Riverside Reflections April, 2011

Rev. Millie Rochester

Our Stewardship Campaign is in full-swing, as I write this column. We have been blessed by the spiritual generosity of three people sharing with us their reflections, prompting the rest of us to be more intentional about reflecting on what First Unitarian Universalist Church of Winnipeg means to us and how we, as individuals, mean to sustain this entity.

We come to church for many reasons – to find solace, and the comfort of a beloved community; for companionship in our discerning, and the chance to be in relationship with others of every age and stage in life; for the knowledge that we are not alone, and to learn from one another…there are as many individual reasons to come to church as there are individuals.

Many of us, when we feel truly at home, decide to become members. At this point in the church year, the words of John Wolf, UU minister of Tulsa, Oklahoma resound:

There is only one reason for joining a Unitarian Universalist church and that is to support it. You want to support it because it stands against superstition and fear. Because this church points to what is noblest and best in human life. Because it is open to women and men [and children] of whatever race, creed, color, place of origin, or sexual orientation.

You want to support a Unitarian Universalist church because it has a free pulpit. Because you can hear ideas expressed there that would cost any other minister his or her job. You want to support it because it is a place where children can come without being saddled with guilt or terrified of some celestial Peeping Tom, where they can learn that religion is for joy, for comfort, for gratitude and love.

You want to support it because it is a place where walls between people are torn down rather than built up. Because it is a place for the religious displaced persons of our time, the refugees from mixed marriages, the unwanted freethinkers, and those who insist against orthodoxy that they must work out their own beliefs.

You want to support a Unitarian Universalist church because it is more concerned for human beings than with dogmas. Because it searches for the holy, rather than dwelling upon the depraved. Because it calls no one a sinner, yet knows how deep is the struggle in each person’s breast and how great is the hunger for what is good.

You want to support a Unitarian Universalist church because it can laugh. Because it stands for something in a day when religion is still more concerned with platitudes than with prejudice and war. You want to support it not because it buys you some insurance policy towards your funeral service but because it insults neither your intelligence nor your conscience, and because it calls you to worship what is truly worthy of your sacrifice. There is only one reason for joining a Unitarian Universalist church—to support it!

How blessed we are to share the company of one another, to be a part of something so meaningful, to be able to give to this church whatever we can give, for it is in the giving that we truly receive the greatest gift of all – the knowledge that we are contributing to the sustenance of our faith. Thank you for that.

Warmest blessings,

~Millie