Opening Words: We bid you welcome, who come with weary spirit seeking rest.

Who come with troubles that are too much with you, who come hurt and afraid.

We bid you welcome, who come with hope in your heart.

Who come with anticipation in your step, who come proud and joyous.

We bid you welcome, who are seekers of a new faith.

Who come to probe and explore, who come to learn.

We bid you welcome, who enter this hall as a homecoming.

Who have found here room for your spirit. Who find in this people, a family

Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are on your journey,

We bid you welcome.

JULIANNE FONTENOY: I don’t know a lot about my first two years of spiritual development, but I was born as the youngest child of four in a Unitarian family living in New Mexico with parents from Massachusetts and New York State. My father worked as a doctor in the Indian Health Service and my family had some interest in local Native American customs. I believe I went to some local tribes’ dances and celebrations, and otherwise just absorbed the culture of my parents.

I do remember parts of the next four years of my life, which I spent mostly in Lahore, West Pakistan. I lived there in a house with my family and spent much of my non-family time with servants. Because my mother was concerned about the influence that Islam might have on her children, she had tried to hire servants who were non-Muslim. Thus we had a Christian cook (recently converted from Islam) named Victor and a Gherka ayah (or nanny), Jetti, who came from an animist tradition (though she was married to a Muslim and was thus in the process of converting to Islam.) These two I spent the most time with. The other servants (the bearer, gardener, driver, night watchman and sweeper) were mostly Muslim, I believe, with a dash of Hindu thrown in. Though I don’t remember learning anything specifically spiritual from the servants, I do remember having philosophical discussions especially with Victor, the cook, and I also remember spending time in the company of Jetti, our ayah, as she washed and sewed and did other things through the days.

At age four I went to a progressive Pakistani nursery school, about which I remember little except that I felt painfully shy and have never enjoyed egg salad sandwiches since. By the time I was five I spent my weekday mornings in the servants’ sole company while my mother taught the morning session of Kindergarten at the American school and my siblings studied there. I would join my mother at the school for the afternoon session of Kindergarten. I remember feeling really and truly understood and loved by the servants at that time of my life, especially by the two I have named in particular. The feeling of loss I had upon leaving Pakistan at the age of 5 and three quarters – just a bit less than my daughter Naomi’s age right now – has never left me.

A Colonial upbringing and the baggage it entails are hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced them first-hand. It is a complex and conflicted web of emotion and experience, carried under a surface of seeming normalcy. At some times it feels like I move to a different music from that of my country-persons (or of any country’s people), at others it really feels like I am the same as everyone else. Some of what I learned came from my parents, some came from the other people around me, to wit, the servants; some of what I absorbed were my parents’ reactions to the servants and other locals and some of what I absorbed were the servants’ reactions to my parents.

Since my return to the States, I have had varied spiritual influences from both European and Asian cultures. The second year after our return, when I was turning seven, we moved to Denver, Colorado. There my family attended services at the local Unitarian Universalist church until I was age ten or so. After that we started to build a house in the mountains near Denver and then commenced weekends worshipping in the house of nature, a house in which I have found much solace in the years since. Though we remained members of the Unitarian church, we also attended Quaker Meeting a few times during those years.

My high school years I spent at a Quaker boarding school near Philadelphia, experiencing first hand the Friend’s approach to life and also meeting people from a greater variety and depth of faiths than existed in Denver at the time. I liked the contemplation at Meeting for Worship, the religious variety, the open, less hierarchical structure I found at that school, in addition to the lovely campus in amongst the farms of eastern Pennsylvania. I remember at one time during those years writing that I was a sun worshipper.

In college I found myself in an urban setting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near the heart of Unitarianism, surrounded by friends of even more various faiths. I tried attending the local Friend’s Meeting and found it lacking the interest that my religiously more varied high school had had. Though it did occur to me to try out the Unitarian church, indeed I walked by it every day, its big stone fortress seemed too cold and rational to me, and did not beckon to me at that time. I found real solace in two disparate places: at first, during my Freshman year, in sitting in the empty pews of the Christian chapel on campus in the middle of my busy class days and city life, and contemplating what it was that made that structure and other churches feel holy, and then later, beginning in my Sophomore year, in study of the ancient spirituality, culture and language of China. These I had also opportunity to study first-hand during my junior year which I spent abroad in Taiwan.

