Even in darkness, you are not alone.
Mr. Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Office of the President
11 Bankova Street
KYIV, UKRAINE 01220
Dear President Zelenskyy,
On behalf of the many millions of Americans who watched in horror and dismay, I am truly sorry for what you endured in the Oval Office this past Friday. Many of us, maybe most of us, are all too aware that Ukraine is not just fighting for its own freedom and autonomy, but for that of the rest of the free world. Friday was a dark day for us all. Nevertheless, I remain confident that you, the people of Ukraine, and everyone who supports the values of freedom, justice, peace, and equality around the world will prevail.
And I want to tell you why. It’s a bit of a story, so you may want to kick back with a bowl of borscht and your favorite beverage.
You see, even though we are an ocean and a continent apart and speak different languages, we share a common ancestry. My faith, Unitarian Universalism, draws from both Christianity and your faith tradition, Mr. President, Judaism. And Unitarianism was born not far from you—in Poland, Hungary, and Transylvania in Romania, countries with which you share your western and southern borders.
My story begins with our Unitarian side. During World War II, there was a guy from Boston working in Lisbon, Portugal for the Unitarian Service Committee. His name was the Reverend Charles Joy. At the time, the Unitarian Service Committee, which was a rescue and relief operation, was helping Unitarians, Jews, and other persecuted groups in Europe escape the Nazis. Since Nazi informers were everywhere, Reverend Joy felt refugees needed what he called “a symbol of hope” to assure them they were in good hands as they traveled to safety in a network much like the Underground Railroad we had here in America.
Reverend Joy wanted something to imprint on the USC’s stationery that made it more official looking but also reassuring. So he asked his artist friend Hans Deutsch, himself a refugee from Austria, to create a symbol that would capture the spirit of their work. Deutsch drew the image of a flaming chalice in a circle.
Rev. Joy would later claim that the design was reminiscent of the lamps of holy oil used by the ancient Greeks and Romans on their altars, and that the flame itself represented a spirit of helpfulness and sacrifice. The truth is that we don’t know what the artist’s original intentions were. What we do know is that once the USC began using the symbol in French refugee camps, it was soon understood that anyone carrying a note with a flaming chalice could be trusted. Sympathizers would draw the symbol in the dirt outside their home as a signal to those in need of a place to stay: a beacon of hope, a light in the darkness.1
Here's what our symbol looked like in World War II and how it has changed through the years.
An early Universalist logo looked like this and reflected its Christian roots: a cross within a circle.
When our denominations joined in 1961, they symbolized their union by combining the symbols of our faith: the flaming chalice, in the shape of across, standing tall within both circles.
So our symbol has evolved since then up to today. Today you see the flaming chalice on stoles and banners at demonstrations against injustice. We also often light the chalice whenever we gather, be it at worship services, committee meetings, or children’s faith formation classes.
I share this story with you, President Zelensky, for two reasons. First, to tell you that even in darkness, you are not alone. There will always be people, like those working for the USC back in 1941, who are willing to risk everything in order to help those being persecuted. To light the light. My religious denomination is small—there are only about 153,000 of us here in the U.S. and about 800,000 around the world. But we punch well above our weight, as the saying goes. And as long as we breathe, as long as our flame burns, you can count on us.
The second reason I share this story with you is that I know children are important to you. Many Ukrainian children have been stolen from their homeland and relocated to Russia for, quote, re-education. But it’s more than that. You aren’t just fighting for your people here and now. You are fighting for the future of the free world. You are fighting for our children and our children’s children.
So I think you will appreciate this little bit of trivia about our flaming chalice, for it involves children. I mentioned that we light our flaming chalice at the beginning of our worship services, and you might think that this is an ancient practice, or at least going back to World War II. In fact, we’ve only been doing it since the 1980s.
No one is really sure how our chalice went from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional object used in worship. We’re pretty sure, though, that this practice we now take for granted came out of our children’s religious education programs. The curricula we used in the late Seventies stressed the meaning of the chalice and encouraged our children to make chalices in different media [just like our children here are doing today]. Eventually, those chalices morphed into objects that could be lit. As far as we can tell, the first use of the chalice in our sanctuaries came from Sundays when the children and youth led worship and demonstrated their practice to the adult congregation.
So the story of our chalice, Mr. President, begins with Nazi resisters and ends with children leading the way. And what those two groups have in common is the last thing I want to tell you about. How’s the borscht, by the way?
President Zelensky, I’m a minister. That means a lot of things, but one thing it most certainly does not mean is that I have all the answers. It also doesn’t mean I am somehow spiritually inoculated from the hurt and harm of the current state of the world. I fret. I worry. I spend too much time reading news updates—I mean, in our defense, these days we ministers need to check the news on Sunday mornings to make sure that, come 10:45 or so when we launch into our sermons, we’re not already out of date with the times. Things are changing quickly.
What it does mean, though, is that I do have a few tools in my toolbelt—not unlike you, who showed the world on Friday that a guy who started out in comedy improv knows how to handle a couple of hecklers. One of my tools is reading the spiritual room. Not just hearing what people are saying but feeling what they’re feeling, kind of a high-order empath, except that a minister needs to do something with the vibrations they’re picking up from the feed. I’m really just a spiritual transcriptionist. At my best, when the spirit speaks, I’m just taking dictation. When I preach or pray, I’m really just picking up on what is already in the air, coming to me from others, and translating it back to them in words we can all understand but that the spirits can’t utter.
