I love worship and preaching and I have been actively trying to develop my skills within them. I feel Worship flows best when filled with music. It also needs to include ritual, meditation, and a intelligent reflection about our lives.

When these pieces fit together in a unified whole, something magic can happen. People deepen and have transforming experiences.

After the UUMA preaching seminars, my preaching evolved. I have done interactive preaching, preaching with pictures and music, two part sermons and poetry sermons. I have offered debate in sermons and sermons designed to make us laugh and sometimes cry.

Sometimes sermons spill over into other aspects of the worship service. I find ritual does this and I have been experimenting with rituals within worship as well. Rituals of forgiveness, blessing, healing and joining within worship can deepen an entire community and I have experienced this. I believe ritual, music and intellect all contributed to our communities growth.

I believe care, guidance and hospital visitation are necessary in my ministry because in these situations compassion, kindness and affection are easily practiced and once practiced they can be used elsewhere. It helps when the community is wiling to be part of the spiritual practice of visiting others when they are in pain.

In pastoral care, (counseling) I use a Jungian approach of listening, asking questions and communicating about dreams and expectations.

Through my ministry I have spent an average of about 5 hours a week for counseling. I always went to the hospital when congregants were there. In all pastoral cases, I offer a conversation about spirituality and prayer or meditation, being sensitive to client fragility and standard practices of care.

A story......

Each year I have led a pilgrimage to a holy site somewhere in the world for Unitarian Universalists from both inside and outside our congregations. We traveled by planes, trains and buss, sometimes for hours to destinations like Vietnam, Jordan and India. We meditated daily together and reflected later on what we experienced and learned that day. Often during the reflection people commented about the meditation and how it helped change their perceptions. Sometimes the insights were transformational. We learned from each other. I often relate this to our understanding of spirit or theology so we can understand how our experiences fit with our ancestors and those who have thought deeply.

One year we went to Delhi and we visited the tomb of Nizamuddin Auliya, a Sufi saint. One Friday we went to the Mosque. I forgot Friday would be busy. There were hundreds of people and we quickly lost ourselves in the crowd. Once we got to the tomb, one of our members stepped on a grave to take a picture. People in the Mosque got upset, as this was very disrespectful in their mosque. The situation was going “south ‘ as they say. We began to see the people and the environment as dangerous, and we began to consciously become afraid.

Through the crowd I called the Imam over, and he asked us what we were doing there. I told him we had come to pray. I figured it would help him understand why we were there. He said “oh”, we will make a place for you in the Mosque. He took us to the Mosque and after prayers were over, they invited us to pray our Christian prayers in front of approximately 400 people. As we sat down, I told the Imam that we hoped to pray Dzikr. Dzikr is a well known mystical Muslim prayer. He was very surprised and said, “maybe we should pray with you”. And they did. The entire Mosque prayed with us. And we prayed with them. Silently we affirmed our common understanding of Religion, we were able to connect with people who were different form us culturally, and religiously. We began to feel a unity of spirit and that made us understand each other a little better.

They chanted Dzikr watching us carefully with interested curiosity. I imagined they wondered why we prayed their prayers, but they also sensed that something was “right” about what was happening. As soon as we finished and an appropriate moment of silence followed, the mosque burst into sound. Each of us was surrounded by the locals. They asked us questions about religion, money and politics. They wanted us to know they were not all fundamentalists. They wanted to know what our lives were like and wanted to share their experiences and beliefs. They showed us their humanity and wanted us to understand them better. We found a common language together.

My theology is comfortable using ritual, music, intellect and silence to push our understanding of ourselves and our world. It allows us to hold concepts like God and Reason at the same time, because they are not exclusive. This is the beauty of liberal theology. In the Mosque we were religious people together. We wanted to know about the “other”. We were grateful for the respect we gave to our ancestors and tradition. All of us were searching for common insight that can support our lives.

I call my theology mystical because it adjusts to the experiences I have with others in the surroundings of mystery. Sometimes we see only with the theology of grief. Other times we see through the theology of beauty or love. In both cases we see these things through the mystery of a world we cannot fully understand.

No matter what label we use, no matter what language of faith we speak, no matter what theology, we UU’s gather knowing, week after week, that we seek insight to make our lives meaningful. And as our lives take on depth and meaning, we can use these insights to build the common good.

I love Social Justice and social action. I like to help find one thing, one thing at a time, to focus on. I believe many hands make light work, and having one focus helps us to have a goal and reach it. This creates pride in our accomplishments. It changes the world a little bit at a time and can be part of how we employ our spirituality.

Often though, we forget we are not as powerful as we think, and we have fewer resources than are needed in our attempts at social justice and social action. This causes us to chase multiple causes and we often burn people out, with little results.

Discernment is one of the skills of spirituality and I believe it is necessary in our work toward social justice and social action.

I am always curious and wiling to participate in religious curriculum. Our U.U. programs for children are wonderful. We need to communicate how good they are for everyone, especially the people outside our doors. They are about sexuality, leadership, perspective. They include crafts, play and ritual. They are taught by the LL director, the minster and the volunteers of the community. They show why it takes a community to teach and deepen a child.

My particular interest is in children participating in Sunday services.

I like to work with others and I'm adaptive and agile in my leadership style. Sometimes that means I coach people into the work of the church because I have experience. Sometimes it means they coach me because they have more experience in some aspect of life. Sometimes I’m asked to teach because I am the minister, sometimes I’m asked to quietly witness the learning of another as they begin to lead. My work with lay leadership is adaptive and empowering.

Adaptive leadership means bringing my education, passion and experience to the work we share. Each time it is a little different because of the people and the work involved.

Being agile is part of my skill set. After helping to start a new congregation, a Montessori school with my partner Joan and a business before ministry, I also know how to make plans and decisions when they are necessary.

I have found agility and decision making a wonderful combination for leadership.