Spiritual Autobiography

As long as I can remember, I have been a spiritual seeker. My mother passed away when I was a small child, and I was never really close to my father. The members of my family who influenced me the most were my paternal grandparents back home in Kentucky, Dewey and Vergia Havens. My grandfather was a minister in the Disciples of Christ Church. He and my grandmother attended seminary together, both earning degrees in theology. However, as a woman, my grandmother could not become ordained as a minister due to the gender politics of her era. She was content to serve as the minister’s wife, being a spiritual leader in her own way in her husband’s church. My grandparents provided a good balance for one another in their respective ministries. He preached fire and brimstone in the pulpit on Sunday mornings, and she taught peace and love at Wednesday evening prayer meetings. My grandmother even had her own weekly Christian radio show on a local station at one time.

I saw my grandparents as being vitally important to their small rural community in the Appalachian hills. There were few psychologists, counselors, or social workers in Kentucky in those days. Whenever members of their church became ill, had marital problems, or lost a job, my grandparents were always available for hospital visitation, pastoral counseling, or to provide networking and support for members of their beloved community. From my point of view, their ministry exemplified what a spiritual community should be.

After I graduated from college, I married a young man who was Catholic, and I converted to the Catholic faith. I enjoyed going to Mass. I loved the ritualistic nature of the liturgy, the chanting, and the incense. When we divorced after seven years, I kept going to Mass for awhile, but I began to notice that divorced women were not particularly valued by the Catholic church, so I stopped going.

Soon after, I became friends with a woman who read Tarot cards as a hobby. I found the Tarot fascinating. I decided to enroll in a community education class in Tarot reading at a community college. I met some people in the class who were practicing Wicca. I became intrigued with Goddess worship and the pagan religions. I started reading everything I could find about the earth-based traditions.

Over the next couple of years, I attended workshops with Margot Adler, Selena Fox, Luisa Teish, and Starhawk. I was captivated by the concept of the Goddess as a Divine Mother. I loved the idea of a female deity, as something had always been lacking for me in patriarchal Christianity. The Goddess became a personal maternal figure for me as well, which is something I had been missing for most of my life.

The following year, my sister got married to a gentleman who was a Unitarian Universalist. I had never heard of the UU faith before meeting my brother-in-law. The idea of a church that draws upon the wisdom of all the world’s religious traditions intrigued me, and I eagerly became a member of our local UU congregation. I have now been a Unitarian for fifteen years. Over the years, I’ve taught a UU women’s spirituality course called Cakes for the Queen of Heaven, I’ve been involved in rituals with the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans (CUUPS), and I practice Zen Buddhist meditation with a group called the UU Azalea Sangha.

I met my current spouse Jack at the UU church in 2003. He is very interested in the teachings of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn. In 2005, we traveled to Denver to see Thich Nhat Hahn give a public talk while he was teaching in the United States. We’ve read several of his books. Jack and I studied with a local Order of Interbeing sangha, based on Thich Nhat Hahn’s teachings, for several months. We also sometimes attend a Tibetan Buddhist meditation group.

Jack and I were married on February 10, 2008. This has been a very positive transition in my life. Another transition I would like to make is to expand my career as a psychiatric nurse practitioner into pastoral counseling. Because my spirituality is so important to me, I would like to develop a pastoral counseling practice that focuses on spirituality as a path for personal growth and well-being. In order to accomplish this goal, I’m seeking ordination as a pastoral counseling minister.

(Written on April 30, 2008)