June 2, 2002

My spiritual story has no beginning and no end, though I believe it was a benevolent universe that orchestrated my move to a house two doors down from this congregation in the fall of 2000. At the time, I was very alone and scared - I had just left a failed relationship for which I had moved from my home in Tel Aviv, Israel and I knew no one in Toronto. I was in great need of solace and the comfort of welcoming faces and here was this congregational building winking at me, or so it seemed to me, every time I walked down the street. I was intrigued by what I read in the Horizons I picked up, but being Jewish, I could not entertain the thought of worshiping in a church. And so, I kept walking by and the windows kept flashing and sparkling at me, until, in celebration of Yom Kippur, the wayside pulpit offered Rabbi Hillel as the topic of the next service. I figured that it couldn't be too Christian if they were dragging Rabbi Hillel out, and I quietly slipped into the back of the hall to listen to services the next Sunday.

Now, I have been a spiritual seeker since my early teens - I have studied Kabbalah, and Buddhist thought, I have worshipped in ashrams, chanted in sweat lodges and danced sky clad in witches covens- but in all my journeying I had never found a belief system that held the door completely open to this fiesty feminist lesbian with an overdeveloped social conscious. I loved the spiritual practice of praying and chanting and dancing but just couldn't swallow the dogma. And so, I remained bereft of a spiritual community, standing always just outside the circle.

It was probably by my 4th Sunday at First that it dawned on me that I had not found one thing to disagree with in anything I had heard or read so far. Though I did, and still do, cringe when I hear the word 'church', I found myself rejoicing at the inclusiveness and love of diversity, at the divine earthiness and commitment to social justice that is so basic to this faith. Tolerant, diverse, peace loving and intelligent - with a cutting edge, kick-ass political analysis to boot and a 70% ratio of introverts like myself - this was heaven! I was hooked big time.

And so, I stayed to challenge myself to find a home - for my spiritual yearnings, my love of community and my social justice activism. And it is a home and sense of belonging that I have found: my spiritual yearnings find expression in the lighting of candles, in singing, in the mystical experience of prayer my love of community finds expression in the small groups I attend, in the sincerity of those who actually wait to hear my answer when they ask me how I am and the children and old folk that join me in creating this community and my social justice activism finds expression in joining this congregation’s active lobby for the rights of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people and the search for a just and peaceful solution to the middle east conflict. Belonging does not come easily to me. But easy is not necessarily a UU word - rather my own fledgling UU lexicon lists the words: tolerance, justice, authenticity, integrity, compassion, sharing, and rejoicing. May we always remember how very blessed we are!