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I finally made it back to First Parish for another service, and it wound up being the Coming of Age ceremony for the youth. I seem to keep winding up showing for Events of varying levels.
I was struck by a lot of things in what the young people presented and the things they felt important to articulate, but most of all with the idea of having a religious community that not only supports asking those questions but which demands, as a criterion of adulthood, that they be asked. The more time I spend at this UU congregation the more at home I feel, though I'm still preferring to take the upstairs balcony (and not just because I was there with KJ). (Who was a handful and a half today, and was not permitted to climb out the balcony window.)
The senior minister lent me a book, I think, just because. Also I suspect because I have to come back to return it to him. I met someone who's doing a biographical study of the Andersons as part of her training with Christopher Penczak, who I think I spelt correctly; I may wind up lending her my copy of Fifty Years.
One of the things that's being very hard for me in my theology work right now is the wanting to build things based on it, or at least share it with a community. I don't know when or if I'd be comfortable bringing that explicitly into First Parish; perhaps someday. But one of the reasons I had to go to church today is that the loneliness of my religious work was depressing me. And I'm glad I made it, for being there for the young people, even though they don't know me at all yet.
Must remember that services for the summer are only 10am, not the 9 and 11 choice-that-depends-on-when-KJ-is-awake. Hoping that writing it down here helps me keep this in mind.
I was struck by a lot of things in what the young people presented and the things they felt important to articulate, but most of all with the idea of having a religious community that not only supports asking those questions but which demands, as a criterion of adulthood, that they be asked. The more time I spend at this UU congregation the more at home I feel, though I'm still preferring to take the upstairs balcony (and not just because I was there with KJ). (Who was a handful and a half today, and was not permitted to climb out the balcony window.)
The senior minister lent me a book, I think, just because. Also I suspect because I have to come back to return it to him. I met someone who's doing a biographical study of the Andersons as part of her training with Christopher Penczak, who I think I spelt correctly; I may wind up lending her my copy of Fifty Years.
One of the things that's being very hard for me in my theology work right now is the wanting to build things based on it, or at least share it with a community. I don't know when or if I'd be comfortable bringing that explicitly into First Parish; perhaps someday. But one of the reasons I had to go to church today is that the loneliness of my religious work was depressing me. And I'm glad I made it, for being there for the young people, even though they don't know me at all yet.
Must remember that services for the summer are only 10am, not the 9 and 11 choice-that-depends-on-when-KJ-is-awake. Hoping that writing it down here helps me keep this in mind.
