A new beginning

Unity congregation gathers to let go of the past

By Mary Garrigan
Journal staff | Thursday, January 15, 2009

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Before they could welcome 2009 with the sounds of noisemakers or popping corks, the Unity of the Black Hills congregation said goodbye to 2008 with the smell of burning paper.

A burning bowl service is a New Year’s Eve tradition in many Unity churches, and the Rev. Barbara Jung asked church members and visitors to Unity’s Piedmont chapel on Wednesday evening to jot down their regrets of the past year on slips of paper before lighting them with the flame of the “Christ light,” tossing them into a big metal tub and watching them turn to smoke and ashes.

“We’re all here to let go of something,” Jung said as she led the congregation through a guided meditation designed to identify past hurts and unforgiving thoughts and to help people loosen the emotional “ropes” that bind their lives in pain. Jung suggested people pray these words as they let their mistakes, errors and judgments go up in smoke: “I choose to let go and let the past be consumed by the power of the spirit.”

Once fire had figuratively destroyed their regrets of 2008, the participants took time to look to the future by penning a short personal letter to God about their hopes and dreams for 2009. The church will mail the letters, which were sealed in self-addressed envelopes, back to the writers sometime around July 4, Jung said. Once the letters were collected, the congregation sang “The Millennium Prayer,” which is a Unity-revised version of “The Lord’s Prayer”  sung to the melody “Auld Lang Syne.”

Unity member Joe Lowe said the Burning Bowl service is a good way to ring in the new year by releasing the old one. As the smoky smell of burning paper lingered in the church and threatened to set off overly sensitive fire alarms, Jung joked that she was glad to have Lowe, who is South Dakota’s wildlands fire coordinator, in her congregation. As a recent addition to the Piedmont church, Lowe previously attended Unity churches in California and said he’s always been attracted to Unity’s emphasis on “universal acceptance.”

“I know I’m a child of God and I know that he wants to give me all the things you’d give your own child,” he said.

The Association of Unity Churches is a nondenominational Christian-based organization that is sometimes described as a “religious philosophy with an open end.” It has no strict creed or dogma, and Unity’s theology stresses the metaphysical more than the literal, particularly when it comes to Scripture. The Bible is used constantly and is highly valued, but it is not interpreted literally at Unity nor is it considered the sole or final authority on spiritual matters.

“One of the things I’m thankful for to Unity is that it has given me a new way to look at the Bible,” church member Vickie French said. French is studying to become a licensed Unity teacher, and she taught the New Year’s Eve lesson from the book of Daniel about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to worship the false gods of King Nebuchadnezzar. Perhaps, she said, the ropes that bound the three men as they were thrown into the blazing furnace for their disobedience to the king were the same ropes that keep people from becoming fully realized spiritual beings.

The roadside chapel in Piedmont, where Unity has met since 2004, has many of the trappings of any Protestant church: A wooden cross adorns the wall, stained glass decorates the chapel and, during the Christmas season, a Nativity scene greets visitors at the front door. But Unity’s concept of Jesus Christ differs from traditional Christians in important ways.

“We see Jesus as a divinely realized being, but we do not see him as having been born differently than ordinary human beings,” Jung said. “We see him not as the great exception, but as the great example. We believe Jesus came to teach us to love one another, and we strive to be nonjudgmental and accepting toward others. 

We put more emphasis on the concepts of love and forgiveness than we do on dogma, and we teach that as we grow in spiritual awareness we experience inner freedom and peace.”

Unity members describe their belief as “metaphysical” Christianity, which Jung defines as more spiritual than religious, less literal than figurative.

“We also allow that other great masters have come (like the Buddha, Mohammed and Krishna) to teach and their paths are also paths that lead to God. We believe that all great religions are at their apex very similar when it comes to their values and goals for their followers,” she said.

Mark Cook had been familiar with the teachings of Unity for some time, but Wednesday’s Burning Bowl service was just the second time he’d come to the church. A self-described searcher and fallen-away Catholic who works as a hospital psychologist, Cook said he thought he’d come back.

“I’d pretty much thrown in the towel on organized religion,” Cook said.

He said Unity’s perspective on God and Christ consciousness, which is summed up in the prayer that is stenciled around the chapel’s walls, appealed to him: “The life of God surrounds us. The love of God enfolds us. The power of God protects us. The presence of God watches over us. Wherever we are, God is.” The poem, by James Dillet Freeman, is also on the moon, taken there by astronaut James Irwin.

Jung, who thinks Unity may be the best-kept spiritual secret in the area, said she hopes more people like Cook and Lowe discover the roadside chapel at 10112 Walnut St. in Piedmont.

Contact Mary Garrigan at 394-8424 or mary.garrigan@rapidcityjournal.com.

If you go

What: A White Stone service,

signifying a new beginning.

When: 10 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 4.

Where: Unity of the Black Hills, Piedmont

Congregants are given a small stone (quarried in the Holy Land) and given a time for quiet reflection to choose a word or phrase to write on the stone that represents their spiritual aspiration for the New Year. They are invited to place it where they see it every day to help them remember the goal.

New pastor at Unity of the Black Hills

The Rev. Barbara Jung grew up on the prairies of northwestern South Dakota between Isabel and McIntosh, graduated from National School of Business and soon left the state for years, 28 of which she spent as an ordained Unity minister.

“I’d forgotten how beautiful this is here,” she said of the Black Hills. She rediscovered it when she returned to South Dakota for a family funeral earlier this year and spent time with her sister in Rapid City. In November, the newly retired Unity pastor decided she wasn’t ready for full-time retirement and took a part-time job as the first ordained minister to serve Unity of the Black Hills in Piedmont.

She was ordained in 1980 by the Unity School of Christianity near Kansas City, Mo., and worked for 28 years in seven different ministries, including a job as an interim specialist for Unity ministries in transition. Her most recent Unity church was in South Bend, Ind.

“I’m excited to be part of a spiritual community that honors the divinity in all people,” she said of Unity of the Black Hills.