About
While I am just now beginning to recognize that I have something to say that people crave hearing, I have had philosophical thoughts my entire life. From as young as I can remember, I have been contemplating the less concrete things in life. I was raised in the Deep South, below the Bible Belt, and spent a good part of my elementary education in Catholic school while being raised in a Unitarian Universalist Church. I credit my feet each being in very different communities to fueling my curiosity about the nature of the theological and philosophical. This may be why, while attempting to receive a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, I instead sort of by happenstance ended up with a Bachelor of Philosophy with a concentration in Religious Studies from a public university.
I have received the call to go into ministry, but that opportunity has not yet presented itself, and it may never will. That's ok. I have some philosophical thoughts on why that is. I received the call sometime after I graduated with my bachelor's as I was working nights in a hospital on the mental and behavioral health units. I had always assumed that I would get a Master’s in Social Work at some point and become a counselor. After all, at that time I had more than 5 years of sobriety and almost as many years working in the mental and behavioral health field. I had at that point worked closely with Social Workers and Chaplains, and at some point I had an epiphany that an MDiv might be more appropriate for me than an MSW.
I did meet with mentors and read up on all the theological and seminary paths that might be available to me, and even briefly considered if I could make the great sacrifice of joining the military to afford seminary. In the end, it was not the right time in my life. I had just married and my calling to become a parent was much stronger, even if that felt a little too soon as well. Looking back, I was not ready for many reasons. There was life I needed to live and experience first.
I did become a counselor even with just my BA. I counseled at a methadone clinic in post-Katrina mid-city New Orleans, then at a prison-adjacent two-year residential substance abuse treatment facility. Eventually, my life led me to a move for my family that ended my career as a counselor. It was there that I became a church admin for a Methodist Church. It was also 2016, and I felt the call to activism, which at times complemented and created conflict with my new job. Being thrust back into church life gave me the opportunity to explore a theology I was not raised in and had avoided a good bit in my youth. I grew to have great appreciation for it, but it was also obvious that it was not for me. What was also obvious is that my calling was still there.
Still, life keeps moving, and in the end, my two now diagnosed neurodivergent children needed more of my attention than I could give if I shared that attention with a job. It was great timing as 2020 took place. With all the world events of 2020, we also had the opportunity to move again. This time to a community with a strong and long-standing Unitarian Universalist Church. While looking for a new city to call home, I insisted that our new home would have a UU church in it. My upbringing as a UU made it so clear to me how important it was to also raise my children in a UU church.
As our new church moved back to in-person services, we began to attend. After a time, our pastor offered a "Shared Pulpit" class. I took the class really just to explore writing again, as I had not really written since my undergraduate days. It is from there that I would say all of this has been reawakened in me again. Let's see what happens next.