Somehow the ancient culture of China and later Japan formed a kind of bridge for me between the cacophony, variety, and mysticism of the Pakistan I remembered and the bland white rationality of my parents’ home. Some experiences I had in my junior year abroad in Taiwan opened in me a new awareness of the cultural basis of our Western concepts of science. On my return to college from China I found myself following up this question in a course that buried me in an in-depth study of the underpinnings of European “science”. I found again and again that what we call science is mainly premises based on assumptions, not the rock solid basis of reality that my father and many of his generation seemed to feel it was. For my father science was his religion, his God. But how could such a thing be God if it brought to us the atom bomb? Surely there was need for more guidance than our science was able to provide us. I could see that premises and assumptions underlying any scientific inquiry would need to be carefully watched.

I wrote my senior thesis on the history of science in China and the west, hoping perhaps to come to some understanding of how to combine east and west within me as well as within science. Unfortunately, I failed. I spent ten years flipping back and forth between East Asia and the US, studying or working one year there, studying or working two years here, and so on… This lifestyle fed the separate parts of me -- and yet in the end impoverished the whole of me. I finally found I had to choose between Asia and the West to maintain my sanity, and in the end chose this, the land of my birth. I also had to leave the land of academic scientific inquiry. I moved out of academia and into New York City, a place whose variety matched my own and yet which had no trouble functioning as a whole. It had a culturally blind overarching principle of commerce that organized it and united the people’s efforts within it. It was a relief, after so many years of fruitless intellectual endeavor.

In New York I felt certain I might find a like spirit to my own with whom to continue my life (and I did). At that time I also became involved with a group doing self-actualization trainings. They focused parts of their trainings on a dynamic of the group that I found alluring – perhaps a new basis for my reality and for my efforts in this world. I saw the strength and power that a group can have above and beyond the power of the individuals within that group. That impalpable, almost mystical energy and power seems to me now to be as close as one might get to a description of “God”.

Looking back I recognize that power in all of my most spiritual moments: listening to the early morning chants in the mist at a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Taiwan, communing with nature in the mountains of Colorado and on the campus of my high school, in Quaker Meeting for Worship, at a self-actualization seminar in New York, even at the empty church in the midst of the intellectual maelstrom of an urban university – all have involved this impalpable and irrational force of living beings communicating with and acting on one another, and somehow coming into harmony with one another, and in the process creating something where nothing was before.

While seeking to explain my vision for this talk, I got an image recently in my mind of a mountain on the top of which stands the goal of—call it harmonization of spirits, the Kingdom of God, Nirvana, world peace... It has around it many paths reaching to the top, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, pagan, Buddhist…none better than the other or more efficient, just coming from different beginnings, but all seeking towards the same goal.
A search for my own route up this mountain has given meaning to my time on earth, from Unitarianism to nature worship through Quakerism, Buddhism and Confucianism and most recently back to my roots at the Unitarian Coastal Fellowship here in Morehead City. I could probably be at any other church or at no church at all as well, though I don’t think I personally would feel as comfortable in too many other scenarios.

My vision of many paths leading to the one goal of harmonizing of spirits makes it possible for me to exist here or pretty much anywhere among any peoples and still feel that I am among friends. Thus I am now able to be at peace with where I am and don’t feel the drive constantly to travel that I’ve felt in the past. It also makes it possible for me to operate successfully within the homeschool community here in Carteret County, a group of families with widely disparate but closely held belief systems, and to relate to all of the various people without feeling the need to cut anyone out or belittle anyone else’s beliefs. It is helping me through the emotional trial of watching my brothers in Muslim countries fight my brothers in the United States.

Brad Rich: I'm not sure where, but I'm pretty sure I was baptized when I was a kid. My father was a non-practicing Southern Presbyterian who eventually convinced my Moravian--don't ask me what that is--Yankee born mother to convert to his, by now solid religion, non-practicing though it was.

They--my Mom's still alive and My Dad's been dead 15 YEARS, HARD TO BELIEVE--raised me mostly as a good non-practicing Presbyterian, with a nightly emphasis on prayer before bed, but I think they were kind of generic prayers. They went to church, nearby Amity Presbyterian, on holidays like Easter. And Easter. And Easter. And so did I.

