, in synch. When people felt that it was time to stop-they stopped almost simultaneously. The gong, which was "outside" the group experience, was both unnecessary and discordant. After discussion and reflection, it became clear that what was important both experientially and theologically was that the real value lay in trusting and allowing themselves to sink into the act. Through realizing that this particular liturgical act "felt" better directed from the inside out instead of from the outside in resulted in a new theological understanding. It made the originating ground upon/through which this kind of integration and balancing of self and community; particularity and unity arises, more clear and accessible.

The theological understanding that arose from reflecting upon the affective states of participants, resulted in a number of evolving variations of the original act which are more physiologically and theologically effective. One of these variations was developed in one of the first meetings of an inter-faith group exploring issues of race and gender oppression. Some of the participants were white and male, while most of the other participants were women of color. We began each meeting with a short ritual, reading or prayer.

Many participants had not met before, and on top of that the group was reading about and discussing issues and experiences of oppression that could be deeply painful or upsetting. Recalling the way the group that participated in the new member induction ritual had experienced an emotional and physiological sense of the integration of individuality and unity, it seemed potentially helpful for this new group as it formed. The group discussed it and agreed to try it (with varying degrees of enthusiasm and apprehension).

The intention was to become more fully present with one another and as a group, and then to send out those feeling-states in the form of sound waves like ripples from our room - a prayer of peace and balance for all. The ritual began with participants breathing slowly and deeply, their breath becoming more "coupled," or synchronized, as the moments ticked by. Soon sound (no words or gong this time) began to fill the space. Participants later reported a sense of deep calm overtaking apprehension and "scatteredness." After doing this for a while a couple voices began singing softly, as if suspended in the greater tonality. Then, a little while later, everybody stopped as if on cue.

Afterwards, participants appeared grounded, relaxed and calm, with some heightened color in the cheeks. Some reported feeling "light" and "balanced." It felt as if the tonal character of the group had shifted somehow.

One may well think of liturgy as operating on many different levels simultaneously, nested like Russian eggs. One of the outer liturgical "eggs" is the liturgical calendar. At this macro-level, liturgical calendars function as a framework for the life and activity of the church, a time-spanning arc guiding us on a never-ending journey of integration and liberation. The liturgical calendar shapes the tone and pulse of religious activity, delineating the space within which the dynamically deliberative work of theological reflection occurs.

The tonality, the dynamic, of particular seasons, days or other periods of theological reflection within the liturgical year help focus and align our attention and intention on the invocation, appreciation and integration of different affective feeling-states that are of importance to the community so that the community and its constituent parts will be altered, and then consciously adjust to that alteration. Other liturgical practices are nested within the liturgical calendar and function similarly: like worship services and the individual acts that comprise an order of service.

At the micro-level are individual liturgical acts. These individual acts are designed to incite different alteration-awareness-adjustment processes in participants while also contributing to and remaining in coherence with all other liturgical acts and elements ranging back on up the scale to (and far beyond) the macro level of the liturgical calendar. These acts can take a staggering number of forms, but the most effective ones are acts that work as directly as possible on the affective pathways of the human nervous system, not only because these are the most "memorable," but because we can only develop new concepts when exposed to new affective states that require new concepts.²⁴

Thus the use of sound, vibration, color and scent can be powerful when used liturgically. As poet Ted Hughes writes, "the deeper into language ones goes, the less visual/conceptual its imagery and the more audile/visceral/muscular its system of tensions. This accords with the biological fact that the visual nerves connect with the modern human brain, while the audile nerves connect with the cerebellum, the primal animal brain-direct."²⁵  It is through those "direct" connections that we have the best opportunity to create the most effective alteration-awareness-adjustment cycles and the new growth that can accompany them.

Section 2: Analysis

The liturgical calendar outlined in this paper is best imagined as a spiral moving gently upward. It is not a circle because religious communities are (ideally) always growing and developing and are unlikely to end up in the same state they started in. This is not to say that the actual periods, dates and observances on the calendar will change much from year to year. While there needs to be some openness to changing the calendar, what is of greatest importance is not the observances in and of themselves (like Groundhog Day/Candlemas, for example), but the ways in which a religious community deliberately uses these calendared dates to guide and focus its attention, reflection and feeling-states in specific ways. So a congregation may celebrate Groundhog Day every year for fifty years, but through time its observances should evolve as its understanding of the alteration-awareness-adjustment process evoked by Groundhog Day deepen and grow.

A congregation might have begun its liturgical Groundhog journey any number of years ago, with a children-oriented Groundhog Day observance on a Sunday close to February 2nd. Maybe the children acted out a little skit about "Groundhog" realizing that spring is coming and telling all of her little woodland friends. Spring really was in the air and adults and children alike may have had a wonderful time and found themselves feeling hopeful and more connected with one another.

