In today’s story for all ages we met Jack, Stingy Jack.  Jack was a lost soul.  That is a large part of what Halloween and all souls day are all about.

Lost souls.  Scaring them off by being even scarier our self with spooky costumes, scary Jack o lanterns.  Some traditions pray for them.  Nobody likes a lost soul.  They are frightening probably because nobody wants to be a lost soul.

I have definitely had times in my life when I felt like Jack.   Not that I have been stingy or deceitful – well maybe at times but more so, having the feeling of being a lost soul.

Have you ever felt that way?

Something like in our reading “illuminate the Darkness.”  Feeling constrained, concealed, un-confessed, never exposing the depths of our personalities, inhibited, conflicted, attached, suffocated, crushed, desiccated.

One or all above?

If you answered yes to one or all of the above . . .

You may have been or may be a lost soul.

Usually when we talk about Unitarian Universalism we do not hear that we are in the business of saving souls.

But I think we are. 

Perhaps we should spend a little time on what a Soul is. 

But not too much, we could go on and on about it for days, weeks, a lifetime, trying to define soul.  It is kind of like the word love.

You have a feeling about what it means or does not mean but trying to put it into words is difficult.

Philosophers and theologians have written tomes on the subject of soul.

Some folks think the words soul and the spirit are interchangeable.  Some see a distinction. 

I find a slight distinction in them. 

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle considered the soul as the essence of a person.

In other words, one’s very being, one’s core. 

I think of the soul as what is deep about us. Deep within us.  Perhaps like Theodore Parker's, Conscious, or our inner voice but still even more than that.

Soul, is sometime understood as the deep, and its has origins in words that refer to water, emotions, the depth of our being. Psyche in Greek,

It gets confusing because Spirit is another word that seems to be somewhat synonymous. Sprit has it roots in word that mean breath -- animated, anima in Latin. Or also from Latin spiritus, inspiration, spirited, and in death expired.

Clearly, when we die we loose our breath.

But when we say we have lost our spirit, we are not always talking about death.

Here we would think of loosing our energy, our zest, and our passion for something.

What about if we say we have lost our soul, or we are a lost soul?

What does that mean?

Are soul and spirit two different things, separate, are they two faces of the same coin.  We could go over this for days, weeks, and a lifetime. 

I think we get a general feeling of what it might mean to be a lost soul.

I think it conveys more than losing our energy, zest, or passion, although that may be part of it.

It has to do with loosing our very self, our essence, our sense of meaning and purpose.  I am not sure if spirit and soul, if they are two separate things can be healthy with out the health of the other.  Can you be a lost soul and still have spirit?

Are there Times in your life when you felt like a lost soul?

During our Faith journey sometimes we may feel like a lost soul.

We might turn our thoughts towards these things during this time of year.

We have Halloween, All Hallows Eve, All Souls, and All Saints Day, the darkness and the cold. 

Today, I would like to share with you a bit of my spiritual journey or my soul’s journey depending on the way in which you look at it.

I share because I figure you may wonder who is this woman who is now our minister of religious education, where does she come from, and where is she coming from.

I would like to “expose the depths of my personality” as is recommend in our reading “illuminate the darkness” so that you might get to know me better,

Get to understand my sense of calling and mission.  I am after all charged with growing our church school.

As I share my story, I hope to illuminate our mission, our why, when it comes to sharing Unitarian Universalism with others.

I did not grow up a Unitarian Universalist, even if you did grow up one; we all have a spiritual journey.

My journey starts out here, in Massachusetts. 

My first memory of religion is pretty early on.  I was around three or four.  I remember my mom telling my stepfather how upset she was because some “Jesus Freaks” came to the door and gave her a hard time about her Buddha statue.  I loved her Buddha statue he had a big belly and was shinny gold.

I did not know what Jesus freaks were but I did not like that they upset my mom.

Flash forward, we moved to Oregon at age 5.  On my way home from school there was a sweet older lady whose house I would walk by everyday.  I started to go over for her bible studies.  She put figures from the bible up on a felt board, gave us snacks, and at the end of every lesson she would ask “who wants to accept Jesus in their heart?"  One day I came running home all excited – “Mommy, Daddy, I just accepted Jesus into my heart!”

Well, my parents decided then and there that it was time for us to start going to church.  So, in a way I converted my family.  It is ironic now, because we are very different now – they are fundamentalist while I am clearly not.

I had perhaps a not so unique experience in that during the school year I lived with my Mom and step dad in Oregon going to the Baptist church.

In the summer I would live with my Dad and step mom in the south going to Methodist churches.

This created in me a great curiosity about religion because many of the beliefs were different.

I was never too shy to speak my opinion or questions either.

I was the youngest person to ever be baptized in the Baptist church where we went.  I was eight, where they believed in adult baptism, but I insisted.  I had a very close relationship to God and Jesus.  During my Baptism, I very much believed I felt the Holy Spirit move through me.

However, I did not cease from questioning. Once, at the Baptist church in Oregon where people spoke in tongues and did laying on of hands, a young boy had a bump on his forehead, quite large.  Everyone was laying hands on him and praying for it to go away.  I remember the pastor getting up in the pulpit and saying to everyone. “Please stop laying hands and praying for the bump to go away, it is actually a part of the boy’s brain growing through his skull.”

