Transformation is often subtle and not well understood

Sometimes people awaken and don't know what is happening to them. It can be perplexing and our society has little to offer people who start to feel that their self system, their way of experiencing the world, is becoming different.

This awakening can be experienced in many ways. The gift of tears is one of the most common especially in males in their 50s. They find themselves crying at silly things like TV advertisements or other occasions and it can be embarrassing to them.

Some people experience themselves as becoming over emotional in the sense of being moved more deeply by simple things in their lives which causes them to pause and savor in ways they haven't done before.

People  are perplexed by these experiences which seem very personal and they keep them private and hidden from others because they don't know what is happening to them and how to communicate and explain it to others. If the person experiments in sharing some of these experiences, it often is medicalized and the person is referred to a doctor for assessment to determine what is happening. Doctors, though, are of little help and may actually be a detrimental because although there are physical manifestations, the transformation the person is undergoing is psychological and spiritual and not somatic.

The one institutional support that might be expected to help would be the church and yet, besides mystical traditions, churches have little to offer such people because most of the church's leadership and membership have not reached these levels of spiritual development themselves and so have no understanding of the person's experience.

Here at UUAWOL ministries we do understand these experiences and offer to help the individual going through this transformation an opportunity to construct a narrative that is meaningful, relevant, and satisfying.

Salvation is not an individual pursuit but occurs withing the context of covenantal relationships and in Unitarian Universalism we base this covenant on our seven principles. Can the implementation of these seven principles be transformative in a person's life? Absolutely, and this is the function of church to sanctify the world by helping people become holy. Holiness is to be celebrated but first it has to be recognized and acknowledged.