RETROSPECT ON OUR DIVERGENCE FROM OUR PAST
OPENING WORDS ON OPENING SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2003

Good morning! Welcome to All Souls and Happy New Year—to all of us! My name is Anne Stark. It seemed a remarkable coincidence when Suzanne [May] called and asked me to open this morning’s service. These recent weeks—a time that always feels like the real New Year, and a period of so much violence abroad—have prompted a new chapter of soul searching for me. Here now, would be an opportunity to crystallize and share some of these thoughts.

First, my vital Unitarian statistics: I’ve been attending services here for nearly 15 years and been a member since 1992. I grew up in an atheistic home, my roots are Jewish, and I view myself as affirmatively Unitarian. I knew from the first time I walked through these doors that All Souls was different and that here, I could grow without limits, free from dogma and preconceived notions, and without a predetermined destination. My late husband, who was raised in a faithful Presbyterian family and church, felt equally at home, comforted and inspired here. Over the years, for all of its outreach and “in-reach,” All Souls has remained a beautiful and deeply meaningful part of my life.

I love that Unitarianism is so often a chosen faith. Simply to call it that reveals so much of what I cherish about it. But here, I think, is the rub: integral, if not explicit, for many of us who have chosen to be Unitarians is not merely what we observe and pursue, but also those parts of our past from which we have chosen to diverge.

And so, I have found yet another reason to appreciate the liberal, intellectually inquiring and inclusive environment that our faith provides. As I progress in my spiritual journey, I try not only to examine what beckons me, but also to look back, to better understand those parts of my given heritage that did not seem to satisfy my spiritual appetite and needs—what Joan Didion calls “an exploration into my own confusion.”

What I found is this: The light that illumines the way here is not a headlamp or a spotlight shining forward only. Rather it’s something more like the sun or the moon, which cast their brilliant light in full circumference, enabling me to also examine and thereby better understand my heritage as well as my present and to more comfortably anticipate the future. It is truly inclusive, not just within its own context, but of the many brands and styles of faith of my friends and my family, who observe in their own multiplicity of personal and communal ways.

Surely this is a time when being a better citizen of the world seems to depend upon heightened compassion for the faiths and spiritual choices of others. It is one more reason that I feel blessed to have found All Souls.

Of Gifts,
Love and Faith

In the News
at All Souls