Why I Chose Unity
Each month, we will feature one person's story here on our website and in our weekly email, celebrating the unique journey that brought them to Unity Spiritual Center. We invite you to share what inspired you to become part of our spiritual community, what keeps you coming back, and how Unity has touched your life. Your story may be just the encouragement someone else needs as they begin or continue their own spiritual journey.
We're excited to introduce Mike Muckerheide as our August Story Sharer!
Mike Muckerheide – Why I Chose Unity
In college I started looking for a spiritual path to follow while maintaining my civilian approach to science and engineering.
I guess I wasn’t ready to try a different Christian denomination yet.
So, I spent times of attending and not attend Catholic services and events. I actually joined a Catholic choir for several years at a Catholic church in southeast Milwaukee. I was living in St. Francis close to the airport. I was working for the Air National Guard at Mitchell Field in Milwaukee.
I took a job working for the Wisconsin Corrections System in Waupun where I was born and where I graduated from High School.
I lived with my parents then and was going to the Catholic church with my parents on the days I didn’t work. That was to appease my dad. I never really thought I was Catholic.
After several years, I took a job at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. I was living on the northeast side of Milwaukee. I didn’t find a Catholic church that I wanted to join. But I did find PFLAG which is Parents And Friends of Lesbians and Gays. My job got onerous and difficult for me to continue. I would say I got pushed out.
So, I decided to go back to school and studied computer science which brought me to Sheboygan.
For several years I thought Sheboygan was too conservative to have a church that I was willing to even try attending. But then I discovered that PFLAG was meeting at Wesley Methodist Church. I was told that Wesley was a Reconciling Methodist Church which meant that gays and lesbians should be treated the same as any other member. I joined in; and boy did I! I was the treasurer and attended the adult religious studies class. I was going to the National Reconciling Conventions every other year at my expense. I went to other Methodist churches with other Wesley members to convince them to become reconciling. I joined a book club with other Wesley members.
Those adult religious classes and adult book club started me to rethink what is the TRUTH about Christianity. All my Catholic ideas were evolving into something different, something refreshing.
While I was at Wesley for almost 25 years, 2 ministers had been the leaders of the congregation. The 2nd minister was my favorite of the 2.
After my long term and highly intensive involvement with Wesley Methodist and the Methodist Reconciling Movement; I felt like everything I had done was for nothing. So I resigned from it all.
And also the minister I had liked so much was terminated. So I felt empty and lost. I didn’t know how or where I would find a new faith community. Then, many weeks later, I was called on to fix a computer at the Job Center. Another County employee was working at the Job Center named Marilyn Charles. Marilyn was in the same book club as me and had been attending Wesley Methodist Church while I was there. However, Marilyn and her husband had left Wesley a year or two before I did. I didn’t know where or if she found a place to go on Sundays, so I asked her. She told me they had been attending Unity and they liked it a lot. She said I should try it and so I did.
I thought Unity was so different from anything I had experienced before, I wasn’t sure I was going to stay. But I stuck with it and about 2 years later I knew this was where I wanted to stay.
Amen – And So It Is
Thank you to all who have taken a month! You are awesome!