February 2006 Archives

There has been talk about making changes at GA for several years now.  What if the planning committee, and the Board of Trustee were listening?  And what if they were to propose to make some changes?  We have seen how rapidly the reform of bringing congregational presidents to G.A. and giving them lots of interface time has become institutionalized. 

I expect these changes to be instituted in the next few years.  I suspect we will hear something of these ideas soon. 

1) Plenary sessions where substantial business was brought before the delegates for discussion and decision will become the norm.

2. That means in the future the plenary agenda will see less reports (which we could read), awards, recognitions of local dignitaries, promotional films, and international delegates.  And did I mention that this might mean no sing a longs, exercise breaks, and snake dances!You asked for reform, and you get reformed.

3.  The General Assembly will ask congregations to discuss the substantial business coming before the GA and elect delegates that will represent the congregations discussions.  There will be an expectation that congregations make efforts to fund their delegates.

4. I expect to hear a proposal that we (ministerial delegates) should be expected to attend plenary.  We should model associational participation as we together work to renew our polity.

While I applaud the effort, I am know that I am part of the problem. I attended my first GA in the sixties, and have attended about 16 since then.  Lately its getting to be a habit.  Over the years, I have adjusted to what went on at GA, and found ways to make it a very productive time.  I look forward to GA, and these proposals will require me adjusting my time.

That is the problem with reforms, it means that not only "they" have to change, but "we" do as well.    It means Associational governance will be added to my "to do list."  And the idea of being expected to go to plenary while I am at GA is going to take some attitude adjustment.  I have used that time to good purposes for years, my date book for St. Louis is already full.  In years past, I have gone to DRUUM meetings,  had appointments with staff about Anti racism initiatives, met with delegates of Native American descent who wanted to connect, done UUMA business, and even had a soulful reunion with an old friend or two.

What is my response to this idea that ministerial delegates be a good example.  First,  It will take some time to make the adjustments,  maybe I can be a model participant by 2008.    Second,  I want to negotiate the expectations!  Our contracts need to be amended,  we should not be expected to take money out of our professional expenses to "do the business of the association."  Maybe the next generation will enjoy plenary and look forward to debating strategic plans, but I need a little incentive.  And I am a boy scout compared to some of my colleagues.

I am in the midst of writing about human wholeness, and in order to engage my audience I took up the idea advanced by Dean Hamer of that religion is part of our genetic makeup. I don't usually get into topical pop science, Hamer's thesis is very reductionist and thus smacks of the worse kind of scientism. But I am finding the idea of very engaging.

Engaging this kind of fashionable popular science is very good for preachers even if we find the ideas to be nonsense, explaining our critique is a good discipline.

"The God Gene : How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes" (Dean H. Hamer)

Do moral individuals interact with an immoral institutions and society?  Some theologians have argued that point, but beginning with Walter Wink we have the suggestions that communities of people have a personality and will to power of their own, that regarding them as things rather as willful powers misses something important about their behavior.  Under U.S. law, the corporation is a legal person.  What are the theological and ethical implications of that decision?  One legal scholar has ventured to ask the ethical questions about corporate conduct, and the morality that corporate society compels human beings to adopt.

Joel Bakan writes, "No one would seriously suggest that individuals should regulate themselves, that laws against murder, assault, and theft are unnecessary because people are socially responsible. Yet oddly, we are asked to believe that corporate persons--institutional psychopaths who lack any sense of moral conviction and who have the power and motivation to cause harm and devastation in the world--should be left free to govern themselves."

The modern corporation, according to law professor Bakan, is "singularly self-interested and unable to feel genuine concern for others in any context."  Bakan dares to make the diagnosis,  the corporation is a "pathological" entity.

"The Corporation : The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power" (Joel Bakan)

Apparently, G.W.Bush read a book!  And he agreed with it 100%.

What is scary is that he is getting his advice on what could be central question of our times from a fiction writer.  Did I say fiction writer?  I should have said a fiction writer who got the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' annual journalism award this month.  Did I write that novel got a journalism award?  Since when do the Petroleum Geologists give awards to fiction writers?  This is a strange new world.

Glaciers are receding in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Norway and other Northern Climes.

This happened before in the history of the planet, but well before our species had evolved. The warm up of nine degrees fahrenheit 55 million years ago was due to a massive release of carbon and methane in the atmosphere. But, unlike the the Palaeocene-Eocene era, today we are releasing those same greenhouse gases 30 times faster.

