GA 2012 Relocation/ AZ Boycott

Hopefully, you've heard that the UUA Board of Trustees has voted to bring a resolution to GA delegates this year asking for direction to the GA Planning Committee to immediately re-locate our 2012 General Assembly currently scheduled for Phoenix, AZ. See the full text at Business Resolution on Phoenix General Assembly 2012. 

This is not just a "feel good" action of solidarity - the resolution calls for member congregations to cover the cost of cancellation, which could exceed $600,000. In addition, the resolution also calls for a pledge "to generate an equal or greater amount to fund ongoing efforts to Stand on the Side of Love in Arizona." These are serious costs, over and above congregational pledges to UUA Annual Program Fund (APF).

Are we ready to put our money where our convictions are?

Interestingly, UU Religious Professionals in Arizona have issued a statement in opposition to the boycott and relocation of GA 2012. See their prespectives at the UUA Pacific Southwest district website. There is even a "Facebook" page collecting "fans" of this opposing view: Keep GA In Arizona 2012 (note that you may need to be a Facebook member to access that link). A summary argument is well made at the Rev. John Cullinan's blog, Returning - see "Why A General Assembly Boycott of Arizona Is Not an Option."

I've found valuable resources about this issue at the May 5 issue of UU World on-line, with plenty of links to related stories. In these weeks rolling up to GA 2010 in Minneapolis, I hope our congregational delegates will stay right on top of this discussion. The conversation and vote on this resolution might be one of the most intense and important at GA.

Get ready to blog GA 2010!

Ready for General Assembly 2010? This blog -- activated for GA 2009 in Salt Lake City -- is intended to be your companion, and a connection to UUs "back home."

Use this space to translate your experience into something useful for UU life back home. Did a presenter give you a helpful list of better practices? Did you come away with a big question to think about? Did you glean a book recommendation? Did a conversation or decision in Plenary blow you away?

Do tell! Inquiring UU minds want to know.

In these days leading up to GA 2010, we'll be posting bulletins about GA planning and issue developments, suggestions for workshops and events to attend, Q&A about GA logistics so first-timers can glean tips from experienced delegates and attendees.

We'll post a link on the home page of PNWD.org, so your congregation, colleagues, family and friends can keep up with the latest news. Signing up as a "follower" of this blog will trigger notification when a new post is available.

SEE YOU IN MINNEAPOLIS!

Recommendations from GA

Thanks to all who posted and read this blog! It was a good enough experiment (and learning experience) for us, that we're planning to launch an ongoing PNWD blog. We'll put a link on the PNWD website when it's up & running.

I'm still basking in the glow of GA, and now that I'm fully rested after that admittedly exhausting experience, I'm reviewing all the good, disappointing and puzzling points that have stuck with me. For me, GA leaves a complex legacy -- the deep conversations, the unexpected insights, the surprising delights, the programs that left me feeling unfulfilled or troubled about the present and future of UU, the pieces of UUA politics that go way over my head and speak to me of "here there be dragons."

As a UUA staffer, I'm looking forward to whatever comes with the new president's vision and style. I was surprised at how many people asked me about fear and anxiety within the UUA staff, related to the presidential election -- specifically, about rumors that UUA staff were terrified of losing their jobs/ needing to get along with either of the candidates. I heard this rumor about Peter and about Laurel in pretty much equal measure! Change is hard for some people, exciting for others (I tend to be in the latter camp). What felt grounding to me is that both candidates were obviously passionate and dedicated to UU. I'm glad that the anxiety and tension around the election is passing now, and (like I said), I'm looking forward to getting on with this next chapter in our living tradition.

Though I appreciate the availability of so many programs from GA that were recorded and are now available on-line or on CD/DVD, I have to admit that I rarely watch or listen to these myself. But two experiences were so outstanding that I have to recommend going out of your way for them:

Sermon from the Service of the Living Tradition: You can read it at http://www.uua.org/documents/harringtonmary/090626_lifetime_not_enough.pdf or watch it as part of the whole service, at http://www.uua.org/videos/ga2009.php?movie=3029.flv

Sermon from the Sunday morning worship: http://www.uua.org/videos/ga2009.php?movie=5003-5004.flv. Don't hesitate to watch the whole service, but if you want to skip straight to the sermon, it begins at about 50:10.

I also LOVED the featured song at closing worship - it's destined to become a favorite in our congregations, I predict (assuming the music will be made available). I can't seem to find it on the UUA website, so maybe I'm mis-remembering when this song was presented. All I remember is the composer is a seminarian, she had a fabulous voice and her guitar was sweet, and the song was called something like "Stand With Me." If I find it, I'll post the link here somehow.

