So as not to draw out this post too much, I’ll stick to my main points, but just acknowledge here that there is a lot of thought and emotion behind what I’ll say.

Today I will go to the office of the UU church of which I’m a member and hand in my resignation letter. I have found that my church – and organized Unitarian Universalism – no longer offers me enough of spiritual sustenance for me to continue with it.

This is a disappointment. I joined twenty years ago when my wife and I found it a good fit for our beliefs as well as a good religious community to raise our young children in. And it was very most often good!

For me, the purpose of religion (both organized and personal) is to foster spiritual well-being. I think spirituality is seeing what the situation in life is, and figuring: “What do I make of that?” The topics are endless, for some examples:

• Sometimes you’ll do things that are morally wrong. What do you do about that?

• You’ll always interact with other people. Some will be indifferent to you, some will support and help you, some will screw you over. What to you make of that, in each case?

• You have a body. How do you best deal with that material existence?

• Guaranteed, someday you’re going to die. How do you live knowing that?

• You’ve got to deal with possessions and resources – everyone needs stuff to survive, and even to live a creative life. How best to deal with that?

And so on. My main point is that these (and so many more) are UNIVERSAL concerns, things that EVERY person alive ever has to face. So, a religion that’s pertinent to everybody will address these concerns.

I have religious beliefs and practices to help me deal with life.

I was finding participation in my UU church community very conductive for that. Almost every Sunday morning service offered something to think over and meditate on - ideas I had not thought about and that were germane to my spiritual process. Other activities at the church (religious education, small-group rituals) were very helpful too.

About a year ago my church hired a new full-time settled minister, and the tenor of the doings changed markedly. I’m not putting it all on the minister – that hiring was just in line with the general changes I was seeing. Overall, the focus of the church’s activities went to being political and social, and not spiritual. The Sunday morning services were a striking example of this: consistently, whole sermons (even entire worship services) were exclusively about how society needs to change to benefit some segments of the population – offering no helpful spiritual ideas. None at least that would help me get through the week, let alone life.

Organized Unitarian Universalism got away from me, I can only feel. When I come away from a UU doing feeling no spiritual fulfillment – or even boost – I can only wonder what the point of that religious exercise is. For me, there is none.

My membership in that church was a good twenty-year run, and I have no regrets. Sometimes, things just change unexpectedly. What do I make of that? (That itself is yet another common spiritual concern!)

[I do have to say that I am not leaving because of the people in my church – they’re all folks I was glad to be around.]

So I’m leaving my local church and UUism in general. I need to break away, for my own spiritual well-being. This is nothing I would have wished for, but I see it as necessary. I can no longer be a member of a religion I don’t believe in.

What’s next for me religiously, I don’t know. For sure I will no longer call myself a Unitarian Universalist, but that was always secondary anyway. I may look for other organized religious groups, but I’ll probably be solitary for a while. I won’t say I just experienced religious trauma from my latter experience in organized Unitarian Universalism, more like extreme religious stress. I need to let it out of my life for a while.

Honestly, I have nothing against UUism or its people. Let them be happy. I’m just seeing that community is no longer for me.