If present trends continue the earth will experience unprecedented climate change.

"In the wake of America's entry into World War II, more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, were forced to leave their homes, possessions and friends behind and report to relocation centers and internment camps where many were confined for the remainder of the war years."

February 19, 1942, was the day that the executive order to intern Japanese Americans was signed, and every year this day is set aside for remembrance.

The ice is melting in North. In time the water will rise and our present seacoast will be under water.

I think of the Gulf Coast where I live. No use rebuilding New Orleans. We should abandon Miami and most of Tampa too. Rising oceans alone would impact the hometowns of about one third of the population of the United States directly. But another third lives in river valleys that drain into the oceans, and along the Lakes that depend on access to the Atlantic.

But isn't that a long time from now? Not at the rate the ice is melting, it means no Cape Cod (or Key West or Catalina) in life time of many of my readers.

But there are other more immediate problems. The big kill of the polar animals is happening now. Despite triumphalist interpretation of Genesis I we were not given this earth to abuse. Inuits are losing their homeland. Another genocidal attack by an arrogant and self absorbed people.

And the ice is fresh water. Melting that much ice means the saline mix of the ocean will change and that will change the circulation of the oceans. The Gulf Steam is that is moving by me right now is on its way to Western Europe. Look at a map, Europe is kind of far North. Without the Gulf Stream it will be cold like Thunder Bay, Ontario in Paris. I love Paris in the spring time will be no more.

Apparently some don't want to hear it. I receive a protest from a blogger that would prefer his Unitarian Universalism to be pablum. He writes "For a long time i quit watching nature shows because I got sick of the constant complaining about deforestation.

Constantly reminding people how bad they are and how they are ruining the world is not, in my opinion, a good way to grow our churches either."

Religion isn't about making us comfortable. Check out any serious tradition you want. Religion makes demands on our lives and on our conduct. Any religion that makes us self absorbed and comfortable is no religion at all.

And the world will go on very nicely without so many of us. No we won't ruin the world.

The struggle against deforestation reversed what could have been a disaster, and the people who made a difference did a lot more than watch nature shows. Can we reverse global warming? Yes. The earth is a living, breathing organism and she has recovered in the past and she will again if we respect what she is telling us, and begin to make the changes that are called for.

People don't need to be reminded of how bad they are, people aren't bad. We do need that gift that Universalist John Murray urged his preachers to preach, we need to give our people hope and courage.

Hope requires conviction and determination to realize those convictions. Hope without conviction is wishing.

We must reclaim the conviction that we are a nation "of the people, for the people and by the people." To realize that conviction means having the courage to rid our nation of the corrupt political culture that masquerades as democracy. Previous generations of religious liberals rose up against the powers that be, and created new political alinements. We must as well. To become effective in our rising we must become citizens once more rather than consumers and spectators of what passes for election campaigns. We must have as a goal to check the corporate vultures who have turned this land into America, Inc.

We must do this because of a religious imperative namely: we belong to the earth, the earth does not belong to us. Treating this earth as a thing is killing to our souls, and if history teaches us anything it is this, soulless people have no future.

I grew up attending Unitarian Churches. I was the child of what some people called a mixed marriage, now days I am told that we were a bi-racial family. The word my father used to describe us is not considered a nice word to use in public. Something about being partially breed.

My Cherokee background father experienced two kinds of responses from white liberals, insulting responses, and the responses of folks who tried to be "color blind." Some Unitarians called him chief. I noticed that they didn't treat him like a chief. Some said weird "ha ha" comments like "where is your squaw."

But others tried hard to ignore what being of Cherokee descent may have meant to him, they tried to treat him like a "white" man. In the process they made him invisible.

The assumption in our society is being colorblind is a good thing. Why? Is being unaware of the other person's identity good? Isn't the assumption in the term "color blind" that seeing color is being prejudiced against that color?

Why can't we see people in all their various colors, see them in the depth of their identity and respond with positive human feelings toward them because the content of their character is embodied in one of the many colors of humanity?

Color blindness is pretending that conquest, slavery, genocide and oppression isn't part of our common history. It is pretending that we have healed our nation's brokenness when the consequences of that history is borne by communities of color today. Color blindness is pretending that racism doesn't happen among us now.

