Note: There were some technical difficulties during our service on this date and the audio may be difficult to hear. Please see below for a transcript of the faith story shared by Jamie Hofman during this service.
Thank you to Joe for offering this opportunity, and thank you to the congregation for listening to my faith journey. I hope it’s as helpful to hear as the ones that I’ve heard over the last few years.
My faith journey began with the absence of a faith journey. My father, who has many faithful traits, grew up in a secular house in Montreal. My mother grew up in a small hamlet in Eastern Ontario called Elphin. My mother lived directly across the street from a Presbyterian church, but told stories of a minister who valued guilt and judgement as main tenets of the Christian practice. It’s understandable that both of my parents didn’t value bringing their kids to church. They relied on positive secular values like hard work, honesty, and family.
I can also remember our fairly vigilant Christian neighbours when we were growing up. One day, the children of this family told my sister that she was going to hell because she didn’t attend church. The media also shaped my impression of faith while growing up the 1980s. They didn’t tell stories of good Christians. They only talked about abuse and corruption. As an aside, it’s also a good reminder to always take what the daily news says with a grain of salt. If it’s scandalous – there’s a good chance they’ll lead with that story.
It’s safe to say that as a young person, God and I didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.
For the first ten years or so of my life, Christianity was the only religion I knew of. We said the Lord’s prayer in school, I would occasionally watch Davey and Golliath on Saturday morning, for my grade one Christmas concert we sang “Who built the ark?” and on Sunday morning Christian services would be prevalent on the TV airwaves. There was a cultural leaning towards Christianity, but a lacking in my family and daily life to back it up. So here I was, surrounded by a culture that told me to read the Bible, attend church, and know Jesus as the one true God. But I was only hearing this. I couldn’t feel it as something true to me in my heart. I need to feel God.
I do remember an “aha” moment, maybe when I was about 8 or 9, having a conversation with my mom in which I discovered that Christianity was only one of a plethora of faiths that people practiced. This was a helpful moment for me. There may be more than one way of being a spiritual person.
A formative faith moment for me was in high school as a member of the choirs. I had always loved singing, and was naturally drawn to the music program in school. I can remember feeling a transcendance while singing with others. When making music, the normal worries and fears I had left me. This was something I could feel. I knew it to be true.
After graduating high school, I remember feeling like something was missing. Like the Ram Dass reading, I had everything I needed: friends, health, my own apartment, a good job with the possibility of taking over the family business. But also like the Ram Dass reading, there was this underlying feeling that I was missing a very important component. There had to be more to life than material abundance.
It was around this time that I received a book for Christmas from my sister. It was called The Celestine Prophecy. I remember recoiling at the word Prophecy, thinking it was part of the negative stereotypes I held about religion at the time. However, once I read it, I found several interesting connections that seemed to point to the missing components I was now looking to find. It’s a little embarrassing to have that book as a first step on my spiritual path… it was a piece of popular spiritual writing that, similar to books like The Secret, occupy the spiritual sections at Chapters for a while before disappearing into obscurity. Nonetheless, I’m grateful to have read it. It helped me to question if there might be more information out there that could help me to find fulfillment and peace in my life?
I was very lucky to have a few friends who shared my intrigue with spiritual readings. This was before the internet was prevalent, so you really had to put an effort into finding information. We would go to book stores like Seekers Books on Bloor street in Toronto to find books like The Prophet, and Be Here Now. Be Here Now was another pivotal book for me. If you haven’t read it, it was a highly unusual book written in the 1970s by a former Harvard professor who was friends with Timothy Leary and part of the psychedelic movement in the 1960s. He leaves his established life in America to travel in the east, eventually finding a Guru and a new saint-like life. The book mentions holy men in India who perform miracles. I had heard stories of miracles performed by Jesus, but they seemed so distant to me. Reading about people alive today who had witnessed miracles helped me to open up to what miracles might be about: They’re not about power or impressing people – they’re performed to open us up to the fact that the world isn’t what we think it is. We’re often trapped in our own thoughts and presumptions. There was an honesty and earnestness to this book that I couldn’t deny. It also contained information on yoga, Buddhism, the words of Christ, Islam, and more. I liked how it encouraged more than one way to God.
Now that I was beginning to find ideas that seemed to help me in finding fulfillment, I began to explore spiritual communities. It was time to make contact with other people who I could learn from. In my 20s I would attend meditation communities – and eventually weekend or week long retreats that focused on personal growth. I experienced wonderful transformations during these retreats. I attended a very powerful retreat called The Quest in Brighton Ontario, and did a 10 day retreat in San Diego in 1999. I returned several times to repeat the processes and volunteer – I learned that one could actively work towards knowing God and myself. Spiritual engagement didn’t have to be passive. I did tangible work that changed who I was. Journaling, meditation, community and reflection became regular practices for me.
I also began attending church for the first time – I was still involved with singing in various choirs, and was offered a job as a section lead in a United Church choir. I didn’t feel the pull towards the Christian church on a spiritual level, but being part of the musical life of a church was something that appealed to me. Being paid for attending certainly didn’t hurt either! I sometimes wonder if this was an act of providence – something that encouraged me to give Christianity another chance.
After about three years of singing and attending Simcoe St. United Church in Oshawa, I made the decision to move to Toronto. I wanted to learn more about music, and perhaps attend post secondary school. A serendipitous thing happened when I let my music director know I’d be moving, only to find that he too was switching to an Anglican Church in Toronto. I was able to work there as soon as I made the move.
The Anglican church was a good place, with wonderful music, but I was now moving into a more traditional version of Christianity. Kneeling at the altar, the robes, the chanting made me feel like I was taking part in a world that I couldn’t get behind. I remember while I went there the Anglican church was deliberating whether or not to give equal footing to the LGBT community. Shortly after the announcement that they were making no changes to their policies, taking a “wait and see” approach, I began looking for a United Church to sing in again.
Trinity-Saint Pauls near Spadina and Bloor would be my new musical and community for the next few years. I was able to be a part of a community that was openly and aggressively progressive, I heard the wonderfully uplifting sermons of Hal Lywellen and Karen McKay Lywellen, and also met a very interesting person singing alto there. After dating for a short while, Adrienne and I were married at TSP in 2007.
TSP is where I discovered that there were members who were part of other faith traditions. They were known as associate members. You could be part of the church, and take part in other faith journeys. In my first meeting to become an associate member, I remember Hal reading the United church credo that lead with the phrase “God is a Mystery.” Hearing that made me feel safe. God can be open. In this place no one can claim or impose it.
After moving away from Toronto and beginning teaching, we attended Innerkip United Church, then here at Parkminster. I’m grateful to have Joe and Neil as leaders, and I’m privileged to take part in many of the community initiatives here.
I’m a regular meditator these days, Adrienne and I attend a local Kirtan on occasion, and I long to return to spiritual retreats. I’ve just discovered a Buddhist podcast that I find quite helpful in finding happiness.
In conclusion, I think I’ve arrived, and am still travelling on a faith journey where a few things feel helpful to me:
Spiritual work is just that: it’s work. It’s not passive. Meditation, work in your community, and deliberate acts of surrender and kindness help me feel like I’m moving forwards.
Spiritual work is most effective when I look within. A popular kirtan singer, Krishna Das, once remarked that in the West, many people are looking for God “out there.” Many cultures, instead, choose to look within to find God. This feels right on my faith journey.
What feels right to me doesn’t need to hold true for others. I strive for diversity and openness to be a hallmark of my faith journey. It’s not always how I think it is. And in the words of the United Church Credo: God is a mystery.