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Lately, I have been a spiritual wanderer sort to speak attempting to find a place that best fits my understanding of spirituality, ethics, morals, etc.

For while (since 2016), I’ve been as involved as I can with many religious communities attempting to find what fit the best.

Admittedly, I was reluctant to embrace the UU church. Not because it was a bad option, quite the contrary actually, but because I felt for some reason my beliefs already existed in full in some crevice of a pre-established religion with it’s own book or doctrine detailing a comprehensive theology, etc.

To my dismay that doesn’t seem to be the case. Atleast not in a mainstream sense.

I come from a Mahayana Buddhist background. The Dharmic religions always seemed to have made the most sense to me but I’ve always appreciated Abrahamic religions as well. I still have a great interest in them.

I also am very much interested in the occult and esoteric world concepts. I also have a background in New Ageism and upon recently learning it’s esoteric ties I enjoy their ideas very much.

Ultimately, because I haven’t made a decision I lack what I really want in a religion which is a sense of community to share and discuss beliefs with people but also put into practice in a very real and tangible way of helping people.

It does concern me how UU doesn’t have a holy text, rituals, etc but that’s only because that’s what I often associate a religious body to have. However, I guess in this case it’s a good thing because it alleviates the church from being dogmatic.

I'm more aligned with UU than I am with liberal Christianity, and I should probably be able to find my home there, but I just cannot with my local church. Maybe I'm stuck in the past - they had a great, challenging, interesting minister years ago (he retired). I attended yesterday, the current minister tends to "scold" the congregation for all the things they aren't doing well enough (having their own beliefs, not being covenental enough, not respecting "God language" and Christianity enough, posing the possible risk that we won't do what minister wants us to do next with sufficient seriousness and reverence ). I really don't need to spend my Sunday socially distanced, in a mask, scolded, and then hustled out (because no coffee hour and no socializing permitted at this time). I'm also now wondering if minister really does respect humanists and others who aren't of minister's particular "pro-God-talk" mindset. What will we be "corrected" for next?

I want UU to survive, I think that it offers something that we need and cannot usually get elsewhere, but sometimes I look at individual churches and wonder how that will be possible.

The comedy series Pen15 actually has a UU main character whose church isn't treated like a joke (hey, Simpsons!). I've never seen that before to this extent (this is where you feel free to tell me I'm missing some obvious reference).

(NPR story where creator/star Anna Konkle mentions UU background, warning for sexual content)

Now, I know it's not a show for everyone (gets pretty uncomfortable at times, but is hilarious IMO), but it was super refreshing this season just to see a UU church youth group, some UU stuff in the community, and even a UU service, like you would any other religion that a character happened to be part of. Chalices in the background and all.

Two discussion questions:

Did the youth group give anyone else flashbacks to their '90s/early 2000s YRUU or RE experience?

And equally important, does anyone's real church have quilts draped on all the pews? It seems like something we'd do. 😉

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 10 posts:

• "There's a couple more I could think of, but I ran out of Spidermans." by u/5135kensington
• "Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo" by u/Nativereqular
• "60 years ago today, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America formally consolidated to form the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA). Here's a photo from 1961 regarding the occasion." by u/5135kensington
• "The Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff in Dallas, Texas just celebrated our 60th anniversary and we're getting a facelift!" by u/elluvadeal
• "Some hUUmor for your Saturday" by u/doxymoronic
• "Made myself a chalice to use while my community continues to meet online!" by u/ajastr
• "Canadian Unitarians have adopted an 8th principle" by u/prescod
• "Atheists who attend UU?" by u/ilikeanimeandcats
• "Is anyone else here an OWL (Our Whole Lives) graduate? Could we talk about how the program has affected your dating life and friendships?" by u/a_tired_scientist
• "The UUA Decries Anti-Asian Violence" by u/hallelooya

We are not a Christian church, but I really enjoy our candlelight and carols service on Christmas Eve.
We practice a secular Christmas at home and it's nice to be able to enjoy that with our church friends.

While our church occasionally talks about Jesus as a teacher during the year......... talk about the nativity, or the Holy Family, or angels, etc. is not part of our holiday celebration. We do non-religious carols like Good King Wenceslas , Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells. There might a "savior" or two in there, IDK, I don't really care.

We also have a solstice celebration with earth poems and bonfires and intention setting practices.

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Does your church do anything for the holiday season?