Area 151

I started attending the church early in 2000. At the time, I was emotionally shattered. In the fall of 1999, a love I’d sincerely thought was The One had left me alone and devestated, less for the loss of him than for all the old wounds his departure had opened up in my heart.

I knew I needed healing, and when some solstice-y things I saw on listservs talked about Unitarian Universalism as a denomination that could successfully co-exist with paganism, I made that mental connection to the church building I passed during my neighborhood rounds. Maybe it’s worth visiting after the new year, I thought.

Then, after the new year, I started making plans to kill myself during my out-of-town trip in late January, and visiting a new church just didn’t seem all that relevant.

When I was back in town (and still alive) come the start of February, I started attending. First, my visits to Sunday services were sporadic—after all, there was that whole “nature of love” series around Valentine’s day that ensured a few weeks would pass between my first and second visits.

Then I started attending more regularly. I put my name on the mailing list to get the church newsletter. I signed up for a woman’s spirituality workshop. I did some online research and learned about the seven principles and six named traditions that are shared values of the UUA. I attended Easter Service and was immensely fascinated by the tradition of the Flower Communion.

And all the while I was telling myself to be cautious. I had a history of throwing myself into some new thing or group or activity in hopes of filling the void I felt inside. I knew that habit had been one part of what had gone wrong with the relationship that had left me shattered.

I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

In early June, I mused about the question of church membership in my pre-blog.* I wrote:

I wonder about the extent of my loneliness. I wonder if that is the driving force behind me considering this next step. I wonder, if this despairing loneliness +is+ my primary motivation, if it is a motivation I can trust. If I join because of this horrible emptiness in my life, is that choice bound to go wrong because it was made for all the wrong reasons? You see, I’m still absolutely worried about going too fast. [...]

I guess I’ll have to keep turning it over in my head for a while. The lucky thing here is that I’m not racing an expiration date or a deadline. I have the luxury of however much time I need for this.

Literally one week later, my post began with these words:

So I officially joined the church today.

Yeah–after all that talk last week about waiting, I just stepped right into it instead.

I try to imagine that six-years-younger me, typing those words at her first-generation magenta iMac.** Some small part of me wants to grab her by the shoulders and ask: What were you thinking?!?

But I tell this story not in an attitude of self-blame. I tell this story to acknowledge my own responsibility for helping create the dysfunctions between me and the church. Looking back, I can see that my reasons for joining weren’t especially healthy, and my decision certainly wasn’t a grounded or a centered one. And I can bet you for damn sure that everything that later developed was influenced by the seeds I planted.

* Have I ever mentioned that I had an “online journal” back in 1999-2000, before I knew the word “blog” existed. (Did the word “blog” exist in 1999-2000?) Well, I did, and I now refer to it internally as my “pre-blog.” Digging up those old files has me wondering if I want to paste that old text into Wordpress and upload all the old shit into here…..

** Okay, magenta iMacs weren’t actually available until the second (third?) iteration of the genre. But mine was one of the first wave of magenta iMacs ever available, so if you understanbd “first-generation” as a modifier of “magenta iMac” instead of just “iMac,” the sentence stands.