Upstairs in the minister’s study, happily spared from fire’s ravages, the signs of life and work are abundant: shelves of dog-eared books; a glass bowl of polished stones gathered on vacation walks; the well-worn leather of an easy chair tucked in a sunny corner.

It has been a particularly tumultuous year for Rev. Barbara Merritt. Just three days before she was to deliver a speech at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (a high honor for which she had been chosen by her fellow 25th-anniversary-in-the-ministry colleagues), she received a frantic phone call informing her that a four-alarm fire was consuming her beloved church. In what was described as "a miracle" by officials in the Worcester Fire Dept., First Unitarian was saved. But the quantity of water needed to extinguish the flames in the building’s roof and attic caused a heavy rain to fall in the sanctuary for three days.

Listen to one of Merritt’s recent sermons, or read one of her recent newsletter memos, and you will likely encounter a subject that she has been giving a great deal of thought to lately: mold. Evidently the water-soaked roof insulation dropped in great gobs behind the plaster walls of the sanctuary, spawning vast mold colonies. It is an oddly fitting symbol for Merritt’s uniquely expansive way of looking at the world: There is no subject so mundane, no life form so lowly, that it doesn’t have something to teach us about the life of the spirit.

These days, Rev. Merritt preaches from a makeshift pulpit in the church’s cavernous recreation hall, while the sanctuary, stripped bare to the sub-flooring, undergoes extensive repairs. The grand pipe organ has been silenced, for now. Yet in the midst of the damage, Merritt finds much to be grateful for.

"There has been a strange and wonderful grace in the midst of the devastation," she says. "The congregation and the interfaith community in Worcester have rallied in ways I couldn’t have envisioned in my wildest dreams, offering support, space and assistance."

This discernment of grace in the midst of devastation runs like a continuous golden thread through Merritt’s life and ministry. "Barbara is continually putting this [fire] in the larger context of the spiritual life, and one of the things she does so well is use her life and whatever circumstances are going on as an opportunity for practicing faith," says David Rynick, one of the church’s lay leaders.

"She has done that in some ways by being overwhelmed. Sometimes she’s stood up and rallied the troops and other times she’s felt overwhelmed and exhausted by this catastrophe, and I think her realness in the whole thing — her refusal to take a fixed position of ‘everything’s fine’ or ‘everything’s terrible’ — but holding both of those truths, embodies Rev. Merritt’s deep commitment to engaging with reality in whatever form it manifests."

Born in White Plains, NY, the daughter of a Coast Guard admiral, Barbara Wuensch grew up "all over the place," living at various times in St. Louis, Norfolk, Washington, D.C., and Alaska. She earned a degree in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was active in the early feminist and anti-war movements. She was, in her own words, a "wide-eyed, crazy radical."

After graduating from college, she spent a year in India, where she trekked to the base camp of Mt. Everest, taught children in a village outside Katmandu, and spent time in a spiritual colony. She attended seminary in Berkeley, CA, at Starr King School for the Ministry, part of the Graduate Theological Union. Married in 1977 to Jeffrey Merritt, she was ordained at the tender age of 25, and took up ministry at her first church, in Woodstock, IL.

Merritt came to First Unitarian in 1983, under circumstances that lifelong congregant and search committee member Francis H. Dewey III recalls with a chuckle. "I remember vividly that when we had recommended her as our candidate to the moderator, she called the next day to say, ‘I have a shock for you’ — and then she said she was pregnant. And we said, ‘We’ll take both of you!’ " Merritt is the mother of two now-teenaged sons.

Eighteen years ago, a typical church service at First Unitarian found maybe 30 people in the pews; today as many as 300 show up on any given Sunday. "It’s astounding to see the membership. Looking around now, it’s standing room only in Unity Hall," says Dewey. "I used to know 95 percent of the people in the church and now I probably know 25 percent. That’s good. I feel carried along with it."

Merritt takes little credit for this phenomenal growth. "It was the decision of the congregation to grow," she says. "By calling a young woman who was pregnant, they decided to take a huge risk, and the congregation itself decided it wanted to be something new and different. So we built it up together."

Asked what brings people to her church, Merritt rolls her eyes. "Heaven only knows. I used to think that the right answer to that question was great preaching, great music, beautiful architecture, and a religious content that was useful and transcendent and substantial.

"I now think that those are all wrong answers," she goes on to say. "Those things are fine. They’re nice to have. They’re helpful. But I think what really brings people into religious community is when each individual finds that their gifts have been recognized, where they find that their souls have been spoken to, where they know they’re important."

This sense of being a valued member of a community may be what keeps people at First Unitarian, but Merritt’s colleagues are far quicker to credit her particular gifts with bringing people through the door in the first place.