But the problem with color blindness is deeper still, it contains the presumption that subordinate and oppressed cultures are not different from the dominant culture and have no merit, and it further presumes that subordinate and oppressed cultures do not continue to sustain and empower the people in resistance to the dominant culture. If these cultures had merit and power, why recommend that we be blind to them?

Most people of color don't seek to be just like white folk, they seek to honor their own communities of origin, their diverse cultures and their identity. They seek to be solidarity with each other and they seek a transformed relationship with white America. Unitarian Universalists of color invite people of the dominant culture to see their "color" and affirm that "color" as a wonderful way of being human.

Many Unitarian Universalist women participated in this important expression of the peace movement. On this day in 1967.


"Carrying huge photos of Napalmed Vietnamese children, 2,500 members of the group Women Strike for Peace stormed the Pentagon, demanding to see "the generals who send our sons to Vietnam." When Pentagon guards locked the main-entrance doors, the women took off their shoes and banged on the doors with their heels. They were finally allowed inside, but Defense Secretary Robert McNamara would not meet with them.


Women Strike for Peace began on November 1, 1961, when an estimated 50,000 thousand women walked out of their kitchens and off their jobs in a one-day protest against Soviet and American nuclear policies."



Thanks to peacebuttons.info.

That great "liberal" President William Jefferson Clinton is responsible for this.  It is a continuation of a long tradition of child abuse.  Lets play cowboys and Indians!

What's this got to do with Unitarian Universalism?  Isn't Unitarian Universalism about reciting our principles and purposes and congratulating ourselves on our liberalism?  Do we have to make a difference?

This last January was the warmest year in several millennia, and the last decade was the warmest in a thousand years.  The polar ice is melting, and the snow isn't falling in North America or Europe.  Say goodbye to Maple Syrup.

We will run out of easily attainable petroleum in a decade or two, and the costs of gasoline will sky rocket.  It has already started to go up and up and up. 

The automobile has distorted our urban areas, over half of the land surface of most of our cities is dedicated to parking, highways, and sprawling single family housing.

Our children are driven to school, because the streets are too dangerous for them to walk or bike to school.  After school they are driven to after school activities.  Mothers who never heard of Betty Friedan do this driving, and experience a nagging anxiety that this is not what life is supposed to be like.

Network news organizations run documentary series on television about obesity and treat this epidemic as if it were a personal life style issue.  We experience a rise in chronic illnesses and treat those illnesses with pharmaceuticals.

Most people in the United States in two decades will be people of color.  Most of Unitarian Universalist churches fled to the suburbs in the 40s and 50s as part of the white flight, and most of our new starts have been located away from the city centers.  And we wonder why it is so hard for our congregations to achieve "diversity."  And we wonder why our prophetic voice is diminished.

We spend money on slick advertising and folks come to church. Some join.  We are not changed.

Growth for religious liberalism does not consist of counting voting members in self absorbed suburban congregations, nor does it have any thing to do with the self promotion of the UUA HQ staff.    Real growth means being deeply relational to our country and its people and that kind of growth will commence when we find our voice and our courage.  Then we will begin to speak to our country once again.

Bill Yoder writes:

My favorite excuse of my high school students for not having time to do their homework is "I have to go to work." When asked why they have to go to work, it's "I have to pay for my car." When asked why they have to have a car, it's "I have to get to work." It's hard to defeat such circular logic. Too many kids are hooked on cars at age 16, and live the remainder of their lives enslaved by the concept of "freedom of the road."

And Ken Kifer asks:

How did people become so dependent on motorized transportation? If we believe television and movies, every American family before the car had a horse and wagon or had horses and saddles for everyone. But this is just our car culture projected backwards. It took too much time and trouble to feed and care for a horse every day (in the Westerns, the horse can magically travel for days without food), so most people lived in towns where they could walk to all their destinations. Walking long distances was not a rare event and was seen as an enjoyable activity.

Some cities were not forced to join the car culture until quite late. In Pittsburgh in the 50's and even the 60's, it was possible to ride a streetcar or walk to every destination and to just use a car for vacation trips. I say "forced" because, in Pittsburgh and other cities, the streetcar routes were discontinued while still quite popular. As a young boy, I walked city streets to school every day, and I never encountered any dangers. My parents thought nothing of walking long distances too. After getting to my grandparents' in Cannonsburg by streetcar, we would walk a mile up a steep hill to their house and then walk to every destination after we got there. Unfortunately, after we moved to Alabama in '55, public transportation was poor and sidewalks absent, so I was the only one who maintained the habit of walking everywhere.

