Sometimes I wish I could come to church with my brilliant 2.5 children - and a husband (since I’m fantasizing let’s make him also brilliant - say, a professor of medieval Hungarian poetry.) Truth is my life isn’t like that. I come alone. My grown children have their own lives. My husband is not interested. That is what is real.
It took me a long time to feel at home in our faith community. I felt my life didn’t quite measure up to UU standards. I dropped out of graduate school. I had a good job but certainly not one that solved world hunger or made a mark in the academic world. (And I didn’t sail.) I didn’t feel quite “good enough.” It took me a while, and I’m still working on it, to realize that “good enough” is more in my head then it is in our community.
I can only give who I really am. And you can only give who you are – and that is good enough. If we each did that well, we would be more than a good-enough community, we would transform our congregation to one of greater ministry, mission, and spiritual development.
I was once in another faith where I felt marginalized. Marginalized is a trendy word, but it aptly describes how it feels on the edge. Feeling marginal causes self-doubt, skepticism , hesitancy, and withdrawal. A marginalized person assumes judgement. We have people among our faith community who feel alone or marginalized. If you are out there on the edge , please try it again. If you are inside the circle, reach out. Look someone in the eye. Listen. If you are a hugger, hug. If you’re not, kind words are appreciated too. Assume goodness.
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