By David Hopkinson
Adapted from a “From the Heart” talk at the March 24, 2019, worship service.
Good morning!!! I am David Hopkinson…making my debut with this “From the Heart” statement after 30 years of WUU membership. My wife Ruth is a lifelong UU. In high school she edged me away from my First Church of Christ, Congregational at the center of our New England suburb. She showed me her much more heartfelt Universalism. We got married by her minister 50 years ago. I was converted.
I had been well churched in my WASPY Congo denomination. Like my family of origin this institution was buttoned up and doctrinaire, all head – not at all creative, dynamic or exciting. The Apostle’s Creed was pasted inside all the hymnal covers but nobody called my attention to it. Faith in the mainstream Protestant doctrine was “presumed,” just as being a proper gentleman and knowing good table manners were seen as inborn traits in my family – didn’t have to teach the skills.
I rebelled against all this arid formalism by becoming a stealth juvvy in preppy camouflage. I lived an exciting secret life of minor crime. This history helped me practice psychology – exploring the person behind the mask, digging up what lies beneath. My way of contributing to WUU has usually been underground or out of sight – building infrastructure and security systems, offering lay pastoral care.
At college I took the standard “World Religions 101” class. I sat next to my best friend, who was Jewish. As the lectures described Christian theology, Dennis whispered me a stunning question: “Do you really believe this fairy tale?” I had to admit I knew the story but I had never critically read that Apostle’s Creed, let alone thought it out. Hearing it presented so clearly by the professor blew my mind. “YES!…NO!!!…I thought I did…but I don’t…how could I?…I don’t think I ever will again.” I never went back.
After that wake up, I got swept up in late 60s hippie-dippie fads: Zen, humanism, skepticism, Sgt. Pepper. I settled into a lazy atheism. I called myself an “apathist.” God? Why should I care? Ruth and I helped start WUU in the 1980s.
My training to be a Psychologist in the 70s emphasized scientific over mystical or magical understandings. Freudian theory was contemptuous of any faith in God: only insecure simpletons with Daddy issues would need to conjure up an all-powerful God. I firmed up my atheism and tacked hard against Christianity…to secular compassion. According to comedian Patton Oswald: “It’s all chaos, just be kind.”
Psychotherapy doesn’t pronounce, judge, or direct in response to human suffering. The format reflects most social domains of my adult life: marriage, parenting, religious membership. I try to find or set up a stable and safe container with a few rules and guardrails. In such a framework, called a “holding environment” in shrinkspeak, I expect all members can be and will be creative and explorative. Spiritual and passionate if they wish.
So WUU is a holding environment for me. I helped build it and I help maintain it now so we can all share it. That has been my journey.