Destiny is Calling
Destiny is Calling
by Jeremy Elliott
This sermon considers the so-called "intelligent design" debate, in light of the traditional
Universalist position on single predestination for salvation. In it, I attempt to explore what
"intelligent design" might mean to modern Unitarian Universalists. This sermon was written and
offered at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California.
May we observe a moment of silence, to sense the Holy Spirit of perfect openness, trust, and
reciprocity that fills this sanctuary. In this most holy presence of community, let us renew our
covenant to approach each other with a reverence for the webs-of-existence that we each
bring here—to weave together—this night.
I believe in intelligent design. I believe this whole-heartedly not because of the supposed gaps
in evolutionary history or because of the micro-cellular complexity of the human eye, but
because I live an existence that is held in a complicated interdependent and intra-dependent
web-of-relationality, and co-dependant meaningfulness, that is neither entirely lineal nor
random. And I believe in intelligent design because I am a Universalist, and I have placed faith
in “the Kingdom to come”—to borrow a phrase from the Christian tradition—because I see it
taking shape in this world.
I don’t believe that the headline debate about intelligent design is really all about the nuts and
bolts of evolutionary process. It has more to do with whether we believe, or even fear, that our
existence is a random occurrence of chance, or that it is grounded in a reality of almost infinite
depth and meaning. It is from this perspective that I approach the debate, as an advocate of
my own Universalist understanding of the intelligent, spiraling, and seemingly infinitely growing
webs-of-meaning, in which I find myself.
Let us take a few moments to consider the complex and intricate patterns, histories, and wombs
of time and place, from which we arose. Sense what holds you in this particular place, right
now, in this moment—the almost incomprehensible matrix of people, and care, and resources
that ensure that this institution exists and thrives: crucial staples that are not bound by time, but
still feed us in this very moment; notice the portrait of Earl Morse Wilbur—the founder of the
“Pacific Unitarian School”—that hangs in this room, a symbol of a presence that still lives in the
people, in the walls, in the philosophies, and in the lifeblood of Starr King; recall Thomas Starr
King himself, the visionary leader of decades past who even today still sculpts this school and
impacts all who pass through its door. Call to mind even the anonymous figures who laid each
of the bricks that line our walls, poured the cement that rests far beneath our feet, and built the
automobiles and bikes that brought us here this evening. We can feel this intricate web-of-all-
existence, wrapping all around us, holding us, in this place—its tender care.
Find the strands of these webs in your own life. Sense how they have tempered you. Feel the
presence of your parents or guardians inside of you. Sense how you could not be who you are
right now without the influence of such people. Go beyond your parents or guardians, see how
your siblings or friends, relatives distant or near, have forged the person who now sits in this
room. Sense the movement and migration of your ancestors—biological and spiritual—across
vast seas, through storm and sleet, enduring incomprehensible oppressions of body and mind,
spirit and soul—perusing a vision, and Mystery beyond themselves, a Mystery that ultimately
included you. See these people, in their greatness, and see there mistakes, feeding your soul
with the substance that makes it what it is today. See beyond humanity, sensing all of nature
and the gradual progression of it, in relationship, over millions of years, growing together in all
of its diversity and splendor.
Feel the first molten energy that formed our sun, and then our beautiful mother earth and sister
moon, coursing through your veins. The primordial substances that gave rise to the air we
breathe and the waters that rim the earth. Feel the star dust from the first moments of creation,
of the cosmic expansion, of the gentle cracking of the holy egg of creation, glowing in your
fingertips.
As I look around the room at the faces of all those gathered here this evening, many of whom
have crossed the country to be here; each coming from different backgrounds, different
cultures, different identities; I ask myself, do I really believe that this beloved community came
to being out of total, uncalculated randomness?
Is it possible to even claim that our voyage here was anything but destined—a part of a grand
“intelligent” scheme? The movement of a Holy Wisdom as it courses through generations,
across time and space. Are we not standing upon the shoulders of our ancestors, were we not
in their visions, are we not living out many of the hopes and dreams of religious radicals, of
nations, of our families and friends and loved ones, and are we not called by some yearning in
our soul to be here together, to boldly move forward into the world? To fulfill our place in the
vision of our ancestors and carry that bright torch, fueled now by our own lives, into the
mysterious future.
Remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, reflecting upon his own life, and sense their
relevance to our own existences here: “I believe in this life. I believe it continues. As long as I
am here, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil of fire, they speaks not of death, for they
are woven of immoral thread.” Are we not also woven of this same immortal thread?
