Yesterday I attended our Joseph Priestley
District Annual Spring Conference and listened to the keynote speaker, Rev.
Larry Peers. He posed the same question
repeatedly—“what matters most?” I
realized that this was the same question I want to ask each of you and
myself. What matters most to you—why do
you come to this or some other UU church?
That question leads naturally into my second question—why should we care
about young adult and campus ministry?
Amanda and Carolyn told us
what feeds their soul and why they come here.
I come to church and feel called to our ministry because our liberal
religion is my greatest passion. My Unitarian
Universalist faith reminds me what is of ultimate concern—the care of the soul
and putting our faith into action, seeking justice in our everyday lives. And I care about young adult and campus
ministry because of the young adult first in my heart, my daughter. She told me how she always thought of
herself as a religious person, but her best friends at college didn’t
understand her spirituality. She taught
me how lonely it can be when there is no campus ministry or young adult program
even in our UU churches.
As I meet other young adults
here and in the district, I want to reach out and include them in our worship
services, and in our congregational leadership. I want to know what young
adults want and need to be part of our congregations. The initial fire my daughter lit under my feet now burns brightly
for other young adult UU’s and for spreading our UU faith on campuses
throughout our District and our nation.
And I confess I want to light that fire in you as well.
Why did you walk through
these doors this morning? If this is
your home church or you attend some other church regularly, why do you return
over and over again? I want your
participation and I want to know what brought you here this morning. Will all
the young adults here today, please stand?
Young adults are between the ages of 18 and 35. You came here today, perhaps knowing that
this was a service to celebrate young adults.
If you have come to this church before, you already know that we do not
have many young adults in this church.
Yet you came anyway and we are grateful for your presence. Each of you walked through these doors for a
reason. We hope you find something that
inspires your passion and that you will return often. Thank you.
Now, please stand if you
were raised UU. You may have left our
churches to explore other religions or other parts of yourself, but you came
back. Or perhaps, you never left. Either way, we are honored that you chose us
as an adult. We hope that our children
today will see you as an example and know that they too can come home to our
church if they so choose.
Will all the parents, who
raised or are raising their children UU, please stand? You found a source of inspiration here—a
beacon that you hand to your children.
Let your children’s UU experience inspire you to help other home-grown
UU’s find their way back here if it is their heart’s desire.
Lest you thought you would
not be recognized, would everyone stand who has not stood before? You too were once young adults. Remember what it was like to find your way
on a college campus or work at your first job. Did you feel lost and alone at
times then? You might have found us as
a young adult. If you didn’t, we are
the ones who were robbed of your presence because we did not have you with us
all these years. We are happy you found
your way here today. Perhaps, you will feel inspired to help others find this
faith sooner on their life’s journey.
We
want to welcome all people, but today, we concentrate on tangible ways we can
reach out to young adults. I placed
some pamphlets on the stairwell shelves outside the sanctuary doors. They mention three things you can do to
reach out to young adults or ten ways the congregation can make a
difference. I have some suggestions for
you right now. First, remember when you
were a young adult if you are older now. Remember how you wanted to be
treated. Treat young adults with
respect and as full members of our religious community.
Consider inviting a young
adult to lunch or dinner. Find out their interests and help them get connected
in our church community.
When you are asked to
support the young adult and CampUUs Ministry programs in a few minutes, do
so. Consider hosting a dinner for young
adults returning home for the holidays, or visit the college you attended to
start a UU CampUUs ministry program there.
Do whatever you can to include young adults in congregational life.
Young adults can welcome
youth as they bridge from high school to young adulthood. Let them know that they always have a church
home here. Send them out with our
blessings and welcome them when they return.
Consider initiating a CampUUs ministry program here at UUCA. After all, we have the Naval Academy and St.
John’s right here in Annapolis.
Support the new young adult
group here if they make a budget request during the next canvass. Many of the
core group members are new. If you have
been here for years, help them get acquainted with our church structure. Give them your full support and your
blessing.
