I am a UU because of the seven principles. The responsibility to be a good person isn’t in any book or any doctrine but in me. All of the principles are relevant but there is one principle that really spoke to me and it was the 4th principle which states: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Like many here, my journey began with another religious upbringing. I was raised in the Presbyterian faith. My dad was an elder. My mom sang in the choir and taught adult RE. When I was in high school, I taught Sunday school for 8-10 year olds. I continued going to the Presbyterian church when I came to CMU. There always seemed to be something missing. The sermons based on the Bible never connected with me. I often questioned things. While the questions were probably frustrating for the ministers, their answers drove me up the wall. I would push for clarification until finally their solution to end the conversation was to say “because.” I was supposed to be satisfied with that. I was to trust that God knew what was best–good things happen by the will of God as well as bad things. And that was that. Gradually, I quit going. I first attended the UU services when they met every other Sunday at the Italian Oven. I was hooked. In the movie Small Foot, there is a song titled Wonderful Life that sums it up for me, especially one lyric. It goes like this, “Find the lessons there is to learn and dig deeper. Feed your intuition. Don’t leave any stone unturned. Be the seeker of the truth.” UU allows me–expects me–to be the seeker. |
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Stewardship
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