So we have looked over our shoulders and seen the histories leading to this moment. Do we
have some sense of the world we look forward to, the world possibly “predestined before the
beginning of time,” the beloved community, or a “Kingdom to come?”
Haven’t we touched it… as we have held hands in worship, and in celebration, and when we
have stood in solidarity for humanity and for just causes, for righteousness; haven’t we tasted it
in the sweetness of life, in the bounty of nature’s goodness; haven’t we smelled it in the sweat
of our labor, in the perfume of our lovemaking and in the streams of incense that carry our
prayers for a safer, more just world, to the heavens? Do not we hear its call, off somewhere in
the distance—perhaps days or years or even decades, calling us to this place… calling us to
place trust in the voice of our souls, the “still-small voice within,” urging us to create the living
womb—here and now—from which the beloved community, the Kingdom or Queendom of God,
the enlightened world, can blossom?
We just may be destined by some eternal Holy Wisdom to make our visions living realities.
Emerson warned, “The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us
into it.” Can we separate our “intelligent” dreams for the future from the first sparks that gave
life to universe and led to those dreams? Is there only a random association between our
dreams today and the aspirations of the generations before and the whole course of evolution?
Does the Holy Eternal lure us to some final predestined infinite perfection, to some ultimate
universal salvation?
Unitarian founder William Ellery Channing wrote, “I call that mind free which is not passively
framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental impulse: Which
discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its
own spiritual enlargement.” Are we looking for the “radiant signatures of the infinite spirit” in
our own lives? Where might we find these lighthouses beyond the evening sea?
Father Karl Rahner, the eminent Jesuit theologian of this past century, named God the “ever
receding horizon” of existence, the “ever-receding horizon” of the human experience, which is
always calling forth the full blossoming of our souls, and the total transformation of the world.
For Rahner, encounter with God is unavoidable, for God is the context of everything that exists,
and the bright future of possibilities beyond everything that exists. God is the Holy Mystery
behind and beyond our experience of reality; the “not yet known” and the mysterious
destination of this voyage.
The Sufis believe that God flashes like lightening in reality. Each of our unique experiences of
the transcendent, those which we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see, are God’s being
shining through reality, in an especially powerful way to guide us carefully into the future. They
are signposts on the journey.
We should look then for the transcendent Spirit in all things. It may be there, shining in the
eyes of your beloved, growing in the bonds of this community, standing side-by-side, shoulder-
to-shoulder with you, struggling against oppressions—in all its many mutating forms, urging
transformation, liberating the oppressed, and binding-up the broken, that we may find our
salvation. To navigate in this world, we must place our ever-deepening faith in this sacred
transcendence that saves us—the love we sense in the presence of our heart-friends, in our
families, in the depths of own mysterious beings, and in our ideals and visions of a better world.
It is there that real freedom lies. It is there that the mind will be unleashed. It is there that we are
freed from the potential bondage of the past and are able to continue our voyage, sailing
nearer and nearer to the shores of the Holy.
We must not walk the path of this world; we must know ourselves to be of a transcendent
source that is being woven into this existence. We cannot afford to be led astray by the
temptations of the world, the temptations of decadence, materialism and ego-glorification,
because we likely have tread those trails and we know, all to well, that they are ultimately dead
ends. We must look forward on this voyage, opening ourselves to the brilliant effulgences of
the Light of Life, however it may come to us, and we must swiftly follow that call, in faith, and in
hope, and with perfect trust.
In the Christian Gospels, Jesus describes the transcendent world that is to come as follows:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great
value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” The “pearl of great value” is
the transcendent moments of life, “the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit.” We must sell
everything we have to be guided by it—all of our limiting worldly assumptions and illusions,
because it is what is beyond all of these. We must not allow them to become the permanent,
unmovable rocks of our journey. The transcendent is the Spirit; God can be thought of as
totality of everything that we sense truly matters in life, it is the substance from which the new
world, the beloved community, must be built. It is from whence we came and it may just be our
destiny.
Our great Universalist ancestors believed in destiny. They believed in a destiny ripe with all the
riches of the human spirit. They had faith that everything that has been, is, or will be, are
integral parts of God’s salvific plan for humanity. They had hope that regardless of how
creative we are at constructing our own prisons of the human spirit, God—in God’s almost
infinite possibilities and compassion—would always offer us freedom from our own self-imposed
captivity.
