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My name is
Diane Wagner and I’d like to share with you some thoughts on what
belonging to this community means to me. Like many of you, I
arrived here from a mixed religious background. I was raised Baptist
by parents whose personal faith was, and still is, very important to
them. I think I always had doubts, and I did not chose to be
baptized when others usually do, at around age 13. I later was
baptized as a Catholic, after being married at the Newman Centre on
U of T campus. This was, at the time, a supportive and liberal
community, but when I went back a few years ago it had changed a
lot, and so, I suppose, had I. The music was beautiful, but I came
to realize that I could no longer believe the things I was expected
to believe. Several years ago I heard someone interviewed on the
radio who said that once he admitted to himself that he didn’t
believe what he was taught to believe, he couldn’t go back. That
has been my experience as well.
So I found
myself looking for a religious community where a wide spectrum of
beliefs were accepted. I was also looking for a community that
would accept and respect my lesbian daughter. I just happened to
meet someone on a Bruce
Trail hike who told me about
First Unitarian. I arrived at First at just about this time of
year, 6 years ago, and in the fall I started attending the Women’s
Group. Small groups at First are a great way to get to know people,
and the Women’s Group has become a very important part of my life.
It is a warm, supportive group of women from all kinds of
backgrounds who share the ups and downs of their journeys through
life. From these women I learned to listen to my own feelings, and
to actually stop and ask myself how I feel.
After about a
year and a half I decided to become a member of First, and then I
attended a Mapmaking series. For the first time I got to know some
men in the community. By the way, two of the members of my
Mapmaking Group went on to become chaplains, and a couple of others
have run adult programs here.
So what keeps
me at First? I feel very much at home with the principles we share,
and in fact the first time I heard them, I thought someone must have
been reading my mind. To me “growing into harmony with the divine”
means respecting and being part of the interdependent web of
existence.
I appreciate
the intellectual and spiritual stimulation at First – in the
services and in the workshop series. My favourite series was one
where we had to decide whether our main approach to life was
humanist, naturalist, mystic or theist, and then look at questions
such as “What is real to you?” and “How do we know what we know?” By
the way, I started out in the naturalist group, then decided to join
the mysticism group, but I’m still not quite sure which group I
belong to.
Something else
that is very important to me here is the experience of R.E. for my
granddaughter -- a place where she can feel that it’s quite normal
to come from a non-conventional family. In fact, after her first
R.E. class a couple of years ago Daya came up to me, excited, and
said “Grandma, a little boy in my class has three Moms. He’s so
lucky! I only have two”.
But what is
most important to me is being part of a supportive community.
Mark said in
one of his recent sermons that it’s the job of ministers to always
strengthen the fabric of community. I told him afterwards that he
and Donna must have done a good job, because I feel confident going
forward into our uncertain future. I’m confident in our community.
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