#I love the Unitarians

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Every so often I remember my desire to be a Catholic priest and am sad that I can’t be one

Not that I’m particularly devout—I’m not. My relationship with the Other/Divine/Whatever is dubious at best. But all the roles a priest plays in the parish are things I love and would be good at.

I’m also really good at talking to people about their own faith and struggles and such.

When I’m a few glasses of wine in, there’s a part of me that’s like “yeah, you were a weird, probably queer-adjacent (as we would term it in 2023), parish priest in your past life in like 1255 Italy.”

#quiet night in #been having a few glasses of the fumé blanc which is a great wine #Watson agrees that I should be a parish priest #she thinks she’d be a great presbytery cat #my religious upbringing was All Over The Map #but Catholicism stuck best in terms of where I align myself if I had to choose one #that’s not like Unitarian #I love the Unitarians

[pinkpetalbee]

#lgbt #lgbt history #unitarianuniversalism #uu #progressivefaith #interconnectedness #spirituality #inclusivefaith #belovedcommunity #unitarian #mindfulness #personalgrowth #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #lgbtq #lgbt nsft #queer #queer community #nonbinary #transgender #lesbian #gay #bisexual #intersex #2slgbtqia+ #transgender rights #trans joy #transblr #i love you

[cvsette]

The thing about church is that I would love to go to a Place every Sunday and have the ritual of a group service and hear music and sing with the rest of the attendees and listen to a sermon about a Topic and reflect on how to be a better, kinder, more self-sacrificing person and feel very small in the universe but also feel as though I can do something to help those around me and in the broader community and have volunteer opportunities to do just that. But the thing is I will always feel like an imposter because I can’t make myself believe in God outside of being in a metaphorical foxhole. Anyways who’s down to invent agnostic Episcopalianism

#personal #I think about that clip of the young pope where he’s like ‘you can love god as fervently as you want that’s why I can only love him #a lot #and yes. joining a volunteer group or a neighborhood group or whatever would accomplish some of these goals but #it’s the rituals. it’s the self-reflective aspect. it’s light through a church window and bowing your head #I would love religious services if they didn’t make me feel like a bad person for being unable to have faith #which is probably the most Catholic thing I’ve ever said #i was baptized Episcopalian and raised Methodist + universalist Unitarian for the record #sorry to Catholics for appropriating your culture

[parisiterileymoon]

The most church-y thing I’ve ever done was a unitatian universalist church called “people’s church”. My grandpa, mom, and uncles were all raised there. At my great-grandads funeral I was invited to light the chalice. Much to my embarrassment, someone had cut the wick on the candle. I tried to light the chalice twice before reverend Racheal leaned into the microphone and went “it’s alright Riley, keep trying”. I will remember this, reverend. I lit the chalice and almost set my tie on fire. So church is fuuuun

#unitatian universalist #unitarian universalism #damn you reverend Racheal #she’s really nice though #jk I love you reverend 🫶

[glimblshanks]

Someone come kick me before I try to write a new fic

#I NEED to finish my current one first #but good god #historical AU where the WC4 are all pirates #and T'Lyn is a puritan girl that Mariner saves from drowning #and they're about to bring her back to Massachusetts when T'lyn is like 'no wait I want to be a pirate actually' #and also in this Tendi is actually the daughter of a Royal Navy admiral who ran away to sea to become a Pirate #and we're following the canon plot beats by having her pretend to go back to being a good English woman so she can pull off a heist #so she only joins us half way through the story #and then we have a little Tendi/Mariner/ T'Lyn love triangle situation #and also b plot about exploring religion?? #idk there's just something very funny to me about Brad Boimler being explicitly Unitarian and also a Pirate #ugh I hate when plot bunnies strike #I'm already in the middle of a multi chapter fic that I need to finish #before I get into this #which would also for sure be a multi chapter fic

[thebirdandhersong]

have been reading a George Eliot biography for class and it makes me SO sad you guys

#she.... was SO HUNGRY for love #she wanted to be accepted so badly by her peers and she wanted to be loved by her family and she wanted SO BADLY TO BE LOVED #and she went from one thing to another to Prove that she was worthy of it. piety and works and evangelicalism and unitarianism #and developing a sense of intellectual superiority at times because she WAS so clever and well read #and all of it wasn't enough because it NEVER is enough to fill that void #and all the questionable decisions she made in her life were mostly because she found with person a or b the acceptance #she was looking for. she felt that that void was filled somehow #she's looking for God but in all the wrong places. even when she was in her theology phase she was going about it #either with stony intellectualism or with fervent emotion-driven frenzy #i don't know it just makes me really really sad #(adventures in class)

