Laurie Mears started off as a child in Unitarianism, and that’s important. Unitarians were rare birds in Kansas in the 1940s and early 50s, and the congregation held their children as precious. She always felt that folks were interested in her and who she was becoming. Fast forward to college, where she meets Preston Mears…
Pre-K Colin arrived with his parents Drew and Beth in the early 1980’s and like many of our children found Bobbi Pohl teaching his RE class. Colin went through the whole RE curriculum, the predecessor to OWL, and then YRUU. From this experience, UUism came to mean seeing our place in an interconnected web of…
Carolyn Savadkin and her husband came to UUCSS from Paint Branch UUC in the Fall of 1966. They were looking for a church that was socially active willing to preach and work against both the Vietnam War and racism. On the day they Signed the Book, Fred Cappuccino was in the pulpit and announced he…
Laura Ellis came to Unitarian-Universalism just out of law school in what then was probably the only UU fellowship in the Adirondacks. She liked the Christmas service and responded strongly to our Principles. On moving to the DC area in the late 1990’s she began looking for a UU church community. UUCSS was the third…
Jo Paoletti learned the basics about the UU faith from an elementary school friend – UU’s don’t believe that Jesus is God and John was drunk when he wrote the Book of Revelations. She didn’t revisit UUs again until 1982, when she was horrified at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in Lebanon and…
UU speak has many special touchstones, none more powerful than spiritual home. For many of us, a spiritual home is a place of repose and safety. For Eli a spiritual home is a place where we are called to fulfill our purpose. She has fulfilled many roles since joining UUCSS in 1999 – Worship Commitee Chair, steward for the Annual…
Bob and Bev McGaughy knew their time with mainline Christianity was over when their young son Danny pointed to a cross on a church steeple and said, “That’s where the Jews killed Jesus.” This led to twenty years at All Souls UUC that better fit their religious understanding. They moved again when their daughter Ay…
Erica Anderson grew up Catholic in northeastern Pennsylvania, but Catholicism had never held much meaning for her. After a time of being unchurched and now out of college she began looking for the community that a church provides. Erica found the UU Fellowship of Centre County in State College, Pa. which was much more in…
The Southern Baptist world knew that Tamara Bowman, age 12, was trouble when she added Christianity to a comparative mythology paper. For many years, after going off to college, Tamara was happy to be free of religion. That was until her daughter Elise, age 4, started asking questions, such as why her friends couldn’t do play dates on Sunday and who was…
Veronika Martin grew up in a non-religious household in Germany, which was not unusual. When her family moved to the US in 1976, she was somewhat surprised that people were always asking her to come to church with them. Over time her response became that she was a universalist with a small “u” as most spiritual practices “were a valid path to…