By Carolyn Benedict:

For my mother, my hair was always a big problem.
Every time I came near her, she whipped out a comb and tried to rearrange
my bangs. Even after I went away from college, the first thing she did
when I came home for a holiday was to sit me down and begin to brush the
hair away from my face. The real trouble was that my mother's hair was
thick, a beautiful chestnut brown, glossy and long, with a natural wave.
She could arrange it in many ways, always attractive. My hair was baby
fine, thin and stubbornly straight. It was black and shiny, but there
was no way it could be arranged gracefully on my head-it always ended sticking
out in every direction. The Dutch bob I had worn all through my pre-teen
years was the way it would behave in a dignified manner.

When I was fifteen, it was inevitable that mother
would insist that I have a permanent. In 1935, the beauty shop business
was still in a primitive state. The instrument of torture which made curls
was a tall, floor-lamp shaped machine on wheels, with a series of electric
cables hanging form a pole. The wires ended in clamps, one of which fastened
to each strand of hair to be curled. After being shampooed, the hair was
dipped into an acrid, foul-smelling solution, wrapped in foil s trips and
clamped one at a time onto the machine. I was sure I would be electrocuted
when the machine was switched on, continue reading » »

by Doug Bauder

I was born in Bethlehem, PA, an historic community whose culture has been influenced by those who settled and named the town on Christmas Eve in 1741. Known as “Moravians,” they were descendents of those who followed the teachings of Czech reformer John Hus, one of the earliest leaders of the Protestant Reformation. While their roots date back to the 15th century, their numbers, today, are relatively small and, yet, their gentle approach to the Christian faith has had an impact on a variety of cultures and individuals up until the present time. Among the blessings which I received from my association with the Moravian Church is an understanding of religion as a matter of the heart. This, in turn, has given me the ability to approach the holy in a spirit of humility and love; to value the dignity and worth of every human being; to cherish simplicity; and to celebrate my faith and my life in song. Indeed, the gift of music has been integral in my own spiritual journey.

When I think of the ‘culture’ in which I grew up I can hardly distinguish between my family and my faith community. The two are closely intertwined. My home and my church were places where I was affirmed, challenged, corrected, nurtured and taught to care for the world and the people around me. Holidays were celebrated in both places in simple, but meaningful ways. A spirit of grace and good humor colored my days. Friends from distant places and varied cultures were always welcome in our home and often celebrated special occasions with us.

Education was valued highly by my parents and was also part of my heritage of faith. I was encouraged to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to develop my own understanding of the divine nature. That approach led me to believe that life was a gift; that the world was full of wonders to be explored and enjoyed; that all people had within themselves the capacity for great good, as well as horrific evil. I came to understand that life, itself, is a journey and that there is a Power that can help us to find our way, if we keep our minds and our hearts open. Moments of quiet reflection alone, the reading of sacred texts, conversations with respected others, community worship – all of these things helped me to develop a personal relationship with the very Source of Life. The ability to celebrate my individuality, to understand my limitations, and to accept the fact that I am loved is what I have come to call ‘grace’ and it is that word which, most clearly, defines my own concept of God. The spirit of the historical figure named Jesus has been a unique force in my developing spirituality.

I would have to say that the most challenging experience of my life, up to this point, was coming to terms with the fact that I am gay. I did so in my early thirties, after five years of marriage, and after the birth of my two children. Major heart surgery and the death of my father would rank as significant moments in time, as well, but nothing compares in my life to the pain and confusion, the guilt and frustration, the ultimate liberation that came from acknowledging a sexual orientation that is different from the norm. It, quite literally, changed my world. And, yet, at the same time, it deepened my own faith, as I sought to utilize the variety of spiritual resources within and around me. What I had learned from growing up in the Moravian Church helped me to acknowledge and affirm my differences as a gay man; to forgive myself for mistakes I made and people I hurt in my ‘coming out’ process; and, ultimately, to find ways to help others who struggle with this unique life dynamic. This has, now, become my life’s work, coordinating an office that provides support for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students and information on glbt issues to the campus where I work and the larger community in which I live. Over the twenty years in which I have done this kind of work, I have been privileged to know and learn from people from any number of cultures and races, and religious backgrounds. For me, all of this speaks of a Creator who values diversity.

What I would want others to know is that just as life, itself, is a journey, so, too, is the process of ‘coming out’. It is a matter of asking ultimate questions like: Who am I? Will I know love? How can I find my place in the world? In the midst of answering those questions for myself I would say that my own coming out has been a kind of ‘resurrection’ experience. After living in a closet (tomb) for a number of years, a place where darkness often reigned, I chose to come out into the light – to face my ‘demons’, as it were. I chose to learn more about who I really am and, for me, new life followed. Paraphrasing the words of another, I came to know the truth and that truth has set me free. My hope is that as others follow their own spiritual path they would know the joy that comes from such enlightenment.

by Lillian Casillas

Growing up I was raised Mexican Catholic. It may seem strange that I add the "Mexican" part, but for those who are familiar with Latin American history may know why. The world that I grew up in is a mixture of many cultures and beliefs. The dominant being that of Spain “Catholic” and indigenous groups from what we now know as Mexico. The Spanish priests who came to the new world made great efforts to convert the indigenous communities from their way of life. Needless to say, many of the indigenous people were not easily converted. At some point the Catholic Church discovered an easier way to make those changes by merging Catholic ideology with that of the indigenous.

When I think of the "culture" in which I grew up I can hardly distinguish between my family and my faith community. The two are closely intertwined. My home and my church were places where I was affirmed, challenged, corrected, nurtured and taught to care for the world and the people around me. Holidays were celebrated in both places in simple, but meaningful ways. A spirit of grace and good humor colored my days. Friends from distant places and varied cultures were always welcome in our home and often celebrated special occasions with us.