Rev. John Buehrens, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, calls Merritt "a major religious thinker in our movement, highly regarded for her intellectual acuity and her spiritual depth." But more than that, "she is able to articulate something that other people feel but can’t often voice," says Rynick, who describes Merritt as "an enormously talented and charismatic preacher."

Everything is fodder for Merritt’s role as a preacher — and a teacher. Diane Mirick, First Unitarian’s director of religious education for the past 18 years, recalls going with Merritt some years ago to see the movie Amadeus, saying with a laugh, "I saw the movie Amadeus; she saw three sermons and a memo."

Asked what led her to the ministry 25 years ago, Merritt cites the words of one of her favorite theologians, Frederick Buechner. "Were you poorly advised or was it your own idea?" Indeed, her own minister at the time, when told of her intention to enter the ministry, asked, "Can you do anything else?"

Merritt would likely answer that she can’t do anything else, since ministry, in her view, is a calling to serve your fellow human beings at a deep level, doing work that will never be finished. And she’s very clear about the source of that calling. A longtime ministerial colleague, Rev. Burton Carley, pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Memphis, TN, sees Merritt’s ministry as growing out of her own deep spiritual life and commitment to God.

"When you have a higher source that you feel accountable to, it gives you a perspective on what you’re doing," Carley says. "Barbara has a genuine spiritual life and relationship with God."

In the Unitarian tradition, the minister is a struggling soul among struggling souls, not an authority figure with extraordinary access to big answers. What’s more, ministry is work that is carried out within the context of a culture that gives no clout to religion. Not that clout is something that Merritt sees as a necessary or even desirable condition for spiritual work.

"There was a time when the church had tremendous clout; for instance the Inquisition, when churches led empires and kings kneeled before the clergy," she says. "Then people’s relationship with the church was far more about power and getting more. Now, the reason people go to church is not for the status or for the privilege it will give them in society, because you don’t get any credit at all for going to church.

"It means that the only people who are in churches and synagogues are people who are spiritually hungry, the sincere seekers," she goes on to say. "Religion is not about power; it’s about love."

Because of its highly democratized nature, the Unitarian movement is especially subject to what UUA President Buehrens terms "the consumer mentality," which he says "treats worship as entertainment, pastoral care as social service, and religious education as fee-for-service babysitting." And due in part to its rejection of dogma and hierarchical structures, the UU movement is often dismissed, and often for just cause, as a refuge for spiritual dabblers looking for the latest New Age fad.

"She’s very clear about what we’re here to do; this is not a social club, it’s not a discussion group. We are here to move closer to God," Rynick says. "It’s very clear that the spiritual path is not some sort of New Age picnic."

Sometimes the most important work a minister does, in Merritt’s estimation, is simply to show up. "How can you ever address the pain of a parent who has lost a child? And yet you can walk with people through the toughest and most difficult tragedies," she says with feeling. "Sometimes all you can do is offer your silence, your prayers."

And yet Merritt’s task, as she sees it, is "to try very hard to articulate the human struggle. To make people feel less alone in it."

Asked whether professional ministers get more opportunities than mere mortals to walk with their fellow human beings in times of need, Merritt responds with her signature dry wit and deeply infectious laugh. "I’ve often said that ministers are paid to do what other people will do for free: to be good, well-behaved, kind."

In preparation for her address to the UUA’s General Assembly last June, Rev. Merritt surveyed her fellow 25-year colleagues as to what they had learned during a quarter of a century of professional ministry. What did they really know for sure? The unanimous answer was, very little. Surprisingly little.

The work of ministry continues to test, bewilder, challenge and confound even the most seasoned practitioners. Merritt credits her late colleague, Rev. Mike Scroggin of Worcester’s First Baptist Church, with saying, "Every sermon is a different kind of failure." Which means, Merritt says, that "you’re trying to talk about what is ineffable. You’re trying to talk about a journey where there aren’t clear road signs and destination points. Everyone’s on a different place on the journey.

"Every congregation is full of people who are celebrating their happiest moments; others are in deep grief," Merritt says. "Some people want to reflect deeply about their life, and other people would just as soon nap. So you’re trying to say something important, and you use the language of music and poetry and scripture and literature, but you can never really say what needs to be said, so you keep trying, week after week, and you never know what’s helpful.

"People come up to ministers everywhere and say, ‘You said this two years ago and it made all the difference’, and first of all you don’t remember saying it, and second, you don’t agree with it. Sometimes the hearing is wiser than the saying," she concludes.

Unlike many other faith traditions, Unitarianism doesn’t have any sort of monastic order. Despite the rigors and deprivations of a monastic life, Merritt believes that it is much more difficult to live a life of spiritual integrity outside the confines of a cloistered community.

