Celebrating Equality with Rainbow Crafts!

Our coffee hour at church tomorrow is becoming an informal celebration of the recent rulings on DOMA and Prop 8. Everyone is getting into the mood, volunteering to bring rainbow cakes, cookies and other such treats. I decided the kids and I were going to take care of the decor, so we're busting out the craft paper, scissors and glue to get our craft on!

How My Marriage Lead Me to Unitarian Universalism

My husband, Lee, and I met in October, 2007. He was getting back on his feet after a painful divorce and I had split with my first husband only a month before we met. We were both broken in our own ways and struggling with different stages of our healing process. If you have ever seen your marriage fall apart because your spouse has fallen in love with someone else, you know how shaken your world becomes. It's as though you have to reexamine everything you accepted as factual in your world. You find yourself questioning every relationship you've ever had... and you find yourself desperate to be loved and accepted. However, if you're smart, you also know that it will take a long time before you're ready to forge the bonds of a new relationship with someone.

And so it was with Lee and I. While there was a part of me that wanted to settle down with him immediately (mostly the part of me that fell head-over-heels in love with his amazing kids) there was another part of me that still needed to figure out where my place in life really was before I could consider committing to anyone. It took a while, and through it, my spirituality was key.

As Lee and I began our friendship, we were both die-hard pagans of a generic-but-slightly-Wiccan nature. We cast circles together, we communed with nature, we taught the kids about the Wheel of the Year and how to create spells. However, we were not very sociable in our spirituality. We kept it between ourselves, not for shame, but because both of us needed that independence. We needed to be our own spiritual home, without any community or influence other than ourselves. Somehow, as we progressed in our relationship with each other and became more intimate, we started to lose our fervor for this private paganism. That's when a hole began to grow in our spirituality and certain distance developed in our relationship.

My Name is Alison

My name is Alison, some call me Allie. I am 23 years old and I am a junior in college.

When I was born in Massachusetts, the hospital had a chaplain come to my parents to talk and comfort them about the difficulties I would face with my congenital birth defect, Spina Bifida, which can result in varying levels of paraplegia to quadriplegia. As my mother has told me the story over the years, this chaplain was upset for us, but the only reaction my parents gave was that it was okay. They will learn what to do, and accept whatever becomes of their newborn child.  I would be loved unconditionally.

Four years later, my grandmother moved to Florida to be in a warmer climate and told my parents it would be a lot warmer and easier for me to learn how to be more independent with my scooter, and soon enough, my first wheelchair. We made the move, and soon I would learn how to push my wheelchair by myself. Instead of my first crawl or first steps, it was pushing the scooter. And then as a toddler, imagine a four-year old wheeling around the store or mall while you are trying to shop, and then hearing the intercom saying your child in the red wheelchair is at Customer Service after trying to chat with other customers. Parental panic still happens in my family.

After a year or so in Florida, my mother took me to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Fort Myers for the first time, at age five. I guess you could say I have never looked back, much to my parent’s surprise as to how much I attached myself to a Unitarian Universalist identity at that age.

Celebrating Equality

Today is one for the history books. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8 were both ruled on today, and the results were in favor of equal rights for all. DOMA was declared unconstitutional, and Prop. 8 was overturned. Does this solve all of the equal rights issues in America? Of course not, but it's a big step towards true equality.

As I felt the need to party it up in celebration, I realized that my kids don't really comprehend what the big deal is since they have never questioned someone's right to love someone else, whether that person is of a different race, religion, or whether or not they are of the same sex. They are part of a future generation that already accepts the rights of gays to love like any other person loves and live like any other person lives. They are vaguely aware that their country isn't 100% on board and that there are differing opinions, but politics aren't their strong suit and they have always been taught to treat everyone equally no matter what, so to them, equal rights are already a fact. While I am proud of their open acceptance and respect for all, I realize how important it is to explain the significance of this moment in history. Raising children who accept and support equal rights for all is one thing, but it occurs to me that I want to give my kids the tools to fight for those rights.

Being a UU Mom

My name is Jennifer Blosser and I am like the hundreds of others out there who stumbled into a Unitarian Universalist church only to discover that I've always been a Unitarian Universalist my whole life! My husband and I are now members of the church and are raising our three children as full-blooded UU kids... whatever that means. Lacking a real creed or doctrine beyond "love everyone," it is sometimes difficult to know exactly how to be a spiritually nurturing parent in the UU tradition. The UUA has some marvelous resources for teaching Unitarian Universalism outside of the church's own Religious Education (RE) Program. Of course, this is all wonderful and useful, but often it is through bonding with fellow UU parents that one benefits the most.

To me, being a UU mom is all about finding a part of myself that is able to grow and develop right alongside my children. I must put aside prejudices or fears that formed within me when I was a child and learn to grow with an open heart so that I can teach my kids to do the same. I must reject the lofty claim that I now know (or have ever known) the Truth so that I can learn to accept all the Truths and share them with my children. I must shake off my inhibitions and push aside my doubts to that I can experience hope and imbibe my children's hearts with that emotion. It's not always easy, and often I falter, but the beauty of being a UU mom is knowing that the very mistakes I make are merely stepping stones to my success.