Quotes from Michelle Huneven

The church will be fine," said Tom. "The church is fine." "Sparlo always said, 'Ministers come and go but the church endures.

Had I first come to the AUUCC when Tom was the senior minister, I might have cathected with him as profoundly as I had with Sparlo—and there were many people at the AUUCC who had; they adored Tom and came to church to hear him, and might never attach as ardently to any other minister. Like baby ducks, we were imprinted by the one we knew first.

Did persistent ministerial ideation constitute a call to the ministry? For more literal religious people, a call was God tapping your shoulder, or saying your name in the wind, or ordering you around in dreams the way Yahweh harassed the prophets. In our progressive, rational, scientifically minded denomination, a call isn't—or shouldn't be—so supernatural.

Ministry does involve a lot of writing," said Sparlo. "And I love the sermon," I blurted. I knew, I went on, that there was much more to church than preaching. The more involved I'd been over the past two years, the greater my interest in church administration, governance, and polity. I didn't know if this interest constituted a call, I said, but I'd been having ministerial ideation for well over a year.

Sparlo here. I read through your folder. And, Dana, you are a very frank and funny and fearless writer. I admire your audaciousness. You've inspired me to be more audacious myself." Tears filled my eyes. "I hope you do go into ministry," he went on. "We'd be lucky to have you in our ranks.

Pragmatic and clever, he was quite Machiavellian in his approach: "It is better to be feared than loved," he'd say. "Hide your vulnerabilities . . ." "Pick your own time and place for confrontations . . ." "Be truthful but not offensive.

Sparlo said that good ministers were rare, but excellent journalists were even more so—and they reached a larger audience. I never regretted a minute or a cent spent at seminary, but I chose my first vocation.

Tom Fox's announcement came as a shock, even to congregants who complained about him. The most grief-stricken and rattled were those members who had come to the AUUCC during his reign and stayed because of him. Some of them loved Tom as some of us loved Sparlo, ardently and unconditionally. "It's good news hiding bad," muttered Charlotte as we shuffled toward the exit. "He's leaving, but we still have another whole year of him.

How do we live in—and change—a reality that includes climate change, mass shootings, and racism? How do we address income inequality, sexual predation, mass incarceration? By not turning away. By engaging. By cultivating kindness and compassion, by seeking justice, by loving the earth, and by tending the great interconnected web of which we are all a part. In

Along with our shared love of pets, gardens, and food, we considered our degree of religious commitment—his to Judaism, mine to Unitarian Universalism—a common value. While dating, we'd sporadically attended each other's worship services; perhaps we both nursed secret hopes of enticing the other over to our side.

took to heart Jack's concerns about my being on the search committee. Would I be serving the church or my own ends? (Both, I decided. Two to four hundred hours of work was not a negligible contribution, and if I got material for a book as well, who could say I hadn't earned it?)

Did you ever have Jennie in RE? Very bright, but so willful. She attracted a little band of kids who'd do anything she told them to." "I just remember that clash with Sparlo during her coming-of-age ceremony. What did she call him? A patriarchal oppressor?" "Racist homophobe was in there somewhere.

Three months! I'm not sure he's even a member. What was Arne thinking? A search committee is no place for a rank newcomer." Nor, probably—guilt pang—a drifting old-timer.

Together, you form a church in miniature and, as such, you'll choose the next minister for us all. Also, every one of you wrote the same thing in your letters. Before we leave tonight, let's see if you can figure out what it was." "Time to burn?" said Belinda. "Out of our minds?" said Adrian.

A failed search, she declared, is a tragic defeat for all concerned, and should be avoided at all costs. "Finding your minister," she said, "takes nine months—a full gestation. By the time they're vetted and voted in, it's a whole year.

You know, I always think about going back to college. Just to catch up on all those books that supposedly shape our lives but nobody ever reads." "Yeah? Like what?" . . . "Well, there's the Bible. You ever read it?" "Parts," said Lewis. "Well, this whole wrecked civilization is based on a book most people have only read parts of.

There's always the literature cure. Take a big box of books out to the desert and read until things shift. Bleak House can cure anything." Lewis smacked the steering wheel. "Bleak House is about my favorite fucking book in the world.

A good sermon has the heft of a solid week's work (at least), yet wears its labor lightly. My homiletics professor said the rule was one hour of work per minute of sermon, say fifteen, sixteen hours on average, which always seemed scant to me. But I'm a slow writer. Then again, ministers don't usually write for publication and good delivery can finesse many an unpolished sentence and awkward transition.

Perry Fitzgerald's sermons were like dharma talks: he spoke as if casually following a train of thought, telling stories, recalling poems, and explicating spiritual and theological concepts as they occurred to him. On the page, however, the skillful construction of this conversational style was obvious.

There's something to be said for geographic affinity, all right.

But don't you think she's wild? She could be just what the AUUCC needs: a funny, energetic, lesbian witch. That'd liven us up.

Now that was a brave, take-no-prisoners, state-of-the-art UU sermon! I know she's oldish, but even if we got her for five years, she'd raise us up." "I can see that," I said.

Belinda and I heard Liz's Earth Day sermon when I drove her to church today," said Riley. "All about how we should compost and recycle—stuff that's been drummed into me since I was born. I don't go to church to improve my household habits." Where could he go to improve his household habits?

The AUUCC is almost weirdly healthy," Amira said. "No crises, no rifts, no simmering discontent—because Tom Fox addresses problems before they fully form!