I am a child of Sputnik. I grew up watching black and white test patterns on a TV screen. I learned how to type on a manual Smith Corona. I was born before the invention of Cds, PCs, VCRs and velcro. Now fantasies once found only on the pages of science fiction are reality. A space shuttle is launched again and who cares. All this change is confusing. Nothing is as it was -- whether we're speaking of advanced technology, styles of family living or sexual mores.

New discoveries generally mark progress. Yet sometimes progress can also lead to spiritual regression. When one is swept along by the tides of change, it's easy to lose our grounding. As we're well aware, fear of the unknown is capable of producing conservative backlash, even though change is often for the good.

In all this confusion, we should remember life in the world means loving God as and where we are. The transcendent is present in the here and now. The world we live in is the house of God. Our union with God is not in question. The fact we are here is substantiated by the fact of our creation. Our very existence is because of God's love.

The goal of our spiritual and religious life is to restore with God's help the likeness of love. We must be patient with ourselves and others. We must take time to listen. We must respond flexibly and individually to each situation. In difficult times, we must remember there is a meaning to this mess, even if we don't always see it.

Returning to God in silence and prayer is a good way not to lose our moorings in the fast flow. It is in still and quiet that we become rooted once again in the holy. One of my favorite writers, Susan Muto, calls it "practicing the presence of God."

In difficult times, we should also remind ourselves true faith is not static. It is dangerous to define faith because we must always be ready to redefine it based on new knowledge that tomorrow or even today may bring. The future may show a new, clearer, stronger path, and only those open to it will perceive it.

As a church, our openness to change has been our greatest blessing. Some also perceive it as our greatest curse. The very freedom we encourage could also be the thing that could destroy us. But the fact remains, we are a church open to new truths as well as old truths that may have been hidden. If only people could grow up and accept that all things -- even religion, --must change or die. If someone were to ask me where University Baptist Church stood, I'd have to say, We don't stand anywhere. We move.

The church that cannot move with history or adapt to change will die of obsolescence. There is more to life and more to being a church than merely going through the motions. The church is the embarking point for our continuing spiritual journey. The church is also the place where we find the center for our being. In a very real sense, it is our true home.

No matter how far I go or grow, I never wholly leave myself or where I have been. The axes of my life may extend farther and farther, but they still meet at the center and where they meet, there I am. And where I am there also is my home.

Isn't that the old truism? Home is where the heart is. Strip away the cliche and you find the truth in it. Where you are most present, most alive, most human, that is home.

I think that's what we all want. In the fast moving and rapid changing pace of today's world, we want to come to a place that nourishes our fullest humanity. We want a religion to bind up our wounds without adding to our pain. We want a religion to help us to live in and love this troubled world. We want a religion to help us find the permanent truth within the transient flow of time. For those of us already here, University Baptist Church is the place we feel most at home. It may not be the perfect place, the best place, or the only place. But, yes, it is home.

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