CENTER is the committee of the Unitarian Universalist Minister's Association (UUMA) devoted to formation of ministry, the worlds stand for Continuing Education Network for Training, Enrichment and Renewal. The CENTER committee sponsors programs at tUUMA chapter meetings and retreats, several retreats, and an annual event with a major speaker and an afternoon of workshops.
This morning the theme speaker is Sharon Salzburg, who is well known Buddhist teacher and writer. She speaks of how she discovered Buddhism in "Asian Philosophy" course in her sophomore year in college, and how the next year she took a year to go to India to study meditation.
She is very engaging, she talks about faith and doubt as attitudes that facilitate the spiritual journey. What do we pay attention to? What do we focus on, how do we see our lives in perspective - with awareness. I believe her talk this morning will be available on tape.
Over the years I have often found the CENTER presentation and the Berry St. Lecture to be the high points. Perhaps it is because it comes early in the week and I am still energetic. Perhaps it because the programs are aimed at ministers and therefore are more directed at the questions that I ask. General Assembly itself have entertaining programs, programs of importance to religious liberals, but ministers have their questions that important to them, and are not so much of interest to non ministers.
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