Every once in a while to make things look good, they'd go to the Moravian Church or the Baptist one where the other relatives, on my mom's side went, but that was rare. I don't remember going to my dad's family's church.

Anyway, for awhile, when I was young enough not to complain too much, my parents made me go to Amity Presbyterian Church Sunday School. I'd walk there and back. If they went to church, I'd have to stay.

I eventually decided I didn't much like either church or Cub Scouts--too many questions about the veracity of the stories told in both--and I eventually managed to pitch enough minor fits to get Mom and Dad, who were never really MARRIED to the idea of me going like they were MARRIED to each other to get them to let me quit.

Mom and Dad had lots of verbal arguments….no physical ones. None. What they were was MARRIED, LIKE THE BIBLE SAID MARRIED SHOULD BE, THROUGH THE GOOD AND THE BAD AND THE ETCETERA. And the LOVED EACH OTHER. And they were good people, and tried real hard to DO the right things almost all the time.

That's it. The end of my religious upbringing, at least as I remember it. None of it left any huge lasting impression, at least not one that I can find. What DID leave an impression was my Mom and Dad's good middle-class American lifestyle, the example they set for me. They were honest, tolerant, smart, decent AND real, except during my teenage years, when they were, of course, irritating, annoying, disgusting, discriminatory, stupid and, ESPECIALLY, UNFAIR, as all parents of teenagers must be.

Really, though, what my parents were, consistently, through all the arguments, was a nice mix of Northern liberal Republican upbringing (Mom) and Southern conservative Democrat (Dad). Dad called blacks the "n" word once in awhile, but he honestly didn't mean to and he honestly had nothing against blacks. He hired and promoted and mentored many at his office.

Mom and Dad's general "goodness" and their generally "good" lifestyle seemed to me the perfect religion. You didn't talk about it much, you just lived it. Most of the people around us seemed to, too, and things were mostly OK.

So, I didn't willingly step foot in a church again except for my wedding, others' weddings, funerals and the obligatory "church dates" when Gwen and I were courtin'. Obligatory 'cause her Dad was a preacher.

For the next 21 years, that was it. We moved here and went to the beach on Sundays in the summer------the church of the holy water I called it. I tried to lead a good life, failed at times but mostly succeeded, and was content in knowing that if I didn't know exactly what I believed, my life, at least the parts of my life that I really MEANT, probably met most of the requirements of most of the world's major religions.

I figured, if you stretched the tenets of those major world religions JUST A LITTLE, you could believe, legitimately, that, "If there is a heaven, and if good behavior, good intent, good deeds are enough to get you there, and they should be, since it wouldn't be fair to sentence to a hypothetical hell a person who had never heard of any of the head honchos of any of the major religions, and there surely are some people like that, either because of physical isolation or mental peculiarities, and no real LOVING GOD would send those people to hell, well, if all that is true, then me, with my good life, should be all right no matter which, if any, of the major, or for that matter, minor, religions, turn out to be right.

That was enough, for me, until we had a kid and she grew a brain. Eventually, we both wanted her to have some structure, some place, some people and things other than us, to think of when she thought of the values we'd try to impart to her. We looked in the Yellow Pages. Gwen found UCF, went a couple of times, took Summer, got me to go and when I got here, you folks told me you knew I was Unitarian from what I wrote, and when I heard the other things you said, I knew you were right, and, AND THIS IS IMPORTANT--THAT IF I UNDERSTOOD UUism CORRECTLY, I'D ALWAYS BEEN ONE.

What I am, now, is a guy who's totally comfortable with questions and doesn't really worry that much about the answers. I don't think you can ever really KNOW who's right and who's wrong, or even if anyone or ANY religion has been right yet, about questions about god, or the timekeeper, or it, or some unpronounceable…whatever.

We can believe, of course, and if you choose to believe something, you should believe what you're comfortable with, what makes it possible for you to get through life reasonably happy. Or you can believe nothing. Or you can believe one thing one day, nothing the next day, another thing the third day and nothing the fourth day, ad infinitum, which is ME.

As for what I want/expect from UCF and/or UUism, I want and expect the freedom---blessed it be, blessed--to think as I do, and to be happy, as I am, and to feel comfortable around all of you wonderful people, all of whom, in my opinion, uphold the values of the MAJOR WORLD RELIGIONS at least as well, and most of the time better than, those who profess to adhere to and practice the values of those MAJOR WORLD RELIGIONS.

