I first walked into a Unitarian Universalist church about five years ago, attending a Wiccan circle mostly unaffiliated with the church itself. It was actually my first foray into public Paganism, though I’d been a solitary for many years at that point, and I was rather nervous. I spent the ‘get to know you’ chatting time wandering around the gathering space, looking at the pamphlets and signs on the walls telling all about Unitarian Universalism. It seemed interesting; but life events took me away from public religion for awhile, and it was a few years before I came back to that building.
The second time I came through the doors, it was to attend a Sunday service. I brought my oldest child, who was four at the time, and left the other two at home with their father. I came because I felt my children needed to be exposed to some kind of religious education; and our family situation is varied enough in its religious tapestry that I couldn’t just bring her to Circle and call it a day. My husband is an atheist, my in-laws Muslims, my mother and step-father evangelical Christians, and my father is a Buddhist – we run the gamut of spiritual ideas. At four years old, my daughter was beginning to understand and internalize the conflicting messages she was receiving from these many sources, and I felt the UU religious education curriculum might be a helpful hand as she worked through these ideas.
It turns out to have been fantastic for her – though at her young age she’s learning very little about various religions right now, she is learning about morals and right action from a UU perspective, which I find fits in quite well with our family’s ideals. Though as parents we do all we can to show our children what we believe to be the right way to act, it helps to have some input from outside sources as well.
What I didn’t expect is that I would love it so much. I joined a parent’s group and met other parents with amazing stories and similar struggles, I attended several dinner parties as part of a ‘get to know you’ effort, and began teaching religious education classes on Sunday morning to some of the most fantastic young people I’ve ever met.
I wear a lot of hats in my local community, and I have a lot of descriptive words when someone asks me my religion. To most strangers, I’ll simply say ‘Pagan’, but when talking to other Pagans I can get awfully verbose. I’m a Heathen, an ADF Druid, a Unitarian Universalist, an animist, a bit of a reconstructionist.. the list goes on. But being a Unitarian Universalist is an important part of my religious identity, the seven Principles just as important as the Nine Noble Virtues. I live in a different world than my ancestors did. Though I thrill over the idea of old rituals and ancient cosmology, I recognize that I live in a modern, connected world, which requires a different set of values that emphasizes our common experience as people of this earth. I value community highly, including my family, my Pagan community, and my UU congregation which has so graciously taken my family and I in.
Attending a UU service, for me as a Pagan, is at once both intimately familiar with its standard Protestant format, and challenging and compelling in a way that my upbringing never was. For the first Water Communion I attended, I brought sacred water from my home altar, a mix of rainwater and the local river. My children and I stood before the congregation, talking about the meaning of this water to us. Afterwards, I had so many people come up and thank us for sharing our experiences with them – it was then that I knew the UU church was a home for me. I could bring my experiences, my spirituality, the way that I see right action and devotion, bring them into this melting pot where so many others had brought their ideas and personal faith; and that instead of dividing us like water and oil, this ritual brought us all closer together. Being a Unitarian Universalist informs and enhances my Paganism, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
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