And what I’m picking up on from you, Mr. President, is the same thing I think happened back in 1941, when our flaming chalice symbol was born, and in the 1980s, when children, invited into our sanctuaries, were inspired to bring their candles and chalices with them, and in so doing inspiring us all. I call these events chalice moments. Chalice moments are moments we can’t predict, moments when the spark suddenly catches the wick and flame bursts forth. They are moments of pure courage, pure bravery, and creative flow. Our flaming chalice being used as a symbol of trust in World War II and the practice of lighting a chalice rather than drinking from it that evolved in the 1980s had no precedent. Those ideas seemingly came from nowhere. But I think they came from somewhere, Mr. President, and I think you’ve been there yourself.
President Zelensky, when Russia invaded your country three years ago, you suddenly became a wartime president. You hadn’t trained for this. But ever since you stepped onto the world stage, you have inspired millions around the world with your courage, your resilience, your passion, and your tenacity. In my parlance, we would say that was your chalice moment, although I think you’ve had many more since. This past Friday, when you were set upon by the two heads of our executive branch before the world, and you responded calmly and with facts, that was another chalice moment. Yes, you have had your detractors concerning that moment, but around the world, people cheered you. In you we recognized the awesome power of love, justice, and righteousness, the righteousness flowing down like waters that the prophet Amos spoke of in the Hebrew Bible.
With so much on the line right now, I like to think the rest of us are ready for our chalice moment. And the question becomes, Where do we draw the strength for that?
I imagine some of us would like to just go on living our lives, being with family, hanging out with friends, going out, watching our favorite shows, planning trips … coming to church on Sunday and participating in our religious community, those of us who have one. Learning. Loving. Playing. Goofing off. It would be nice to just do that, and there is nothing wrong with that. We all have the right to live our lives as we choose, as long as we’re not hurting anyone. I know that in your country, Mr. President, life goes on, the people may be weary but they are also remarkably resilient despite the drones and the bombing. For us, it’s different. As you pointed out in the Oval Office on Friday, we have an ocean between us and those who might threaten us. We’ve never had another country invade us with the intent to take our land and our culture.
But you see … that chalice flame. It burns. Here at First Parish in Taunton—it’s a city south of Boston, where Unitarianism took off in America—in my congregation, at the beginning of our worship services we refer to our chalice as the light of reason, the warmth of community, the fire of commitment and the flame of hope.
And we say these words:
The light from this chalice emboldens us
To inspire spiritual growth to connect with one another
And to serve the wider community in love
Did you hear that, Mr. President? The light from this chalice emboldens us. It’s not just a candle. It’s not just a flame. It’s a whole history of fighting for religious freedom and spiritual growth. Fighting for a community’s autonomy. That history goes all the way back to Eastern Europe, your neighborhood, to the part of Hungary that became Transylvania, when King John Sigismund, the first Unitarian king, declared an edict of religious freedom for congregations in 1568.
So fighting for freedom literally goes with your territory, President Zelensky. And it is part of our religious landscape, too. However, just as we Americans have often taken our freedom for granted, it may also be true that we Unitarian Universalists have often taken our religious freedom for granted. I suspect that may be changing right about now. I suspect that as we watch our American civil liberties being wiped away in a chaotic way, kind of like when a child shakes an Etch A Sketch, we are, figuratively speaking, reaching for our chalices and gazing into the flame.
It's not 1941 Europe, but we are concerned about refugees being captured and taken away.
There aren’t Nazi informers lurking about, but we are worried about Nazism.
There isn’t a need to communicate in code, but to be honest, with our personal data possibly being scrutinized by people with an agenda, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
There is a darkness about it all. We know it. We feel it.
In other words, this, right now, just might be our chalice moment. And just as I marvel at where you, President Zelensky, found your courage, how you found your voice, I also marvel at the fact that we might be able to do the same. Because no one can predict what they will do in a decisive moment, a chalice moment. As the Episcopalian bishop of Washington, D.C., Mariann Budde, wrote—you’d like her; she’s a lot like you: “The courage to be brave when it matters most requires a lifetime of small decisions that set us on a path of self-awareness, attentiveness, and willingness to risk failure for what we believe is right.” Choosing one’s religion may not be a small decision, but it can lead to that lifetime of small decisions Budde refers to. Should I go to church today? Do I chat with someone after church? Do I check out what protests are going on locally? Are there vulnerable people in our community who need help?
I don’t know about you, Mr. President, but I almost think what Budde talks about—self-awareness, attentiveness, and a willingness to risk all—is progressive, as in, one-two-three order. First, it’s important to be self-aware. And engaging fully with one’s faith tradition can help with that. When we ponder matters of the spirit, we can’t help but come face to face with ourselves.
Second, attentiveness. When we tire of paying attention to ourselves and expand our view to the outside world, we become concerned. The more we pay attention, the more we want to do something about what we see. We can’t turn away from what we see. We can’t turn away from the flame.
Third, the willingness to risk failure. That’s always the risk, isn’t it? When your country was invaded by the second most powerful military in the world, President Zelensky, did you think about whether you would ultimately win or lose? I wonder if it mattered. Because you knew what was right, because you knew what was at stake—because you gazed into the flame—to stand down because you might risk failure probably never entered your mind.
Mr. President, I salute you. You have shown the world how to be brave. On a more personal level, you have inspired this Unitarian Universalist minister to look at our symbol of the flaming chalice anew, and see it not as a symbol but as a source. Not as a ritual, but as a strategy. Like a soldier approaching the front lines, I am drawn to the flame. Like a child leading the way, I am willing to try something new. Like the president of a country that is free, yes, still free after three years of bombardment, I and my people suddenly find ourselves brave enough to stand up and be a light unto the darkness. Thank you, President Zelenskyy, for being the spark.
З повагою — Sincerely,
Rob
The Flaming Chalice. Copyright ©2020 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.