Remember what matters to you
the most about religious community—what you have looked for your whole life
long. But do not keep it for yourself alone.
If it moves your soul, it is worth sharing. Share it willingly.
Benediction
We are grateful for these
seeds, which will bear fruit and yield a new generation of Unitarian
Universalists. We are grateful for
these gifts which will open the doors of our churches to those who once found a
home in Unitarian Universalism and to all those who will find us in the years
to come. May these gifts provide
nurture and comfort to many and bless us all in return. Amen.
© Susan Karlson, Intern Minister
April 14, 2002
**This sermon was inspired by Dawn Star Borchelt's
sermon, We Do It Gladly. Dawn is the DRE at Davies Memorial Unitarian
Universalist Church and a member of the JPD Board of Trustees. She was also
active at UUCA and worked with the Campus Ministry program. She is a home grown
young adult UU whose story is truly moving. I offer her my thanks for her many
gifts to our movement and for her inspiration in the formation of this service.
By Amanda Bauer
What brings a young adult to the UU church? As a new face around here, I thought I could shed some light on that question. What brought me here?
I have always considered my self a student of philosophy, a person who wanted to think about the greater context of our lives, but I didn't consider myself "spiritual" or "religious." Perhaps because the catholic church that I was exposed to offered sermons about "a woman's place" and "cleansing your evil thoughts" and seemed to paint people in such black and white, good and evil, saint or sinner terms. These were the definitions of spirituality before me, and they did not fit.
In college, I learned what I could about Eastern philosophies. They fed me for a while, until I moved to Miami and began working at a runaway shelter there. I began to feel the tug of spirituality — I wanted to explore my questions about who we are, what makes our lives meaningful, and what to do with all of the abuse and dysfunction I was seeing in my job. I researched the UU church a bit and then decided to go to a UU church in Miami. The first Sunday I went, the congregation consisted of about 20 members, and all were at least 40 years older than I. They seemed puzzled as to why a 22-year-old girl was coming to their church - they probably hadn't had a new member in several years!
A year and a half later, my husband and I moved to Annapolis. And I began working at the county's domestic violence shelter. The extremes of my job and the things we see - women with swollen faces and broken wrists and vague thoughts of suicide, kids who know to be quiet at all costs, who have seen things most of us will never see in a lifetime, who are learning how to be violent themselves - these things beg for a context, for someone to make sense of them, to find some underlying meaning so that so much hurt and suffering isn't for nothing. And without meaning, where do you find hope?
These questions again set me off on the road towards my spiritual journey. And as I really started to think about these questions and explore them within myself, a few answers came. To quote Holocaust survivor and renowned psychiatrist Viktor Franki, "The salvation of man is through love and in love." We are all based in love - it is what we need to survive - and as we love ourselves, and get support and care and love from those around us, we get stronger and we are able to make change and seek out healthier choices. The other conclusion I came to was that when all is taken from someone, when they arrive at the shelter with the clothes on their back, no money, and no worldly possessions, something so powerful still remains - their spirit, their individuality, their attitude towards their circumstances. Again, as Franki remarked, "When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."
As I moved ahead on my spiritual journey, I wanted to find a spiritual setting that would support this endeavor. One that was open to any question, and any answer. I wanted a faith community that saw the intrinsic value in all spiritual pursuits, if only because they bring us closer to finding meaning in our lives. I wanted a church that recognized the gray, and did not adhere to the harsh light and dark shadows of my early catholic experience. And with that, I decided to come to the UU church of Annapolis. It is another step towards spiritual wholeness, and the time I spend here honors my own need to consider the greater context that houses our lives. It also allows me a pause, to feel endlessly grateful for the meaning in my own life: namely, my husband, the chance to witness the strength and courage of the women I work with, my family, my dogs, and the acts of grace and generosity around me every day.
So that is how a young adult makes her way to sit among you on Sundays.