The church could continue with this practice for a few years, changing little things here and there as the cast of congregational characters changed. The feeling of hope and well being many people associate with spring could naturally lead one, upon reflection on these feelings, to ask the theological questions like, "What does this mean? Why do I feel this way? What is spring all about? How can we explore and incorporate these things into our annual observance of Groundhog Day?"

With a little searching around, questioners would quickly discover that February 2nd has always been an important day for peoples living in the European slice of the Northern Hemisphere. Long before there was Groundhog Day, there was "Imbolc", an ancient Celtic festival which marked the beginning of the lactation of the ewes, the flow of milk that heralds the return of spring. It is also the time at which the seeds of the winter crops would begin to sprout and could be transferred to the thawing fields with much less risk of dying. As the seed sprouts, it demonstrates that it is a truly a living thing.²⁶

The Groundhog Day observances might begin to shift a little with these new stories and symbols, helping the congregation connect more deeply with the cycles of the Earth. These changes are likely to generate slightly different, deeper feeling-states among the assembly. Reflecting upon these feelings once again, new meanings and theological understandings may begin to emerge.

Before long, someone might come to the pastor with an article from a Weather or Farmers almanac. Science now joins the discussion, as it turns out that February 2nd is the first day of solar spring. Solar spring marks the day that ends the three months with the lowest amount of solar energy received and the beginning of days in which the amount of solar energy will rapidly increase. Not only do seeds choose this time to burst forth, and ewes to begin lactation, but many humans start feeling better too, emotionally as well as physically.²⁷ February 2nd is a big day for our bio-cycles, whether we call it Groundhog Day, Candlemas, or Imbolc.

As these understandings ("I think") and their associated feelings ("I feel") begin to find expression in liturgy, a congregation will come to see February 2nd in ever deeper and fuller ways. Perhaps now, in addition to other liturgical accretions, a congregation may celebrate this day by planting just-sprouted potatoes or other plants in the still resistant soil outdoors or in planters which will be transferred outside soon. Maybe the children (with whom this whole journey began) will have been nursing seeds in their classrooms for some time already, and bring them into the sanctuary now in all their sprouting promise.

The calendar in this paper is rooted in the season-cycles of the middle latitudes of the North American continent. Not only do the seasons have symbolic value for many in our congregations today, but they also affect us physiologically. For example, seasonal changes in temperature, sunlight, precipitation, barometric pressure, and lunar cycles all have demonstrable effects on our moods and physical functioning.²⁸ This calendar is designed to invoke and reflect upon different streams of pious feeling at the different times of the year that are most appropriate to the needs and "readiness" of our physiological bio-cycles. This allows us to optimize the coherence of our "sacred and symbolic acts" with our bio-cycles and other affective states, which makes for more effective liturgy.

Within each of the seasons, which set the "tone" for whole phases of the year, there are other days and periods of observation. These observances create opportunities for more specific focusing and reflection: death, loss and the sanctity of life on Memorial Day; Resurrection, redemption and rebirth on Easter; forgiveness and atonement on Yom Kippur. At least six of the days singled out on the sample liturgical calendar at the beginning of this paper may be viewed as "secular" observances, but falsely so. As John Haynes Holmes rightly points out, the distinction between the sacred and the secular is both illusory and life-denying because "in the highest sense of the word, all things are sacred," and that "anything which affects the life, liberty and happiness of the individual constitutes a religious problem." ²⁹

The liturgical acts that take place within specific days or periods of liturgical observance will be designed as acts of practical theology. In this way, each act provides us with intentioned-opportunities to experience liberation from whatever interferes, misleads or restrains us as we strive toward fully consummated self-consciousness through a process of affective alteration and adjustment which links us back to the liturgical calendar and beyond. Often, (but not always!) this process of liturgical liberation will be structured as follows:

1. The liturgical act will first help make the members of the pious community aware of its less-than-ideal state within whichever "feeling-stream" we are focusing.

2. The act will then invoke conditions of symbolic and affective alteration.

3. The act will guide and hold open space for adjustment to a more coherent and liberated state.

4. The act will conclude with reflection upon the liturgical process.

Viewed in this way, the liturgical calendar, worship services and the individual acts within services are all interwoven and need to follow the global pattern outlined above. Seen from a distance, a worship service is an individual liturgical act. Seen from within it is a series of liturgical acts. The Russian-doll nestedness of liturgical practice and theological reflection are essential to the theory and practice outlined in this paper.

Section 3: Roadmap

Many of the observances in this liturgical calendar are already commonly accepted among Unitarian-Universalist congregations. The approach to liturgical practices, however, is not as commonly understood or accepted. My emphasis on the alteration-awareness-adjustment process, especially when driven by unfamiliar liturgical elements may seem misguided, confusing or intimidating to congregations at first.