The UUA asks congregations to register their voting membership every year for purposes of determining their fair share allotment to the annual program fund. This registration is not, and never has been a measure of the growth of Unitarian Universalism. Each congregations determines their voting membership based on entirely different criteria.
While I don't fault those who use this enumeration as a basis of comparison between congregations, it seldom gives much useful information.

I could point to one problem of enumeration, there are reporting differences based on the size of congregations. Large congregations pay fair share based on the percentage of their budget, rather than the number of voting members. Smaller congregations must pay dollars for every member they report. Small congregations under report, folks who are active in the congregation but don't contribute enough money to pay their portion of the annual program fund are often left of the role. Large congregations over report, we have congregations that claim folks that haven't sat in a pew in years. Because they pay a percentage of their budget to the UUA and District rather than a per capita, reporting those lost members isn't as painful as it would be for a small congregation. Shaving twenty less than active members of the roles for a small congregation can make a balanced budget and a deficit budget.

But my real concern is counting voting members seduces us into thinking that we understand growth by looking a quantitative measurements alone. A congregation grows by becoming a qualitatively deeper and more loving community, by extending its ministries and becoming more welcoming and accessible to new constituencies. To grow in these ways may result in greater numbers in the long run, but skipping this kind of transformative work only leads to the revolving door.

We have congregations that are growing in numbers and we have congregations that are declining in numbers because of changing demographics, economic dislocations, and internal conflicts. But without careful attention to the internal dynamic we know nothing about growth within those congregations based on how many voting members they report that year.

Real growth, transformative growth, goes on day by day in the congregations. The UUA HQ can serve that growth, celebrate that growth, and occasionally it can even provide resources that will enable that growth. But the congregations grow the UUA, the UUA does not grow the congregations.

research by David Michael Wolfe
Virginia Cherokee Descendent Inage.i AniYunwiya

Cherokee American Artist N.G.E.D. and Historian
Graphic also by David Michael Wolfe


English Words Cherokee Words

Cold Moon....January Unolvtani
Bony Moon...February Kagali
Windy Moon...March Anvyi
Flower Moon...April Kawoni
Planting Moon...May AniSguti
Green Corn Moon...June Tihaluhiyi
Ripe Corn Moon...July Guyegwoni
Fruit Moon...August Galoni
Nut Moon...September Duliidsdi
Harvest Moon...October Duninudi
Trading Moon...November Nudadequa
Snow Moon...December Usgiyi

These Are Some of The Customary and Traditional Events Associated With The Moons

source Cherokee Moons AniTsalagi Svnoyihi (Ani means people, AniTsalagi is the traditional word for Cherokee people , Svnovihi means moons)

JANUARY: Cold Moon Unolvtani

This time of the season is a time for personal and ritual observance, fasting and personal purification. During this season, families prepare for the coming of the new seasons, starting in Windy Moon Anuyi or March. Personal items and tools for planting are repaired, and new ones made. Stories about ancestors and the family are imparted to the younger ones by the elders. A mid-Winter or "Cold Moon Dance" is usually held in the community as well, marking the passing or ending of one cycle of seasons and welcoming the beginning of the new cycle. Hearth fires are put out and new ones made. The putting out of Fires and lighting of new ones anciently is the duty of certain "priest" of certain clans, and coincides with the first new-arrival of the morning star (Sun's daughter, now called Venus) in the east.

FEBRUARY: Bony Moon Kagali

Traditional time of personal-family feast for the ones who had departed this world. A family meal is prepared with place(s) set for the departed. This is also a time of fasting and ritual observance. A community dance officiated by a "doctor" Didanawiskawi commonly referred to as a Medicine-person. Connected to this moon is the "Medicine Dance".

MARCH: Windy Moon Anuyi

"First New Moon" of the new seasons. Traditional start of the new cycle of planting seasons or Moons. New town council fires are made. The figure used to portray this moon is the historic figure of Kanati, one of the many beings created by the "Apportioner" Unethlana. These "helpers" were variously charged with the control of the life elements of the earth: air/earth/fire/water. Their domains are the sky, earth, stars and the Seven Levels of the universe.

