If you’ve read this blog previously, you know that last spring I came to realize a vocation for ministry, one I am hoping to fullfil in a lay capacity. As such I really threw myself into church this year. I’ve been part of the small group ministry program for several years and this year am the chair of the committee. I began a discernment group with others considering ministry. I’m sitting on the intern committee. In November I brought a Compassionate Listening Workshop to the church. All this to say I’m there a lot. And I find myself falling in love with my church. Which I think is why I think YAUU’s post really struck a chord.

This doesn’t mean people aren’t driving me crazy. There are a few. This doesn’t mean I haven’t found myself in difficult situation. There have been many. I feel like my every weakness button has been pushed.

But I also feel like I have been shown so many people’s hearts this fall. Been shown their hopes and worries, their incredible strengths and gifts. I’m falling in love with my church.

YAUU says he likes church people because:

1. They know the value of face-to-face contact
2. They tend to be more courteous to and interested in others
3. They like books
4. They know that showing up is crucial

Le me reiterate #3. As a book geek I really appreciate this quality in others.

And let me add that I like church people because:

1. They are willing to imagine the world more holistically, to see that there are other ways to make it better than just being good consumers — the message that we, as Americans, get at every turn
2. They believe that it does take a village
3. They are willing to wrestle with the big questions
4. They offer me hugs without me having to ask — my hug quotient has risen exponentially

What do you like about church folks?

Anyway, I was talking to my therapist the other day about my struggles with leadership and what has become the quite onerous task of chairing a committee. I don’t remember exactly what got us to this point but at some moment my therapist used a surprisingly religious word: “abiding.” It really struck a chord and has unfolded for me over the last several days.

To “abide” or “abide with” is to wait. Of course the Oxford English Dictionary has about 22 variations on this but they essentially add up to this idea of waiting. There’s a subtext in the word abide though, a subtext of “patience” and maybe too of “trust.” In religious contexts we often hear that God is abiding in or with us, or we are asked what it might mean for us to abide in God. To have a sense of patience that things will unfold and become clear—or clearer anyway—in their own right time.

It’s extremely difficult, especially as a 21st century rational skeptic, to have patience with God. For a culture now used to getting answers to anything we want as fast as our 3G networks will facilitate a Google search, God’s time can be a real challenge.

But apparently it can be just as challenging to abide in and with ourselves. For our core, essential, authentic self to abide—to wait patiently, trustingly—with our Ego, our inhibitions, our insecurities. How can we abide with ourselves as we make mistakes, as we act from our petty or scared places, as we face situations that challenge our greatest weaknesses? When we are able to abide—to wait patiently, trustingly—then we can learn and grow without judging ourselves, without beating ourselves up. By abiding we can love ourselves in all our human frailty.

My favorite? The titillating-god-by-splitting-particles-in-the-Large-Hadron-Collider bit. I mean, what happens if they actually find (or is it produce?) the Higgs boson particle? Would that be the equivalent of a galaxial orgasm? I have to think that the universe is probably multi-orgasmic, don’t you?

Large Hadron Collider Altar

As I’ve been learning lately, I think you’ll get some pretty different answers to this question depending on whether your talking to a “convert” or someone who’s been born and raised UU.

I discovered the UU church six years ago so I guess I’d be in the convert category, though in may ways it felt like a coming home.

At the time I was an atheist/agnostic and suffering from clinical depression and anxiety. It was one of the lowest moments of my life and my spirit it was in desperate need of attention. As an atheist it seemed my only options for spiritual inquiry was the zendo, which I had tried on and off for many years, but for me all that talk of emptiness was kind of the problem. I longed to stop feeling so empty, I longed to be filled up. I have a great respect for many Buddhist teachings and in today’s consumer driven global economy I think all the time about how desire creates suffering. The other day I wrote about how my attachment, even subconsciously, to a particular definition or image of God was creating suffering. But as much as my philosophy and theology may be informed by Buddhism, it was not fulfilling my spiritual needs. What spoke to me, what defined UUism to me when I first came, was that 4^th principle—our individual search for truth and meaning in community. That call to religious freedom encouraged me to set down the anger I carried from my birth tradition and actually begin to engage religion and a life of the spirit from a proactive, instead of reactive, stance.

A lot has changed in the past six years. I am no longer an atheist, for one thing. For another I have begun to let myself be informed by the other 7 principles. But a big part of my identity as a UU is about the spiritual healing I found here. It is a part of the story of most UU converts. I don’t think a of UU born-and-bred would say the same.

If my definition of a UU is in part someone seeking spiritual healing and growth, the other part is around the 7 principles, is around our commitment to tolerance and acceptance and the desire to build a world where all are heard, all are respected, a world of multiplicity and of unity.