I wasn't sure about the answer to this question until I was in seminary and had the opportunity to study the Christian scriptures. Being a good UU, I was personally more interested in the religion of Jesus, than the religion about him. And what I found in the oldest Christian writings were incredibly beautiful teachings. The stories in the earliest Gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke - all depict the transformative and revolutionary power of love. Jesus advocated bucking all kinds of societal norms because his belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being demanded that he do so. 

"The religion of Jesus is an inspiring and deeply caring one. Christianity is the only religion I've encountered that makes love such a central aspect of faith and spiritual practice. 

"Christmas has thus for me, become more than just a secular holiday. It is a spiritually holy time. The example of Jesus' life calls us to live out our love well beyond our comfort zones. Loving our family and friends, the people we already care about, is not enough. It's too easy. We are called to love radically - to love those most different, most marginalized, and most underprivileged. 

"Christmas is a holiday about our fundamental shared humanity. We are each called to care for and support one another. We are each living expressions of God's love and hope for humankind." 

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I started my interview by asking Manish (in the UU community, we generally refer to our ministers by their first names) about how he came to join the UU church. He began at the very beginning - when his parents moved to Pittsburgh in the late '60s. 

He told of typical early Indian immigrant family life. His parents were active members of the local Indian community. They were involved in starting the local Indian association, the first temple, the first weekend radio program, and even the first screenings of Indian movies at a local theater. 

The family was quite devout and along with celebrations of Diwali, Janmashtami, and Holi, they practiced the rituals faithfully. As with each first generation of immigrants, there was an overarching desire to preserve the culture, to make sure the children were raised to become good Hindus. 

These parental efforts appear to have had some success. Manish told me that he and his brother are strict vegetarians (even though their cousins who were born and raised in India are all meat eaters!). Manish is also fluent in both Hindi and Urdu and loves watching Bollywood movies. 

But, as is often the pattern with the children of immigrants, the young Manish felt an intense desire to be more fully American, to be "like everybody else". I would not have been surprised if Manish had told me that his moving away from these inherited cultural and religious practices, towards Unitarian Universalism, was a form of rebellion and second-generation angst. But, as he explained to me, there was a lot more to his embrace of the UU faith than that. 

As an inquisitive Indian-American youngster, Manish often asked questions about the religious rituals that his family practiced. He was told that they were doing things a certain way because that is how they had always been done. When he directed the same questions at the Hindu priests, he did not get any additional insight. This was partly because of the language divide as the priests were generally not fluent in English. But, it was also because of the reliance on Sanskrit texts and the priests' inability to clearly explain what they were saying and doing in Sanskrit. 

Whereas doing things because "we have always done them that way" may be acceptable in the native milieu, it is clear that something more is called for if those practices are to remain relevant in a radically different time and place. Manish's description of his search for relevance reminded me of a scene from the movie ABCD. As the camera closes in on the statues of gods at the temple, Raj observes that they seem like masks from a horror movie. Especially in the western world, where our kids are taught from a young age to question everything, our rituals and practices can indeed seem alien without adequate context. 

There was another aspect of the ritual observance that the young Manish found troubling. He noticed that many observant Hindus that he knew thought of themselves as good human beings, even devout and holy individuals, simply because they faithfully observed rituals. Manish found this standard of moral goodness far from compelling. This was brought into even sharper relief since he could see that many of these same devotees were not necessarily people of integrity in their day-to-day lives. What did it mean to be ritually observant, yet morally questionable, he wondered. 

The experience that tested Manish's beliefs the most was his coming out of the closet as a gay man at the age of 20. It would not be an overstatement to say that the reaction to his revelation was volcanic and momentous. His parents were shocked and disappointed. They felt shamed, humiliated, even let down. Some of his college-aged Indian-American friends also expressed confusion and rejection. 

As a result, Manish felt as if his family, culture, and religion were turning their backs on him. During the ensuing five years he had minimal contact with his family. Knowing how central family is in our culture, it is hard to fathom just how painful, scary and isolating a time this must have been for Manish. Surviving, and being true to himself, as a human being necessitated almost losing everything dear to him as an Indian-American. 

Having graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in International Relations, Manish started his first job with the U.S. State Department. This was the realization of a lifelong dream. As a nephew of Brijesh Mishra, one of India's former Ambassadors to the United Nations, Manish had witnessed the power and prestige of the diplomatic life. He was drawn to the profession as one that offered the opportunity to be a peacemaker, someone who could build bridges across different cultures, and thereby be a force of good in the world. 

Manish, fluent in Arabic -- and later Finnish, Russian, and Slovak as well -- took up his first diplomatic posting in Muscat, Oman. He was there for two years working as the Chief of the Embassy's Consular Department. These were two difficult years as he was sent to one of the most conservative parts of the world, where being openly gay was almost unheard of. 

