Looking back and Looking Ahead for UUFG

As I was reflecting on the year past at UUFG, and on the year ahead, Aldous Huxley’s words near the end of his life came to me.

“It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'try to be a little kinder.'”

As the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville looks back over 2012 and ahead to 2013, we -- who have been, as a faith community, concerned with the human problem -- go forward in our commitment to try to be a little kinder.

Somehow, through no obvious connection, this then reminded me of a story a friend of mine, David Rynick, told. David lives up in Massachusetts now, and he is something of an artist. His medium is clay. When he was new to the work, back in the 70s, he took a week-long clay workshop led by a former Benedictine monk named Bruno.

“In the middle of the week I got stuck with some of the pieces I was working on. The pieces were nearing completion, but I had no idea how to finish and resolve them. I was discouraged and saw no way forward. I went to Bruno to ask for his help in my dilemma and to report my doubts about my capacity to be creative. Bruno listened patiently to my expression of angst. When I had finished, he laughed and said, 'Don't worry, it gets worse.'” (David Rynick, This Truth Never Fails.)

David found Bruno's words – as I do in recalling his story -- shocking yet reassuring. Liberating, really. When we let go of the idea that all things should go smoothly, it frees us to be OK with what’s actually there -- and move forward. There are going to be doubts. There are going to be mistakes. There are going to be bumps in the road. There will be reactivity -- in yourself and in others. There will be blame, and judgment, and hurt.

And as we grow more deeply into an activity -- whether it's sculpting clay, playing a musical instrument, playing on a ball team, or volunteering with a generally fulfilling nonprofit organization -- well.... Don’t worry. It gets worse. Once we know that and expect it, we don’t mind it so much. That’s how the worse gets better. So I have to tell you, as our congregation looks back on the year past and forward to the year ahead: it also gets better.

2012 was a year of changes for our congregation. We have a new Director of Religious Education, a new Director of Music, a new pianist. They’re all great. At the same time I do miss Leah, and Ruth, and Mark. Those auld acquaintance are not forgot.

In 2012 we had divergent viewpoints among us, and it was of such nature that it triggered more reactivity than appreciation of the gift of conflict. We saw a lot of reactivity in our congregation – as we did in our country in this election year. We’re working on ways to cope with it more effectively: not to bury it, or deny it, or solve it, but to honor it, cope with it, put the energy to good use as we strive to grow together.

In 2012, this congregation continued to be a beacon in north central Florida. As the year was beginning, last January, we were out in numbers for the Martin Luther King Day parade. And we were out again in large numbers in our yellow shirts, standing on the side of love, in the LGBT pride parade in September. We have provided housing in our fellowship rooms to homeless families through the Interfaith Hospitality Network.

We have been lifted up with wonderful music both in the first half of the year and in the second half. Some of the sermons maybe weren't too bad. We have been a community, where our children can spiritually grow and learn and have fun. We have comforted each other in times of loss, and sickness.

We have been Gainesville's only place of liberal religious community, where Christians and Buddhists, and pagans, and naturalist-humanists can all come together sharing the faith that life is good, justice is attainable, and love is right here among us. We have supported each other in lives of integrity, challenged each other to deeper growth, and shared with each other life’s celebrations.

Religion is that which binds a group together, that connects them each to all and all to each (the "lig" in re-lig-ion is the same "lig" that's in "ligament" -- it's the connective tissue). Shared belief is a substantial part of the connective tissue in some religions. Not for us. For us who practice liberal religion, it isn’t belief that does the job. For us, religion is about (a) the ethics and values that guide your life, (b) the community you choose to make your own (and with whom you share in rituals that affirm that community connection), and (c) moments of experiencing transcending wonder. For us, religion is about bringing those three things together in such a way that each one reinforces the other two.

UUFG is the primary beacon in North Central Florida for that approach to religion. In 2013, with your help, we will regain our stride, offering to our members and our community the gift of free religious community, showing the world that peace and justice are more important than whatever it is we think is worth fighting and oppressing others to get. We are the change we want to see, and we are becoming it -- slowly and unsteadily, but more and more.

It takes all of us to do that, and your promises, which last week you wrote on the yellow stars that now adorn our sanctuary, are the promise of 2013. Your promises promise a vibrant, nourishing faith community in which we are transformed and through which we transform the world. It takes the resources of time and talent, and also the resources of treasure to bring this Fellowship into its flower.

Don’t worry. It gets better.

Mindful Nation, Mindful Congregation

SERMON at UUFG -- 2012 November 11

You may have heard, there was an election. Up in Ohio, it seems.

Yes, throughout our beautiful Sunshine state, Floridians were breathing a sigh of relief: that this time it didn’t come down to us.

Four days after all 49 other states had reported in, our Florida finally completed counting all the ballots just yesterday. In case you didn’t hear, the winner was Al Gore.

The US elected a president, vice-president, 435 house representatives, 33 senators, and 11 governors, not to mention state and local legislators. We elected politicians, and we generally don’t have a very high opinion of politicians. We tell jokes like: throw a party for honest congressmen, it’ll cost you nothing – just like the party for hardworking congressmen. I saw a bumper sticker -- I wouldn’t put it on my car, but the sentiment is neither unusual nor surprising:

“Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often, and for the same reason.”

Politicians are generally not well liked.

There’s one congressman, though, that I want to talk about: Congressman Ryan from the Midwest. I don’t mean Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district. I mean Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio’s 13th congressional district. First elected in 2002 at age 29, he was re-elected on Tuesday to his 6th term.

Last March, Tim Ryan came out with a book: A Mindful Nation. Hmm. "A Mindful Nation." Not what I would expect from a sitting congressman. Full title: A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit.

Mindfulness is now a key concept in psychology, referring to a psychological quality that involves:

• “bringing complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis;”
• “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally;”
• “a kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is.”

Mindfulness is paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. So it has two aspects:

1. bringing attention to immediate experience – particularly, noting mental events as they happen.
2. being open, curious, and accepting of whatever it is that you’re noticing.

From a calm awareness of bodily functions, of sensations, of emotions, of thoughts as these things arise, wisdom emerges.

That's easy to say. It takes a lot of practice to develop the habit of doing it.

Tim Ryan’s journey to mindfulness began with Jon Kabat-Zinn. Jon Kabat-Zinn is himself an interesting guy. Born Jon Kabat in 1944, he hyphenated his last name to Kabat-Zinn when he married Myla Zinn, the daughter of social activist and historian Howard Zinn (1922-2010). Jon, as his father-in-law was, is a man committed to social transformation.

A professor of medicine and a long-time student of the Korean Zen master, Seung Sahn, in 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn integrated medicine and Zen and created MBSR – Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction – and began teaching it at his Stress Reduction Clinic. Today, over 200 medical centers and clinics in the US and elsewhere use the MBSR model.

Jon Kabat-Zinn is the author of, Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness using Mindfulness Meditation; and Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. Then, in 2005, Jon Kabat-Zinn came out with another book: Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness. There was a 100-page section on mindfulness and politics, so Kabat-Zinn’s publisher mailed a copy to each of the 535 members of Congress. Casting bread upon the waters. You never know. Maybe one of them will read more than a page.

Congressman Tim Ryan in Mindfulness Meditation
at a Public School

And one of them did. Congressman Tim Ryan read it. A couple years later, Ryan went on a 5-day mindfulness meditation retreat led by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Five days of mostly silence, with instructional talks and guidance sprinkled in. Five days of practicing bringing attention to immediate experience -- the mind wandering off, and being brought back. Since then, Congressman Ryan has had a daily mindfulness practice. He says:

“It quiets the mind. It helps you harness more of your energy. It increases your focus and allows you to relax and pay better attention to what you’re doing and to those around you. My football coaches would have loved it. It’s the kind of performance enhancer any athlete would be eager to have. . . . I wrote A Mindful Nation to promote the values of slowing down, taking care of ourselves, being kind, and helping each other.”

With that as prelude, dear friends, I want to talk to you today about my hopes for our congregation, for my ministry with you, what that would look like. We all had a big vote last Tuesday, and you all have another big vote next Sunday. In our Unitarian Universalist congregational polity, I work for no one but you. There is no bishop or denominational hierarchy that I report to. It’s entirely up to the membership to find a minister that suits you, and once you have one, only the minister or the membership can end that sacred relationship. No one else – no outside authority – has any say in that. Next Sunday, this congregation will have a vote on whether this Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville would like to continue with me as your minister.

