(no subject)

[felicula]

On Sunday, my husband and I signed the membership book at the First Universalist Church of Rochester.

In just a few months, we will have been attending services there pretty regularly for a year. If you had asked me a year ago whether I thought I would be a regular churchgoer someday, I would have laughed heartily. Now Aidan goes to religious education there, mechanchaos submitted a potential postcard design, and I am both a worship associate and singing tenor in the choir. (Yes, I can sing tenor. I can sing alto as well. They need tenors more often than they need altos.)

More importantly than just getting some organized spirituality in my life, I am impressed by the openness and acceptance of the community. On my second time serving as worship associate, I screwed up the order of service, but everyone I talked to was understanding and supportive. It is an excellent place for working to let go of my persistent perfectionism.

I found a place where I feel I belong.

This is a big deal for me. Most of my life, I tried to find a religion where I fit. Though I love paganism deeply, I never found a pantheon I could limit myself to. Though I have deep respect for the discipline of Buddhism, I was not ready to practice Buddhism to the exclusion of my other beliefs. The more I studied a variety of religions, the more acutely I felt the truth at the core of each and the value they hold for their practitioners. No matter what form of spirituality I dabbled in, it would always feel like I was compromising my beliefs to practice it exclusively.

Since attending First Universalist, I have met people who have either had similar experiences or similar matrices of belief as I have had. The kind of spiritual journey I have been on is not only accepted, but encouraged as part of the UU faith. I remain free to use a variety of tools from a number of spiritual paths, yet I gain a community of courageous and understanding folks with a lot to share. It is a win-win situation.

This doesn't mean that I do not still appreciate the value of a Circle to celebrate a Sabbat, the transformative power of zazen, or the ecstasy of a trance state. I maintain a family altar with statues of the Buddha, Kwan Yin, and Bast. (So far -- we may add more sometime.) I keep a wreathed ceramic mask on the wall that is, to me, the face of the Dreaming Unknown. I still keep an eye out for sightings of my totem animal. When I exercise, I can feel the energy raised and try to put it to good use. (I try to keep my focus on either a general atmosphere of healing for the apartment or on improving motivation.)

I can commit myself to First Universalist without giving up any of that. I feel no loss, only gain.