Immediately, I thought, at the age of nine or so.  “If we ask God to do something stupid, why would we think he would do It.”?

Shortly after we stopped going there and later went to a non-denominational church that consisted mostly in people witnessing about their conversion experiences.  It was all lay led.

When I was in the fifth and sixth grade I went to Grace Christian Bible School, a private school to which I begged to go.  However, even though I won a Christmas card drawing contest and poetry contest with social justice lines like “A bottle of wine, a loaf of bread, the rich man is frisky, the poor man is dead,” there was one thing I refused to do which made my parents stop sending me to Bible School.  I refused to answer some of the questions in my Bible class homework because I did not think there was any one answer.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, in the summer.  I was busy challenging my Dad and step-mom about their route prayers, didn’t God get bored?”  Shouldn’t we speak to him from our heart?

So, we said our “God is great God is good prayer before every supper followed by my personal prayer. 


When I was 13, I lived with my dad and step mom during the year and my mom during the summer.

Now, I really got a taste of my Southern Methodist church and this side of the family’s beliefs.  We had to get dressed up for church where I was used to a more casual come, as you are atmosphere.  At thirteen, I wrote an essay, “God does not care what you wear to church”

So all this time, I suppose I was what you would call a free spirit.

I did not know it was called that yet.  Later in life, my senior Literature teacher told another boy, Clell, to stop questioning me about what I believed.  “Kim is a free Spirit,” she said

At that time however, I had become a Lost Soul.  I got lost.  I was no longer free.

This pivotal time happened when I was 16.

I wanted very much to go on a trip to NY.  I prayed and prayed I would get the chance—then I did – God answered my prayers.

Then, NY was a very bad experience.  I came upon that age-old question the Coming of Age group will be exploring soon,

Why do bad things happen to good people?  Later in Divinity school I would read that book, and it would change the way I believed about God.

But until then…. 

I spent a great deal of time being very angry with God,

Why did he do this to me, why did he answer my prayer and let me go when he knew what would happen?

I already had a tough relationship with God because I had scoliosis and had to wear a back brace from the 5^th to the 10th grade. . Often I got mad a God for creating me this way.  This was icing on the cake.

After some time of being very angry with God, I realized I needed some time to rethink this whole thing.

I needed to rethink

God and prayer

God and Power

God and Love

God and all-knowing.

So, I refused to go to church anymore.  I did not have a place where I could go and be angry with God, and question so many beliefs.

I did not have a place to go illuminate my darkness.

After Mrs. Sufford told Clell– I was a free spirit.  I did feel freer.  But I also felt alone; I wanted a name to call myself.  Clell would bring the dictionary and ask me are you a deist, are you a this or a that.  It really bothered him.  And it started to bother me too.  However, since I had no religious home, I went on a accept the idea that I was a free spirit. 

But I wanted to know more.  I had a theory, believing in the Garden of Eden, my theory was that since Adam and eve where the closest to God, the oldest most ancient beliefs about God were probably the closest to the truth.

So, I went to study world religions and literature.   No surprise to my family.

I would hang out at the Writing Center after these and my philosophy class and talk about all I was learning and questioning with friends.

One day, one of those friends, Devin, handed me something,

The little red card.  What Unitarian Universalists believe printed on the front.  Devin was from Georgia where they had a UU church.  There was no UU church at the Coastal Branch of USC.

So, a year or so before I ever set foot in a UU church, I knew I was a Unitarian Universalist.

Then, when I transferred colleges, I found one and found myself – I decided to become a UU minister instead of a religious professor.

Learning about Universalism, I was able to reconcile God's love with God’s power and God’s all-knowingness.  Along with Process theology, I came to believe that the most important concept about God is love,

Bad things happen because God does not have that type of power or even all-knowingness.  But the one thing I could not let go is that God is love.

Over time, my beliefs have changed a bit.  I do not always use the word God.  I define my God, if you will, as Life, with a capital L. (which has its roots in the same word as spirit)

Spirit of Life.  Soul of Life.  I have gone through other trials and tribulations but above it all I believe Life is Good, even the bad parts. 

It is all a part of it, Life, Life that maketh all things new.

All because someone handed me this card, I got to go from feeling like a lost soul to a real free spirit.

I had roots to hold me close, a rich Unitarian Universalist Tradition.  We offer people roots with that tradition, and with a faith community.

I had wings to set me free, free from the constraints and limitations society and we can sometimes put on us as we search for truth and meaning.

All because someone handed me this card,

That is what I believe we have to offer others.

We are a place where others can illuminate their darkness, they can search and question, they can expose their depths, un-judged, and they do not have to be constrained, or concealed.

Adults and children alike.  Children have questions and great religious curiosity, I know I did.  This all too often goes un-nurtured.  We have a mission to nurture their religious lives and the religious life of their families – all people.

Just think how many people, all around us need THIS.

But first you have to invite them.

So go, share your Story

AND go, hand somebody a card.

They might just end up HERE.