I appreciate the opportunity this represents. In 2006, you all voted to call me and LoraKim as half-time-each co-ministers. Then, about three years ago, you voted again – to call me as your sole, full-time minister. Now we have a chance to reflect on what our shared ministry together would look like going forward, and ask: is this really what we want to commit to?

It’s a good question. It’s valuable to take the time every so often to revisit that question. That discernment should be hard work. Ideally, it would not be painful work. This time, the question comes up for us in a context of division and hurt feelings. And the fact that that is our context is, itself, the main issue before us. We have avoided the hard work for so long that it is now the painful work.

I want you to know that if we decide to continue endeavoring to walk together in the path of love, then my ministry with you will be committed to the hard work that leads us individually and communally to a better place. This work leads each of us individually to a greater peace and understanding.

The work of this fellowship, at its best, changes its members, transforms them, so that all through their lives, not just at Fellowship, every waking hour of every day, our members display a growing and deepening spiritual maturity. In addition to the transformations of each individual member, this work leads us also to a community that we can know as truly being beloved community.

Beloved community doesn’t just happen because we say we would like it. Right? It takes work. It will take work. I would be derelict in my duty as your minister if I didn’t try to encourage you to the ongoing, never-ending work it takes to grow in wisdom, in emotional intelligence, in the three R’s of resilience, reflection, and relationship.

We’ve got a responsibility – I as minister and you as member or prospective potential member – to try and help ourselves grow so that our congregation can grow – not numerically (that’s secondary) but grow in presence, in understanding, in ability to name and manage our emotions, in nonreactive and nonjudgmental engagement. Our congregation’s going through too much right now. Our members are suffering too much, all down the line, and now’s the time to implement a commitment to the work.

It turns out that "Mindfulness" is a handy way to sum up what is really at the core of the work that is before us. So let me mention what congressman Ryan goes over in his book, and then apply that to our congregation and the discernment that is before us.

Ryan surveys the scientific studies about how mindfulness practice strengthens our capacity for attention, for nonjudgmental sympathetic understanding. He goes on to devote chapters to mindfulness in our schools: how it can increase our children’s attention and kindness. Mindfulness in our hospitals and doctors offices: how it can improve our health and our healthcare system. Mindfulness in our military, police, and firefighters: how it can improve performance and build resiliency for the military and first responders – and how, later on, mindfulness is the path for coming to terms with PTSD. Mindfulness in the workplace: how it can help us rediscover our values and reshape our economy.

Ryan highlights the work of Alan Marlatt in using mindfulness to address our national substance abuse problems. Marlatt is the founder of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention. Thousands of mental health counselors and therapists are teaching clients mindfulness to help with depression, with social anxiety, with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other mental health issues. Midwife Nancy Bardacke, the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Program has found that expectant parents who learn mindfulness “develop skills for working with the stresses of pregnancy and everyday life.” (163). Others have adapted MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction) specifically for teens to equip teens during that very stressful time of life with “the skills they need to keep themselves balanced in a world that can be difficult and complicated for young people.” It trains the brain for resilience and cheerfulness. Oakland’s “Mind Body Awareness Project” is bringing mindfulness training to gang members. Mindfulness enables 12- and 13-year-old boys “see for the first time that it’s OK to be who they are and that they don’t have to belong to a gang to attain self-fulfillment.” (164).

What we see in our nation and, in microcosm, in our congregation, is polarization that comes from reactivity. Something occurs, we don’t like it, the limbic system is triggered, and we just react. Stress levels go up; the capacity to empathize goes down.

Reactivity in our schools produces increased stress from the negative judgmentalism of peers, which, at the extreme, includes bullying -- and a corresponding inability of bully victims to get unstuck from the role of victim.

Reactivity in our military and police leads to a mentality that, in the extreme, is expressed as “shoot ‘em all and let God sort it out.” Traumatic stress levels can lead to PTSD for the rest of their lives. Some frustration and anger is inherent in the work they do. Absence of skills to manage those feelings is not.

Reactivity shows up in disease rates, and pain, and pain medication, and self-medication with alcohol or drugs, licit or illicit.

Reactivity shows up in gang loyalty to one’s insiders and gang violence toward those seen as rivals.

Reactivity shows up in, “I just don’t understand those people.”

Well, there you go. There’s our work: to understand them. Which includes also understanding ourselves.

There is a way to learn how to manage our reactivity. We don’t suppress it. We don’t judge ourselves, or others, wrong for having a reaction. We don’t indulge the reaction either. We notice it, and are able to make a conscious decision about what to do with that reactive energy.

There is no easy way to health, no magic bullet. It’s not easy to get out and exercise everyday. That’s a hard discipline. But the heart attack you could have prevented hurts a lot more. We can do the hard work, learn how to manage conflict without getting hurt and wounded, or we can continue in the cycles of painful conflict every so many years.

It is almost useless to say, "Don’t be so reactive." If we haven’t been training ourselves in nonjudgmental awareness, in identifying our feelings, in empathizing with ourselves and with others, then when the reactivity comes – and it does come from time to time for everyone – we have no resources for managing it.

Mindfulness is a crucial resource, if we commit to learn to use it. If a politician can learn it, then we can, too, can't we? Nonviolent communication is another potent resource. By "nonviolent communication," I mean both speaking and listening in ways that at no level treat any being like an object and that at every level affirm every being’s sense of value and security. Our congregation doesn't have these skills. To get them will require work. It will require our members coming to classes and practice groups.

Even if we were all really well-trained and practiced at both mindfulness and nonviolent communication, we'd still have problems. Problems, there will always be. As Congressman Tim Ryan says:

“We will still misplace our keys. We will still forget people’s names. We will still say and do things that may hurt others, including those we love. We will say the exact wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. But in each of these instances, with mindfulness we may do it just a bit less. We may see the humor in our mistakes and be able to laugh at ourselves more. We may be just a little less critical of others, and of ourselves. Or we may deal with our mistakes more quickly and with a more sincere and kind heart. We may more easily forgive the people who have hurt us. We may sit down and have civil political conversations with those who strongly disagree with us.”

And so I have a dream. I have a dream of a congregation that draws on the first source of the living tradition we share:

“direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder affirmed in all cultures that moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.” 

I want us to be attuned to “transcending mystery and wonder,” yet, even more, I want us to see “direct experience” as fundamental. I want us to recognize that direct experience requires paying attention to.

I have a dream of this congregation as a place that first, foremost, and always, is accepting, welcoming, and radically hospitable. If certain of your fellow members aren’t ready to do the work, then they aren’t ready to do the work, and that’s OK. It’s really, really OK for you, or anyone else, to be exactly where you are in your spirit journey, and to remain as what might seem to me as “stuck” there for as long as it takes for you. I have no way of knowing what seeds may be germinating below the surface, but my faith is that by offering the water of unconditional acceptance, I do all that can be done to support the eventual sprouting of those seeds. I have a dream of a congregation where everyone who just needs a comforting presence for an hour, . . . or a month, . . . or 10 years, can find it here: a congregation where no one is castigated for not working hard enough.

At the same time, I have a dream of a congregation where the majority is prepared to explicitly embrace the intentional work of emotional and spiritual growth and deepening: a congregation where most of the members most of the time are able to carry through on a resolve to set aside time each day to journal, to study the texts that feel to them to be wise and instructive, to sit in quiet, still mindfulness 20 minutes – and are able to cultivate the habit of returning throughout their day to attention to immediate experience.

I have a dream of a congregation that mostly comes to Fellowship on Sunday, because that’s part of the work, and that also comes to a smaller spiritual practice group once or twice a month because that’s also part of this joy-making work.

I have a dream of myself also developing the habits that go with being the person I want to be. I’ve got the habit of meditating for an hour a day. I need other habits – exercising the body more each day, which, we know, also improves cognitive, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being. I need habits of calling you and visiting you more often, of bringing out my care for you in ways that you can more readily recognize it.

I’ve been calm in the midst of this storm. You might not know the reason I'm not bothered – much – by a need to be protective. It’s because I love you no matter what. I know I need to be more consistent about showing that love in other ways, too – ways that can be recognized even in the midst of reactivity – mine, yours. That is the explicit growth edge toward which my energy and my learning will be going.

I have a dream of a minister and congregation that will arrive at an expectational mission: a statement that very briefly indicates the work that is expected of each member to engage insofar as they are able. Something like what a Seattle congregation has:

"We covenant to awaken spirit, nurture hope, and inspire action."

Or what a New York congregation has:

“Healing spiritual disconnection by helping each other listen to our deepest selves, open to life’s gifts, and serve needs greater than our own.”

