END OF AN ERA

I am feeling discombobulated.  (Love that word!)  Here it is past mid-month and I've not written a post in either of my blogs.  The thought of sitting down to write creates a "thud" in my heart and mind.  What would I say?  I got nothin' for the blog.

It's not really writer's block.  There is ALWAYS something to say.  Writers write.  And I've been writing.  But it's been mostly random thoughts, stream-of-consciousness, journal-puzzling, email responding, all around my decision to leave my UU Fellowship (well, take a long sabbatical) -- the place and community that has been my home-away-from-home for 23 years.

"Leave my church" is a HUGE phrase and one I want to take back the minute I write it.  My church is not a typical Christian church, the image conjured when the word "church" is uttered.  I am a Unitarian Universalist -- a seeker who finds wisdom in all faith traditions and within my own human experience.   We call ourselves not a church, but a Fellowship -- and have taken great pride in our community of "like-minded" people (mostly liberal thinkers and doers) gathering in an old Methodist church building we bought a couple of decades ago, situated in a fairly conservative small town north of Seattle.

Alas, pride goeth before the fall.  This UU community also fancies itself an anti-authoritarian throwback to the glory days of the 60s when "Question Authority" was the rallying cry.  I think it still wise to use our brains and question leaders not acting in our best interests.  But there is process for doing that -- a democratic process that certainly includes replacement of elected leaders through the election process.   There might also be protests and petitions and expressing differing opinions.

But are these appropriate and loving strategies to direct at church leaders, friends who sit across the aisle on Sunday mornings?  Is it OK to give voice to flaring tempers?  To conspiracy theories and rumors?  To name-calling and character assassination?   To promoting an "us" vs "them" divide?  I don't think so.

But that is what has happened over the past few months at my UU Fellowship.  I don't even recognize what it has become.  We had a inexperienced (and some might say, controlling) minister, who started the ruckus with a personnel decision unpopular among some, but supported by others.  She has now resigned after only being in our church for just over a year.  Two months prior to her leaving, I resigned from an important committee chair position because I couldn't work with her any longer for a number of reasons unrelated to her personnel decision (with which I agreed).  Three Board of Trustees members resigned for the same reason.  All of us have left the whole church to some degree or another because of the vociferous faction that rose up in defense of the dismissed volunteer.  Some violated boundaries of confidentiality, decorum, and just good sense.  (Really?  Calling for resignations?  Monopolizing meetings and services with  personal agendas? Calling out our Board of Trustees as Nazis that Hitler would be proud of?  That's going a bit far, don't you think?  Did the good folks on the Board deserve this vitriol?)

So, I've been grieving the loss of what was once a truly loving and supportive community for me.  One in which I devoted thousands of hours of time and energy, as well as thousands of dollars in financial support over the years.  I had so many friends there, so many positive and joyful experiences.  Yes, there were flaws, underlying problems that would surface and then recede, but all- in-all I hung in there, believing (even in the past few years when my involvement seemed like mostly work and worry) that we were "better" than other churches -- we were smarter, more insightful, more loving, more giving, more involved in the community and the world with our activism, more creative and more accepting -- more compassionate.  But nope.  Not so much.

I get the lesson here.  Putting oneself or one's community on a "better than" pedestal is always wrong, and particularly wrong for a church; it never plays out quite that way.  I am humbled at the same time I am sad and disillusioned.  I am grieving.

I'm also excited about the freedom from responsibility and commitment to that institution.  It really was a full-time job at times.  If I wasn't physically there, I was there in my thoughts and plans, talking  about and organizing for this or that committee or event or worship service.  It came only second to my family in importance -- and sometimes (too often) it came first.  I thought about it when I went to sleep, when I woke up, and even during my insomniac nights I'd get up and work on a project of some kind.  Sheesh!  I was completely out of balance!

So, I'm getting quiet now.  Sitting with this stunning turn of events that I never saw coming only a few months ago.  I'm opening myself to new vistas of spiritual growth, personal development, healing and forgiving.

It's just that in that space, writing has taken a back seat.  But I'll be back.  Writers write.

At least, that's the view from here... ©