My Life as Calling

Recently I gave part of a sermon at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon. Here is what I wrote.

"I like to have strong opinions with nothing to back them up with besides my primal sincerity. I like sincerity. I lack sincerity.

-Kurt Cobain

I’ve always wanted to be as primarily sincere as Kurt Cobains lyrics, putting myself out there exposed and open for the whole world to see. I wanted my deepest fears and desires on display. I thought that was a desirable and attainable goal. I have always wanted my life’s work to mean something more. Maybe that is just me or maybe it Is part of my generation. My generation is full of daydreamers and creative powerhouses, like all generations. But we are not just sitting around daydreaming while playing video games and roaming the internet, we are doing. It may not be loudly but we are a powerful silent change maker. Instead of protesting everything we are slowly making change, we are using the media to make our voices heard and when we are told no. we will rant, rave and put on guy Fawkes masks and go to the streets to let our views be known.

Like all generations we have an overall calling and I believe ours is “make it work.” Yes Tim Gunn made that phrase popular on the TV show Project Runway but this phrase goes so much deeper that a reality tv show. We are leaving college in an unstable economy and patch working jobs together that are sometimes not even close to what we went to school for to stay above the poverty line, we are making it work. We are feeling voiceless as politics are taking possession of our bodies, sex lives, and who we can legally commit our love and lives too and as damn frustrated as we are we are making it work, We are avoiding calls from collection agencies who need our student loan payments even though sometimes our paycheck wont stretch through the month, we have to make it work. This may sound like I am complaining and making our lives sound like all hardship but I am bringing up realities that are around us.

What I have not mentioned is how incredibly passionate my generation is. I have a friend who is in school for ministry right now who has been arrested while protesting occupy wall street and is so involved with his community he goes to long city meetings staying awake by doing push ups in the back of the room until he can go up and say what he came there to say. I have a friend who is in Paris right now studying foreign policy because she wants to be the change in the world, not just talk or read about it. She talks of how she would love to help change the face of politics and work on human relations and rights one human at a time. I have a brave friend who is going to school full time so she can make dreams for her and her family come true. I am so in awe of all of these people and I feel it is part of my calling to raise them up and support them.

I didn’t always want to be a minister. I had dreams of being a starving actress working two jobs so I could have a bad apartment and eat cup of noodles in New York City racing to get to auditions and rehearsals. I wanted to be a high school music teacher, inspiring kids like my high school teachers did for me, but then I learned I really hated music theory. I knew that my calling was to be present and make a difference in peoples lives.

I was three the first time I was told I would make a great minister one day. I had said something apparently very prophetic for a three year old in church in Connecticut and our minister told me that. The next time would be when I was 19, my childhood minister from Illinois responded to an email I had sent him catching him up on how my life was in Oregon and when I had told him some of the things I had started doing in UUFCO he told me I should think about becoming a minister because it was clearly where my heart was.

Nelson Mandela said “I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.” I knew I wanted to become a minister because of an extraordinary circumstance in my life. That circumstance was coming into this church on an ordinary Sunday. This would be my second time stepping into this church and Cameron Clark made an announcement about how youth group would start that evening. I approached him after the service and explained about my involvement in my UU congregation back in Illinois and was introduced then to Rebecca Fender who invited me that night. Sitting in the cottage as almost a complete stranger watching how warm and welcoming this congregation was and how my age or where I had come from didn’t matter, all that mattered was what I had to say. Working with the youth group and then the children’s RE program that first year made me realize how much I cherished this faith and wanted to make this denomination my life’s work. I don’t know if those two people will ever realize what a profound impact they had on my life by just kindly inviting me to sit in on the youth groups meeting that night.

Calling to ministry I feel was building for me all my life. I was an over involved child in the UU church in Illinois. Helping rewrite our mission statement at 16, being an integral part of the youth service we put on every year and then raising money to go and walk in what was my true first social justice experience in NYC in 2008 on a 20 mile walk for suicide prevention and awareness from dusk to dawn. That experience alone has changed me in ways I am still learning about. But that smack in the face moment about my calling to ministry happened out of the blue. I didn’t expect it but I embraced it with 2 arms wide open and ready for whatever happened next. Once I felt that call I realized a weight had lifted from my shoulders and I stopped laying in bed at night thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up.

My life goal is to inspire, question, ponder, laugh, and admire through my ministry. I want to stand up and do something when I see injustice and try and make a difference. I want to feel as connected to this faith as much as I did in 2012 when I was standing on the side of love at tent city during a vigil when 2,000 strong inspiring Unitarian Universalists chanted Si Se Puede loud enough for the prisoners could hear us and feel our support. I want to bring change to this world, even if that means I touch one persons life, because that is a beautiful thing I aspire to do every day. I want to be like my father and bring change to the environment, even if that means just composting. I want to be like my mother and be so open and giving, even if that means just being ready for what the world has to offer and having no expectations. I want to be like those young adults in the video, breaking stereotypes for the better. I want to be like all of you, hungry and eager to learn. I think being inspired by people on a daily basis is part of ministry. I need to live my life primal sincere because that is the only way I know and the only way I want to know. Lastly I want you to know that my life calling begins and ends with all of you. I want to be an agent of change to this ever changing world and hopefully make my footprint on the world last a little bit, and have an amazing time doing it. I may not know exactly where my life calling will take me but I do know that I will enjoy doing whatever it is I do."