We live between two realities. The basic feeling of life is one of separation; each of us is an isolated individual. But the power of Universalism is built on the fact that each of us is not isolated; each is connected, "in mystery and miracle, to the universe" and to all other souls. The reality of death divides us from those we love, takes them from our presence. In this season of candidates we are quite aware of how we are divided from others over politics, personalities, and the clash of cultures. Thus, though we long for a world community of peace and justice, we must live somewhere between that vision and the reality of division. We know there are many who live by exclusive visions of humanity, denying our connectedness. We may even have to fight fiercely against those who refuse to join the community of all souls, while at the same time we must keep calling them to connect.

I was thinking of this several weeks ago when I came across a little noticed news story, written by Adelle M. Banks: Saturday, September 27, 2008; "Bishop Carlton Pearson, who has been publicly criticized for teaching that all people will go to heaven, has folded his Oklahoma church into a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Pearson's New Dimensions Worship Center began meeting at the All Souls Unitarian Church... in June, the Tulsa World reported. Pearson said he and his family would make All Souls their home church, and he encouraged [his church] members to worship there as well."

The moment I read this piece I was surprised. It was quite unexpected news to me and seemed to evoke a huge change, for both congregations. Then I thought to myself, "Someone is doing something right." This is the true meaning of inclusion, this is universalism in its fullest. I have been involved with anti-racism and ethnic diversity activities in our Association since the 1990s and I was amazed to see we had actually made a difference. Other UU congregations have tried to be inclusive, but despite our radically inclusive vision and hope, we have tended to reflect the segregated habits of American society. When people of different ethnic groups come together there is often friction between expectations and assumptions. Even the most well meaning will follow ancient lines of division. But Carlton Pearson, and the leaders of All Souls UU in Tulsa are trying to make a difference.

I first heard of Carlton Pearson from one of my colleagues in Tulsa. She told me of a church had become more interested in social justice than in promoting an exclusive Pentecostal Christianity and she was trying to get him to work with the UUs. Several months later I heard his full story on an episode of "This American Life." To summarize Carlton Pearson was a very successful Pentecostal preacher, a follower of Oral Roberts, who got into trouble when he began speaking openly in 2000 of what he said God had revealed: that Hell is the consequence of our actions in this world, the result of our failure to realize that we have all already been saved, and that Hell will not prevail forever but will end when God reforms and reconciles all things.

The first lesson of Pearson's story is that you are more hated by authoritarian Christians if you reject the idea of an eternal Hell than if you are caught frequenting a prostitute or stealing money from the faithful. Oral Roberts, his religious father, turned from him in shame. He was denounced by the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops, and even his church's buses were not allowed onto the campus of his alma mater, Oral Roberts University. His huge national Asuza conferences weakened and then ended all together. Eventually his congregation of more than 6000 dwindled to a couple of hundred. Financial contributions dropped at the rate of tens of thousands a week. Soon the bank foreclosed on his church, selling off their building and property. Rejected, and religiously homeless, they began to associate with the rejected of the world. This was when he began talking with Unitarian Universalists and working with a lesbian United Church of Christ minister. His congregation began to meet in a UCC church building for their worship on Sunday afternoons. So I assumed he would become a UCC minister and his congregation would merge with the liberal United Church of Christ, (who I will remind you worked with us on our excellent O.W.L. sexuality curricula.) But then I read that they, who affirm the salvation of all souls, decided to be folded into a church named All Souls.

According to Ms. Banks' article, "Pearson said he chose All Souls because of its inclusive atmosphere, accepting gays, blacks and people of all beliefs or none."

"I wanted a place where my people could find safe harbor," he told the Tulsa newspaper. "They're already outcasts in the evangelical charismatic community."

I heard a recording of Pearson speaking at All Souls in September. He said that over the years he had driven by the church often. "I tried many times to cast out the devils and bind the evil spirits," he said, "and after all that casting out I was cast in." But the change is not only in him congregation. UUs for all our history has not been stellar in racial and ethnic issues. Our culture is more defined by upper middle class, educated, white culture than by our vision of inclusion. The two most notorious stories of our history being the isolated Harlem ministry of Ethelred Brown, and the BUUC/BAWA controversy of 1968. Meanwhile other work was being done, so that in 1997 our national organization and Association board proclaimed that we would become an anti-racist, multicultural organization. "Senior Minister Marlin Lavanhar of All Souls said the addition of several hundred people with a black Pentecostal worship style has enlivened his mostly white congregation. "The 'amens' and the 'right ons' pull something out of you when you preach," Lavanhar told the Tulsa World. "There's a lot of laughter and tears. We've never been so free in worship."

This is the vision of this congregation, that we can and should break down the walls of fear and misunderstanding that divide us. That is why so many of us have welcomed foreign students into our homes, made friends with people of different cultures, forged relationships with people from all across the globe. That vision encourages us to learn other languages or to work for equal justice in the world. This week as we go to the polls I expect you to vote with this vision in mind. Vote for inclusion, vote for a world with all its people one. Vote for equal treatment and equal opportunity. Vote against fear and division and hatred. And no matter who wins, keep affirming the great truth of community. As the great Unitarian Preacher, A. Powell Davies, once said:

"Here we are – all of us- all upon this planet, bound together in a common destiny, living our lives between the briefness of the daylight and the dark. Kindred in this, each lighted by the same precarious, flickering flame of life, how does it happen that we are not kindred in all things else? How strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us." The image of perfect unity demands that we claim our inter-connectedness and the union of all souls.

Today is called el dia de los muertos in Central Mexico. In some pagan, especially Celtic, traditions it is near the day in which the veil between the souls of the dead and the living is the thinest; a time when one can communicate between the two, so to speak. In the Roman Catholic tradition it is also called All Souls Day and is a day to commemorate the faithful departed only, all Catholic souls. But the original and literal meaning of the word "catholic" is "of the whole" or "universal." Thus we UUs commemorate all souls, as in every single one. Of course we place special emphasis on those who those who were most beloved or important to us personally. We remember the beloved dead because that memory reminds us that our lives are built on lives that have come before. Today we remember that our lives are all "lighted by the same precarious flickering flame of life" and that we are all bound in the same destiny. Those who are gone the echo of their lives continues to this day. I want you to think of those who inspired or modeled in you the dream and hope and practice of one world, those who knew that under the sky we are all one people.

Our radical vision is that everyone will some day join the communion of all souls, not just join a UU Church with the name of All Souls, but join the beloved community the ultimate truth that is evoked by that name. On this day let us commemorate all souls, and especially those that are dear to this home of the spirit.