I discovered something at church yesterday; I’ve become a pious Unitarian Universalist. What does that mean? How can a UU be pious?

Somehow, over the past ten years of my life, I’ve become addicted to going to church. The Sunday before last was the first Sunday in a very long time that I hadn’t gone to church at all. Even during the Summer recess during which my church did not have services, I attended various other groups on Sunday. This summer my Christian Friend and I went to Catholic Mass, a Quaker meeting, services at a church that belongs to both the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church and a Unity service. For as far back as I can remember now, I’ve gone to a church service at least three out of four Sundays a month. I’ve even managed to catch some Friday night services at local synagogues.

I’ve become a keen observer of every detail of a service. The manner in which the ministers speak, and act, the topics and literary style of their sermons, the mood of the music and the instruments used to play them, the order of service and attention payed by the congregants to each have all proven to be very interesting things for me to observe. But they’re not just interesting. Interesting isn’t enough to get up up and out of the door on a weekend morning.

Something about services even made me a bit disappointed to have missed church last Sunday. What was it? What is it about going to church that draws me in? Certainly the group aspect of it is part of it. The emerging experiential aspect of my spirituality also forces me to admit that the sheer experience of something new every Sunday is also part of it. There is also the certainty that each time I’m bound to take something away from it, whether intellectual or emotional, or both.

To be brief this is only part of why I go. There is a great part of it I can’t really put into words. Suffice it to say, what happens is religion. Religion happens.