I also want to be challenged, inspired, comforted, occasionally angered and taught.

So far I've gotten those things from UCF, at various times and at varying levels, so I guess I'll keep coming back and hope that lots of other people--more and more all the time actually--will come too.

Kyla Houbolt: Two experiences of my childhood, it turns out, have come to characterize my entire spiritual life. From where I stand today, I can see how those two experiences shaped and inspired my entire journey.

The first event was an experience of lack, of missing something. I was standing outside, in the backyard, at night. At the end of the yard was a giant old oak tree. I could see the stars. I remember feeling utterly bereft. I looked at the tree, and at the stars, and felt no sense of connection at all. I said, "Where are you?" It seemed to me that I knew a numinous heart-sense of connection, of One-ness, ought to be there, in me, in the tree, in the stars, somehow accessible, and I could not find it. Somehow, it seemed to me, the way we humans were living was cutting me off from a direct spiritual experiencing of existence that I knew must be there, right there, if only I could learn to find it.

The second experience, some short time after that, was a sudden intuition about opposites, about polarities. I was thinking about the sphere of the Earth, and how, if one went far enough West, one would come to the East. And it suddenly struck me that this must be true of all opposites: go far enough in one direction and you will come full circle. I called my intuition "the proximity of extremes"

And so, spurred by the recognition of loss, and inspired by the puzzle of paradox, my searching began. The Protestant Christianity I was raised in offered no methods at all for the kind of spiritual growth I was hungry for. I rejected it passionately. I knew that somewhere in its depths it must once have contained and offered what I sought, but it seemed to have been severed from those roots.

So, I studied other religions, explored every avenue I could find that seemed to offer the possibility of direct experience of the Divine. And, because of my seed insight about paradox, I constantly questioned all settled definitions. Every religion, every path, ultimately seemed too small, too narrowly defined. Although all of my explorations taught me much, and several did indeed give me access to versions of that direct experience I needed, no established path or way ever seemed inclusive enough. I could be neither monotheistic nor polytheistic; both must be true! I could be neither agnostic nor truly surrendered to a faith; both approaches must be equally sacred! I could embrace neither asceticism nor ceremonial richness exclusively, since clearly each had great value! Even atheism had always struck me as a profoundly spiritual embrace of our precious material existence, buy try telling that to a theist! Or an atheist either.

So, I joined nothing. For decades I was a solitary seeker, often almost a hermit in my searches. Rich, lonely, terrifying, exalting, stumbling years. Sadly, many approaches that seemed most promising of the direct experience I sought, also excluded too much of the ordinary, the worldly, the plain, daily humanness of us, our astonishing variety, our struggles I needed to include.

One current in that river of searching was making my peace with Christianity. I did find its deep roots and, although it took many years, and much heart-wrenching, I have come to the point where I can hear the truth in those old words that once wounded me with their apparent emptiness.

And, at a certain point, several years ago, I did encounter an approach to all this that brought me to a deep resolution of Being. For me, the seeking for that direct experience is over. But the investigation has really only just begun.

Ironically, as I write this, I am surrounded by the clamor of the Seafood Festival: loud voices, car horns, amplified music, sirens. Exactly the kind of immersion in garish, chaotic, intrusively worldly energy that always used to obstruct the inner silence I needed to write something like this. Now, both can be there. There's plenty of room, after all.

I am so grateful to have found this Unitarian Fellowship, where all paths are honored, where all our exuberant, abundant differences are held in the spacious vessel of community and love. There is plenty of room, after all. I feel deeply nourished, and profoundly blessed, to be among you.

Closing Words: Whoever you are, come travel with me!

However sweet these laid-up stores--however convenient this dwelling,
we cannot remain here.

However sheltered this port, and however calm these waters,
we must not anchor here.

Together! The inducements shall be greater;
we will sail pathless and wide seas.

We will go where winds blow, waves dash,
and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.

Forward! After the great Companions! And to belong to them!
They, too are on the road!

Onward! To that which is endless, as it was beginningless,
to undergo much, traps of days, rests of nights,

To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it.

To look up and down no road but it stretches and waits for you----

To know the universe itself as a road---as many roads---
as roads for traveling souls.

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