It is said the key to writing well is to know one’s audience. In writing this blog, I’m not exactly sure who I’m writing to. It may be that I will have a significant readership in the future. Even if that doesn’t happen, I still need this space to record and reflect.

So I suppose the best way to open is to tell you (whoever you may be) how I got to this point. In my childhood I had no use for religion. That was something Christians did. I found their ideas silly, superstitious even. My attitudes toward Christianity were negative. Both of my parents had left their Christian upbringing behind and vocalized their negative experiences to me. My concept of a Christianity was of a televangelism; charlatans and chumps, hypocrites and bigots. Gradually I learned of the existence of other religions. My father was a Buddhist, which at the time meant someone who sat around in silence for hours on end (something quite impossible for someone my age). It came as an utter shock to me, when at the age of 10, after moving to another state, that my parents decided to visit a church. We had visited one once where we used to live, but my parents for whatever reason decided not to return. It was there were I first heard the story of the Tower of Babel, in which humans were punished by God for their supreme arrogance (So maybe this Christian thing couldn’t be all bad).

My first few years at the UU church were trying. I resisted going to church whenever possible. Yet eventually I caught on to something. Those various mythologies of world religions, I could see why people found them so interesting. I could empathize with a young Gautama who was so troubled by the suffering world that he left a life of luxury in order to gain enlightenment. I began to realize that I too was on a journey, but to what? Most of my life I had been agnostic. Even in those early, virulently anti-Christian days I allowed that despite having proof for the existence of God, I also didn’t have proof of no existence of God.

I began thinking about the deep issues; about the nature of human existence and our relationship to the world. One day I found a letter from a Christian group. I wrote them back, posing as a Satanic cult leader, parodying what I thought to be the essence of the Christian message and saying that they needed to accept Satan into their lives. When my father found my letter he was not pleased. After admonishment I began to learn that religious tolerance means tolerating the majority, too. It was not until a few years later that I made friends with Christians and Jews. I finally had evidence that there was such a thing as a good Christian (I had decided it must hypothetically be so, but hadn’t confirmation until then). From my experiences with Jewish friends I discovered the joy of Jewish liturgy. I even attended a service at a Quaker fellowship and a black Baptist church both of which I found quite enjoyable. My participation in the UU fellowship opened me up to other religious traditions as well.

In my freshman year of college I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I could think of no direction that sounded appealing. I had long ago thrown away the idea of doing anything commercial. I had considered for a number of years being a psychologist, but I was turned off after taking a psych course in high school. Too much scientific quantification for my more abstract mind. Yet, one day toward the end of my first semester of college it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I’m sure this is what Christian ministers mean what they say they felt God’s calling. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed that I should pursue a career in the Unitarian Universalist ministry. Such a job would take advantage of my talents. I liked to delve into various topics, mundane and esoteric and then tell people of my findings. I could counsel people, not in a psychological context like I had considered doing earlier, but a spiritual one. I could do something where I actually felt like I was contributing to the improvement of people’s lives, and not just selling something to make someone else money.

So that brings me to the present. I am in my second year of college, pursuing Bachelors degrees in Religious Studies as well as Sociology. I look optimistically to the future, when I hope to attend either Starr King or Meadville-Lombard, the two UU theological seminaries. But most importantly, I’m looking forward to a life of helping others.