In my ministry, I often meet people who have given up parts of their sexuality in order to comply with the constraints of their religious home. I also meet many people who have given up on religion because of their sexuality. I pray that my ministry can help both.
This email made me teary in its affirmation:
I found a link to your Institute's site and followed it. Most of the remainder of that day was spent reading a sampling of the many documents you share there. Yesterday and today I have felt a strong need to send you my thanks appropriately.
After reading several of your open letters and then your bio on the Institute's site a remarkable thing happened. My participation in member style activities with churches pretty much ended ca. 1983-84. You are the first minister in 25 years who's aura made me genuinely interested in attending worship services and/or willing to discuss literally anything in my life's journey.
Attending services at a UU congregation yesterday in Los Angeles simply wasn't an option for me, due to prior work commitments. All the same I did make it to the congregation directory section of the main uua.org site on Saturday. Today after coming in for a swing shift it occurred to me to go back to the uua.org site and find out if your congregation has a site up. That of course is how i found the address I am using to contact you with this letter.
My current feelings of gratitude for your service are overwhelming enough they are impairing my ability to focus on any one of the hundreds of contributing things you said online somewhere. All the same, they still add up to the same sum.
And that sum is that this person is going to visit some of the local UU congregations and hopes to find a new religious home after 25 years of feeling alienated from faith.
Sometimes grace comes by email.
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