Services at First UU Springfield typically include a variety of references to outside literature, but this, of course, is far from a rare trait in churches—after all, what preacher does not sometimes feel the need to illustrate a significant point with an amusing anecdote or thoughtful quote from a reliable source? However, the authors referenced or quoted (sometimes at length) at First UU Springfield are, as one might expect, considerably more diverse than the range of references produced at, for example, an “average” Springfield Baptist church. This does not mean that any given member of First UU Springfield is more well-read than a parishioner at a Baptist church, but by considering the diversity of the authors openly endorsed by the church members and service leaders, one might go some way towards revealing the collective personality of First UU Springfield.
The church’s references move with ease from twentieth century popular poets like Adrienne Rich and Denise Levertov to the transcendentalists—Whitman, Emerson, and especially Thoreau, who has been quoted and referenced more than any other author at First UU Springfield—and romantic poets like Longfellow. The transcendentalists and romanticists convey us to more remote literatures: ancient religious and philosophical texts from the East and the West and the spiritual teachings of Native American tribal leaders are presented as the archaeological inheritance of a common human past, read with a perennialist’s eye for the contemporary application of “universal truths.” Original cultural and historical referents obscured, these quick hit-and-run quotes are suitably recast and repurposed to sit beside each other as if they are relatives gathered at a family reunion, a collection if not a veritable collision of authors and sources—sacred and secular—which traverse borders both spatial and temporal.
