Mark and and wife Elise have attended MDUUC since 2005 and became members of the church in 2007. Mark served on the Ministerial Search Committee in 2007-08, and Elise is active in the music program.
Here are the Top Ten Reasons Why I Love Participating in MDUUC:
10. The best definition I’ve heard of conservative vs. liberal is that a conservative is only comfortable in a room full of answers, while a liberal is comfortable in a room full of questions. Here, we find a refreshing tolerance for ambiguity and a willingness to acknowledge what we do not or cannot know.
9. We don’t use inconclusiveness or tolerance for ambiguity as an excuse for inaction. This church, like the denomination of which it is a part, is constantly focused on how we can become better people, both individually and collectively, and how we can make the world a better place. Our paramount aim is to be moral, and we know better than to define morality with just three letters.
8. My son James likes to sing the hymns. His favorite is Touch the Earth, Reach the Sky.
7. The physical space we enjoy here underscores the messages that we hear and the principles to which we aspire. While this place truly does provide us with a sanctuary, it does not attempt to isolate us from the outside world. Rather, it invites us look out at that world in all its beauty and profundity as we look to each other for wisdom and insight.
6. On those occasions when I’m feeling like a particularly proud papa and want to share news about my children via email with friends and family, I can always add Heather [Director of Lifespan Religious Education] to the distribution list, and I frequently do. She genuinely loves my children and yours.
5. In my religious tradition of origin, I was taught that all churches that were not Christ’s one true church were, collectively, the church of the devil. I’ve never had much use for subtlety, so now that I am no longer affiliated with the church in which I was raised, I kind of like the fact that I’m attending one with Diablo right in its name.
4. My beautiful wife Elise has a deep love of music and a particular sensitivity to its role in cultivating spirituality. Here, she has opportunities to share both. She has been playing the piano more often at home since we started coming here, which is a blessing for the whole family.
3. As the father of a daughter, Margaret, I am particularly sensitive to the messages she gets from society. I like bringing her to a place that doesn’t cling to the absurd notion that there is some kind of enhanced capacity for spirituality, leadership or ministry connected to the Y chromosome.
2. While this church follows the Christian tradition of holding our main services on Sunday, we’re a lot less interested in keeping one day holy than we are in finding that which is sacred in every day of the week.
1. When asked if he was happy here or if he had any interest in returning to our previous denomination, our son James told us that he likes “the short church with the donuts.”