Something like that – something that indicates the work we are here to do. By itself, such a statement isn't terribly impressive; it's so brief and general. Yet these examples are specific enough to guide us in developing programs. The brevity and generality of the mission statement need to be complemented with an array of carefully designed programs to flesh out the meaning of that work: programs focused on learning how to listen to our deepest selves, how to awaken spirit, how to open to life’s gifts, how to nurture hope, how to inspire action or serve needs greater than our own, or whatever it is that we decide is our mission.

I have a dream of a congregation that has an expectational mission, that designs programs that specify how we embody that mission, and that shows up in significant numbers at those programs.

This I believe is my work. This, I believe, is our work.

If you are ready to commit to that vision (while understanding that the vision also provides for taking breaks from the work to just bask in a community of acceptance and affirmation for as long as you need to) then you may say so with your vote next Sunday.

If that’s not the vision that most of you want, then, you all, God bless you, do need a different minister. And I need a different congregation.

There you have it. If you have any questions for me, or anything you want me to hear today, I’ll be up here, starting about 5 minutes after the service today, for anything you’d like ask or share.

May our best wisdom guide us, and I look forward to your collective decision.

Amen.

The Wednesday Brown Bag Oct 3

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Oct 3.
It's a chance to discuss, really, anything that's on your mind.
Our "default" topic for Oct 3 will be some short pieces in the UUWorld, Fall 2012, pp. 14-19.

The articles are:
"A Different Church,"
"Sitting and Writing,"
"Voices from the Margins,"
"Stitching It Together."

A Different Church

Our Rev. Gail Geisenhainer recounts a version of her story that she also told in the worship that she led at General Assembly 2006 in St. Louis. It was a powerful sermon -- and you can see it here. (Geisenhainer's portion begins at 49 minutes into the video.) She says:

"I expected the gray-haired ladies in the foyer to step back in fear. That would have been familiar. Instead, they stepped forward, offered me a bulletin, and a newsletter, and invited me to stay for coffee. It was so . . . odd! They never even flinched."

UU faces many challenges. We have a lot of work to do and changes to make. Yet here we have the essence of what we do well and can be proud of: unflinching acceptance. We don't always have unflinching acceptance of everyone -- but we do usually have unflinching acceptance of people that often have not been very well accepted elsewhere.

Geisenhainer goes on to mention the challenge that arose a few weeks later when a women spoke

"during Joys and Concerns that all homosexuals had AIDS; all homosexuals were deviants who could not be trusted with children, public health, or civil society. All homosexuals should be quarantined, packed off to work camps to provide useful labor of society and keep their filthy lifestyle and deadly diseases to themselves."

Geisenhainer then describes how the congregation engaged that crossroad -- not that week, but the next week. How did they engage their crossroad, and how is UUFG doing at engaging its?

Sitting and Writing

The article gives a brief description of two "Contemplation Practices" and two "Writing Practices."

Have you tried these? Will you try any of them?

If you have done these practices -- or practices similar to them -- why do you do so? What does it do?

If you have not tried practices like these, what do you imagine these practices do for those who do practice them?

Voices from the Margins

There are three short readings:

"I too am beautiful" by Kristen Harper
"Faith and belief" by Jackie Clement
"The Stars are dancing," by Om Prakash

In what ways do these speak to you?

Stitching It Together

Rev Jory Agate uses the metaphor of a quilt to describe Unitarian Universalism.

How does our individual quilting go? How does our collective quilting go?

The Wednesday Brown Bag Sep 26

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Sep 26.
It's a chance to discuss, really, anything that's on your mind.
Our "default" topic for Sep 26 will be some short pieces in the UUWorld, Fall 2012, pp. 5-11.

The articles are:
"Learning to Trust,"
"Souls Bold Enough to Experiment,"
"Steps Toward a Nuclear-Free World," and
"A Spiritual Oasis."

LEARNING TO TRUST

UUA President Peter Morales reflects:

"It is a lot easier to love another person than it is to trust that person. . . . Love is wonderful,"

but it's not enough.

"Love has to act. To act, to create deep and enduring relationships in a family, a congregation, or a religious movement, our love must develop into mutual trust."

If UUs trusted each other more, then,

"We would discuss less and do more."

What does it take to develop trust?

"I can only trust you if I am willing to let go of some control. I can only trust you if I stop insisting on doing everything my way. We can only earn each other's trust if we take time to know one another."

Can we do it?

SOULS BOLD ENOUGH TO EXPERIMENT

See photos of the All Souls New London congregation.
See the All Souls New London website.
The UUA web site shows the New London, CT congregation as having 214 members. The article says they have 255 members. Their new space was once a car dealership.

What do you think of these ideas from what the New London, CT congregation does or has done?

- An "energy break" in the worship service, led by the youth, involving "hoisting a volleyball net and heaving a rainbow-colored beach ball to the seated congregation."

- "The congregation installed showers in their new building so that the homeless guests could bathe."

- Taking seriously the congregation's name, "All Souls New London," the people refer to themselves as "souls." "At the end of the service, the entire congregation stands and joins hands, and [Rev. Carolyn] Patierno leads a call and response: 'Who are we?' 'All Souls!' 'We are!' 'All Souls!'"

- A dozen years ago: "At annual meetings, we used to quibble over $50, $100 expenditures . . . Nobody trusted enough of the leader so we could do bold things." However:  "Over the past decade the congregation has developed a tradition of 'deep listening' and respect for their minister, their leadership, and each other."

- "All Souls adopted new, higher expectations for members. 'Members have to pledge, participate, and show up. You don't just come when you want to; you come.'"

STEPS TOWARD A NUCLEAR-FREE WORLD

In 1987, the Allen Ave UU Church, Portland, ME, declared itself a Nuclear Free Zone. For 25 years they've been working for a world free of nuclear weapons.

The Social Action Committee works with other organizations:
Peace Action Maine
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Physicians for Social Responsibility

The congregation has hosted regional meetings, has joined a teleconference with their US Senator, and formed teams that met with both their Senators, has letter-writing campaigns.

We mind find allies in the area using resources here:
Campaign for a Nuclear Free World.

What does this example tell us about how we can do Social Justice at UUFG?

A SPIRITUAL OASIS

What do you think of the look of the UU Congregation of Phoenix, AZ? (425 members).

The Wednesday Brown Bag Sep 19

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Sep 19.
It's a chance to discuss, really, anything that's on your mind.
Our "default" topic for Sep 19 will be the articles on General Assembly in the UUWorld, Fall 2012, pp. 28-35, 12.

The articles are:
"Hold Up Those Lights" (read it online: click here)
"Road to a Different Future" (read it online: click here)
"Impressions of Justice General Assembly" (read it online: click here)

I posted my reflection on Justice GA 2012 on Lake Chalice: click here.

"Hold Up Those Lights"

The signal event of GA was the vigil at "Tent City" on the outskirts of Phoenix where nearly half a million have served time at one time or another over the last 19 years.

What thoughts and feelings came to you as you read the UUWorld's descriptions of Tent City?


Please view the PBS "Frontline" episode, "Lost in Detention": click here.


Speaking at the Tent City vigil on the night before the last day of GA, UUA President Peter Morales:

"echoes his own words from the opening night celebration, when he said that Justice GA was just one chapter in the struggle for migrants' rights. The 'true test,' he said, will be what UUs are doing three months from now and five years from now in their congregations and communities. Will they keep their candles lit back home?"

It's now been three months since Justice GA. Is the candle lit in Gainesville?

"Road to a Different Future" 

by Donald Skinner.

As you read this article, what are thoughts on the concept of "Justice GA"?

In addition to a "Justice GA", the Phoenix GA turned out to also be a "Youth GA." "There were twice as many youth -- 301 -- as at recent GAs." When we work on our Justice, we do attract Youth!

"Impressions of Justice General Assembly"

Which of these impressions impressed you? What do these insights into the ways people experienced GA 2012 tell us about how to "do church" here in Gainesville?

Buddhist Meditation: A Management Skill?

Interesting NPR Story This Morning: "Buddhist Meditation: A Management Skill?"

September 13, 2012

"A handful of executive MBA programs around the country — from Harvard to Michigan's Ross School of Business — are teaching students Buddhist meditation techniques. It's not necessarily about teaching spirituality, but focus. There's no way to quantify whether learning how to be centered during a stressful business meeting is balancing the bottom lines at companies. But students say slowing down does help them be more effective."

Listen to the 4-minute story: click here.

