People come in to Unitarian Universalism for many reasons, and sometimes for nothing more than basic human companionship. What one person finds within our communities may be completely different than another, and our reasons for staying are just as varied.

The Rev. Suzanne Meyer, who serves the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, Missouri, shares wisdom from an unexpected source in this sermon from 2003:

We Are All About Saving Souls

by the Rev. Suzanne Meyer

They say confession is good for the soul, and since I am talking about souls this morning, I’ll make a confession. Those cheap, paperback murder mystery novels are my guilty pleasure. I buy and read tons of them and know the names of all the authors. So one day when I was prowling around Border’s bookstore in the religion section, scanning the shelves in search of sermon fodder, I noticed a new book by a familiar author, a woman who calls herself Nevada Barr. She is the author of one series of those paperback mysteries to which I am addicted. What was that book doing over here in the religion section? I just assumed that another customer who shares my book browsing and buying habits had picked the book up in the mystery section, had walked over to peruse the religion section, and had absent-mindedly set the book down and forgotten it. So I picked up what I thought was another one of those murder mysteries with the intention of glancing at it and either buying it or returning it to its proper shelf.

The title of the book was Seeking Enlightenment . . . Hat by Hat. Odd title for a mystery, I thought. I turned to the table of contents, and much to my surprise, I discovered it had not been misshelved, after all. In fact, it is a book about the author’s search for spirituality. Oh, dear, I thought, not another one of those “I’ve found it” books. A mystery writer finds God, gets saved, turns her life around, becomes an evangelist . . . Nevada Barr, you disappointment me!

(Read on … )