UU Ministry Introduction
“Ministry is steadfast, open-hearted accompaniment on the human journey.”
I've often joked that I was "called" many times to ministry, but that luckily I had "call-waiting!" I say this because I didn't recognize my vocational journey as a call until I allowed myself to hear it one May night before a crackling bonfire. It was then that I saw how my professional, personal, and spiritual lives had already merged on a course charted towards ministry. As a lay leader, religious educator, guest preacher, and Coming of Age director, my gifts for writing and preaching, for leadership, for facilitating spiritual growth, for being with others in the wilderness, and for promoting real community had grown steadily from a candle hidden under a bushel to an ever-brightening beacon.
Then on that May night, in 1993, I led a Coming of Age group of teenagers and adults on a Vision Quest to a lakeside camp. On this particular night, we were each to find a solitary spot in this very sacred cathedral of woods and water to discover our symbolic "names." I sat by the lake, partially on sentry duty, and trying not to over-think the discovery process. To my astonishment and gratitude, the name which arose off the mist of the lake (and from the depths of my own wellspring) was "She Who is Like A Compass;” not necessarily one who knows exactly where she is going, but rather one who is both seriously seeking her own Magnetic North, while providing compass bearings for others as they navigate a course towards greater self-awareness. This is, and will continue to be, the framework within which I am "called" over and over to my ministry in the world.
Then on that May night, in 1993, I led a Coming of Age group of teenagers and adults on a Vision Quest to a lakeside camp. On this particular night, we were each to find a solitary spot in this very sacred cathedral of woods and water to discover our symbolic "names." I sat by the lake, partially on sentry duty, and trying not to over-think the discovery process. To my astonishment and gratitude, the name which arose off the mist of the lake (and from the depths of my own wellspring) was "She Who is Like A Compass;” not necessarily one who knows exactly where she is going, but rather one who is both seriously seeking her own Magnetic North, while providing compass bearings for others as they navigate a course towards greater self-awareness. This is, and will continue to be, the framework within which I am "called" over and over to my ministry in the world.