[simply-sithel]

#it's been one year #raised Unitarian Universalist but the only thing I took away from it was a love of fire #am pretty anti-religious but the yahrzeit candle idea is a solid one #I miss my father

[chicago-geniza]

aksjdkfhfhfbf i am not getting in on DSA drama, am just a sideline spectator catching the odd snippet of commentary, but saw some guy say "when i was in Div School TM with [lady who offered to lead a 'non-denominational prayer' at an org meeting], she was the very model of a modern seminarian, she made her home a welcoming and warm space for queer theology students,"

and what i said out loud with my human mouth as i read this--and i'm not proud of it--was, in a very droll tone of voice--"so you're saying she's episcopalian"

and i just caught another snippet of commentary confirming she is, indeed,

episcopalian lmfaooo

#some of my friends are very involved in episcopalian ministry and they are all hashtag queer hashtag progressive and i #know way too much about Christian denominational stuff now and my impression is like #episcopalians are like if unitarians believed in God for real #so i am saying this with love in my heart. but org spaces are not places for prayer!

[fagrackham]

i get rambunctious abt architecture

#the sort of secondary downtown in the town i grew up was all these really charming little brick buildings and there was a ben franklin and #a donut shop that exploded (dw abt it) and really classic signage and the unitarian church which is a really lovely romanesuqe building #from 1890. it's one of the topographically lower points in the area and what should happen a few years back but these giant towering luxury #condos coming up at the highest point in the area. its like a church r smth idk but its fucking hideous in that sort of 80s-pomo-modern #farmhouse way and there arent apartment keys you have to use an app which makes me sick. oh also the library was rebuilt in 1965 and is #this adorable little building which is decidedly midcentury inside but not in the cool way you're thinking but it's PRETTY. there's an #ornamental book on the face of it and a wrought iron gate and it's really cozy. but the wiring is janky and instead of just fixing it they #are gonna knock it down and rebuild it to be one of those hideous glass walled monstrosities that have taken over any public space. see #also how they knocked down the high school which was built in the late sixties after the original burned down and replaced it with this #torture chamber. no character at all just sterile blue furniture white walls and light gray tile. it is cold and soulless and so big it #makes me sick. its also almost entirely open concept. but it USED to be this fantastic 1970 ish brick building w brick walls and multicolor #tile and lockers and a gym with wood panelling and murals of the beatles and calvin and hobbes #anyway rant over but the world is turning to shit

[tinychalise]

"...one gradually formulates one's religion, be it what it may. A person has no religion who has not slowly and painfully gathered one together, adding to it, shaping it; and one's religion is never final, it seems, but must always be undergoing modification." - D.H. Lawrence

#religion #quotes #unitarian universalism #quotes i love

[fleshadept]

one of my oldest memories is from when i was about five or six years old. my grandma was visiting that evening, so she was tucking me into bed. now, my parents raised us agnostic with a side of unitarian universalism, so i knew next to nothing about christianity, or that god fellow, or whatever. my grandparents never approved of this, convinced they were damning us kids to hell forever.

so when my grandma was tucking me in and she told me to repeat after her and say “i love you jesus,” i did.

but then she said: “there. and now you’ve let jesus into your heart.” and kissed me and left me to dream sweet child dreams probably of jesus saving my immortal soul or whatever.

except, i didn’t know who the fuck jesus was, and i did not understand metaphor. i certainly had not realized that by saying that, i had apparently invited a small man to take up residence in my heart. my child brain raced with panic: was he in there? what would he do? would i be able to feel him moving around? was he stuck forever now? that seemed mean to him, and felt like my grandma had played a trick on me.

so, sensibly, i decided my best bet to expel this tiny man who i had NOT wanted to move into my heart (aside from surgery, which i discounted as an option when i imagined asking my parents about it) was to do the reverse incantation: i fell asleep that night mumbling and mentally shouting I HATE YOU JESUS I HATE YOU JESUS I HATE YOU JESUS, hoping he would get the message and relocate somewhere that wanted him.

#cricket chirps #creative writing #kinda #since this is a real story #5k #10k

[jessicalprice]

how can you be so controversial and yet so brave

(reposted from Twitter)

Hey so, have I ever told you about the time I was at an interfaith event (my rabbi, who was on the panel, didn't want to be the only Jew there), and there was a panel with representatives of 7 different traditions, from Baha'i to Zoroastrian?