The blurb says "it's not necessarily about teaching spirituality" -- OK, but is it contingently about teaching spirituality? That is, it might, in fact, be about teaching spirituality even if it isn't necessarily about teaching spirituality. In my view, if it's about focus and being centered, then it is about spirituality.

The Wednesday Brown Bag Sep 12

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Sep 12.
It's a chance to disuss, really, anything that's on your mind.
Our "default" topic for Sep 12 is the the article:
James Ford, "The Taste of Awakening," UUWorld, Fall 2012, pp. 26-27.

Read the article online here.

Ford describes an experience eating soup, looking into the bowl:

"As I looked, a cabbage leaf floated up to the surface. I was ecstatic, absolutely ecstatic. Then something magical happened. As I watched, I had this amazing sense of gratitude for that cabbage leaf. And I felt gratitude for my companions in this strange project to which I’d committed myself. Then I was aware of our neighbors in the city and of the city itself. I felt gratitude for them and the people of the state and the country and the globe. I felt a sense of joy wash through the cosmos itself."

Have you ever had an experience like that? What do you suppose happened?

Ford calls this sort of experience "awakening." He says:

"Awakening comes to us in the most unexpected ways, in the most unexpected times. It is a gift. It is always a gift. And it comes to us like being hit by a bus. There are many, many practices out there that claim to help. And here’s a little secret: too many of them do nothing. The Unitarian Universalist theologian James Luther Adams once wryly noted that “nothing sells like egoism wrapped in idealism.” Much of what passes for spiritual practice is just puffing up the ego, reinforcing and guarding it against any and all assault. And -- have no doubt in this matter -- a real spiritual practice plays rough with the ego."

What do you make of this?

Do you have experience with something that you would now say "passed for spiritual practice" but was really only protecting the ego?

What does he mean when he says, "a real spiritual practice plays rough with the ego"?

Ford goes on to offer advice to those beginning on the Zen path. "Diligence is important. . . . Just sitting once a week is not Zen practice." He cautions against the "distinct possibility of a dilettante practice, growing something with no roots and little chance of fruition." Yet he always encourages us to be forgiving with ourselves. When you find you aren't practicing enough, "just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start again." Don't make resolutions far beyond what you can keep -- but, rather, make resolutions just slightly beyond what is comfortable. Stretch yourself -- but not too much at once, for starters.

What does this article make you think of Zen practice?

Would you say that Ford's advice about beginning the Zen path applies to any real spiritual practice (as opposed to the impostor spiritual practices that only puff up, reinforce, and guard the ego)? Does it apply to yours?

The Wednesday Brown Bag Sept 5

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Sep 5.
It's a chance to disuss, really, anything that's on your mind.
Our "default" topic for Sep 5 is the the article:
Thandeka, "Obama's Relious Roots," UUWorld, Fall 2012, pp. 20-25.

Read the article online here, and the sidebar here.

The author is Rev. Thandeka: an African American woman, Unitarian Universalist theologian and congregational consultant. Formerly on the faculty at the UU seminary, Meadville Lombard, in Chicago, she leads the "We Love Beyond Belief" project.

"The project We Love Beyond Belief is designed to increase financial income and worship service attendance in your congregation through the enhanced use of music and words as a liturgical practice." Read more.

In "Obama's Religious Roots," Thandeka uses the case of the Barack Obama to discuss what happens to so many UU youth. Obama attended -- sporadically, apparently -- UU RE while he was growing up. What he got was "sampling":

"The story of Back Obama's childhood Unitarian Universalism appears to be a tale about religious sampling, little more."

Thus, in adulthood, Obama went the way that so many UU youth go:

"Nine out of ten of our young people leave us,...We're much better at attracting converts than we are at providing a lifelong home: Only 12 percent of th 161,500 members of our congregations say they were raised as Unitarian Universalists. In mainline Protestant denominations, by contrast, half the current members grew up within the tradition."

Why? "Emotional distance," says Thandeka, citing our Honolulu minister, Rev. Mike Young, who speaks of the

"uneasiness of really getting people involved across the age lines -- the demographic lines. The middle-aged folks are uneasy when dealing with the young adults and the young adults are uneasy when dealing with the kids....UU adults tend to be reserved, emotionally cautious, wary of 'spirituality.' Young people, however, are seeking emotional connections and a strong sense of identity with a group."

Solving the problem, says Thandeka, will require that UU adults:

• "feel this missing part of our life together"

and

• "be transformed by the experience."

Obama's path took him to congregation-based organizing work in Chicago. He was working with people of faith, yet as a religious "sampler" himself, he seemd aloof and removed. Obama became a Christian and a member of a UCC church because he saw/felt a need for "an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith." (Note: NOT a need for a specific BELIEF.)
With a commitment to a particular community of faith came:

"feelings of loyalty, family, love, embrace, care, nurture, endurance, and also heightened experiences of salvation while still on earth....Religious communities, he [Obama] now realized, are not just sources of wisdom for moral ideas; they are also healing vessels for the regeneration of broken emotional souls. 'The gospel songs, the happy feet, and the tears and shouts all spoke of a release, an acknowledgment and finally a channeling of those emotions.' Obama became a Christian because his emotional life was not only touched, but also transformed."

Unitarian Universalists, on the other hand,

"keep our individual spiritual needs at arms length from the collective needs of our congregational life."

We UUs are proud of our critical thinking and our engagement with social justice. These virtues, however, do not require emotional distance. Indeed, Obama found that the emotional transformation of his UCC religious experience -- in Obama's own words:

"did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved."

We don't need to dampen our mind to open our heart.
Thandeka tells the story of being at a Youth Con:

"One by one the teens stood up and talked about their feelings. They disclosed stories of abuse, of being racially profiled at school, about being the unwanted child, stories about not feeling loved, appreciated, or adored by the people who were supposed to love them. Some of the teens cried as they spoke. The teens held and comforted one another. And at the end of each story, we said together, 'We hear you and hold you in our hearts.'"

Does UUFG provide enough opportunity for emotional connection and transformation?

Mission, Mission, Membership, and Mission

My friends, Unitarian Universalists, reflect with me, if you will, on the mission of our Fellowship.

I'd like to suggest that you begin by taking a look at my thoughts on the subject from a sermon delivered on 2012 June 3 and subsequently posted on Lake Chalice. If you missed that sermon, this will give you a basic orientation; if you heard it, this will be a useful refresher. For the blog, I broke the sermon into six parts. Start here for the first part, and at the bottom of each post there's a link to click to take you to the next part.

I am particulary inspired by the example of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rochester. I heard about them at a workshop I attended at General Assembly 2011 in Charlotte. Fortunately, the presentations were videotaped, and you can watch them too! Here they are.

The Powerpoint slides the presenter used can be viewed separately here.

Here's the video, part 1:
"It's not about what our church offers or what our church does. It's about what we are inviting people to become."

The UU Rochester mission:

"Healing spiritual disconnection by helping each other:
listen to our deepest selves
open to life's gifts and
serve needs greater than our own."

Part 2:
Mary Jones describes the membership process, illustrating how the congregation's mission is essential to the integration of new members.



Part 3:



Part 4:
UU Rochester's Rev. Kaaren Anderson describes the path from "new member" to "leader" and how the congregation's mission is crucial to that path. Recommended book: Simple Church by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger



Part 5:
Shifting now to the UU Congregation of Columbus, OH, Debra Boyd explains how the membership process begins with covenant -- which led them to their covenant-enabled mission:

"We are here to:
Learn and practice true hospitality,
Revere the generous mind and the generous heart,
Claim diversity as a source of our strength, and
Relinquish the safety of our unexamined privilege for the freedom to engage in transforming justice."

Question: Is this mission as clear as the Rochester mission on what work is expected of each member?


Part 6:
UU Columbus' Rev. Eric Meter describes the Columbus membershipping process.



Part 7: The Q&A with the Audience.

The Wednesday Brown Bag Aug 29

Bring your brown bag lunch to the Common Room at noon, Wednesday Aug 29. It's a chance to disuss, really, anything that's on your mind. Our "default" topics for Aug 29 are two short articles from the Summer 2012 issue of the UUWorld (pp. 20-21 and 50-51).

Next week (Sep 5), the "default" topic will start in on the new, Fall 2012, issue. (We'll start with the "Obama's Odyssey" feature article.)

For this week (Aug 29), the first article is "Sermon Bingo" by Cheryl Gardner (see here).