One example is that of my favorite holiday "The Day of the Dead". While its name may give you images related to Halloween, it is not even close. Its origin goes back to Aztec celebrations dedicated to children and the dead held at the end of July/beginning of August. It was later moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of “All Saints Day”. This is a family event where we welcome back to our homes the souls of the dead and visit their graves (often spending the night at their site). I remember family members telling us stories about those who had died and offering them their favorite dishes, flowers or something that was very special to them. It is an interaction with both the living and the dead in a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is the human existence and knowing that we are more than ourselves and that we are not soon forgotten.

Today while I still hold to some of the beliefs and traditions of my childhood, I would not consider myself a good Catholic. Mexican, Irish or any other. I guess I am what I have been referred to as a “Salad Bar Catholic”. While it is a crude way of articulating it, it is someone who practices what they like and leaves what they don’t. For example, I don’t put value in the church’s stand on abortion, homosexuality, status of women, fear in God or letting others interpret for me my faith. I do believe that spirituality is a process guided by charity, humility, honesty, selflessness, integrity and love to name a few. I do believe there is a higher being because I have seen God in its people.

While in India, Mexico, and Morocco, I had the opportunity to see three very different religions (Hindu, Christian and Muslim) be a powerful force in people’s lives. Religions while distinctive in their ideology, values, and practices realize a similar effect. In these countries stricken with great poverty and instability, its people found strength and courage in their faith to go on. Where their beliefs and faith is the one stability filled with unconditional devotion and love. I have also seen people in this world who give without limit, who put others before them, and who model what it is truly praiseworthy.

Now, I do want to point out that I am not so naïve to ignore that while there is goodness, there are also those who twist and corrupt religions, faiths or beliefs. But at the end, I believe that every God is a true God. Every faith and belief is a true faith and belief.

by Phil Stafford

My earliest memory of the church is a received one. As Unitarians in the small town of Hobart, Indiana, in 1949, my parents brought me in my infancy to the congregation not to be “baptized”, of course, but to be welcomed. I am told that I was given a red rose to commemorate my entry into the church, which I accepted with a Whitmanesque yawlp, as the rose accidentally pricked my finger. Hence, from the beginning, I learned my church was a place for unbridled individual expression.

This emphasis on individual religious choice was supported on a regular basis as my brother and I, seeking release from Sunday morning shirt and tie would occasionally assert: “We’re Unitarians; we choose not to go to church today.” Our parents had no comeback for that.

Generally speaking, however, going to Sunday school was not burdensome. The church lay within a few blocks of home, easy walking distance through the always interesting small town neighborhood. It was the desirable small town atmosphere, with a New England-like Unitarian church that, indeed, drew my parents from Hyde Park in Chicago, with their three small children, to an 1850’s brick farmhouse only blocks from school and stores. I later learned from my mother the perhaps apocryphal tale that the Unitarian church in Hobart, founded in 1874, was a compromise alternative available to citizens tired of the feuding within the mainline Lutheran and Methodist congregations at the time.

Growing up Unitarian meant that as young people we were encouraged to be free thinking about religion. I recall studying a book titled “The Church Across the Street” and taking “field trips” to other churches and synagogues, with debriefing sessions afterwards. By junior high school we were seriously debating morality and politics – I remember being introduced in Sunday school to a map of South East Asia (Viet Nam) as a Freshman, in 1964. By 1967, I was fervently against the war, though on humanitarian and not specifically religious grounds.

As a junior in college at the University of Chicago, with a very high lottery number (34), I was fated to the draft and reclassified 1-A. As I felt it wrong to evade the draft through deception, I assembled a petition for status as a Conscientious Objector. While I could point to the influence of the church in forming my anti-war beliefs, the Unitarian church is not, per se, a “peace church” as it eschews dogma of all kinds. Hence, my petition for CO status was denied, yet my conscience was never fully tested as, soon after, General Hershey declared a complete moratorium on the draft (1972).

Now, thirty five years later, I see a war not unlike that encountered by my own young generation, with brave young people returning home in caskets and on stretchers, while arrogant leaders claim god to their side in a righteous battle of good and evil. It is, I think, this appropriation of religion for power on earth that I find most reprehensible about the entire institutional edifice of religion. Indeed, I feel that many people have turned away from “the church” for this very reason and sought a more personal spirituality.

For me, even spirituality, however, fills no void. Certainly I appreciate the mysteries of the universe. I have experienced total awe at the sight of Mt. Ranier, the power of a good thunderstorm, the blueness of the sky, the sweet smell of honeysuckle and the wonders of my daughter’s birth. I suppose these things and events might be considered spiritual in some sense, yet I see no compelling reason to lend transcendency to these things which are, in of themselves, in their own right, astonishingly present. These encounters leave me feeling not diminished but perhaps inconsequential while, paradoxically, enriched and privileged to have lived. Perhaps it is this notion of the numinous, the experience itself, unmediated by word, that, for some, approaches the spiritual. Yet, I believe the anchor of this experience lies in our humanity, not in our spirituality. It seems to me that the truth of the statement, “we are of one body”, lies in its literalness and, moreover, that this truth can provide the basis for a morality that can save the earth as we (should) know it. In this sense, religion is not part of my life. Faith in the potential goodness of people, however, is another story.

And death? For me, I foresee no transcendence beyond the memory of loved ones and the Einsteinian notion that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. My wish, as offered, again by Whitman:

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,I sound my barbaric yawlp over the rooftops of the world.The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

(from Leaves of Grass)