The setup was each panelist got asked the same question by the moderator, had 3 minutes to respond, and then they moved on to the next panelist.

The Christian dude talked for 8 minutes and kept waving off the poor, flustered, terminally polite Unitarian moderator.

The next panelist was a Hindu lady, who just said drily, "I'll try to keep my answer to under a minute so everyone else still has a chance to answer." (I, incidentally, am at a table with I think the only other non-Christian audience members, a handful of Muslims and a Zorastrian.)

So then we get to the audience questions part. No one's asking any questions, so finally I decide to get things rolling, and raise my hand and the very polite moderator comes over and gives me the mic.

I briefly explain Stendahl's concept of "holy envy" and ask what each of theirs is.

(If you're not familiar, Stendahl had 3 tenets for learning about other traditions, and one was leave room for "holy envy," being able to say, I am happy in my tradition and don't desire to convert, but this is something about another tradition that I admire and wish we had.)

The answers were lovely. My rabbi said she admired the Buddhist comfort with silence and wished we could learn to have that spaciousness in our practice. The Hindu said she admired the Jewish and Muslim commitment to social justice & changing, rather than accepting, the status quo.

The Christian dude said he envied that everyone else on the panel had the opportunity to newly accept Jesus.

I shit you not.

Dead silence. The Buddhist and Baha'i panelists are resolutely holding poker faces. The Hindu lady has placed her hands on the table and folded them and seems to be holding them very tightly. Over on the middle eastern end of the table, the rabbi, the imam, and the Zoroastrian lady are all leaning away from the Christian at identical angles with identical expressions of disgust. The terminally polite Unitarian moderator is literally wringing his hands in distress.

A Christian lady at the table next to me, somehow unable to pick up on the emotional currents in the room, sighs happily and says to her fellow church lady, "What a beautiful answer."

anyway I love my rabbi to death and would do anything for her

except attend another interfaith event

#christians #interfaithing while jewish #no really #why are christians like this?

[pinkpetalbee]

#unitarianuniversalism #uu #progressivefaith #interconnectedness #inclusivefaith #spirituality #unitarian #belovedcommunity #personalgrowth #mindfulness #lgbt #sjw #social justice #social commentary #social spirit #society #social media #social anxiety #social networks #work life #agency #love #loveothers #lovers #love quotes #self love #i love him #feeling #relationship #life

[thedivinesquishy]

Listening begins with an open mind,

Compassion begins with a heart that is willing to give,

Courage begins with accepting that you are afraid,

Love begins deep within your soul.

#thoughts #I thought about this while in church #it’s a Unitarian church #idk how to tag these things #courage #love #compassion

[uumendu]

Btw I calculated it and the church bookstore has around 4,000 to 5,000 books.

The oldest one I've found so far was printed in 1803, but most are from 1920-2010, with a median (out of books logged so far) in the 1970s.

It would take me 262.5 hrs to catalogue it all, which is about 6.5 full time work weeks. I do part time, not full, so it would take me longer than that to finish the catalog, except that I sometimes have helpers so idk. (If someone wants to volunteer for like highschool volunteer credit or something I would be eternally grateful (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠))

I have 153 books cataloged so far.

If you're interested in any of those, or want me to take a look around the bookstore for any others, send an ask or DM here on Tumblr, email us at [email protected], or to explore in person, drop by the church on Saturday or Sunday!

A tab with the in-progress book catalog should be up on our website soon!

#books #bookstore #cool stuff #old books #used books #antique books #reading #literature #church #unitarian universalist #unitarian #uumendu #uu #unitarian universalist church #unitarian church #universalist #uu church #sorry I love numbers

[allthecanadianpolitics]

In solidarity with Calgary’s LGBTQ+ community, a local Unitarian church will celebrate Easter with a drag show in their Sunday service. The “Drag Me to Church” service will coincide with Easter Sunday and the International Trans Day of Visibility, a day recognizing the contributions of trans people as the challenges they still face. The church service will also protest the introduction of legislation threatening the rights of transgender youth in the conservative governmental province of Alberta, Canada. “No matter what tradition you’re from, I guarantee you that you will have people in your community who identify on the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum — whether they are free to say it or not,” the Rev. Samaya Oakley, the minister of the Calgary Unitarians, told the Edmonton Journal. “If we are truly people who believe in the goodness and the inherent love that exists in this world, then we would extend that to people on that spectrum.”

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada @abpoli

#Alberta #Calgary #Drag show #LGBTQ #christianity #Unitarian church