Gardner asks us:

If you could fill a bingo card with likely words for a Unitarian Universalist sermon, what might they be? This question is important to me, because I’ve been in churches where the words I heard were not meaningful to me and did not move me. Here are words I would put on my bingo card if we were playing “sermon bingo” in a UU church on a Sunday morning: justice, equality, acceptance, gay, straight, spirit, compassion, celebrate, life, death, wonder, question, welcome, dignity, mystery, diversity.

On the one hand, Gardner acknowledges, treating worship as a bingo game is problematic:
"It’s rude to the speaker, it draws attention away from what is actually being said, and it is an in-joke shared by a few listeners."

However, she suggests that the exercise would help us become "aware of language and its functions in a new way."

You might make up a bingo card and fill it with the words commonly heard during worship which, for you, have become trite, powerless, and fail to move you. Then "worship bingo" would be an exercise in cynicism and separation.

You might, alternatively, make up a bingo card filled with words that do resonate with you, that touch your heart, that move you. What would those words be? In such a case, Gardner suggests,

"Maybe the filled card, when you read it aloud, sounds a lot like prayer."

What Gardner is ultimately getting at are these questions:

Are the key words we hear in the discourse we listen to meaningless or meaningful to us? Do we hear the same language again and again until the words lose their ability to reach us? Are the words simply catchphrases meant to mark us as belonging to a group?

As you reflect on the religious discourses of which you are a part -- including the sermons you hear at UUFG, and the ways you and others around you express your faith -- what is your answer to these questions?

One UU minister, Rev. Scott Prinster, commented on Gardner's article:

Are we seriously encouraging people to listen to worship services in this way? Our pathological irreverence is not charming or attractive -- it treats our worship life like a product offered by a service provider that we consume if it pleases us, and mock if it doesn't. This does not encourage me to put my heart out there on Sunday mornings, folks.

On the other hand, another UU minister, Rev. Diane Miller, commented:

The cards can be generated on line with free programs. For our intergenerational Fathers Day service I made cards for the children based on what I planned to say in my sermon. Adults joined in. It was lots of fun. I should have highlighted the words in my sermon text because I tend to extemporize, and left out some key words. But several people called out Bingo toward the end of the sermon.

What are your reactions to these comments?

* * *
The second article is "Weighty Lessons," by Ellen Brenner (see here).

Brenner discusses anti-fat bias and our reaction to the "obesity epidemic." She notes that:

"As for the concept that a person could in fact be healthy and fit while still carrying enough weight to qualify as “fat” by popular measures, the reaction I get is usually one of disbelief—even though there are studies to support that assertion."

Qualifying as "fat" might be unhealthy -- and it might not be. Our reactivity against fat can be deadlier than obesity -- as illustrated by deaths from lap-band surgery. ("Lap-band surgery" puts a laparoscopic inflatable silicone gastric band around the top portion of the stomach to treat obesity by reducing the amount of food consumed. See picture.)

Brenner finds that:

- We cling to BMI (Body-mass index) as a measure health. However, the BMI "has been largely discredited as a reliable indicator of healthy weight."

- Difficulty in keeping off weight is biochemical. In a recent study:

"The researchers tracked levels of weight-regulating hormones in a group of test-subject dieters. They discovered that dieting caused these hormones to shoot up to levels evidently evolved to pack on and hold onto calories in the event of famine. Worse, these hormones stayed at those levels for over a year after the diet’s end. In other words, that irrational, eat-everything-not-nailed-down hunger that would wipe out even my proudest weight loss achievements isn’t in my head. It’s totally biochemical."

Relatedly, I happened to see this graphic on Facebook this morning. The pictures show us what various percentages of body fat can look like -- but they tell us nothing about health. The women in the last two pictures may well be considerably healthier than the women in the first five.


How should Unitarian Universalist faith respond to the issue of prejudice against people seen as "fat"?

Our Grief

Our congregation is grieving. The departure of Ruth Lewis -- who directed our congregational music for 37 years, the last decade or so of which as Minister of Music -- has been a blow to us all. Sadness, hurt, and anger are manifestations of our grief. We are -- all of us, I believe -- sad about Ruth's departure. We are -- all of of us, I believe -- sad that we have allowed conflict to make some of our Fellowship relationships tense or suspicious.

I grieve the loss of the treasure Ruth has been for our fellowship for so many years. Through so many years, as I wrote in a July email to Fellowship members, Ruth was a constant presence at the piano, leading the congregation in hymns, and leading the choir in performances often stunning and moving. She musically enriched the lives of hundreds of members of our adult, youth, and children's choirs. Many times more than that were uplifted and inspired from the beauty of our choir's music in worship.

Fellowship members have been and will continue to gather in various venues to process our feelings and discuss how to go forward from here. I have been and will continue to be at many of them. I don't know the answer to all the questions, and I'm not the one to make the decisions that are up to the Fellowship to make. I'm simply available to talk over your feelings, suggestions, questions (though I might not know the answers). Come talk to me.

Phone Cam in the church office to make an appointment or phone me directly at home. Let us heal together.

Yours Faithfully,
Meredith

The Wednesday Brown Bag Jul 18

We're reading and discussing the latest issue of UUWorld (2012 Summer).

For the July 18 "Around the UUWorld Wednesday Brown Bag Lunch" we'll be discussing the article, "We Know Why We're Here": p. 26, or read it online here.

The article is about UU Church of Ogden, Utah.

UUCO doesn't have children's RE during the worship service. Children stay in the service every Sunday -- and the RE time is after the worship service. UUCO made this switch several years ago -- at least in part because "we couldn't get teachers because they all wanted to attend the services."

UUFG also has a challenging time getting teachers for our during-the-service RE. Should we try what UUCO is doing?

At UUCO, children's participation includes:

- lighting the chalice (UUFG does that)

- four children pass the baskets during the offertory

- two older youth light the candles of joy and sorrow

- some kids sing in the choir with adults

Additionally, the minister's sermons adapt to the presence of kids: "I may include a reference to the start of school or some other event they can relate to. I try to use simpler words or a parenthetical phrase when I am talking about something complex....I use a lot of story and humor."

Would these steps be sufficient to keep a worship service engaging for all, or most of, the kids for the whole 75 minutes? Or for a 60 minute service?

One of the UUCO parents said: "Our hope is that enough of what happens in worship will in [for our kids] and they will remain UUs when they become young adults." Does being in the service and hearing more sermons increase the chances that a UU kid will become a UU adult?

During the kids RE time after the service, UUCO also offers adult RE during that hour after the service. UUFG offers its 9:30 Sunday discussion before our service. Would after be better? Are there adult RE UU curricula that you'd like to see offered during that time?

UUCO has 102 members. Is their smaller size relevant to the success of the model that's working for them?

Other features of UUCO:

Eight years ago they founded a drop-in center for LGBT youth.

UUCO members lobbied for a nondiscrimination ordinance in Ogden.

Members have been active in immigration and antiwar issues, UUCO hosted the Occupy Ogden encampment for 3 months, and maintains a food pantry.

Musically, UUCO draws from a strong jazz and blues scene.

Apart from ideas from UUCO that UUFG might consider, there are factors that are nothing like UUFG's situation:
- being in a town that's half Mormon, and
- having a congregation in which 40% of the members are former Mormons.

How does it make you feel to be a supporting part of a denomination that has this sort of presence in Utah? Things we could never do in Gainesville, we are indirectly supporting. Our faith is manifesting in other places -- and it is manifesting differently.

Around the UUWorld BBL: Primal Reverence

At our Wednesday "Around the UUWorld" Brown Bag Lunch (BBL) for Jun 6, we'll be starting into the new issue of the UUWorld, just out. We'll take two weeks each on each of the issue's 3 feature articles.

For Jun 6: part 1 of our discussion of Kendyl Gibbons, "Primal Reverence." Read the article online: click here.

Gibbons describes three sources/objects of revernce:
1. Nature
2. Heroically compassionate people
3. "The exiled self's return."

1. Nature. Gibbons says, "Somewhere this planet has a show-stopper for you that takes your breath away." For her, it is waterfalls.

"It makes me want to weep, want to dance, want to fall on my knees and be one with whatever that is, in everlasting praise."

Q: What does that for you?

2. Heroically compassionate people. Gibbons mentions "Paul Russesabagina, the Rwandan hotelkeeper who risked his life to shelter his countrymen from genocide at the hands of their neighbors." She mentions Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Michael Servetus, Jesus, and "every mother who has ever gone hungry so that her children might eat," and "every soldier who has ever died so that his comrades might live," and "every rescue worker who ran up the stairs of the World Trade Center on that awful day." Gibbons then tells us:

"Somewhere there is a hero -- living or dead, close or distant, historical or mythologized -- a hero of conscience or mercy, of generosity or duty, whose story whispers to your secret heart."

