Consider the acorn.
It has almost everything it needs to grow, right under its cap. A hard shell to keep it safe. Fats and starches to help it grow and reach its potential. To one day become a towering oak. One day, it will nurture many more oaks. But also birds nesting in its branches and hollows. Squirrels and raccoons, too. And maybe one day, it will become wood for furniture or firewood. And at the end of a long life, it will become food for fungi. They will return it to the earth that held and nurtured it all along the way. Across a lifetime, it will foster a whole congregation of beings.
This acorn has a lot of potential. But that potential can’t be realized on its own. It needs water and loam, sunshine and shade, and most important of all, it needs some enterprising squirrel to take it off to a suitable patch of ground. Whatever its gifts, whatever its role in the ecosystem, it is always part of something larger.
And so it is with us. You and I might feel like our paths must be traveled alone, bear the fruit and seeds we have sown,1 but this is never the case. My emergence into ministry did not happen solely through my own skills and inclinations. Ministers often get the question, “Why did you choose to go into ministry?” I remember a seminarian asking me this over lunch a couple of years ago. And I had to tell her the truth. I never chose ministry at all. Ministry chose me. And ministry has been very persistent in choosing me across the arc of my life. Whatever choice I have had in the matter, I have never been choosing alone.
I began growing into back when I was scarcely more than an acorn myself. It began with my family. We went to the parish where my grandmother raised my father, and where her parents had raised her. And because it was so small, everyone who could got involved in the life of the church. There were so many Sundays where my parents, brother, and I were all doing something in the liturgy of the Mass.
And the older I got, the more responsibility I was given. You can imagine how that went. Especially when Catholicism nurtured me less and less the older, and frankly queerer, I got. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the persistence on my parents’ part rooted me in service to my community. They helped crack my shell, and gave my roots solid ground. My own gifts sprouted. My attention to detail and sense of mise en place met the sunlight and water of communal life.
I was growing as a lay leader. That parish taught me to value community, and to find service as a religious practice in its own right. Unwittingly, it prepared me for Unitarian Universalism. I found the local congregation my university’s town, a short bus ride from campus. The ground there was fertile, and I had a spiritual growth spurt. I came out in the company of queer adults, young and old alike. My minister mentored me in leading and creating worship for people of all ages. I even wondered quietly if I could be a minister one day. My branches stretched out. My trunk strengthened.
But at the same time, the sunlight of professional ministry seemed far off. It was bending my branches toward it, but very slowly, as trees do. I entertained the idea of growing into a minister after university. But I had also started working with refugees in the city where I was born. The soil of that work and the people I met there taught me about living our principles in the world.
Meanwhile, another Unitarian Universalist congregation fostered my spiritual growth. Other ministers welcomed me into worship crafting and leadership. Those were familiar responsibilities. And then my congregation hired me to be their religious educator. They both pushed and pulled me into new skills and responsibilities. I became a student of ministry. Professional ministry caught up with me. It chose me. You chose me, and I chose to come here, too.
It’s true, I had a dedication to service. I had a sense for the spiritual in life. But those inclinations alone did not grow me into the minister I am. The leadership and confidence of others did. I did not get here by coincidence, but because others chose to welcome me on this journey.2 I am here because others saw the potential in my gifts, and fostered them. They invited me to share them. Even more critically, they nurtured me with their own gifts.
The people who shared leadership with me knew what was theirs to hold, and what was ours to share. They held pastoral care and organizational leadership with great care, until I was ready to share it with them. So that I could share the gifts forward.
Now I take root in two forests. One is a forest of other ministers. Old giants who still nurture me, and spry saplings who I nurture in return. And the other is this forest. There are things you look for among my branches. Spiritual guidance. Pastoral care. Leadership of our staff. And there are things I look for among yours. Openness to change. Encouraging one another’s growth. Living our mission here and in the wider world. The flourishing of this ecosystem is ours to share.
1. Tony Turner, "Circle of Song," released April 21, 2002, track 2 on A Matter of Time, 2002, compact disc.
2. Hope Johnson, "Meditation" in "Sunday Morning Worship," 2013 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Louisville, KY, June 23, 2013, https://www.uua.org/ga/past/2013/worship/287044.shtml