Circle Birth Day

I guess the best thing about having been a pastor came back to me last night as we convened a new Chalice Circle group last night at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fairbanks.

How do I love this? Let me count the ways.

• Included in the small talk as we got seated in a 14 chair circle was exuberant commentary about the rising moon tonight, and the setting moon earlier in the morning.

• There are always elders who are up for sharing and meeting new people, in this case, sonorously, sweetly (to my ears) accented Judy and Bill from North Carolina, who, in their seventies, decided to follow their dream to Fairbanks, where they have, in the past month, exuberantly found UUFF.

• A simple question – in the case of tonight: “what is your story, who are you, what would you tell someone if you had five minutes to sum it all up?” – generates authentic, from-the-heart, unforgettable responses. With tears, belly laughter, and intense listening on the part of all.

• I just love watching people’s faces as they tell of important things, listening to the catch in someone’s voice, being drawn into the drama of choices they faced, the relationships they struggled with, being right there as they discover things in the telling of them. “Deep listening” together takes us to a brilliant place. We’re not unlike Moses, walking his sheep around the desert, suddenly coming upon a burning bush, which speaks of ultimate things, and enlists him (us) to an epic journey. Whoa!

• Having a co-facilitator, Rebecca, with insights, support, energy. It’s so nice when someone has your back, and helps you remember things.

Laenne commented afterwards about how rare this kind of sharing is in our lives, we have spouses who know us and perhaps listen deeply, compassionately, lovingly to us. But many commented in their sharing how it just doesn’t happen for us (some of us are shy, or possibly have high expectations) during the coffee hours after Sunday services.

It may be that this is an important characteristic of our UU demographic. UUFF draws people who are “deep,” who have been through challenging and difficult things in their search for authentic spiritual connection. We didn’t fit well in the American churches which the denominations dish up for us. We sought more, and grew frustrated.

What a wonderful opportunity! It’s like getting assigned the “behavior problem” class, where their “acting out” had to do with being so perceptive and ahead of their peers that they ended up in the principal’s office. UU’s, the spiritual mischief makers.

The other thing I realized when I was listening to the stories had to do with pioneers. Mary Ann talked about people home in Ohio thinking she was nuts when she decided to make an academic move to Oregon. I was remembering how hard it was for me to figure out, from New York City, and Philadelphia, how to get myself to Seattle or Anchorage, where I wanted to be. I ended up flinging myself across the country twelve years ago. Which is precisely what Bill and Judy just did, in retirement. There were rumblings in many of the stories about being drawn by the land, to the challenges, into the basic Alaska dream.

What I always wanted people to see, in being their “spiritual leader,” was the importance of each person opening up to their experience, their hopes and dreams, their hurts and fears. But not to stop there. To bring that deepened sense of self into the context of a wider community of dreamers and wounded healers.

And only then to draw on the traditions, the practices, the celebrations, the outreach challenges, to become a “community of faith.” Start with the personal, expand into a community, and then add in the tradition and the wider society.

It’s something I think people are born with a hankering for, but when churches lead with a tradition and insert a religious leader too early in the process, people may never realize their own spiritual depths, the crucial importance of exploring their own sources of revelation, or their own capacity for harnessing change for themselves, others and their world.

At the end we held hands, and instead of singing (we ran way over our time limit), we drew close and blew out the chalice candle. “Happy Birthday” quipped Bill. New birth, indeed!