Tuesday, January 24, 2006

UU Adult Spiritual Formation?

Question for the more veteran UUs out there. Is there any common ground of spiritual practice among UUs?

Here's why I'm asking.

Reason 1: One of my Christian colleagues (whose parents are UU, I believe), talks about UUs as dabblers who don't exhibit a whole lot of spiritual maturity (same could be said of many, many Xns, I know). And his comments are not unusual--isn't there a joke that a UU evangelist knocks on your door & doesn't know why?

Reason 2: The real reason. I'm fascinated by human development and transformation. I do more than my fair share of navel-gazing, I admit, but my interest is a sincere concern for becoming an ever more interesting, compassionate, intelligent, life-loving person (and helping others engage in their own process of becoming).

So, do UUs share common practices for "becoming"? Or is everyone eclectic, creating a complex Venn diagram of occasionally overlapping circles? Is this question what pushes people into UU special interest groups (the Xns, the Pagans, the Buddhists, etc.)?

Sorry for the run-ons--in my quest to conquer insomnia I've discovered melatonin!

2 comments:

Steven Rowe said...

don't you just love those terms "spirtual maturity" and "spirtual practice"? If we practice our spirtual it will become mature?

-- our most obvious shared spirtual practice is also our most difficult for some: discussion and talk back. Our faith insists that it be able to stand the light of discussion and questions.
(so yes, RK, Im claiming that UU claim truth - of course that may be why we bitch about ourselves).

StevenR

Jamie Goodwin said...

I think we do have a common spiritual practice. It is one that is hard to explain to those outside of UU however.

It is the belief that we each are free and responcible for our own search for truth and meaning. To that end (with varying degrees of success) we support one another and highlight what we find most inspirational of many faiths, which admitedly can look like "dabbling" to an outsider.