I often receive a quizzical look when I mention to people that my Master’s Degree is from Smith College. Smith’s graduate department, however, is coed and their religion graduate department is built for people locked into the area.
At the time, that is exactly what I was — locked into the area. I was the pastor of a church in South Deerfield. In this situation, Smith provided me a wonderful learning experience, from my professors to the accomplished students I sat with in the classroom.
One of the continuing benefits of being a Smith graduate is the Alumnae Quarterly. In the most recent edition, there was an interview with a 1981 graduate. She was asked about her most influential professor. Her reply stressed the cross-disciplinary classes she took and the professor of one of them. Her words caught my eye: “I fell in love with looking through a lens that is more of a prism and less of a magnifying glass.” This image captures some of the story of my spiritual journey from one church denomination to another, from priest to minister.
I was ordained a priest of my birth church and I served as such for 32 years, 29 of them in one parish. I accepted recently Privilege of Call into the ministry of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
This was a long and complicated spiritual journey for me. I was asked to write this column about this journey. I cannot speak to all aspects of my calling to a new church and I will not disparage my previous one. I can share, however, a principal motivation behind my move. It has to do with the idea of looking through a prism rather than a magnifying glass. The lens of a magnifying glass focuses light so that finer detail is revealed. The better the glass, the smaller the field. The lens of a prism, on the other hand, refracts light so that its hidden colors are released.
Religion practiced in isolation, like the analogy of looking through a magnifying glass, is focused on increasingly minute details and those minute details take on increasing importance. Christians, for example, can agree on most all tenets of a shared faith, but the details can prevent them from worshiping together. I think it is a counterproductive pursuit to try and plumb the depths of God’s ineffable mystery by isolating a particular voice of faith from all others, including that of science, literature, psychology and common sense, to name a few, and even other voices of faith, as if they had nothing to offer.
When this happens, when we only talk to ourselves, then we affirm and constantly reaffirm, right or wrong, basically what we already believe and are left to accept it only more precisely. Then we can disregard or even disparage those who speak differently than we do. Their voices do not have the chance to inspire, challenge or correct us. Change then becomes an enemy. Religion becomes an institution. And faith may become a content of static assertions about God rather than a vibrant, living, evolving relationship with God.
On the other hand, universities and businesses plan consciously so that collaboration among disciplines becomes necessary. The accumulated wisdom of one field cross-pollinates with that of another and innovation emerges. Likewise, when religions are secure enough to interact beyond their boundaries, to challenge themselves, this hopefully leads to further insight. This interaction is like the prism that reveals the rainbow of colors that make up the light of God.
One of the reasons I chose to join the UCC is its intentional embrace of change through an intentional openness to other voices. Randi Jones Walker, writing about the UCC, argues that doubt and belief are different aspects of the exact same process. Belief is thought at rest, but when belief does not provide understanding, guidance or inspiration, when other voices disturb our consciences or intellects, then doubt arises as thought in action so that faith may be refreshed rather than only preserved.
The UCC gives me the opportunity to see God’s light exactly where I would expect it, and in so many other places and people as well. It is my prism.
Rev. Randolph Calvo is a member of the First Congregational Church of Whately, where, on Sept. 10, the Franklin Association of the Massachusetts Conference, UCC, held a Council Granting Rev. Calvo Privilege of Call.