APRIL: Flower Moon Kawoni

First plants of the season come out at this time. New births are customary within this time frame. The first new medicine and herb plants that taught mankind how to defend against sickness and conjury come out now. Streams and rivers controlled by the spirit being, "Long Man," renew their lives. Ritual observances are made to "Long Man" at this time. A dance customary at this season was the "Knee Deep Dance" of the Spring or Water Frog.

MAY: Planting Moon Anisguti

Families traditionally prepare the fields and sow them with the stored seeds from last season. Corn, beans, squashes, tomatoes, potatoes, yams and sunflowers are some food planted at this time. A dance traditionally done at this time is the "Corn Dance".

JUNE: Green Corn Moon Tihaluhiyi

First signs of the "corn in tassel", and the emerging of the various plants of the fields. People traditionally begin preparations for the upcoming festivals of the ensuing growing season. People of the AniGadugi Society begin repairs needed on town houses, family homes and generally provide for the needy. The AniGadugi Society is a volunteer help group who see to the needs of the less fortunate, the elderly and the infirm of the villages.


JULY: Ripe Corn Moon Guyegwoni

First foods or the new planting and the roasting ears of corn are ready. Towns begin the cycle festivals. Dances and celebrations of thanks to the Earth Mother and the "Apportioner" Unethlana are given. In the old times this was the traditional time of the "Green Corn Dance" or festival. A common reference of this moon is the "first roasting of ears" (of corn)...sweet corn-moon. This is the customary time for commencement of the Stick Ball games traditionally called AniStusti, "Little War". Today known as "LaCross". Stick Ball dances and festivals are commonly held at this time.

AUGUST: Fruit Moon Galoni

Foods of the trees and bushes are gathered at this time. The various "Paint Clans" begin to gather many of the herbs and medicines for which they were historically know. Green Corn festivals are commonly held at this time in the present day. The "Wild Potato" Clans AniNudawegi, begin harvesting various foods growing along the streams, marshes, lakes and ponds.

SEPTEMBER: Nut Moon Duliidsdi

The corn harvest referred to as "Ripe Corn Festival" was customarily held in the early part of this moon to acknowledge Selu the spirit of the corn. Selu is thought of as First Woman. The festival respects Mother Earth as well for providing all foods during the growing season. The "Brush Feast Festival" also customarily takes place in this season. All the fruits and nuts of the bushes and trees of the forest were gathered as this time. A wide variety of nuts from the trees went into the nut breads for the various festivals throughout the seasons. Hunting traditionally began in earnest at this time.

OCTOBER: Harvest Moon Duninudi

Time of traditional "Harvest Festival" Nowatequa when the people give thanks to all the living things of the fields and earth that helped them live, and to the "Apportioner" Unethlana. Cheno i-equa or "Great Moon" Festival is customarily held at this time.

NOVEMBER: Trading Moon Nudadaequa

Traditionally a time of trading and barter among different towns and tribes for manufactured goods, produce and goods from hunting. The people traded with other nearby tribes as well as distant tribes, including those of Canada, Middle America and South America. Also the customary time of the "Friendship Festival" Adohuna = "new friends made". This was a time when all transgressions were forgiven, except for murder which traditionally was taken care of according to the law of blood by a clans person of a murdered person. The festival recalls a time before "world selfishness and greed". This was a time also when the needy among the towns were given whatever they needed to help them through the impending lean winter season.

DECEMBER: Snow Moon Usgiyi

The spirit being, "Snow Man", brings the cold and snow for the earth to cover the high places while the earth rests until the rebirth of the seasons in the Windy Moon Anuyi. Families traditionally were busy putting up and storing goods for the next cycle of seasons. Elders enjoyed teaching and retelling ancient stories of the people to the young.

Before I went to theological school, I was a cycling commuter. I did a little bicycling advocacy. For many years now I have just been a recreational rider.

But I have thinking about how our society has become addicted to the automobile. I am trying to do my local trips by bike. I am contemplating going carless. I found this list on a small web site, and I pass it on.


1. Remember when you first learned to ride a bike? Think back for a second. It's just as much fun now as it was then.

2. The bicycle is the most efficient form of transportation ever invented.

3. Half of all transit in the United States is six miles or less round trip, a distance easily made on a bicycle.

4. If you see someone you know while riding, it's easy to stop and say hello. Bicycles create public space, enhance street life and build a sense of community.

