By |

So many things I wonder…

 I wonder about Union Theological – here’s a link to the tour video; it’s in the first few seconds that I saw in living color the sanctuary I have imagined in decades of dreams and meditations (although on second look, I see this one is enclosed with glass whereas my imagined one isn’t…but the rest of it’s the same).  

I wonder about my thoughts even ten years ago, when I said “if I didn’t get an MFA, I might get a masters in something like religion or theology.” I didn’t see myself in any type of ministry before, but I definitely had the thoughts about furthering my education in religion.

I wonder if I’m insightful enough; I am constantly amazed at how good the ministers in my life are at deep thoughts, compassion, saying the right things, etc. I fear my gifts in that are haphazard at best.

I wonder about my business – will there be any meaningful work after this current project is complete? I don’t see anything on the immediate horizon and that scares the hell out of me.

I wonder if this is just another in a long line of attempts at making meaning. You look at my resume, and I have done a bunch of very different things – and whether they lasted a year or five, I haven’t seemed to stay with any one thing for very long. If I turn away from publishing, after realizing how much I love it, am I just continuing my fickle ways? And what happens in five years after I try ministry? Do I walk away from that for the next cool ‘calling’?

I wonder, if I’m not meant to go into traditional ministry, what my path would be, given what I know, what I love, what I appear to be good at. And more to the point, how will I figure it out? Do I make it up as I go along? That’s not exactly been working out well for me so far…

 I wonder if I will ever figure this out or if I’m (frustratingly) meant to always been in nomad mode – wandering, waiting, wondering, never truly finding home – and of all the thoughts I wonder, this is the one that makes me the saddest and angriest. I’m tired. So tired. I’m tired of wandering in the desert. It hasn’t been 40 years…yet…but we’re nearing that. How long, oh lord, how long? What other mistakes do I have to pay for before I finally get to rest? How much more penance must I do? What else do I have to do to satisfy God? What else do I have to do before I get a little relief? One little answer? One hint that maybe there is a home somewhere for me? I’m so tired of wondering and wandering and worrying and waiting…so tired…

By |

I feel unsettled today… wondering which way to go, how to proceed, how to parse the publishing business with the sense of call to ministry, and how/if this relationship will both grow and fit into whatever the choice is.

Of course, there’s the possibility that a choice never needs to be made – that I can sustain both a thriving business and some form of lay ministry that doesn’t require I give up anything.

But I get the sense that that is serving two masters… and I don’t know if I have it in me to do that.

And… there is the question of memory. Do I have the mental ability to go back to school? Can I retain enough to pass tests? And after that – would I have the mental ability to serve people, remember their details, help them?

And of course there is the question of money. I am not making enough now to support myself; how can I possibly expect to have enough to go back to school?

I ask myself, why is this even on the table… there are no practical reasons to think about it. On paper it is a non-starter.

And yet.

Something keeps drawing me to think seriously about it. And then… wanting to find the path that works, maybe in lay ministry of some sort.

I worry that the paths available to me in the UU are limited – ministry, religious education, music, governance. I don’t know that what I want to do fits in anywhere, and that worries me a little too.

I know I want more. I want to serve. I want to preach. I want to heal. I want to answer God’s call.

I just don’t know what that is.

By |

What is it about the ocean that feeds my soul?

I recently spent several days on the Florida coast, soaking in the sea air, the sand, the surf, the constant and relentless rhythm of the waves, the ebb and flow of the tides. I swam, splashed, gazed, and absorbed.

And in some ways I feel nourished.

Now I’m not, in general, a nature-feeds-me kind of gal. And yet, I can feel my soul soak in divine goodness from the first whiff of salt-steeped air.

I know that I come to the ocean for answers…or at least to explore questions. High on my mind are questions about my future – which path do I take? What do I do with a growing need to serve my religious community, which on one level is in sharp contrast with my growing publishing business? How do they fit together? How do they fit with this growing but still uncertain relationship? Can my spiritual path be in concert with, rather than in opposition with his?

Truth is, I have an incredibly hard time seeing the future. I don’t know what it is I want on a practical level – although I know what the emotional/psychological vision is. I spent a good hour bobbing in the waves, wondering and thinking, and seeing no answers.

Except – I know I am letting go of a fear/belief that I will die early. And that in itself is an answer, I suppose.

But I digress.

I do feel nourished…rested, fed, and at the very least, ready for the next thing. I just wonder what that will be.

By |

A few weeks ago, the lovely and delightful Alie , one of our congregation’s youth who had just graduated from high school, asked me to sing Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” at her service. She was to talk about growing up in our congregation and heading out to the next phase of her life.

Alie is a delightful young woman – the very model of what we wish every child could be. She is articulate, deep thinking, compssionate, active. She has put her faith into action, traveling to El Salvador and Guatemala to work in impoverished neighborhoods. She worked tirelessly to help improve our building by getting a playground installed. She is bright and funny and beautiful inside and out. I have often thought that if I had had children, Alie is the kind of child I’d have wanted to raise.

So when she asked me to sing, the answer was, of course, ‘of course’. What a delight and honor to be asked!