Q: Who is the the spiritual hero that whispers to your heart?

3. "The exiled self's return." Gibbons is talking about:

"The realization of the open secret, that there is no goal, no test to take, no one keeping score; that that which is not broken is always present, whether we have a name for it, whether we are paying attention; and the final recognition you are -- that each of us is, that unshakable truth -- and that you have been here all along, waiting for the exiled self's return."

With this realization comes:

"that sense of tender, compassionate self-awareness and rock-bottom peace; that return to a wholeness that cannot be achieved, but is there all along, no matter what."

The question here is the one Gibbons herself asks:

Q: "How do you become that person, the one who rises intuitively to the demands of the good, who lives in the heaven of the present, who is fed by the beauty of creation?"

Spiritual health, then, is the growing ability to access and process these three areas of "primal reverence."

"Just as we grow and mature physically, and keep ourselves healthy with regular exercise; just as we grown and mature mentally, and develop our minds through learning; jsut as we grown and mature emotionally, and deepen our relationships by sharing ourselves with other; just as we grown and mature ethically, and build moral character from the values to which we are loyal; so I am persuaded that we also grow and mature spiritually."

I have also blogged on this idea that spiritual fitness is something we can develop just as we can develop physical fitness, intellectual fitness, and social-emotional fitness. See my blog series: click here for the first entry, and click "next" at the bottom of each post to continue.

Q: What does "grow and mature spiritually" mean to you? Does UUFG facilitate your spiritual growth and maturation? How?

Q: Gibbons sprinkles the article with references to skepticism, and "the skeptic's path." What exactly is it that she's skeptical of?

Wednesday Around the UUWorld BBL

For the May 16 "Around the UUWorld" BBL (Brown-Bag Lunch)

The four short articles for May 16 chat-n-chew are:
1. "NASA Fellowship named for UU Astronomer"
2. "Wandering in the Wilderness"
3. "Nautilus"
4. "Community Minister Helps 'One Child at a Time'"

1.

The first article is about Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, b. 1925. She's a longtime member of the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation  in Bethesda, MD. She has been NASA's chief astronomer, and is known as "the mother of the Hubble telescope."

Nancy's minister said, "her recent honor from NASA seems like an honor for all of us. She has opened our eyes and our minds to the beauty and mystery of space and to the remarkable vitality and wisdom of a tiny-grey-hared woman who every day lives out her Unitarian Universalist values and faith."

What does it mean to you that this great astronomer is UU? (Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, was also Unitarian.) Do you, as her minister does, feel some pride in this UU astronomer's accomplishment? What, if anything, does it say about our faith -- or about astronomy -- that some great astronomers have been UU? Does it matter?

2.

The second article, "Wandering in the Wilderness" is about the experience of "wilderness" in our spiritual path. Author Leaf Seligman writes:

It helped immensely to view myself in relation to a larger story of ancient people wandering in an unfamiliar land not knowing why or what was to come.

How was it helpful to view himself in relation to that larger story?

Has your life included times of "wandering in the wilderness" -- and, if so, did you learn

"the usefulness of time in the wilderness,; the way it tests us, . . . so that we refasten ourselves to what matters, reconnect ourselves to what sustains us, and re-member ourselves to the universe that always holds us"?

3.

The third article is a note from the UU art world. "Nautilus" relates UU artist Nancy Norton's adventure with stained glass and, in particular, the work that depicts a seashell in a way that shows the mathematical ratios of the seashell spiral. The spiral winds outward through a series of "golden rectangles".

A "golden rectangle" is a rectangle with proportions such that, if you cut off a square, then the rectangle that remains has the same proportions as the original rectangle. In other words, if the short side of a rectangle is "a", and the long side is "a + b", then the rectangle is a "golden rectangle" if the ratio of "a" to "a + b" is equal to the ratio of "b" to "a". The "golden ratio" turns out to be, like pi, an irrational number. If the the short side is 1, then the long side of a golden rectangle is 1.618....

In "Nautilus" mathematics and nature and art are brought together. What does this do for you?

4.

The last article for this week profiles UU minister Rev. Donald Robinson, who founded Beacon house 20 years ago to help children.

Does Gainesville need a Beacon house? What would it take for us to create one?

Our Revolution Must Dance

The reading for the May "People So Bold" class is Robert Hardies, "Dancing in the Streets" in A People So Bold, pp. 57-62.

Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940), the great radical firebrand and anarchist, supposedly said, "If can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

It's not clear that she ever said that, exactly. She came close to saying it in her 1931 memoir, Living My Life:

At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause. I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. (56)

Our movement, cause, and faith -- Unitarian Universalism -- also needs dance. Even as we work to bring about "the revolution," we must also take time to celebrate, to model here and now what the post-revolution world will be like.

There is, for us, the hard work of social change. But if we are always deadly serious about the world's injustice,  if we are joyless, we won't help the world move toward joy. Our revolution needs to dance!

David Hardies' chapter talks about the response of the D.C. All Souls congregation to the 1968 riots:

In response to that moment, the members of All Souls Church did an extraordinary thing. They led.They hired David Eaton to serve as their first African-American senior minister. Under David's leadership, All Souls grew into a truly multiracial congregation and became one of the few places in the entire city where black folks and white folks could come together to talk and begin rebuilding the community. The church became a center of peace and of opposition to the Vietnam War. . . . All Souls was one of the first developers on that ravaged strip, building four hundred units of affordable housing that stand to this day. The church responded to its moment in history and became a leader.

If you have a chance, take a look at Robert Hardies contribution to the Minns Lecture series (an excerpt was in the last issue of the UUWorld): click here.

There are an infinite number of ways to phrase questions. More important than the precise question is that we gather together to talk -- and maybe laugh or even dance -- about the Fellowship we love. Tonight we'll share our perspectives on Hardies' writing.

1. What is our dance at UUFG? What's the most celebratory time you've ever experienced at UUFG.
2. What is our "revolution"? When has your involvement with UUFG most felt like we were really doing "what is ours to do"?

Wednesday Around the UUWorld BBL

For the Wednesday "Around the UUWorld" BBL (Brown Bag Lunch) on Wednesday May 2:
These articles from the UUWorld:
"Service is Our Prayer"
"Occupy Paradise", and
"Bay Area Clergy Arrested at Occupy Oakland"

1.

In "Acts of Service," Molly Howes reports that her congregation in MA has been sending groups to New Orleans since Katrina. They do hands-on home construction and rebuilding.

They see: "horrifying conditions and decades of deprivation." Howes characterizes this as a "tremendous shadow," and also as "a gift as important as the work itself."

Q: Have you ever felt grateful about being horrified? What's going on when that happens?

2.

In "Occupy Paradise," Marcus Liefert describes his feelings on the night of Nov 15 when he was among the 33 UUs arrested for refusing to vacate the Occupy Oakland encampment when police came to clear it out. He says he did it because "it was the chance to be part of something beautiful." Being with those people in that way at that time "was the best way I knew how to participate in paradise, here and now."

What was paradisal about the Occupy Movement? Liefert says: "finding more creative ways to be in community, to have inclusive decision-making processes, to take care of those in need, and to discover who we are."

Q: What are the prospects for community, inclusive decision-making, care for the needy, and self-discovery these days? Is the Occupy Movement the answer?

3.

In "Bay Area Clergy Arrested at Occupy Oakland," Michelle Bates Deakin reports on UU clergy arrests at Occupy Oakland last November. One of those arrested, Rev. Jeremy Nickel, minister of the UU Congregation in Fremont, CA, "said the Occupy movement is distinctly different from any form of protest he has seen, and he believes it’s important to be involved in it." Nickel said:

“There is this idea that Occupy is really disorganized, and that’s not true. There were UUs involved from the beginning of the movement who helped shape this participatory democracy, and it’s the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. People are learning to talk to each other. This is a place where you really do not have to think alike to love alike.”

Q: It's now been 5 months since that arrest. From what you have gathered of developments since then, how would you now regard Nickel's assessment of the Occupy Movement?

* * * * *
For a brief look at where the Occupy movement now stands, see this Christian Science Monitor article: click here.

The Question

What are we here for? Why do we gather at UUFG and contribute our resources to its support?

We are here, I believe, to be transformed, to become other than we are, to do the work of deepening, of growing, of living out love.