5. Ever go for a nice evening stroll down a busy street? Nope, too noisy. The occasional bicycle bell is nothing compared to the constant cacophony of car traffic.

6. There are no parking problems for bicyclists, nor are there parking fees or tickets. Lock your bike to parking meters rather than putting quarters in them. In the space one car takes up, twelve or more bicycles can be parked, which solves parking problems in densely-populated areas.

7. Americans spend 15 to 20 percent of their income on cars. If you ride a bike, not only can you skip car payments, but you can also skip insurance payments, maintenance, dmv stuff and stopping to pay for gas. Carsharing for occasional driving is becoming a more and more reasonable alternative. (A good new bicycle can cost as low as $250. No dmv, no insurance, no gas, very little maintenance.)

8. Millions of Americans want to lose weight, and yet they step into cars everyday, passing up the opportunity to exercise. In addition to weight loss, bicycling reduces the risk of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and high blood pressure. Given the abysmal state of health care in the United States (which is partially due to the cost of treating well over 2 million car accident victims each year), self-prescribed preventative activity is a wise decision.

9. If you stand in a closed garage with a running car, you will die in a matter of minutes. Hundreds of thousands of cars in our cities create dirty, unhealthy air.

10. Terrorist organizations use our gas money. In order to protect political and corporate interests, the United States supports dictatorial regimes in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, which is the number one producer of oil in the world. 15 of the 19 September hijackers were Saudi. Iraq is the second largest producer of oil, and Kuwait the third. Do those countries sound familiar? The government supported Saddam through his worst atrocities, then Saddam began to disobey U.S. orders. That is precisely when he became our enemy.

11. In 2001, more than 3,000 Americans died of terrorism on our own home soil. In 2001, more than 43,000 Americans died in car crashes on our own home soil, and about 2,200,000 suffered disabling injuries. The American death toll of the Vietnam War, which lasted several years, is about 50,000.

12. States, counties and cities spend billions of dollars fixing roads that cars damage. A Honda Civic, a compact car, weighs about 2,500 pounds. That's about 100 times more than the average bicycle. A typical SUV weighs much more than a Civic, and does more damage to roads. Wear and tear on roads from bicycles is almost nonexistent.

13. Experts estimate that easily accessible oil (in other words, cheap oil) will run out around the year 2010. After cheap oil runs out, the price of gas will shoot up. The economic ramifications of this suggest that the sooner we accommodate oil free transportation into our daily lives the better.

14. Watch any tv show, listen to any radio program, look through any magazine or newspaper and you will come across ads showing how cars will make you cool, sexy, popular, respected, at one with nature, safe, etc. The car and oil industries spend billions of dollars each year to promote a benign image of driving, but the function of all this is to assure profits and manipulate consumers, and nothing more.

15. Staying closer to home to shop and do errands builds communication among residents, which promotes autonomy. This in turn leads to political, social and economic self-determination within communities. City hall ends up truly serving the needs of the residents because residents can tell city hall exactly what they want rather than city hall guessing at what they think would be best for the residents. Besides all this, if you factor in all the costs of driving to mega-warehouses, you end up paying more anyway.

Safe Routes to School (from the website of Bikes Belong Coalition)

is a national and international movement to create safe, convenient, and fun opportunities for children to bicycle and walk to school. Safe Routes to School provides a variety of important benefits to kids and their communities, including improved health, reduced traffic congestion, better air quality, and enhanced neighborhood safety. Safe Routes to School is a solution for the alarming nationwide trend toward child obesity and inactivity.

The Problem

In the last 30 years we have seen a loss of mobility among our nation's children that has severely impacted their personal health and their ability to explore their neighborhoods, even by walking or biking to school.

Consider these facts:

Within the span of a single generation, the number of children walking and bicycling to school has dramatically declined. In 1969, approximately 50% of children walked or biked to school, and 87% of children living within one mile of school did. Today, fewer than 15% of schoolchildren walk or bike to school. (CDC)
There are more than three times as many overweight children today as there were 25 years ago. (CDC, NHANES III)

As much as 20 to 30% of morning rush hour traffic can be parents driving children to schools. (Data from local communities)

These problems are all related to the fact that many communities lack basic infrastructure-sidewalks, bike lanes, trails, pathways, and crosswalks-and are no longer designed to encourage or allow children to walk and bicycle safely. Concerns about traffic, crime, and other obstacles keep children strapped in the back seat of cars, which further adds to the traffic on the road and pollution in the air.

