Sooooooo...

[Hoopla!]

I joined a church? It's weird. The local UUs are, strange as this may sound, very nearly our kind of people. Like, the chair of the worship committee described it as "the church for people who burst into flames walking into other churches." Nobody talks about an afterlife. At. All. Nobody asks God to cure anybody of anything, nobody advocates being nice and letting sky pixies sort it out. The weekly prayer always includes something to the effect of "give us the balls to go fix this shit." The collection plate gets shared with lawyers who advocate for victims of sexual assault and charities serving Puerto Rico, the meeting hall gets used for meet the candidate events, and there are rainbow flags at the door and next to the altar. They hold discussions about systemic racism and white supremacy, they hold vigils on trans remembrance day, there are pagan-y services and the name tags include pronouns. The minister is a petite trans dude and the first time I saw him was at the pop-up "oh shit Nazis" in our town, and the first time I went in for a service was after those nazi fucks showed up in Boston and I cried like a bitch.
They really, genuinely, care about The Work, and they want to support the people doing it, and they want to do more of it themselves while keeping themselves sane. And yeah, they're not perfect, but they're queer and they're nice and they give a fuck and they fall down and get back up.

It's still super weird, you guys.

It doesn't sound super weird to me at all. At all.

It sounds pretty fucking awesome.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

I have actually been a member of my local UU church for a number of years now, and yea, i think the general sense of community was something i really needed for myself. I have all the loyalty of a stray cat when it comes to going there regularly, but whenever i go I leave feeling supported. I've met a lot of really nice people and while there seems to be some underlying gossip drama i try to not get into, it seems generally mild and i'm always struck by how nice and supportive they are about EVERYTHING. like you literally feel like you could start up a conversation about anything you've got going on in your life and they genuinely want to help, or at least listen. There's a significant pagan presence at the church, they do their own rituals after the main service, and even celebrate the major Pagan holidays in the main hall. Also, true story, it was in that church that i had the honor of DJing for the wedding of the two most adorable elderly lesbians you've ever seen.

[Emo Howard]

I tried going to UU services a while back. I found it interesting, and refreshing that they exist, but not interesting enough to sit through.

Also, they were a bit too civilized for me.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I figured if I end up joining a church again it would probably be UU. I might be getting married in a UU church. We booked something else but Villager is entertaining the idea

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Jesus had some pretty explicit anti-divorce shit I am not here for.

If memory serves (and I could well be wrong), the rationale behind the anti-divorce stuff is because of the societal realities of that time, place, and culture, where by and large men would initiate divorce and the divorced women would end up destitute and homeless. It seems fucked up from our perspective but put in context, it was more a way to prevent women from getting fucked over by dudes who wanted to trade in for something newer.

couldn't he have just said "don't be assholes to divorced women" ?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Jesus had some pretty explicit anti-divorce shit I am not here for.

If memory serves (and I could well be wrong), the rationale behind the anti-divorce stuff is because of the societal realities of that time, place, and culture, where by and large men would initiate divorce and the divorced women would end up destitute and homeless. It seems fucked up from our perspective but put in context, it was more a way to prevent women from getting fucked over by dudes who wanted to trade in for something newer.

couldn't he have just said "don't be assholes to divorced women" ?

That would be the preferred way to go about it, of course

[The Wizard Joseph]

Unitarians are pretty cool. The ones from my hometown were a bit kooky but very nice folks. I remember a bake sale for Haiti after the earthquake particularly well. There were Santeria folks there to judge by the color scheme of some of the clothing being worn. You never know what you can find out by just getting out and experiencing new venues. Glad you found what sounds like a good group Q.G.!

[Hoopla!]

What prompted you to check the church out QG?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

What prompted you to check the church out QG?

In August the Nazis had a rally on Boston Common and I burned myself all the way out screaming at elected officials to jump on the fire. At the event, I was presented with the opportunity to punch a Nazi and chose not to (for what I believe are good reasons that still keep in line with my general "punch the fucking Nazis" political stance). There were 40,000 people and it was tense and there were fights and I needed to process that shit, and the church is right outside the office building where we rent space, and they put up a sign about having a kind of "emergency" service/emotional support thing with all the Nazi shit going on. I'd seen the new Reverend at our local FUCK THE NAZIS IN PRINCIPAL event, he seemed like a good guy and I was falling down pretty hard, so I went.


This past Sunday, he let us know that his partner's father killed himself, and it's a hard thing to deal with. I went to his office hours and gave him some of the stuff I worked up for Holy Nonsense and another project I'm working on, because dealing with grief and depression is kinda all I do some days, and if I'm gonna sit here being a sadsack I'd better be able to sublimate SOME of that shit into something useful for another human.

[The Wizard Joseph]

What prompted you to check the church out QG?

In August the Nazis had a rally on Boston Common and I burned myself all the way out screaming at elected officials to jump on the fire. At the event, I was presented with the opportunity to punch a Nazi and chose not to (for what I believe are good reasons that still keep in line with my general "punch the fucking Nazis" political stance). There were 40,000 people and it was tense and there were fights and I needed to process that shit, and the church is right outside the office building where we rent space, and they put up a sign about having a kind of "emergency" service/emotional support thing with all the Nazi shit going on. I'd seen the new Reverend at our local FUCK THE NAZIS IN PRINCIPAL event, he seemed like a good guy and I was falling down pretty hard, so I went.


This past Sunday, he let us know that his partner's father killed himself, and it's a hard thing to deal with. I went to his office hours and gave him some of the stuff I worked up for Holy Nonsense and another project I'm working on, because dealing with grief and depression is kinda all I do some days, and if I'm gonna sit here being a sadsack I'd better be able to sublimate SOME of that shit into something useful for another human.

Keep doing what you can Q.G.! I'm rooting for you and you have done so much already. I'll keep fighting too and one day have my shit together again. Keep you the faith!

[Hoopla!]

What prompted you to check the church out QG?

In August the Nazis had a rally on Boston Common and I burned myself all the way out screaming at elected officials to jump on the fire. At the event, I was presented with the opportunity to punch a Nazi and chose not to (for what I believe are good reasons that still keep in line with my general "punch the fucking Nazis" political stance). There were 40,000 people and it was tense and there were fights and I needed to process that shit, and the church is right outside the office building where we rent space, and they put up a sign about having a kind of "emergency" service/emotional support thing with all the Nazi shit going on. I'd seen the new Reverend at our local FUCK THE NAZIS IN PRINCIPAL event, he seemed like a good guy and I was falling down pretty hard, so I went.


This past Sunday, he let us know that his partner's father killed himself, and it's a hard thing to deal with. I went to his office hours and gave him some of the stuff I worked up for Holy Nonsense and another project I'm working on, because dealing with grief and depression is kinda all I do some days, and if I'm gonna sit here being a sadsack I'd better be able to sublimate SOME of that shit into something useful for another human.

I like to believe people like yourself outnumber the assholes. I really hope I’m right.

I think I may go check out our local UU church.

[LMNO]

Right on, QG.   Sounds like the right thing for you to do.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Jesus had some pretty explicit anti-divorce shit I am not here for.

If memory serves (and I could well be wrong), the rationale behind the anti-divorce stuff is because of the societal realities of that time, place, and culture, where by and large men would initiate divorce and the divorced women would end up destitute and homeless. It seems fucked up from our perspective but put in context, it was more a way to prevent women from getting fucked over by dudes who wanted to trade in for something newer.

couldn't he have just said "don't be assholes to divorced women" ?

Probably did. There's been a lot of editing and rewriting since he gave his fictional sermons.

[ReverendJesus]

our local FUCK THE NAZIS IN PRINCIPAL event