Commitment

Yesterday I became an offical member of the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship. Today I got my welcome letter and a Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide. As someone who was raised without a formal religious affiliation or any kind of church connection whatsoever, this is a big step. One I did not foresee prior to moving down to Carbondale, IL (which certainly sometimes only feels understandable to me and my husband by applying a theory of divine guidance).

One of my faculty members teased me about feeling called to pursue the ministry as a UU prior to even becoming a member at my local fellowship - which I thought was fair. I'm not sure why it happened, and I get the sense of caution, concern, confusion, and questioning I've received from certain people in my life. Totally get it.

All I can say is it brings me great joy to be a member. It is a wonderful, unexpected gift to have a spiritual home I am excited to enter each week. And it is an incredible surprise to feel called and to not be able to shake it no matter how much I try to rationally think and ponder and query my way out of it.

So... we shall see. Commitment has been an incredible challenge and lesson for me in this lifetime, and I have an inkling (like a small little voice in the very back corner of my mind) that may be the entire point of this opportunity. A challenge from the larger knowing of my existence to let go of fear and enter into a promise that is all-encompasing and larger than myself. One which I will make as a covenant with humanity, on a scale that requires a level of selflessness and humility unavoidable by my ego/consicous/personal self.

Ultimately, I have faith I'll figure it out along the way... and that there is purpose in the unknowing in the meantime.