c. 2007 Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. _ On a recent Sunday afternoon, Mary Grace McCord lined up with about 200 others at Unity of Birmingham church, all of them ready to burn.

They clutched wallet-sized sheets of paper, scribbled with the baggage of their lives: bad habits, negative behavior or what other churches call sin.

One by one, they approached the altar. As a symbol of letting go of the bad in 2007, they lit their papers from a white pillar candle, representing the positive energy of Jesus. Then they tossed them into a metal urn from a florist’s shop.

“Burn, baby, burn,” McCord whispered with a smile, as words like “worry,” “self-consciousness” and “selfishness” withered to ashes.

“There are things we would be better off releasing,” McCord said afterward. “Doing this motivates me to let it go.”

The yearly ceremony, which dates back about 50 years in the Unity church and hundreds of years in other cultures and faiths, is joyous. There’s plenty of hugging and humor. As the negativity burned, a jazzy instrumental version of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” played in the background.

As part of the ritual, Unity members also wrote letters to themselves, outlining goals for the year. The church mails out the self-addressed, sealed envelopes in December for them to review their progress.

A third element of the ceremony has participants penning thank-you letters to God, signifying their faith in upcoming blessings.

Khadija Jahfiya, 13, has “burned” since she was 4. This time, she focused on bad grades and gossip.

“It makes me feel replenished, like I’m starting a new, positive way,” Khadija said.

The love and positive thinking are core teachings of Unity.

The ceremony capped the Rev. Gerald “Jerry” Bartholow’s message of positive energy thwarting negative behavior.

“Any time we complain or criticize, we set up an energy that destroys us, our health, our wealth and our happiness,” Bartholow said. “The new year is a time of turning to our God energy and changing old ways.”

Carol Kennedy and her mother, Evelyn McDonald, are ceremony veterans of more than 20 years.

“I burn the same thing every year, but I see it diminishing,” Kennedy said of her struggle with fear. “This is another form of prayer, but it’s not the norm for the masses.”

McDonald, who procrastinates, holds her own burning ceremonies.

“It makes it more a part of my consciousness. It’s like peeling an onion,” McDonald said.

Kennedy said she doesn’t always discuss these elements of her faith, because they can be “frowned upon.”

Several members said the ceremony is sometimes misinterpreted as witchcraft or pagan.

Unity teaches a model of Jesus’ life in the New Testament, but members believe negativity is created only by humans, not any Satan-like figure. Unity upholds unconditional love and positive attitudes, but not the need for saving relationships with Jesus to atone for sins. Humans, they say, have the same power as Christ for loving and forgiving.

“We don’t have any `shoulds,”’ said Bartholow.

However, the rituals are not high-profile among the public.

“The burning ceremonies are not a practice of mainline Christian groups,” said Paul House, assistant dean at Beeson Divinity School at the Baptist-affiliated Samford University. “Things like this, though, appear throughout history. The Lord’s Supper, baptism, praying in the desert. It’s all in the form of symbols to be closer to God.

“If it helps you concentrate or visualize, OK. But are you closer to God just because of the act? No.”

(Kelli Hewett Taylor writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.)

KRE/PH END TAYLOR

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