UUs Reflect: I am passionate about…“embracing the journey.”
In my sermon last Sunday, I shared some stories from my personal spiritual journey, and how I found my path to ministry from a not-encouraging childhood faith or family. As I was writing the sermon, I was reminded of my own determination and strength: how even when I wasn’t sure where I was going, I kept putting one foot in front of the other, trusting the journey more than the destination.
I have always found inspiration in Mary Oliver’s poem, The Journey. It reminds me, as the hymn we sang on Sunday also reminds me, “the road may be muddy and rough, but we’ll get there, heaven knows how we will get there, we know we will.” (“Woyaya” in Singing the Journey, hymn #1020.)
Oliver’s poem begins:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
And she ends with:
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.
These words remind me that it is my call, my discernment, my heart that will lead me. They also remind me that if a human system doesn’t work, we are free to find one that will. This is what I have done my whole life: embraced the journey, rather than the destination; kept a determined, positive mindset moving forward; and saved the only life I could.
Finding Unitarian Universalism will always be an important step in my journey. One of this month’s exercises in the Soul Matters Packet is to write your spiritual journey in six words. My spiritual/religious journey can be summed up with these six words: seeking answers, finding home, embracing possibilities.
From Sunday’s sermon: I have found my own voice in Unitarian Universalism. I have found hope in a positive progression of the human spirit. I have found a set of principles that guide me, and I hope you, as I say each Sunday, “in your day-to-day living.” Isn’t that why we humans create religions? To help each other be the best people we can be?
As I face the next chapter in my life, I will encounter a move from what has become familiar to a series of unknowns: a new home, a new job, new friends, new traffic patterns. But I do so, once again, embracing the journey. Aware that the only life I can save is mine.
For those of you at church last Sunday, remember my analogy of sending you off to college:
You are ready.
Embrace your collective church journey.
Together we have grown wings; now, let’s fly.