By Carolyn Horn, Lay Minister
The following selection is from an essay titled “The Work of Local Culture” by farmer-poet Wendell Berry in his book What are people For? :
For many years my walks have taken me down an old fencerow in a wooded hollow on what was once my grandfather’s farm. A battered galvanized bucket is hanging on a fence post near the head of the hollow, and I never go by it without stopping to look inside. For what is going on in that bucket is the most momentous thing I know, the greatest miracle that I have ever heard of: it is making earth. The old bucket has hung there through many autumns, and the leaves have fallen into it and some have fallen around it. Rain and snow have (also) fallen into it, and the fallen leaves have held the moisture and so have rotted.
. . . This slow work of growth and death, gravity and decay, which is the chief work of the world, has by now produced in the bottom of the bucket several inches of black humus. I look into that bucket with fascination because I am a farmer of sorts and an artist of sorts, and I recognize there an artistry and a farming far superior to mine, or to that of any human.I have seen the same process at work on the tops of boulders in a forest, and it has been at work immemorially over most of the land surface of the world. All creatures die into it, and they live by it.
After much reflection of these carefully composed words of Wendell Berry, I have come to realize that this same process of growth and death, of gravity and decay that occurred inside of that bucket reminds me of my own personal growth.
When I first came to this church, I didn’t care to know about the old battered galvanized bucket of my soul, which had been silently mulling over the debris of my experiences for almost three decades and eventually came to transform itself into something similar in richness to the black humus that had accumulated in the bottom of Mr. Berry’s bucket. Although Wendell Berry peered into his bucket every time he passed it, he never disturbed its contents. He simply marveled at it. When I arrived at this church, my soul was such a bucket of debris. Like Wendell Berry, I had never looked beyond the crusty top layers that concealed beneath them a substance that was rich and fertile and nourishing.
Within this faith community, I have been able to gather the courage and the curiosity to look into the bucket of my soul and uncover the life-sustaining black soil that had settled into its depths, and I also come to realize, just as Wendell Berry had, that behind this process of growth and death, there is an artistry and a farming far superior to my own, or that of any human. This realization is astounding in itself, but even more astounding to me is the sense of responsibility that comes with such a realization.
When I think of the various ways that I can use the gifts that I have uncovered, I feel very grateful to this congregation. Not only have I found the gifts that were tucked away inside of me, but I have also been given the seeds necessary for fresh growth. The Lay Minister group, the Mindfulness Practice Group, and the new Dream Covenant Group are a few outstanding examples of such seeds, as they have nestled themselves into the humus in the battered bucket that is my soul. In particular, Art Hansen and the Mindfulness Practice Group that he leads on Thursday evenings has been one of the most important things to ever happen to me. The teachings that I have learned in Art’s group have improved every aspect of my life and my relationships, and I will be eternally grateful to Art for his willingness to share his wise and gentle beliefs with others.
But just when I thought that I had reached the peak of the mountain with my spiritual experiences, I signed up for the Dream Covenant Group. This group has quickly become a priority in my life because in this group, I have found a safe place for me to dig into my bucket, and share what I uncover. The beauty of the Dream Covenant Group is that we only dig into one bucket at a time, and my dirt ends up on everybody’s hands, and likewise theirs ends up on mine. It is this spirit of community gardening that is unique to our congregation, and it is why I can never imagine what it would be like to NOT be UU, even though I’ve only been a member of this church for three years.
Our congregation knows the art of spiritual cultivation on so many levels. I have only given my own little take on it. As one of the younger adult members of our congregation, I feel very much a part of the big UUCA family, and consider myself to be blessed to be a part of it. I also recognize that my youth is impermanent, and as time passes, I will grow older and other young adults will come into our church community to uncover the rich black humus that lies beneath the debris of their own experiences so that they too may prepare themselves for the seeds that our church has to offer them. After all, a bed of nourishing soil is rather useless without seeds for it to nourish. With these metaphors, we can clearly see the symbiotic relationship between the church as a whole and its individual members. I think it is a beautiful thing to fathom, and I thank you all so much.
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