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What difference does First Unitarian make in your life?

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No one source will be seen as superior by any one group of people. We will finally see the light in each other’s eyes as equal to that in the mirror: all powered by the same source. Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa


Awash on a sea of spiritual confusion, I stumbled into a UU church while expecting Zak, now 26 years old.  A devout Catholic child, I was unable to reconcile being a fierce feminist with my faith of origin.  I had been church shopping.  My search ended as our young family found a home in the little UU church in Haverhill where we were living at the time. It was powerful to have a female minister!   I had believed my whole life that all paths were worthy and beautiful.  I had never known that an organized religion believed the same.  What joy to meet my tribe!

One year later we moved back to hometown Worcester for the start of medical school.  Barbara Merritt, also a young working mother, commanded the pulpit.  Sermons were no longer a slather of dogma from an out of touch older white man.  Sermons were alive with the likes of Annie Dillard and the Buddha.  A spiritual teacher knows how to poke and provoke the trappings of ego in order to liberate the spirit.  Reverend Merritt made us squirm, cry, laugh, and take a more honest look at ourselves, and our journey, each week.

Becoming a UU opened my mind and forced me to test & broaden my belief system. Becoming a UU taught me the practice of fierce egalitarianism.  I may 100% disagree with your belief, but I honor your right to it.   Being a UU at 90 Main Street enriched my life with friendships that bless me and my family to this day.  As my spiritual journey grew into the devotional practices of Bhakti via Kundalini Yoga and Sikh Dharma, my UU faith and friends held me steadily, curious perhaps but never challenging this new evolution.  To me, the basic tenets of UUism and Sikhi are one and the same:

Unitarian Universalism is a prescription for modern spirituality.  As the globe shifts away from dogma toward consciousness, humans will not be contained by old ideas.  We will still need to gather.  We will always need the springboard of community, the spark of hope, the warmth of friendship.  What will no longer work is someone above the throng who holds all the answers.  Everyone’s sources of wisdom will belong to everyone.  No one source will be seen as superior by any one group of people. 

We will finally see the stinking tragedy of killing one another over religion.  It will finally become clear that humanism and simple kindness are the highest spiritual practices.  We will finally see how unnecessary it is to put up walls between us, dividing us up into groups.  We will finally see the light in each other’s eyes as equal to that in the mirror: all powered by the same source. 

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