"Let me give you an example," she says. "If I’m on a diet I can go to a cabin in the woods where all I have is fruit and oatmeal and I can say, ‘I have no interest in chocolate cakes.’ And there’s only fruit and oatmeal to eat and I keep on the diet. But if a banquet comes by, I’m off like a shot. I follow chocolate. So I need to learn to have a balanced life in the face of options. To be at the banquet and to choose what’s good for me and for others.

"The world is a dangerous place for someone who is trying to live a life of mercy and justice and balance," she says. "And I would say especially in this century and in this world of ours, in America, where you can watch television 24 hours a day and go to the movies and rent videos and go to the mall and distract yourself 7,000 different ways. All of which leave you empty, but they look sweet."

So how does she work on her own spiritual life? Merritt responds with a laugh, a twinkle in her deeply blue eyes. "Slowly ... badly ... constantly." This admission is not so much self-deprecation as it is hard-won knowledge of the nature of spiritual growth.

"When I first got involved with meditation practice and spirituality, I hoped that this was something you could accomplish in a few months or a few years, and I now believe it’s a lifetime commitment," she says. "And after working on your spiritual life for a lifetime you’re really lucky if you’ve learned some humility and some patience and some compassion. There’s always so much farther to go."

Merritt is quite firm in her belief that people participate in a religious community in order to move closer to God, and that there is not one "right" church for all people. "I don’t believe that First Unitarian is the best church," she says. "We are one church and my hope is that we can be of use to some seekers. But for some people, who like a traditional liturgy, we’re never going to have that. Because we don’t have a lot of emphasis on ritual. We have a lot of laughter in our service. For some people that doesn’t work. I can’t imagine my spiritual life without laughter. It’s one of the great gifts I think God gives us.

"There are all kinds of ways to find God," she continues. "As Rumi [the 13th-century Persian mystic and poet] says, ‘There are many paths on the mountain.’ The mountain is the same; you don’t have to start climbing in the same place to get to the same place at the top. Thomas Merton said that every religion at the surface looks different, but if you go deep enough, you’ll hit the same water table."

Balancing a career in the ministry with her work as a parent has been one of the most difficult, and most rewarding, aspects of Merritt’s adult life. Of parenthood she says, "I know of no higher calling. And I know of no greater privilege. The word ministry means ‘to serve.’ And as a parent you do serve, all the time. It has given me the greatest joy I have ever known. It’s also demanded more of me than anything I’ve ever done. It’s been a great spiritual teaching. It’s made me a much better minister, both in terms of knowing what so many in our congregation are struggling with, but also there is almost nothing more humbling than being a parent if you want to learn about your powerlessness. My children have been my teachers as well."

In her 25 years as a minister, Merritt has accumulated an impressive list of accolades. Affectionately called "The Rev. Dr. Dr. Merritt" by her office staff, Rev. Merritt holds two honorary doctorates, one from her alma mater, Starr King, and the other from Assumption College. She has earned the adoration of her congregation and the highest respect from her professional colleagues, both locally and nationally.

Rabbi Seth Bernstein of Worcester’s Temple Sinai, who along with Rev. Mark Beckwith of the city’s All Saints Episcopal Church meet monthly with Rev. Merritt in an informal support group, says "she has a great deal of respect from all of our colleagues in the community."

Such accolades can also be heard from Merritt’s colleagues around the country. Merritt’s longtime mentor, Rev. Ruppert Lovely, pastor of the Countryside Church Unitarian Universalist in Palatine, IL, speaks with deep feeling about his long-time friend. "Barbara has not only the respect and the high regard of her colleagues, but many of her colleagues hold her in their hearts with a great deal of affection," Lovely says. "And that’s partly because we know that Barbara is there for us."

Rev. Burton Carley of the First Unitarian Church, Memphis, TN, speaks of Merritt’s integrity. "Her inner and outer person are the same. She has great talent, and exercises that talent, and yet part of what she offers is her capacity to be human," he explains. "To think about what’s important and do great things without pretending to be important and great."

All such praise aside, you are unlikely to find Barbara Merritt resting on her laurels. It is evident that her vision of the spiritual journey holds no special place for fame. "One of the things that’s required, I believe, as you go farther on a spiritual journey, is that the ego has to go. The pride. The selfishness," she says with feeling. "Your illusion that you’re God, that you’re in control ... that you manage the affairs of the world. Giving up the ego is extremely painful. And hard to recommend as a fun thing to do with your life. But if you’re called to do it, then you’re going to move in a direction that will take you toward humility, but it’s going to hurt as you find out that you’re more powerless, that you have to rely on goodness and mercy and help from other people."

For Merritt, the trying is at the heart of her work as a minister. And as a parent. And as a human being. "There is an aura around ministry that somehow ministers are people who know, or people who understand, or people who’ve got it together, or people who don’t doubt, or people who have some sort of inside track, and none of that is true," she says. "We’re struggling souls like everyone else, who have been given the great honor and privilege to serve."