This week has been so full that I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

The UUMA's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism completed its three day retreat yesterday. The five of us who were able to attend really worked and the creativity was enormous. We looked at situations involving our ministers and seminarians, and we initiated interventions and policy recommendations. Some of the recommendations will be discussed soon with the UUA's Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff group. They have always given us a good ear and we find ways to implement our best thought out proposals. Some of our ideas are not ready for prime time, and we find that out as we discuss them with our colleagues and propose them to the UUA. Our relationship is critical and engaged, not antagonistic.

In the last twelve years we have increased the number of ministers from other than the dominant culture from a handful to sixty ministers in fellowship. Based on theological school enrollments we will double that number in less than seven years. I am assuming that we will continue to have a significant number of theological students who do not continue their studies, either because they discover another religious approach is more attractive, or they discover that ministry is not a match for their talents. If all who ever enrolled in a theological school with the intention of being a Unitarian Universalist minister continued with their studies and was successfully doing Unitarian Universalist ministry we would have well over a hundred ministers of other than the dominant culture in our ranks. And we would have over two thousand ministers in fellowship!

The growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the last years scares many people, they argue that there are not enough pulpits for so many ministers. Of course, the growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry also means the growth of non traditional, community based ministries. Over half the students in theological schools today intend ministries outside of traditional parish settlements.

What will change and what will stay the same? I believe that when more of our ministers are community ministers than parish ministers we will begin to change the nature of congregations and our relation to the world as well. History tells us, what exists now has not always been, and what exists now will change. A true traditionalist expects transformation, because radical change and renewal is the only constant in history.

I have observed that those who are on the road to ministry who engage with others in building community are most likely to succeed in ministry. I am active in the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association because that association enables me to engage with my colleagues in our common work of building the community of ministers. It would never occur to be to look at my professional association and ask "what does it give me." An minister who values collegiality knows the answer, it gives us the community that we in turn engage in renewing.

Consumerism is destructive tendency eroding the democracy of our nation, and consumerism is now challenging many of our congregations. If it erodes our ministry then with what will the earth be salted?

This week has been so full that I haven't had the time or energy to blog.

The UUMA's Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multiculturalism completed its three day retreat yesterday. The five of us who were able to attend really worked and the creativity was enormous. We looked at situations involving our ministers and seminarians, and we initiated interventions and policy recommendations. Some of the recommendations will be discussed soon with the UUA's Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff group. They have always given us a good ear and we find ways to implement our best thought out proposals. Some of our ideas are not ready for prime time, and we find that out as we discuss them with our colleagues and propose them to the UUA. Our relationship is critical and engaged, not antagonistic.

In the last twelve years we have increased the number of ministers from other than the dominant culture from a handful to sixty ministers in fellowship. Based on theological school enrollments we will double that number in less than seven years. I am assuming that we will continue to have a significant number of theological students who do not continue their studies, either because they discover another religious approach is more attractive, or they discover that ministry is not a match for their talents. If all who ever enrolled in a theological school with the intention of being a Unitarian Universalist minister continued with their studies and was successfully doing Unitarian Universalist ministry we would have well over a hundred ministers of other than the dominant culture in our ranks. And we would have over two thousand ministers in fellowship!

The growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry in the last years scares many people, they argue that there are not enough pulpits for so many ministers. Of course, the growth of the Unitarian Universalist ministry also means the growth of non traditional, community based ministries. Over half the students in theological schools today intend ministries outside of traditional parish settlements.

What will change and what will stay the same? I believe that when more of our ministers are community ministers than parish ministers we will begin to change the nature of congregations and our relation to the world as well. History tells us, what exists now has not always been, and what exists now will change. A true traditionalist expects transformation, because radical change and renewal is the only constant in history.

I have observed that those who are on the road to ministry who engage with others in building community are most likely to succeed in ministry. I am active in the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association because of that association enables me to engage with my colleagues in our common work of building the community of ministers. It would never occur to be to look at my professional association and ask "what does it give me." An minister who values collegiality knows the answer, it gives us the community that we in turn engage in renewing.

Consumerism is destructive tendency eroding the democracy of our nation, and consumerism is now challenging many of our congregations. If it erodes our ministry then with what will the earth be salted.