Now I have loved this song for years – but never before did it bring me to tears, until this moment. I spent two weeks listening to the song and trying to practice it, but I could never get through without crying. But, trooper that I am, I bucked up and found ways to distance myself from the song. I figured I was in pretty good shape.

Sunday morning. I read the order of service and it includes more tearjerkers: A Rose in the Wintertime and Let it Be a Dance. Robert Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled.” Andrew Gold’s “Thank You for Being a Friend.”

I was toast.

But… I am a professional, so I cried during the hymn and responsive reading and spent the sermon listening but also girding myself. Alie was talking about lessons she had learned about caring – various events, various people. She talked about Kevin O’Brien, whose organization Nueva Esperanza Del Norte  was her entree into international charitable work. And then, she mentioned my name.

I gasped.

She relayed the story of how contentious Joys and Sorrows are in Worship committee; some believe it’s too long as it is. Others think we don’t give enough room for those who are sorrowful to be cared for. And what of the juxtaposition of joys with sorrows? Does it honor or dishonor those who have spoken?

Alie told about a time a couple of months ago when I shared a sorrow. My Uncle Flavio had died – meaning all of my aunts and uncles, along with my parents, are now deceased. Flavio had four children – and sometime in the early 90s, the second son, John, had fallen out of favor with his mother. John had reconciled with his father and his younger sister Cindy, and I think even with his mother before she died. But sadly, oldest brother Marc and youngest brother Robert still harbored ill will… and thus, Flavio’s funeral and memorial service became incredibly painful affairs. My sorrow was not as wordy – I expressed sadness at the loss but also hurt at the pain my cousins are facing. I got choked up – Alie mentioned this – and sat down.

The next person to speak was a man who had a joy (neither Alie nor I can recall who it was). Apparently, I sat and listened, wiped the tears, and celebrated this man’s joy. I don’t remember… I know it was cathartic just to share the concern, to know that someone who had a similar situation might offer some comfort afterwards. But to Alie, it was evidence of something bigger…that when you live in a caring community, we do provide what is needed.

Well..needless to say, that did it for me. She mentioned ME, of all people. Getting through “The Circle Game” was a challenge, offset happily by the congregation singing with me on the chorus and me not making eye contact.

Afterwards, I spoke with Alie’s father – also full of tears at the beauty of the service. I mentioned how honored I was to be asked to sing and to be mentioned in the sermon. He said “Alie really likes you.” I smiled, and he continued. “You don’t understand. Alie is pleasant to many, but she doesn’t like many people. She likes you.”

And this leaves me scratching my head. I didn’t really know her until I joined Worship Associates in late 2008; I have never done anything with youth groups or religious education classes. And yet, just my Being apparently matters.

The lesson? Be. Be true. Be authentic. But just BE. You never know who you’re going to affect.

By |

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about my questions on Jesus’ divinity, my problems with The Fall, but mostly my sense that the world demands you make a choice. If I go with the Trinitarians, that feels… not in line with what seems right to me, and it certainly takes me away from the UU faith, which seems to describe my own core beliefs within its principles. If I go with Emerson and the Transcendentalists, it puts Jesus squarely in the past-tense, and that feels somehow too limiting. If I hang with Channing, it brings me back to needing to believe that, like Lewis, the story starts with The Fall. To deny altogether also seems false to me – while there’s no question that Jesus got a lot of good press and good luck in the course of human history (Paul, Constantine, Clovis) – there is still something beyond ‘he was nothing but a teacher.’ And to see him just as another aspect or archetype of the divine is insanely limiting to my mind.

 There seems to be no clear cut answer, no side to choose that satisfies  my conflicting thoughts and searching heart. And it is at this point that I get choked up and tears start to roll.  And I don’t know why. I guess there’s a part of me that feels like I can’t move on until I have settled this question. Who is/was Jesus? How does his life, teachings, state of being relate to mine?

 What surprises me most is that it matters.

 I have spent decades not worried about it, not relating to Jesus in any way. I know I put him out of my mind after I left the pentacostals… and really, never looked back. And there is a part of me that wonders if he would be on my mind if it weren’t for you. If you had been another UU, or pagan, or Jewish – even if you had helped me reconnect to God, would he have come up? Am I a product of influences? Or… in as much as you are a gift from God, is part of that gift raising the question of Jesus? If that’s the case, then I suspect I’m right on track. If not, well, hmmm….

 I suppose part of my crisis is seeking the answer to the question of why he might have existed at all. If you take away The Fall as the raison d’etre, then what is the reason? Love seems too… simple. Forgiveness? Hope? Life? Meaning? I don’t know…maybe that is tonight’s meditation. “Daughter of Israel” feels an apt moniker today.

 Deep thoughts… with an odd melancholy attached…

By |

I have been watching a delightful documentary series called “The Choir” – an English show about a guy who took some teens from a school in a depressed area of London, and turned them into a choir that competed in the International Choir competition in 2006. The series has been amazing; they didn’t win, but they did a fabulous job at the competition itself (in China). And their opening song? “Bridge Over Troubled Water”….beautifully done, and another poke from God, reminding me that he’s always there…

 …and. There is something here for me about Jesus. I’m not sure I can put it into words yet…… well, there is something. I need to think about it.