Travel Notebook: Does God Live in Westport?

This Sunday, my partner R------ and I went to a service at the Unitarian Universalist church in Westport. I am a member of the Church of All Souls in New York, but since I now live 40 miles north of the city, regular attendance there has been less than feasible. In fact, before Sunday, I hadn't been to any church in months. I'd almost forgotten what it was like. But something told me that the advent of a new season (not to mention a new relationship) brought as good a chance as any to replenish my neglected soul.

Two observations to make about the experience: first, people don't generally go to church the Sunday after Thanksgiving; and second, those who do are, on average, about 50 years older than I am. Age statistics do skew upward across all faiths, but with polls showing that self-described Unitarian Universalists comprise approximately 0.2% of the American population, it does not bode well that a congregation of a few hundred members would boast exactly two people under thirty at Sunday worship--- both of them visitors.

The church itself is situated in the middle of a classic New England wood, trees bunched together and stretching from one side of us to the other. It is a magnificent place to worship. And the associate minister in charge of the day's service, Margie Allen, gave a worthy sermon about the spiral of life and our responsibility in creating miracles for ourselves and each other. At the center of the ceremony, though, stood the members themselves: all of us were invited to light candles in honor of a joy or sorrow we were carrying with us, and, if we so chose, to tell the congregation about it. Even though there were, inevitably, more tales of friends and in-laws with Alzheimer's and cancer than one would expect to find among the general population, the whole thing felt exactly right; a true democratic spirit flew through the air.

But that leaves me with a question: do people really want church to be about them? Do they see it as an opportunity to share the maps of their lives with friends and mark the passage of their time on Earth? My guess is that most don't. I imagine that most of us see Sunday worship as an opportunity to look beyond our pedestrian lives, up to the sky, into the mysteries of the past and the divine--- and that while Forrest Church is absolutely correct to say that Unitarians "seek the meaning in life, not the meaning of life," it's also worth pointing out that too many of us have tried and failed at finding that meaning within ourselves. We find it in God and we find it in each other. That's why we go to church. For us Unitarian Universalists who want more than a coffee hour and a shot of social justice, worship is a balancing act: honoring the mystery, challenging the known.