NEW BOOK: A Lesson for all Ages: Unitarian Universalist Moral Tales!

I have submitted the last edits for a new book, A Lesson for all Ages: Unitarian Universalist Moral Tales, the follow-up to Universally Unique. This is the introduction!

Introduction

It all starts at Arlington Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, on a blustery October morning in 2007. I have no idea why I am there on that Saint Francis of Assisi day, but sure enough I am and I am mesmerized. I will learn many lessons within the ivory walls of that congregation. I would come to discover for example that Unitarian Universalist's at Arlington Street Church celebrate Saint Francis with a Blessing of the Animals ceremony.

A series of very fortunate events would lead me back into active church life. Within weeks, I would become the religious educator for that historic and prophetic congregation once helmed by William Ellery Channing and under amazing guidance of the ministers to whom this book is dedicated, in three short years I would leave Boston to become director of religious education in Philadelphia.

I am an educator, a Montessori teacher meets Shakespeare scholar, turned English professor, turned fundraiser. I am a writer, a thinker, a theologian. I am a gay man and I am an evangelist’s son. I have preached many a “good word” and yet only now on the threshold of times most uncertain, as I journey deeper into life's lessons, I am most contented and edified in my life as a religious educator.

The inspiration for this book lies in a passing conversation with Arlington Street Church Senior Minister, Rev. Kim K. Crawford Harvie about our stories. I can still picture the scene, I can even tell you what she was wearing (purple dress, black blazer, sermon folder in hand.) We are standing on the landing to the church office, "What are the Unitarian Universalist moral tales?" she asked. In time, Kim would challenge me to write them, but more than that, she saw my truest talents.

Rev. Dan Kan and Rev. Yvonne Schumacher Strejek taught how to know value in lesson and see it deeply with Unitarian Universalist identity. Today, Rev. Nate Walker, minister of First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, has called me from Boston to put the moral tales into action in a city gritty with racism and classism. As seminary knocks at my door, I too ponder still, where is our story? What is your story? And, who is the story?

While Unitarian Universalism draws it’s free and progressive faith from many wisdom traditions, leaving the creed but acknowledging the lesson, these are not the stories of world religion retold. Rather these are our stories. Unitarian Universalist stories. They capture the face of Unitarian Universalism values and identity and our congregations, a beloved community that is as diverse in theology and thinking as it is empowering of people’s unique voice.