Last year, I studied systematic theology at a Roman Catholic school and—as you might
imagine—I frequently engaged my beloved professor in some rather… charged debates. In
one instance that stands out in my mind, we were debating the likelihood of universal salvation.
She felt that it was probable… and… I felt that it was certain. She insisted that humans have
free will and, therefore, could eternally choose to turn away from God if they wished. I argued
against the supposed reality of an isolated “free will” that is independent from the rest of
existence, from its contexts and living webs of influence. I argued instead for a cocreative will
that is relational, and, therefore, never entirely free. It is participatory, not insular, and,
therefore, unable to even fully resist the freedom of possibilities gracefully offered by the
divinity of existence.
At this point she lost all control and yelled, and I mean yelled, “What!? God is so wonderful and
loving and adorable that in the end he will find a way and we wouldn’t even be capable of
resisting him.” I hesitantly replied, “Exactly,” and she sat in contemplation. (Pause)
Universal salvation, intelligent design and destiny are possibilities that we all fear because they
require that we be dethroned, and that we admit that, maybe—just maybe—our intelligence isn’
t the only intelligence at work in the world. They require that we admit that we are not the locus-
of-control of all reality, or even of our own destiny. They demand that we place trust in that
which is outside of ourselves, in the “other,” and in the good Spirit of life itself. We may steer
the boat, but still the currents will move us.
The wisdom, intellect, creativity, and imagination, that each of us brings into the world is only a
strand in a larger web of relationship, possibility and mystery. There is other transcendent
wisdom in this world, lucidly incarnate in loved ones and those who we absolutely despise; in
those who we have never met or even considered, and in all of history, that is not our own, and
from which we can never remove our being.
Looking back as far as I can see, I bear witness to a linage that leads all the way to my
presence here tonight. Looking forward, I place my faith only in those transcendent moments,
which descend like raindrops from heaven, and reveal to me something of the eternal
destination of all things.
Let us live, placing faith in the signatures of the infinite Spirit we sense in our own lives, and let
us write our own immortal page in this great drama, with the pencil of fire.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Jeremy Elliott is a student at Starr King.
by Jeremy Elliott
This sermon considers the so-called "intelligent design" debate, in light of the traditional
Universalist position on single predestination for salvation. In it, I attempt to explore what
"intelligent design" might mean to modern Unitarian Universalists. This sermon was written and
offered at Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California.
May we observe a moment of silence, to sense the Holy Spirit of perfect openness, trust, and
reciprocity that fills this sanctuary. In this most holy presence of community, let us renew our
covenant to approach each other with a reverence for the webs-of-existence that we each
bring here—to weave together—this night.
I believe in intelligent design. I believe this whole-heartedly not because of the supposed gaps
in evolutionary history or because of the micro-cellular complexity of the human eye, but
because I live an existence that is held in a complicated interdependent and intra-dependent
web-of-relationality, and co-dependant meaningfulness, that is neither entirely lineal nor
random. And I believe in intelligent design because I am a Universalist, and I have placed faith
in “the Kingdom to come”—to borrow a phrase from the Christian tradition—because I see it
taking shape in this world.
I don’t believe that the headline debate about intelligent design is really all about the nuts and
bolts of evolutionary process. It has more to do with whether we believe, or even fear, that our
existence is a random occurrence of chance, or that it is grounded in a reality of almost infinite
depth and meaning. It is from this perspective that I approach the debate, as an advocate of
my own Universalist understanding of the intelligent, spiraling, and seemingly infinitely growing
webs-of-meaning, in which I find myself.
Let us take a few moments to consider the complex and intricate patterns, histories, and wombs
of time and place, from which we arose. Sense what holds you in this particular place, right
now, in this moment—the almost incomprehensible matrix of people, and care, and resources
that ensure that this institution exists and thrives: crucial staples that are not bound by time, but
still feed us in this very moment; notice the portrait of Earl Morse Wilbur—the founder of the
“Pacific Unitarian School”—that hangs in this room, a symbol of a presence that still lives in the
people, in the walls, in the philosophies, and in the lifeblood of Starr King; recall Thomas Starr
King himself, the visionary leader of decades past who even today still sculpts this school and
impacts all who pass through its door. Call to mind even the anonymous figures who laid each
of the bricks that line our walls, poured the cement that rests far beneath our feet, and built the
automobiles and bikes that brought us here this evening. We can feel this intricate web-of-all-
existence, wrapping all around us, holding us, in this place—its tender care.