So how do we do that? To what shall each of us commit, as members of UUFG? Who do you hope to be? Who is the person you hope UUFG will help you become? What is the work that will produce that transformation? What kind of work -- inner and outer -- are you ready to do, and that UUFG can help you with?

It's not that you need "fixing." It's just that your perfection, just as you are, is not static. Bringing intentionality to the further unfolding of your perfection is helpful.

Assuming that you are here to develop, deepen, grow, and learn, then in what ways do you hope to develop, deepen, grow, and learn?

In other words: How would you complete the following sentence? "I would like my connection with UUFG to help, guide, provoke, and facilitate my transformation toward being a person who ___________________."

Here’s a sampling of the answers I’ve gotten from UUFG members so far:

• better understands God.
• is more spiritually developed.
• has stronger relationships in the Fellowship and a deeper feeling of community.
• more wisely discusses and processes interactions with the Other.
• has better learned how to be radically hospitable.
• has been pushed beyond my comfort zone enough to expand my comfort zone.
• really is as tolerant, open-minded, and accepting as I sometimes assume I am.
• embodies compassionate wisdom and equanimity; constantly and continuously at every moment serves justice, peace, and the needs of sentient beings. 
• performs more -- and more effective -- service to others.
• is a better parent for my child.
• is a better person.
• spends more time serving the community and expresses love more deeply through that service.
• develops and uses my skills for helping the Fellowship and the community.
• is filled full with the charge of the spirit.
• knows more about myself, and about social issues, and knows how to put that knowledge to good use.
• has more balance in my life.
• is a more reflective and deep-thinking person, knowledgeable about more different ideas, and strengthened and deepened in my understanding of some of my present ideas.
• is more of an environmental activist, spending more time in clean-up projects and protecting water supply and air quality.
• has deepened my personal spiritual connect to Self, our UUFG community, and the wider community.
• has learned with our congregation how to be a truly loving, community, welcoming of diversity; feels this love emanating through and from our congregation into the wider community.
• has deeper spiritual connections; has learned better ways to deal with my feelings around conflicts; shows, and helps others show, more love and trust.
• is continually challenged and made uncomfortable and is thereby learning how to step back from judgmentalism.
• has built the habit of reflecting; has really deep acceptance and appreciation of others, especially those I see as different from me.
• has discovered my gift; has joined with other UUs on a project to enhance UUFG's profile in the community; attends a support group for my spiritual practice; has friends; promotes UU.

If you haven't given your answer, please do. I'd like to get every member's answer on this list.

The question, again, is this: How do complete the following sentence? "I would like my connection with UUFG to help, guide, provoke, and facilitate my transformation toward being a person who ___________________."

Why am I seeking answers to this question? If we can encapsulate most of the answers into about three or four overall phrases, we can put those into a mission statement that will direct UUFG in creating programs and policies that will more effectively realize those intentions.

Email your answer to me (minister@uufg.org), or use the comment box below to register your answer (don't see the comment box? Click on the word "comment" immediately below this post).

Don't feel you have to be original. If one or a few of the answers listed above particularly resonate with you, feel free to copy those answers and send them in as yours. (None of the answers are copyrighted!)

Thank you, and blessings upon your, and our, spiritual journeys,
-Meredith

What Will We Be and For Whom?

Tuesday April 10, 6:00pm
"A People So Bold" Class

What are we here for? I can always put together an answer to what I'm here for. A number of my sermons touch on one aspect or another of what I love about Unitarian Universalism, or how the work of our congregations seems to me to represent the best hope for human flourishing. I can tell you what I'm here for. But I don't know what we're here for. That is, what shared understanding of purpose motivates us to continue attending, supporting, and doing the work of UUFG? What are we here for?

Here's our current official mission statement:

Honor the inherent worth and dignity of all people of the world in which we live
Respect and encourage the many different approaches to spiritual fulfillment
Support each other in life's passages and struggles
Work compassionately for peace, liberty and justice
Celebrate our connection to the sacredness of life and protect life's sustaining systems.

And here's our vision statement:

To be a diverse religious community committed to lifelong compassionate service to each other, our community, and the earth.

There's something crucial that neither of these statements accomplish. They do not indicate to each individual -- our long-time members and our first time visitors -- what we expect of them. The statements assert that the congregation as a whole aims in certain directions -- but they don't impart the individual responsibility to make it happen.

Contrast this with a couple other mission statements from UU congregations:

UU Church of Columbus, Ohio:

"We are here to: Learn and practice true hospitality,
Revere the reasoning mind and the generous heart,
Claim our diversity as a source of our strength, and
Relinquish the safety of our unexamined privilege for the freedom to engage in transforming justice."

First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY:

“Healing spiritual disconnection by helping each other
Listen to our deepest selves,
Open to life’s gifts, and
Serve needs greater than our own.”

One feature of these mission statements is brevity. These are shorter than ours. The Columbus mission is only marginally shorter -- it’s 41 words compared to the 54 words of UUFG’s mission. The Rochester mission is 23 words. We should probably look for something that’s 25 words or less.

Besides overall brevity, an extremely short and easily remembered mnemonic version is tremendously valuable. At Rochester, their “short form” mission is: “Listen. Open. Serve.” Anyone can remember just three words. And these three words help people remember at least the gist of the 23-word version. Listen. Listen to what? Almost everyone will be able to come up with something very close to “listen to our deepest selves.” Open to what? Almost everyone can reconstruct something similar to “open to life’s gifts.” Serve what? It’s easy to remember that what the mission says is something like “serve needs greater than our own.”

Listen, open, serve.

Cool.

At Columbus, the “short form” takes a bit more work – and the key concepts don’t come across as verbs: Hospitality, Reason, Generosity, Diversity, Transforming Justice.

Even more crucial than brevity and memorability – as important as those are if we are to have a mission statement that truly expresses a shared understanding that guides what we do -- is that the mission identifies what each individual – not the nebulous “congregation as a whole” – commits to.

To think about mission in this way means getting out of the mindset of thinking about what we want to “get out” of UUFG. That’s a consumerist mindset. It’s not about what you get. It’s about what you are here to do, it’s about what we commit to in being a part of UUFG, it's about the person we seek to become. If we’re clear on our commitment, the rewards will take care of themselves. But if all we’re thinking about is what rewards we want or expect, then we won’t have either commitment or rewards.

Here's the video of the first part of a workshop that changed my thinking about mission. Give it a look. You won't be able to make out the powerpoint point slides in the video -- you can view those slides in a separate PDF here:
http://www.sld.uua.org/pdfs/2011/GA_pathways.pdf



The question, then, is what do UUFG members commit to? Last fall I asked a number of our members. At first, my question was: "What do you want your UUFG experience to help you work on?" I wanted to know what kind of work -- inner and outer -- we're ready to commit to. Later, I switched to this wording::

I truly believe that none of us are broken, and we don't need fixing. As I often say, you (and we) are perfect just the way you (and we) are. Realizing that perfection is not static, that your perfect being in the world includes the ways that you continue to unfold in it -- and that bringing intentionality to that unfolding is often helpful -- let me ask: in what ways do you hope to develop, deepen, grow, and learn through your membership in UUFG?
The reason we're asking is that your answers will help us decide what programs and policies -- and sermons, classes, and workshops -- can best help our perfect people unfold in the ways that they most want to. If three or four answers emerge around which we have broad consensus, then it can become UUFG's mission to be a place where we help each other develop, deepen, grow, and learn in those specified ways.

Here’s a sampling of the answers I’ve gotten. You’ll notice that a number of respondents had a difficult time shedding the “what’s in it for me?” mindset. They talked about what they wanted to get out of, or from, UUFG rather than what transformative work they were prepared to engage. Nevertheless, many spoke touchingly of the commitments they long to bring to a community that will share those commitments.

“I want my UUFG experience, my UU experience, to help me understand God.”

“Spiritual development. Relationship-building and feeling in community. Stronger connectedness within the membership.”

“I would like the opportunity to discuss and process interactions with the Other in the context of my life in the UUFG community. The Other encompasses everyone and everything from Dove outreach to homeless guests to fellow UUs with whom I disagree on something basic. In other words, anyone or anything that pushes me outside my comfort zone. . . . UUs in general (including myself) are less tolerant/open minded than we assume ourselves to be.”

“There is nothing that I want UUFG to help me ‘work on.’ I am there for the friendships only. UUFG is my club of likeminded friends.”

