In High Gear

I had a disquieting trip on the train home tonight.

Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:47:07 -0400
From: [me]
To: [Regional Sub-Committee on Candidacy]
Subject: New Applicant

Greetings, [Committee Administrator].

I understand that contacting you is the first step in seeking fellowship as a UU minister. My name is [Spring Dew], from Lake Worth, Florida, and I’m finishing up a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts this fall. If you’d let me know what further information I need to provide, it’ll surely be forthcoming. Thank you.

Peace,

[me]
[address]
[phone number]

That’s step #1 – Applicant Status. I’m a little bit terrified. The more I read at uua.org, the more overwhelmed I feel, so I just now closed all those tabs and reminded myself that it doesn’t all come at once. The next thing I need to do is submit an Initial Inquiry Form, complete with photograph, but that day doesn’t have to be today. It can, in fact, happen at any time between now and graduation from theological school.

If you. . .

* feel alone in your spiritual search,
* are striving to live fully and authentically,
* want to be part of a community of open minded spiritual seekers,
* cannot find a congregation near you that quite meets your needs,
* seek support in your work for a better world,
* wish to help your children grow religious values for a lifetime in a spirit of openness and respect for others’ beliefs

. . . then you will feel at home in the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
– Church of the Larger Fellowship

Maybe that’s where I need to be. I have to confess, I have problems with the two local UU fellowships in this area. I spent a couple of years with one particular fellowship but left it behind when I moved a bit further away. Sure, I could maybe make the extra effort; it’s not significantly further away than my workplace. But my experience with the congregation left me cold in the middle. It seemed to be about two things, and two things only:

– Social action.
– Cash funding, mostly for social action.

I realize that faith without works is dead, but I hardly felt as though engaging in the practice of faith at all. I need something spiritual out of religious practice, and passing the hat for the cause du jour, by itself, ain’t it.

The other fellowship (just as far in the other direction), to be fair, I’ve only visited the once. The folks were nice. And desperate. Desperately nice. Scary desperate. They subscribed me to their emailing list, and I’ve been getting tons of stuff since. Guess what. It’s all the same flavor of stuff that the other congregation cared about.

Something that’s going to be an issue with my calling is UUA membership, and you get UUA membership by being a member of a member congregation. I let my membership with that first congregation lapse, and I did it under weird circumstances. If I have to go back, and I probably do, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable.

My relationship with local manifestations of UUA these days is just crap, and not just because of the above, but also because I reacted in a cowardly fashion over a pledge mistake and just ran from the issue out of embarrassment, rather than try to sort it out. And I spent significant amounts of time with these people and never once hinted that I’d been called and hoped one day to fulfill that calling. Aaaaaaand I think I probably stepped on some toes when I was trying to develop their website and build a system so that they could take it over themselves and not need a webmaster.

These are going to become important when I get to the 8th and 9th steps, but they’re kind of irritating me now. I feel all unresolved and petty. Resentment and guilt. Blame and shame. That’s a familiar tune.

So I spent the train ride home pondering these things, and also feeling around some more for some indication of what I’m supposed to be doing. I know I’m worrying too much, and living in the future too much. Surely the path will be made clear once I get there.

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