Find the strands of these webs in your own life. Sense how they have tempered you. Feel the
presence of your parents or guardians inside of you. Sense how you could not be who you are
right now without the influence of such people. Go beyond your parents or guardians, see how
your siblings or friends, relatives distant or near, have forged the person who now sits in this
room. Sense the movement and migration of your ancestors—biological and spiritual—across
vast seas, through storm and sleet, enduring incomprehensible oppressions of body and mind,
spirit and soul—perusing a vision, and Mystery beyond themselves, a Mystery that ultimately
included you. See these people, in their greatness, and see there mistakes, feeding your soul
with the substance that makes it what it is today. See beyond humanity, sensing all of nature
and the gradual progression of it, in relationship, over millions of years, growing together in all
of its diversity and splendor.
Feel the first molten energy that formed our sun, and then our beautiful mother earth and sister
moon, coursing through your veins. The primordial substances that gave rise to the air we
breathe and the waters that rim the earth. Feel the star dust from the first moments of creation,
of the cosmic expansion, of the gentle cracking of the holy egg of creation, glowing in your
fingertips.
As I look around the room at the faces of all those gathered here this evening, many of whom
have crossed the country to be here; each coming from different backgrounds, different
cultures, different identities; I ask myself, do I really believe that this beloved community came
to being out of total, uncalculated randomness?
Is it possible to even claim that our voyage here was anything but destined—a part of a grand
“intelligent” scheme? The movement of a Holy Wisdom as it courses through generations,
across time and space. Are we not standing upon the shoulders of our ancestors, were we not
in their visions, are we not living out many of the hopes and dreams of religious radicals, of
nations, of our families and friends and loved ones, and are we not called by some yearning in
our soul to be here together, to boldly move forward into the world? To fulfill our place in the
vision of our ancestors and carry that bright torch, fueled now by our own lives, into the
mysterious future.
Remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, reflecting upon his own life, and sense their
relevance to our own existences here: “I believe in this life. I believe it continues. As long as I
am here, I plainly read my duties as writ with pencil of fire, they speaks not of death, for they
are woven of immoral thread.” Are we not also woven of this same immortal thread?
So we have looked over our shoulders and seen the histories leading to this moment. Do we
have some sense of the world we look forward to, the world possibly “predestined before the
beginning of time,” the beloved community, or a “Kingdom to come?”
Haven’t we touched it… as we have held hands in worship, and in celebration, and when we
have stood in solidarity for humanity and for just causes, for righteousness; haven’t we tasted it
in the sweetness of life, in the bounty of nature’s goodness; haven’t we smelled it in the sweat
of our labor, in the perfume of our lovemaking and in the streams of incense that carry our
prayers for a safer, more just world, to the heavens? Do not we hear its call, off somewhere in
the distance—perhaps days or years or even decades, calling us to this place… calling us to
place trust in the voice of our souls, the “still-small voice within,” urging us to create the living
womb—here and now—from which the beloved community, the Kingdom or Queendom of God,
the enlightened world, can blossom?
We just may be destined by some eternal Holy Wisdom to make our visions living realities.
Emerson warned, “The efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only serve to lead us
into it.” Can we separate our “intelligent” dreams for the future from the first sparks that gave
life to universe and led to those dreams? Is there only a random association between our
dreams today and the aspirations of the generations before and the whole course of evolution?
Does the Holy Eternal lure us to some final predestined infinite perfection, to some ultimate
universal salvation?
Unitarian founder William Ellery Channing wrote, “I call that mind free which is not passively
framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental impulse: Which
discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its
own spiritual enlargement.” Are we looking for the “radiant signatures of the infinite spirit” in
our own lives? Where might we find these lighthouses beyond the evening sea?
Father Karl Rahner, the eminent Jesuit theologian of this past century, named God the “ever
receding horizon” of existence, the “ever-receding horizon” of the human experience, which is
always calling forth the full blossoming of our souls, and the total transformation of the world.
For Rahner, encounter with God is unavoidable, for God is the context of everything that exists,
and the bright future of possibilities beyond everything that exists. God is the Holy Mystery
behind and beyond our experience of reality; the “not yet known” and the mysterious
destination of this voyage.
