ON ANOTHER LEVEL

“Restlessness and Transformation” 

At first, I wasn’t sure what the theme for February, “restlessness,”had to do with spirituality or faith. My first thoughts about it were centered on boredom, with wanting to move on from whatever I was doing or not doing as the case might be. I thought of children full of energy with no idea how to channel it. I thought of teens I had worked with who wanted freedom but lacked direction. I thought of hobos and slackers and geniuses I had known or read about. But none of that seemed related to faith or spirituality.

Then I thought about the periods of restlessness throughout my own life, and I realized that a significant amount of them had to do with the longing for belief and belonging, with the “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” (our 4th UU Principle).

My longing was minimized for many years by my birth religion, Episcopalian, in which I was baptized and confirmed. My father and I shared the faith for a while, and I felt at home in the old stone church, taking communion and learning Bible stories. But restlessness set in when I was about sixteen and I was beset by struggles of identity so common at this age. I studied with a priest and eventually was baptized and took First Communion becoming a Roman Catholic. But I quickly became disenchanted with the dogma and rigidness of that faith and moved away from it. I drifted for ten or more years, exploring several different theologies from Buddhism to Baha’i but never quite finding one that fit. I met my future husband and decided to study Judaism with a rabbi, eventually being examined by a Rabbinical Tribunal and then being accepted into the faith after a ritual bath. I did feel comfortable attending a Reform synagogue but eventually was unable to accept the emphasis on certain laws that ran contrary to my liberal beliefs.

Again a restlessness surfaced that lasted until I realized I needed a spiritual home for both my children and myself and I came to Unitarian Universlism, after finding UUS:E. It has been more than 30 years and I have felt that restlessness of the spirit many times yet I have remained here primarily because the beliefs and Principles of UUism allow and even encourage this restlessness to exist. My restlessness has found a spiritual home, perhaps for the remainder of my life. And (surprise) I have come to understand that all of those things I first mentioned above are also about spiritual restlessness.

This quote by Daniel O. Snyder seems to sum it all up: “Spiritual restlessness is archetypal in the sense that the call to leave the known for the unknown is a call that is found in all religious traditions and is repeated in countless stories of spiritual transformation.”

In faith,
Vicki Merriam, Director of Religious Education