Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Big day on the horizon
When we moved to Saint Louis in 2018, we belonged to Unity of Naples, in Florida. I joined in 2012 and began serious study of Unity principles and practices. Our minister for most of our time there remains a good friend. She is a woman who retired from Unity of Naples and now is in demand most Sundays to speak at various other Florida Unity churches. She is unofficially Jan’s spiritual director and, even though she is not “our” minister anymore, she has prayed with Jan through many difficulties these last few years. I’m always grateful when Jan tells me that she has spoken to Diane, because I know she’s been enriched by the experience.
So when we got to Saint Louis I began the search for another Unity church. I attended services at two in town and was happy to be in the midst of their congregations, but did not feel called to either of them. There was one in South County that I tried one Sunday in June. I had just walked through the door when the minister came to welcome me. We exchanged names and she greeted me warmly. That’s to be expected at any Unity church. Rarely does a stranger enter a Unity building and I was spoken to by several members of the congregation.
I don’t remember the subject of her message, but I do remember thinking that I had found my church. The other thing that grabbed me was the pianist and the small choir. I have always joined the choir of any church that I have belonged to, so I was delighted to see one manifest before my eyes. Between the message and the music and the friendly people, I was hooked.
The director of music, Anne, is a marvelous piano player. Her style of playing and her choice of music to play during the service reminded me of one of my favorite keyboard artists, George Winston. In fact, as I write this I have one of his recordings playing in the background. I googled him to see how many of his albums I have and in the process learned that he was born in 1949, just like me, but, sadly, I also learned that he died in June of this year. (In his honor I will have to add another album to my collection.)
I joined the choir as soon as I could. It was a small group of two or three people in each section. There were two good altos in my vocal range, so that’s where I landed. I have, on occasion, sung tenor parts to add to the number of “lower” voices when asked. But I mostly love the alto section. We practiced on Saturday mornings and Anne would put us through our paces pretty vigorously. I noted how serious she could be about the quality of our singing, teaching us techniques and educating us about the piece we were practicing.
The more time I spent with Anne, the more I was glad that a friendship was developing between us. I found out that she was in the rigorous program to become a Licensed Unity Teacher, or LUT. It is a course designed to produce a church leader and educator. It is costly and complicated to become an LUT. Despite her full time job outside of church and her role in helping to run my church, she pursued and persisted and a couple of years ago successfully completed the program. In the five years that I have known her, she has been a source of inspiration and knowledge of Unity principles. She serves as a living example of Unity practices.
Becoming an LUT also opens a path of study to become an ordained Unity minister. Anne started that program as well. All this is to say that this Saturday, Anne will be ordained as a full fledged Unity minister. There are a lot of moving parts to putting together an ordination ceremony. I am blessed as a member of the Board of Trustees to have a small speaking part in the festivities. Anne is not a “center of attention” seeker, so she will no doubt be nervous. For that reason, my little speech will be respectfully humorous because amidst her many ministerial qualities she has a little wicked side to her sense of humor!