In order to overcome potential resistance there are a number of things one must do: First of all, it is critical that one remains mindful of how the congregation came to be "where it is:" understanding that the existing practices have value for people and that those feelings of value are valid and not to be dismissed. Next one needs to assess the adequacy of the existing liturgical structure, which entails a careful and patient process of observation and communication. There can be no exact science to this, but Aidan Kavanagh suggests that:

One learns to recognize the signals an assembly of faithful people gives off when, in a liturgical event, it begins to change palpably into something it was not when the event began. These signals are not wholly dissimilar from those given off by people involved in the great act of making music.³⁰

At the risk of oversimplification, the adequacy of any liturgical practice or system, old or new can be determined by carefully observing the affective states of congregants before, during and after liturgical events and by paying close attention to the nature and quality of the reflections that follow.

One of the primary ways one can develop and introduce new liturgical elements is through Vespers services. Churches can hold evening Vespers services that are intentional and liturgically free. These Vespers services will not only serve as worship services, but also as "liturgical laboratories" where new ideas can be explored, tested and fine-tuned. In time, some of the practices may be suitable for introduction to the greater liturgical framework. They should meet less resistance because they will have been developed, tested and tuned already and have been in use for some time within the church, and hence familiar to a significant number of congregants.

It is also important to make sure the congregation understands what liturgy is and what its function is (or ought to be) within the life of our church. The process by which the congregation and its ministers come to understand this together is an essential task of practical theology, described by Schleiermacher as "living circulation."³¹  There will always be resistance, and this is perfectly understandable given the high stakes of liturgy. People may not often know how to express their resistance in well crafted theological argument, but if, as Urban Homes once noted, "good liturgy borders on the vulgar, that it leads regularly to the edge of chaos, and that from this regular flirt with doom comes a theology different than any other," than fear and resistance are appropriate. But one of ministry's most sacred obligations is to help people take one step forward at a time, even when we're all scared.³²

1. Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, trans. and ed. H. R. Macintosh and J. S. Stewart (New York: T&T Clark; A Continuum Imprint, 2003), 77. 

2. Kavanagh, Aidan, On Liturgical Theology (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992), 7-8. 

3. Friedrich Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, ed. Terrence Tice (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 98.

4. Ibid, 99.

5. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 77.

6. Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 100.

7. Schleiermacher, Christian Faith, 27.

8. Ibid, 77.

9. Brook, Peter, Book About the Theatre: Deadly, Holy, Rough, Immediate (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995), 136; See also William Benzon, Beethoven's Anvil; Music in Mind and Culture (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 53: "When brains couple they create a system whose properties cannot be deduced from the properties of its individual parts." And Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 103.

10. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 21.

11. Grotowski, Jerzy, Towards a Poor Theatre (London: Routledge, 2002), 22.

12. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith, 13.

13. Ibid, 26.

14. Grotowski, 25.

15. Smith, A.C.H. Orghast at Persepolis (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972), 45.

16. Benzon, 97.

17. Ibid, 82.

18. Kavanagh, 93.

19. Reginald Zottoli, ""UUA About UU-Flower Communion; A Service of Celebration for Religious Liberals;" available on-line at http://uua.org/aboutuu/flowercommunion.html, accessed March 30, 2006.

20. Ibid.

21. Gendlin, Eugene. Focusing (New York: Bantam Books, 1981) 34.

22. Ibid, 73.

23. "SOYINNABLARGA FOTTAHOANYA" is from a language created by British poet Ted Hughes and Peter Brook's theatre company. Hughes and Brook are both friends and close colleagues of Grotowski's. "It is a language of tones and sounds, without specific conceptual or practical meaning." Instead, it is designed to express, share and invoke root feeling-states. "If a sound may transmit a complicated emotional mental state to anyone, regardless of native tongue, providing the right sound can be found, the implication would be that there exists in the human race a common tonal consciousness, a language belonging below where differences appear." This is an argument in parallel to Noam Chomsky's assertion that "identical deep structures of grammar exist in every human mind, and are biologically determined."

24. Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics; With selections from the Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Gary Hatfield, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2004), 156; As when Edith Turner was forced to generate new concepts to encompass psychic ritual healing because she was experiencing it affectively (See Edith Turner, et al, Experiencing Ritual (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992)). George De Benneville reports having multiple affective, transcendent experiences which generated feelings of piety that not only contradicted the belief systems he subscribed to, but which were not located within the existing religious categories of his consciousness.

25. Ted Hughes quoted in Smith, 45; Hughes' observations are consistent with those of neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp and music theorist William Benzon.

26. K, Amber, Candlemas: Feast of Flames (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2001), passim.

27. Heidorn, Keith, "Weather Almanac for February 1998; Celebrating Groundhog Day;" available on-line at http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc_1998/98feb04.htm, accessed March 30, 2006.

28. Northrup, Christiane, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing (New York: Bantam Books, 1994), 354

29. Holmes, John Haynes. The Revolutionary Function of the Modern Church (New York: GP Putnam's Sons, 1912), 215-216.

30. Kavanagh, 76-77; Benzon and Smith both echo these observations.

31. Schleiermacher, Brief Outline of Theology as a Field of Study, 116.

32. Kavanagh, 73.