“Let what comes at me soak in. UUFG can help me have: More doing (less just thinking about it) -- an outward orientation. UUFG can help me be a better parent for [my son].”

“I want to give my skills in ways that will help the Fellowship and the community. I want to receive inspiration or motivation to be of service (including to the wider world). I also want to receive the comfort of being in a community, and some intellectual stimulation from sermons.”

“I'm beginning to feel a bit like a magnet that attracts tasks to be done, in part because I have a hard time saying no because of my strong family-like feelings for UUFG. Just now I could deepen my religious explorations with more balance in my life. I need to be able to disentangle myself from my tasks and do other activities for a while.”

“I want my UUFG time to be one of reflection. I want it to be a sanctuary where I can listen to new ideas, new philosophies. I want my vision of the world to be gently challenged or affirmed. Dealing w/ teen angst every day is tiring and I find that I have little time to think deeply. So what I want is a place to hear ideas and use the time to simply think.” [Note: I sought to re-direct this respondent away from the consumer’s orientation – away from what they want to get and toward what they want to be. I replied: “From what you say, maybe you'd like to become a more reflective and deep-thinking person, aware of more different ideas, and strengthened/deepened in your understanding of some of your present ideas. Is that right about the person you hope to become through your UUFG membership?” The respondent replied: “Exacly!”]

“I would like to be more of an environmentalist, involved in: clean-up projects and protecting our water supply and air quality. . . . I feel I have grown spiritually. If I want to grow more, I can get more involved and I can read more insightful books.”

“I see myself changing through my experience at UUFG by deepening my personal spiritual connection to Self, our UUFG community, and the wider community. Through these deepening spiritual connections, I hope to grow and learn with our congregation how to be a truly loving, diverse, community. I hope to feel this love emanating through and from our congregation into the wider community.”

“I hope by deepening my spiritual connections I can develop or learn a better approach to dealing with my personal feelings about the conflicts that occur within our congregation. I hope to see myself and others learning to show more love and trust.”

“Discomfort is exactly what I need from the Fellowship and my experience as a Unitarian. Sure, I'm enjoying and appreciating the community - the friendships, camaraderie, & the spiritual exploration. But mostly it's the personal challenges of being a Unitarian that I need and loathe the most. I'm not sure there's been a single month since I joined that being a member hasn't made me deeply uncomfortable at some level. Whether it was trying to coordinate a team on a tight schedule, sing halfway decently, find a way to step back from judgmentalism and embrace other members who've deeply pissed me off for their public behavior around difficult budget issues, or overcoming my outright dread of public speaking in front of the Fellowship - it's all been hugely useful in growing personally. I'm deeply grateful.”

“I think learning and building the habit of reflecting is one of the ways I would like to grow. Another way I would like to grow is in really deep acceptance and appreciation of others, especially those I see as different from me. It is difficult for me to understand some things people do and I tend to focus on interacting with those people I do understand and who seem to have similar values. There are so many of those people and these interactions are usually so positive and productive that that works pretty well. However, I know there are others that I'm missing the chance to learn and grow from. I would not be interested in trying to make myself interact equally with everyone; there are some differences that just are that way and will stay that way. I would like to learn to make that decision more meaningfully.”

“1) I would like to discover my gift. 2) I would like to select ONE community project or issue that is very meaningful to me, and join with (many) other UU's to enhance UUFG's profile in the community. 3) I would like a support group for my spiritual practice. 4) I would like friends. 5) I would like to promote (and advertise) UUism 6) I need someone to direct my education about UUism.”

So gather on Tuesday to talk about what we're here for -- what we commit to and what work, growth, learning, developing, and deepening we expect to do in and through UUFG.

We'll also talk about Kat Liu's chapter in A People So Bold" -- pp. 51 - 55. Kat, too, is asking, "What Will We Be and For Whom?"

Kat Liu mentions what a turn-off she found it to be when people said that Unitarian Universalism is a religion "where you can believe anything you want." Do people at UUFG say -- or think -- that UU is about believing "anything you want?" How able are most of our members to articulate why we aren't a religion where "you can believe anything you want"?

It is crucial for the future of liberal religion that we balance individual autonomy and communal accountability. Is UUFG balanced? Or do we lean a bit toward one end or the other?

A few UUFG members mentioned connecting with the other -- getting outside our cultural comfort zone. Kat Liu specifically urges us to open up to greater multicultural and multiethnic diversity. She concludes:

If we want to be a religion of the race and class privileged, then we need not change, and we can watch society pass us by. If it is our desire to be prophetic leaders in building a multiethnic, multicultural community, we must step outside our culture-bound viewpoints, recognize that other equally valid viewpoints exist, and intentionally work to see through the eyes of others. Those among us who live on various margins have already had to learn to do this. May we lead, not lag. May we reclaim the voice of our prophetic faith.

What do you make of this?

Justice and Youth

Around the UUWorld Brown Bag Lunch Discussion

Wednesday April 11

The Wednesday "Around the UUWorld" Brown Bag Lunch on April 11 will discuss two articles from the 2012 Spring issue of UUWorld. To read the articles, click the titles:

1. "Congregations Study, Plan for Justice GA"
2. "If We Don't Invest in Our Youth, Others Will"

1. "All across the country, congregations and Districts are organizing for General Assembly."

David Petras of North UU Congregation in Lewis Center, Ohio (one of four UU congregations in the Columbus metropolitan area; North UU has 143 members), travels across the state preaching at Ohio congregations about immigration issues the importance to the Justice GA in Phoenix.

Congregations in Southern California have teamed up to create a "Southern California UU Justice Team" (SCUUJT) with a paid (quarter-time) justice coordinator. The SCUUJT hopes that soon it will have raised enough funds to hire a second justice coordinator, so one can focus on Los Angeles and the other on San Diego.

Gini Courter, the UUA Moderator is out talking up Justice GA -- especially with our youth.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, minister of the UU Congregation of Phoenix and head of Arizona Immigration Ministry, is urging all UUs to learn about immigration and work for immigration justice in their communities.

The Mt. Diablo UU Church (Walnut Creek, CA, membership 440) hosted an immigration conference.

Rev. Carlton Ellis of the UU Church of Arlington, VA (membership 845) , organized a weekly audio forum. (Check it out here.) His congregation plans on doubling its regular GA attendance.

Youth at the UU Church of Minnetonka (Wayzata, MM, membership 181) have a goal of $12,000 in fundraising to support their trip to GA.

QUESTION:

What can UUFG do to prepare for the 2012 GA (Jun 20-24) -- the first ever "Justice GA"?

2. "If We Don't Invest In our Youth, Others Will"

"Totalitarians put their resources into building youth programs. Pluralists don't."

The Unitarian Universalist Association selects a book each year as its "Common Read" for all Unitarian Universalists to read.
The UUA Common Read for 2010-11 was Margaret Regan, The Death of Josseline.
The UUA Common Read for 2011-12 is Eboo Patel, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Sturggle for the Soul of a Generation.
(Both books are available at our book cart. If you don't have a copy, get one! If you haven't read them, do!)

The second article for this week, is adapted from Eboo Patel's book.

Supplementary material -- raising the point from a humorous angle: "Young people think they can change the world -- and they have the energy to do it," says humorist Al Madrigal in this clip (about 3-and-a-half minutes) from the 2012 March 12 Daily Show. Click this link:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-march-12-2012/my-little-kony---youth-activism

Young people can get energized for wonderful causes. They can also be recruited for extremist purposes. Patel notes, "Religious extremists saw a fire in young people that others were missing. They were stoking that fire and turning it into targeted assassinations and mass murder."

Why is this happening? Patel says, "Religious totalitarians have put enormous effort into two institutions where young people spend a great deal of time: schools and websites."

Young people yearn to be a part of something larger than themselves. If we don't provide young folks with a deep and rich context of deep meaning in which to engage their energies, then young people will turn elsewhere for a context of deep meaning.

The UUWorld's adapted excerpt from Patel concludes:
Every time we read about a young person who kills in the name of God, we should recognize that an institution painstakingly recruited and trained that young person. And that institution is doing the same for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of others like him. In other words, those religious extremists have invested in their youth programs. If we pluralists had invested in our youth programs, could we have gotten to those young people first?"

QUESTION:

What is UUFG's commitment to youth programming, and what should it be?

The first and the second article are connected: Getting our youth involved in Justice GA would provide them with an important and formative experience for their future -- as well as the future of immigration in the US. So, friends . . . what are we doing?

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Can't make the Wednesday discussion? Click the word "comments" below to leave your reflection on the issue.