In my interview with Manish he described the sense of isolation that he felt in Oman, which was made, in some ways, even more difficult because he was of Indian heritage. The Omani people tended to discount his diplomatic standing because he "looked" Indian, and therefore they tended to equate him with their Indian migrant workers, the majority of whom are in manual or household labor positions. Members of the wealthier Indian expatriate business community were welcoming and even proud of him - he represented the best of what was achievable by Indian emigres. But acceptance in this community came at a price: given his family's intense negative reaction to his homosexuality, Manish feared fully sharing his life with this community. He feared a similar result, ostracization and rejection, so he allowed people to assume he was heterosexual, an assumption that was both self-negating and self-denying. Not even Manish's American co-workers grasped the spectrum of racial, cultural, religious, and class issues he was grappling with. 

After his time in Oman, Manish spent some time in Washington receiving Finnish language training. His two year posting in Helsinki avoided the issues of sexual orientation that he faced in the Persian Gulf, but in a country of five million people, which at that time had only several hundred non-white immigrants, he continued to face racial prejudice and discrimination. At times he was told to "go home," or was denied entry into a restaurant or bar because it was assumed he was a political or economic refugee. 

While Manish holds very warm and overall positive feelings for Finland and the Finnish people, after five years overseas he was tired of the challenges of living an expatriate life as an Indian-American. Manish returned to the U.S., and the time was ripe for trying new and different things. In the summer of 1998, Manish, with his then partner, attended the wedding of an Indian-American friend from college. It was a grand affair at a swank hotel in a Maryland suburb, and it was attended by several hundred guests. 

Driving back from the wedding, Manish was distraught. The wedding highlighted the fact that his friend, the bride, had a large community of family members, friends, and people from their temple community. These well-wishers shared traditions and memories and they would go on to share many more life experiences in the future. In contrast, Manish felt loneliness - the lack of a spiritual or religious community that he could value and that would value him. 

The very next day, a Saturday, Manish called his best friend, a Finn living in Helsinki. His friend listened with sympathy and understanding and then suggested that Manish look up the "Unitarian Church". While there are no Unitarian churches in Finland, his friend remembered hearing good things about them. They were reputed as being an open and free-thinking religion. His friend also seemed to recall that UUs did not require one to convert or leave the religion they already belong to. This sounded almost too good to be true. Manish was very clear that he did not want to convert to Christianity. He wanted to honor his Hindu heritage, but also knew that he was not getting what he needed out of traditional Hindu structures. He was looking for something that would fit his "unique" circumstances... 

Like a drowning man drawn to a log of wood, Manish researched Unitarian Universalism (www.uua.org) on the internet. The next day was a Sunday and he and his partner attended the local UU church in Washington, D.C. - All Souls Church, Unitarian. Both went with reservations and each had one condition that had to be met if they were to belong to this new faith community. For Manish, it was most important that they be accepted as an openly gay couple. For his former partner, a trained scientist, it was the absence of any dogmatic belief in supernatural powers. 

As it turned out, that first visit passed both of their conditions with flying colors. But something else happened, that was even more remarkable. 

As part of the worship service, visitors were asked to stand up and introduce themselves. (This is quite atypical.) With great trepidation, Manish did so. He recalls how he felt after worship ended: "The words of the sermon were meaningful and spiritual. But, I was nervous and scared. I expected that the people would avoid us, especially after introducing ourselves as a gay couple. In fact, at the end of the service I was eager to leave as soon as possible." 

But two elder women - who seemed to be in their eighties - blocked his exit. Smiling, they enveloped him in a warm embrace and said, simply, "We are so glad that you have come to our church." It is hard to imagine how Manish must have felt at this time. After more than five years of being spiritually alone and wandering in the wilderness, finally here were people who valued him for all that he was. This was entirely in keeping with the second UU principle: "respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every human being". But it was too soon for Manish to know that. 

After this experience, he continued to attend Sunday services at the church. To be sure, Manish was still quite uncomfortable with some of the external trappings of the church. The hymns and the pews, the sermons and the "minister" - all felt quite alien. (In Hinduism, of course, we have no tradition of worshipping in this style.) But what did not feel alien at all, was the content of the sermons and the songs, as well as the feeling of everyone caring about one another in the context of religious community. 

Within several months of first attending this church, a curious thing happened. Manish was invited to preach - to give occasional sermons. Even more amazing, people wanted him to teach them about Hinduism. 

The irony did not escape Manish - after feeling for so long cut off from the established Hindu community, his new spiritual community was looking to him for guidance about Hinduism.