The Hands-on Religion Project

Much of the art I’ve seen at our churches celebrates nature; and that certainly is part of Respect for the Web.  But I wanted to get at the ethics of our religion; how could I show that?  It’s hard to picture beliefs or principles; but if those beliefs count for anything; they must manifest by our actions.  And actions can be expressed by our hands.  So the challenge was to express our UU Principles with hands.  Thus was born this Hands-on Religion project.

At the time I was a fledgling Unitarian Universalist, so this was an opportunity to dig into our principles and practice what they preached.  The deeper I got the more I realized that each had to be expressed by different hands.  Each picture would have two hands, and the principle would be expressed as an action between the hands.   I found that I was meditating on each principle as a relation with two sides.  I had to free my thoughts from partiality and accept an opposite perspective.  In so doing, I found that I was practicing tolerance of mind and empathy of feelings.  Hands-on Religion was not only the object of the project, but the process itself.   Hands-on Religion by hands-on religion.   The project was morphing into a spiritual experience by leaving old biases and seeing new balances. 

After I envisioned the hand positions and perspectives, I drew them so that a photographer could take the picture.  And the best professional photographer I knew was my brother-in-law Jim Strickland, www.JimStricklandPhoto.com.  After he took the pictures I would scan and manipulate the photos in the computer to accentuate the symbolic at the expense of accuracy.  Yet it still was not enough. I needed a bridge connecting the graphic to the principle and decided to create poems which would give insight to the principle as applied and inspire your own interpretations of the pictures.

I hope that you found some inspiration, some insight, and even some challenge in these works that will help you practice our principles, and engage in hands-on religion.  Wally

Wally Myers retired from teaching computer applications in high schools and elementary schools.  He was a school representative for the National Association of Educators.  He has been a UU for 20 years and a member of UUFR since coming to Raleigh in 1999.  He and his wife, Margaret Peeples, enjoy participating in the Sunday Morning Forum discussions.  He is involved with the peace movement and was the Chair of NC Peace Action and past President of the local Eisenhower Chapter of Veterans For Peace.  He is also impressed with the peace practices of Tibetan Buddhism. His website is www.BridgesToBuddhism.org