I'm a UU because I like being offended. I enjoy the learning experience that comes from sermons that strike nerves with me, fellow members who have very different answers and questions than I do, and folks who know little about UU who think they have it all figured out.
I get a kick out of holding the complex and somewhat contradictory concept of being intolerant of intolerance. You know you're a UU at heart when you understand that. And I love being able to be myself here...and to be accepted and loved for that.
I'd like to tell you that I had a long and arduous road to get to our church. I'd like to say that the UU church came to me after a spiritual awakening. I'd like to say that I'm a religious refugee struggling for answers. But I can't say any of those things. Although I was born to an Irish/Italian Catholic family, we were not very pious and only occasionally attended Mass. My wife and I had a civil marriage, and although we later had our vows blessed in the Catholic Church, we were intermittent worshipers. By the way, an intermittent worshiper is not much different from an intermittent wiper, where you can never get the intermittance to align just right with the need.
Looking back, it seems likely that we never felt like we belonged to the various churches that we attended. Nothing really fit. The truth is that we weren't looking for answers because we didn't know what the questions were. I heard many wonderful messages during the years from many excellent priests and pastors. But they were all too certain for what I've always felt was an uncertain world.
This reminds me of something Somerset Maugham once wrote:
"Sometimes, people hit upon a place to which they mysteriously feel that they belong. Here is the home they sought, and they will settle amid scenes that they have never seen before, among people they have never known, as though they were familiar to them from their birth. Here, at last, do they find rest."
And then I stumbled into a UU church. And you really do have to stumble into one because there's almost no such thing as an evangelical UU. And I knew that I had "hit upon a place to which" I "mysteriously felt that I belonged." And it felt right. Everyone struggling to find answers and questions were welcomed. There is no dogma, but faith overflows. A church where you'll find no Saints and plenty of humans.
The Nottingham UU church was also a serendipitous finding. Kelli and I had belonged to the Concord UU church, but, you know, for pragmatic UU members, driving 45 minutes during snow storms to attend church was not reasonable. Heck, driving 45 minutes in nice weather to attend church was not reasonable.
Then we saw a flyer for an event at the Nottingham church. We came to the event and then to a service. Again, I felt like I belonged and welcomed. And what a wonderful group of people to belong with. And this is very powerful, because religion is far too big a job for any one person. It takes a team and we use that teamwork to amplify our voices in song and in our efforts to make our community a more just place for all people. The great systems thinker, Peter Senge once wrote of this experience:
"When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience. People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative. It become quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest. Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit."
That's what keeps me coming back. This sense of being connected and generative and weaving a common fabric of life. I hope to never let this collective spirit escape me so that I don't have to search for it again.