The Sufis believe that God flashes like lightening in reality. Each of our unique experiences of
the transcendent, those which we can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see, are God’s being
shining through reality, in an especially powerful way to guide us carefully into the future. They
are signposts on the journey.
We should look then for the transcendent Spirit in all things. It may be there, shining in the
eyes of your beloved, growing in the bonds of this community, standing side-by-side, shoulder-
to-shoulder with you, struggling against oppressions—in all its many mutating forms, urging
transformation, liberating the oppressed, and binding-up the broken, that we may find our
salvation. To navigate in this world, we must place our ever-deepening faith in this sacred
transcendence that saves us—the love we sense in the presence of our heart-friends, in our
families, in the depths of own mysterious beings, and in our ideals and visions of a better world.
It is there that real freedom lies. It is there that the mind will be unleashed. It is there that we are
freed from the potential bondage of the past and are able to continue our voyage, sailing
nearer and nearer to the shores of the Holy.
We must not walk the path of this world; we must know ourselves to be of a transcendent
source that is being woven into this existence. We cannot afford to be led astray by the
temptations of the world, the temptations of decadence, materialism and ego-glorification,
because we likely have tread those trails and we know, all to well, that they are ultimately dead
ends. We must look forward on this voyage, opening ourselves to the brilliant effulgences of
the Light of Life, however it may come to us, and we must swiftly follow that call, in faith, and in
hope, and with perfect trust.
In the Christian Gospels, Jesus describes the transcendent world that is to come as follows:
“The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great
value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.” The “pearl of great value” is
the transcendent moments of life, “the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit.” We must sell
everything we have to be guided by it—all of our limiting worldly assumptions and illusions,
because it is what is beyond all of these. We must not allow them to become the permanent,
unmovable rocks of our journey. The transcendent is the Spirit; God can be thought of as
totality of everything that we sense truly matters in life, it is the substance from which the new
world, the beloved community, must be built. It is from whence we came and it may just be our
destiny.
Our great Universalist ancestors believed in destiny. They believed in a destiny ripe with all the
riches of the human spirit. They had faith that everything that has been, is, or will be, are
integral parts of God’s salvific plan for humanity. They had hope that regardless of how
creative we are at constructing our own prisons of the human spirit, God—in God’s almost
infinite possibilities and compassion—would always offer us freedom from our own self-imposed
captivity.
Last year, I studied systematic theology at a Roman Catholic school and—as you might
imagine—I frequently engaged my beloved professor in some rather… charged debates. In
one instance that stands out in my mind, we were debating the likelihood of universal salvation.
She felt that it was probable… and… I felt that it was certain. She insisted that humans have
free will and, therefore, could eternally choose to turn away from God if they wished. I argued
against the supposed reality of an isolated “free will” that is independent from the rest of
existence, from its contexts and living webs of influence. I argued instead for a cocreative will
that is relational, and, therefore, never entirely free. It is participatory, not insular, and,
therefore, unable to even fully resist the freedom of possibilities gracefully offered by the
divinity of existence.
At this point she lost all control and yelled, and I mean yelled, “What!? God is so wonderful and
loving and adorable that in the end he will find a way and we wouldn’t even be capable of
resisting him.” I hesitantly replied, “Exactly,” and she sat in contemplation. (Pause)
Universal salvation, intelligent design and destiny are possibilities that we all fear because they
require that we be dethroned, and that we admit that, maybe—just maybe—our intelligence isn’
t the only intelligence at work in the world. They require that we admit that we are not the locus-
of-control of all reality, or even of our own destiny. They demand that we place trust in that
which is outside of ourselves, in the “other,” and in the good Spirit of life itself. We may steer
the boat, but still the currents will move us.
The wisdom, intellect, creativity, and imagination, that each of us brings into the world is only a
strand in a larger web of relationship, possibility and mystery. There is other transcendent
wisdom in this world, lucidly incarnate in loved ones and those who we absolutely despise; in
those who we have never met or even considered, and in all of history, that is not our own, and
from which we can never remove our being.
Looking back as far as I can see, I bear witness to a linage that leads all the way to my
presence here tonight. Looking forward, I place my faith only in those transcendent moments,
which descend like raindrops from heaven, and reveal to me something of the eternal
destination of all things.
Let us live, placing faith in the signatures of the infinite Spirit we sense in our own lives, and let
us write our own immortal page in this great drama, with the pencil of fire.
May it be so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Jeremy Elliott is a student at Starr King.
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