A few years back, the former minister of my congregation did a sermon series that has really stuck with me. It was called “Words that Unite, Words that Divide,” and for nearly half a church year, we wrestled with all the terms that tend to make UUs twitchy.

We dug into words like evangelism, holy, heretic, prayer, Jesus, and God. It was a fascinating exercise, but you couldn’t help but notice the common thread: nearly all the words that get under our collective, highly-educated skin are the ones with roots in theism, and Christianity in particular.

This discomfort is so ironic, because we Unitarian Universalists are quite proud of ourselves, aren’t we? We are the people of the wide circle, the big tent, the pluralistic path. We draw from the deep wells of world religions and philosophies, from science and from poetry, from Earth-centered traditions and direct experience. We are, in theory, the champions of radical inclusion.

Which is why, when the UUA dared to post the prayer of a fellow UU online that began with, say, “Dear Holy Spirit,” and the comment section turned into a trash pit of militant atheists freaking out over those two words, I have to say…my flabbers were more than mildly gasted.

From some of the reactions, you’d have thought the author had addressed their prayer to the concept of non-recyclable plastics, or perhaps the inventor of the pop-up ad. The wailing and gnashing of teeth, the immediate recoil, the chorus of “That’s not my UUism!” all because of two little words.

The entire point of the prayer—being open to relationships of accountability and support and allowing them shape us in meaningful and powerful ways—was lost in a flash of dogmatic allergy to a two-word-phrase. And the more people [including me] tried to point out they were not only missing the point of the prayer but actively illustrating what happens when we don’t live into the spirit of it, the more they dug in.

Oh the irony.

Now, let me be clear.

I’m what I’ve decided to call a HUUM: a Humanist Unitarian Universalist Mystic.

I don’t personally believe in a conscious, interventionist deity. But it’s not that difficult for me to see a Jewish person praying to G-d, a Muslim to Allah, or a Christian to the Holy Spirit, and respect it for what it is: their heartfelt, sincere expression of a deep connection. My job isn’t to shut down because I don’t share the salutation. My job is to listen, to use my very capable brain and heart to think about their prayer, and to see if there are any golden threads of universal truth in their words that resonate with my own path as a HUUM.

I’d like to think that we all, as adult UU’s, are capable of that.

Honestly, it reminds me of how we handled Santa Claus in our house.

We don’t “do” Santa.

When the kids were little, the second to youngest was genuinely terrified by the idea of a strange man watching her [he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake] and then breaking into our house while she slept. It led to two consecutive Decembers of nightmares and a child who refused to sleep in her own bed. After a screaming, frantic meltdown because the mall Santa waved at her one afternoon, we came clean. We explained that Santa was a story, a lovely one for most kids, but just a story. And it’s a story we don’t have to participate in. So now, every year after Halloween from that point forward, we have a family meeting to lay down our holiday rule about Santa: we don’t shit on other people’s fun.

This means more than just not telling other kids Santa isn’t real. It means we don’t mock the belief. We don’t make sarcastic jokes about reindeer. We don’t tell other families they are doing it wrong. Instead, we engage with kindness and curiosity. We ask friends, “What are you most excited about this holiday?” or “What are your favorite traditions?” We con share in their joy and the spirit of the season without ever needing to lie or belittle their beliefs. We respect their reality, even if it isn’t ours.

And my kids get it. I’ve not had one complaint of my kids spoiling anyone’s fun.

So if my kids can get it, why, oh why, is this so hard for some of us to do with religion?

I see humanist and atheist UUs, people I know are brilliant and compassionate, have an absolute meltdown online because a UU organization shares something with theistic language. They miss the entire harvest because they’re hung up on a single grain of vocabulary.

I get it. For many, Christianity in particular is a source of real trauma and pain. But the people who inflicted that pain are generally NOT the same people who find their way into UU circles, and they do not get to own the language exclusively. They don’t have a copyright on the word “holy.” And we, the people of radical acceptance, need to stop letting them live rent-free in our heads and dictating our reactions to it.

Because believe it or not, it is possible to retrofit that language.

Things are holy because we make them so.

For me, the ancient giants of Muir Woods are holy. The impossible blue of a Newfoundland sky is a sacred sight. An iceberg is my cathedral.

And spirit?

Please.

We literally sing to the “Spirit of Life” every flippin’ Sunday.

What about the spirit of community? The spirit of justice? The spirit of love, of awe, of wonder?

When someone says “Holy Spirit,” they might see the third member of the Trinity. But our minds are absolutely free to go elsewhere. I think of the sacred, connecting essence—the spirit—that runs through the awe I feel looking at that iceberg, the warmth of my wife’s smile, the feeling of a strong hug from someone you haven’t seen in years, the smell of petrichor in the woods on a summer afternoon. That profound, connecting feeling is a Holy Spirit to me.

It is not that hard.

It’s an act of translation, not betrayal.

Our strength as a faith is our pluralism. Our covenant is to walk together in our differences. If we claim to draw inspiration from many sources, we must have the emotional courage and intellectual flexibility to look at the words of other faiths, including Christianity, and not flinch. We must have the grace to allow our fellow UUs who do find meaning in that faith, and comfort in its language, to have their seat at the table without being told their words are unwelcome.

It’s time to draw the circle wide.

Truly wide.

Wide enough to stop being Santa….err, SPIRIT spoilers and start listening for universal truths, no matter what names they’re called by.