What Are We Looking For?

I have a deep sense that, often in life, what we find is what we have been looking for. Not always, of course, for we have unmatched socks and lost telephone numbers and misplaced books at our house, and I bet you have some at your house as well. But—even with socks!—it’s fortunate that matching items seem to appear much frequently than not.

But I think there is a larger sense in which what we find is what we are looking for. When we move to a new town, or begin a new course of studies, or pick up a new book, or begin to become acquainted with a new community, we often come with our own set of expectations. Those expectations focus our attention and shape our experiences (and our interpretations of those experiences) in one direction or another. In this sense, too, we often find what we are looking for.

In a perfect world, we might train ourselves to come to each new situation without expectations, to come with an open mind. Sometimes we are capable of achieving this, and some of us may be very good at doing so. But some of us (like me) know that maintaining an open mind can be quite a challenge. So if we can’t always keep an open mind, what can we do? At the very least, we can pay attention to our own expectations, to the assumptions that we bring to each situation. And perhaps we can even go a step further, intentionally considering the expectations that we bring, as one way of finding the best that is present in our situation, rather than the worst. What we find is, at least in part, determined by what we look for.

When you come to the Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship, what are you looking for? We’re a sufficiently complex and inconsistent community that—whatever you may be looking for—it’s probably here, at least to some degree. And lots of other experiences, qualities, and characteristics are here, too, including some that you may not be looking for, but which may have meaning and significance for you. There is a reason that one of our groups was called “Serendipity”—the connections that you can create here can lead you in unanticipated directions. Your participation in and engagement with those adventures may make a real difference to some of the others present, both within the Fellowship and in the larger community. And it can happen that as you detour from your own search to help another on her or his quest that you find what you have sought. 

Occasionally someone will report having one of those “aha!” experiences, when we realize that we thought we were looking for one thing, but what we really wanted to find is something else. Maybe I’ve been looking for amusement, but what I really want to find is meaning in my life. Or perhaps I’ve been looking for company, but what I have really wanted to find is community. Or perhaps I have been looking for acceptance, but what I really want to find is the challenge to become more than I am today.

What are you really hoping to find here? How are you working to find it? And how is your quest part of the larger journey of this faith community?

Bill S.