Thanks to all who came to GA. Please do your best to share your experiences with your congregation -- we are so much more powerful in our faith and presence when we live our connection with one another.

Pictures from GA from Rev. Marian Stewart

Notes from the 2009 Ware Lecture

Here are my notes from the 2009 Ware Lecture, presented by Prof. Melissa Harris-Lacewell - a life-long UU as well as a political scientist and a political commentator. These are just bits that stuck in my ear.

• Faith and reason - the juncture that marks our UU community and our citizenship in a democratic nation. We must embrace both - flinging our arms wide to the expansive skies, and remembering that beneath the sand where we dig in our toes, there are hard-pinching crabs.
• In the aftermath of Katrina, tens of thousands of people, overwhelming black people, were labeled "refugees" and authorities worried more about crime and looting rather than their safety and health. Nearly every African American with whom she spoke in New Orleans believed that racism was behind their disproportionate suffering. Their response was not just emotional - it was rooted in the history of our country.
• It was clear to her that New Orleans could not be rebuilt. She did not want to be part of a country that allowed her people to starve on television. Yet, this is her country. Every part of it, every story of it. She is both the opressed and the oppressor.
• George W. Bush never recovered from his failure to respond to Katrina. The Democratic Party found its first solid ground to criticize the Bush adminsitration - how could an administration incompetent to respond to a crisis in our own country be competent to prosecute a war in Iraq? It was New Orleans that set the stage for Barack Obama's presidential win.
• There have been as many losses as wins in New Orleans. There is still a preferential option for tourists over residents in much of the city. Yet the work to recover and restore continues. The story of New Orleans reminds her that the best social justice work arises from our willingness to fully embrace the battles we are not likely to win.
• There has never been anything false about hope.
• Yet, California went to the polls and voted for Barack Obama with one hand, and passed Proposition 8 with the other. Democrats have aggressively taken "single payer" off the health care reform table.
• Obama warned us, "Get prepared to govern." He warned us. Governing with a friiend in the white house is harder than being on the margins. The crabs are at our feet.
• Bill Gates has more wealth than the bottom 45% of US residents combined. Less than 1% of what the world spent on weapons could send every child to school. Our entire planet is threatened with extintion, while we continue to have a ravenous appetite for everything.
• There is little reason to think a fair and just world is possible. And that is why we cannot rely on reason alone.
• We must create something we have never seen before. Here is the work of religious community.
• Why do black people in America believe that God loves them, when there is so little evidence to support that belief? People who were slaves, who had no reason to believe their children would ever be anything other than slaves too, still believed in a loving God, who loved them.

oops - there endeth my notes! I'm certain that I had another paragraph or two, but it looks like they weren't preserved when I closed up my laptop. Maybe someone else can add the closing thoughts.

Report #2 on UU University - Theology track

Worshiping with the "Theology" track at GA's UU University was an amazingly beautiful way to start the day! We entered to gorgeous music and stunning images from the worlds' religions. The University of Utah Singers provided a capella music for the service, and they were a religious experience just in themselves. The various elements of the service were just excellent, weaving into our minds and souls and calling our every cell and pore into praise, humility and gratitude. Rev. Dr. Galen Guengerich (Senior Minister of All Souls Unitarian Church in NYC), presenter of this track, described aspects of the formal Mass/ Holy Communion reflected in Mozart's Mass, and gave us a homily that was elegantly crafted - it connected like a deep gift that simply said "Here. Join me in this moment of meaning and memory." This is the church I want to belong to!

Here are some of the tidbits I wrote down from this morning's presentation:

• "Faith is a leap of the moral imagination that connects the world as it is to the world as it might become."
• "Our brains cannot be changed merely by adding new information or knowledge. What is required is new behavior: a different way of living."
• "Humans are dust waiting to happen"
• "If there were a church of a new millennium, what would it look like? One that embraces mystery, but not magic, one that believes that reason is a source of revelation, not its opposite."
• "The goal of faith and religion is to develop character - to transform our inner lives by the force of our beliefs... Religion is about who we are within ourselves."
• " Worship is where we learn the discipline of gratitude."
• Rev. Tony Campolo: "Rituals keep us from forgetting what must not be forgotten and keep us rooted in a past from which we must not be disconnected."
• Rev. Wayne Muller, in his book "Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our Daily Lives" (note from Janine - this is one of my favorite books - I highly recommend it!) points out that ritual is meant to be repeated because "We are not supposed to do it right the first time and then be done with it. We are not supposed to do it better each time until we get it perfect... The perfection is in the repetition. This is not about progress, it is about circles, cycles and seasons, about the way time moves, and things we must remember, because with ever faster turning of the wheel it can become easier to forget."
• "The cyclical nature of time reminds us that some aspects of life are not about progress... An hour of worship is an invitation to recall the nature and purpose of our lives as a whole, and to consider how our nature is to be honored and our purpose fulfilled... Each hour is a page in a book of hours that we cumulatively call life."
• "The shadow side of morality is cast by people who create repressive moral rules and try to force everyone else to follow them."
• "We need a higher standard than individual preference on which to base our code of conduct."
• "Find one thing and do it with all your passion." Don't get sucked into overdoing. Just do your one thing. Trust that others doing their one thing will make up the whole.

The cool video for today was U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

The presenter feels pretty good about summarizing the root of UU as Gratitude. In the expansive way he understands this as spiritual practice, it seems reasonable and even useful. My problem with this kind of boiling down to a primary essence is that I'm afraid that most people would say "oh - o.k., that's what we're all about" and apply this satisfying answer very superficially. This would end up lessening our spiritual depth, not deepening it. The important thing, I think, is for each person to engage thoroughly in the search and come to the true, real, deep, boundless and ever evolving meaning of your religion -- and to embody it through constant and challenging spiritual practice. Anything less, I think, is less than we deserve and less than we are called to be in the world.

Report on UU University - Theology track

Here are some notes from the UU University track I attended Thursday afternoon, on "Theology for a Secular Age." This was presented by the Rev. Galen Guengerich, who is the Senior Minister of All Souls UU Church in New York (he was Associate Minister with his predecessor as Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church). For the past 3 years, UU University has been presented as an "add-on" prior to GA, requiring separate registration and fees. It was developed to support lay leaders, particularly congregational presidents and elected leaders, as well as lay leaders of various church programs and functions. This year, GA is the core programming of the first two full days at GA, running 1-6 on Thursday and 8-noon on Friday. There are 6 tracks and you stay in your selected track the entire time.

Seven key questions are being explored in the Theology track:
1. How do we know what we most truly know?
2. What is the nature of existence and how do we fit into the picture?
3. What in the world is divine - if anything?
4. What is the uniquely human challenge?
5. What is the purpose of faith and the role of religion?
6. What does it mean to be a religious community?
7. How shall we live in order to transform ourselves and the world?

In the 4th century, St. Augustine posited, "I believe, therefore I understand." The presenter, in his program handout, notes that "Children of the Enlightenment move in the opposite direction: not from belief to understanding, but from understanding to belief. We take everything we know into account as we decide what to believe. Enlightened faith never asks us to set aside what we know." Here are some other bits that caught my eye or ear:

• "The main function of religious faith is not to affirm that certain facts are true. Rather, it is to develop a life of meaning and purpose in light of what we know."
• We live in a relational universe. "The first principle of the universe is not independence (each thing that exists is a thing unto itself), but rather the opposite: utter dependence."
• The idea of God is necessary. "In my view...God exists the way beauty exists, but not in the way a person or an apple exists."
• "I believe some religions are better than others. I believe there are some religions we should not tolerate."
• Q: Is "evil" a necessary theological concept? A: "Yes…it's the devil inside." (referenced an INXS song with this phrase)
• Q: Many have been hurt by the word "God." Shouldn't we find our own words for the concept you're talking about? A: Maybe so - I haven't come up with anything sufficient, though. (From Janine: what comes up for me is that no one has been hurt by God or the word "God." The hurt has been done by people who are misapplying that word. How do we intend to pursue healing, other than insisting on avoidance?)
• What do UUs (collectively) believe? How do we answer that question sometimes posed to us by visitors to our churches? This workshop is essentially the presenter's answer to that question. He invited questions to theology@allsoulsnyc.org

Loved that he showed the video of Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." This was an illustration of the feeling of "outsider" that so many feel. Rev. Guengerich says, "Where does the boulevard of broken dreams end? In my church. In your church."

The day's presentation closed in a worship service with live jazz music - how cool is that? Beautiful service, achingly sweet and upbeat all at the same time. Jazz, opening words, jazz, responsive reading, jazz, poetry, jazz, more poetry, more jazz, prayer and silent meditation, jazz, poem, jazz, closing words, benediction, postlude. Mmmm….