"On the Way"
Do you like to go to bed every night?
Do you like to sleep?
Has anyone here ever stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG?
I’ll bet you didn’t stay up all night on Halloween.
Maybe some of you here wanted to stay up all night on Christmas Eve.
Why do you suppose people once in awhile stay up all night?
Some work at night, sleep during the day … but the rest of us?
Well, I want to tell you about a time when Mrs. Doss and I stayed up ALL NIGHT LONG.
We did it with our guest minister, Dr. Pickett, and Mrs. Pickett, one night many years ago.
Back then, Dr. Pickett was my minister, as today I am your minister (one of them), and I was thinking … thinking hard then about studying to become a minister in our church, as later I did.
I was very excited but also had lots of questions. Perhaps some of them like the questions you have when someone asks you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I remember when I wanted to be an airplane pilot. And there was a time when I wanted, maybe, to be a singer. And I certainly did (at one time) want to be a forest ranger.
But – this time – it was the ministry that I thought about most. So Mrs. Doss and Mrs. Pickett and Dr. Pickett and I got together one night in 1955. That was before you were born and before your parents were born most likely. We got together at seven o’clock one night and talked all night until seven o’clock the next morning about the Unitarian ministry.
You see, I loved my church, and I was thinking – for me – it would be difficult for someone else – but for me, I asked, “What could I do with my life that is more important than all the other things I had thought of doing?”
Well, that was to become a Unitarian minister.
And you know something? One reason I am glad that I decided and was helped to decide to do that is that now I get to talk to you as one of your ministers. And I got to name some of you at your dedication and naming services. I’d have to think about it, but maybe I even performed the marriage service when some of your parents got married. And this very day I get to be your minister.
Someday, some of you may think of becoming Unitarian Universalist ministers … like … that’s what I want to do when I grow up: to be a minister. And someday maybe you will want to stay up all night or maybe just half the night talking with someone, maybe with your minister, about it.
I’m glad Dr. Pickett and Mrs. Pickett did that with me and Mrs. Doss. And I’m glad I am here for you, on the way.
