I’d like to share with you a bit about how I managed to find the Unitarian church and what happened next.

It was December, 1988, and as part of an excessively complicated approach to making my New Year’s Resolutions that year, I decided to make one resolution for each side of the four scales of the Myers-Briggs Personality Model.

This exercise, meant to honour both my natural inclinations as well as the parts of my personality that could undoubtedly use some development resulted in a strange melange of goals such as: to have matching towels and to become spiritually developed.

Within the previous two years both of my parents had died, one very suddenly and one after a prolonged illness. Although I had satisfying work; great kids; many friends, I had reached that: Is this all? moment that often hits right around mid-life. At 42, I was about on schedule.

Getting the towels was the easy part. But where to begin to become spiritually developed?

Well, I had heard of The Unitarian Church. The first time was in 1975 when a teaching colleague invited me to join her at Discovery: a Friday night event for singles; combining food, discussion and dancing. Going to a church to meet people seemed an odd idea at best and when I politely said “No thank you”, she did not press her case.

Over the next decade, the word “Unitarian” popped up now and again. I’d see it mainly on posters advertising musical concerts and book signings. (The building in Vancouver is well used for rental activities.) At one time, a friend declared, to my surprise, that he was a Unitarian—and on parting, he would sometimes say: We don’t pray; but I’ll meditate on you.

So, the Unitarian church seemed as good a place as any to start this journey. I looked them up in the phone book and called to ask: what’s going on? The receptionist took my name and address and promised me 3 months worth of free newsletters.

When my first free newsletter arrived, I chose a Good Friday “Tennebrae” (service of darkness) for my first foray into this new territory. At the end of the service, the church in darkness, we were invited to sit until we were ready to move across the courtyard to Hewett Hall for a shared meal of soup and bread.

I’d like to be able to tell you that at this point I felt instantly “at home” and demanded the membership book so I could sign up.

But, I did not experience an immediate conversion. I did not go and get a bumper sticker proclaiming: I found It! but I did find myself returning to the Unitarian church more and more often.

Several months later, I read an interview with former Catholic priest Matthew Fox who had just been released from a two-year silencing by his church. Asked Why, since he was so critical of the Roman Catholic church, did he remain a priest? He replied: It’s my bus too!

The metaphor of a spiritual bus stirred me where “spiritual home” had not. I began to entertain the thought that the Unitarian Church might indeed be my “bus”.

I didn’t understand where the bus was headed or who was driving it! but I more and more felt that these people were my fellow travellers.

Fast forward to the year 2000, when after two brief and very part-time staff roles at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver and then Beacon Unitarian Church, I was appointed as the Executive Director of the Canadian Unitarian Council. My proposal to do the job half-time from my home in Vancouver and half time based here in Toronto was accepted.

It’s fortunate that the metaphor of spiritual bus spoke to me more than spiritual home. In the past five years, I’ve travelled by plane, train and bus to visit almost all of our 47 congregations.

When I travel I look for opportunities to say the word “Unitarian” to strangers.

To a cab driver, I’ll say, “I want to go to the Unitarian church,” before pausing and providing the address.

“I’m going to a Unitarian church conference,” I say at border crossings.

And when the person next to me on a plane asks if I’m travelling for work, I say, “Yes. I work for the Unitarian church and I’m heading to the national office in Toronto.”

Often I find that my seat mate was married by a Unitarian or used to live in Boston or remembers the ads by Lotta Hitschmanova for the Unitarian Service Committee.

Other times it just guarantees me a whole five hours to read without interruption.

I figure the odds are that one day one of these people will go home and “google” “Unitarian”; take the Beliefnet quiz on the web, score over 95% and decide to join us on this Magical Mystery Bus Tour.

Stop the bus!

Someone wants to get on!