Reflecting on UUA GA 06: Can't be in two places at once.

My experience in St. Louis was a little different from most who attended.  I was in meetings from Sunday to Saturday.  I made it to the Service of the Living Tradition and saw many of colleagues I know walk across the stage.  I enjoyed the sermon.  I made to the Sunday morning service and heard Gail Geisenhainer, my friend and colleague preach a wonderful sermon. I made it to the closing ceremony, and found the reflections valuable and the music interesting.  I did the Berry Street Conference last Wednesday.  I made it into the plenary for about two hours and did not regret missing the rest.  I do regret not having had any time to go to a single workshop.  There were a number I would have loved to take in.  I do regret that the UUCF communion has been moved from Sunday afternoon.  I do regret not being able to go the Bloggers dinner, or the UUCF hymn sing, but I appreciated leading that focus group and going to the DRUUM meeting.  Can't be in two places at once, and might as well love the place I went.

I liked being in meetings,  the questions I and the other people were engaged with was vital and interesting.  The decisions I and the other people made will make a difference for the Minister's Association or for the People of Color in our Association.  Being active at GA, means that my time isn't my own.

On Sunday I went to Cahokia Mounds with several friends from DRUUM.  We called it the first DRUUM field trip.  May there be many.  Hafidha articulated it well in her post GA reflections.  It was good to get away from the Convention Center, to look at the sky and to just to take in this ancient city.  To let the museum show us its reconstruction of the Mississippian culture, to climb up the highest mound and rejoice both for our connections to the people who lived on that spot so long ago, and to our own humanity silent before interconnections we can not enumerate.

I wasn't tired Sunday evening, but I did get to sleep relatively early, and I joined a thousand coreligionists exiting the city the next morning.  I was very tired when I got home.  Too busy to blog late last week.  To tired to blog early this week.

It takes a lot of energy to do theological reflection, which is what I hope to do in July.  I have a number of topics I hope to get around to "putting on paper" or whatever it is that we do in this medium.  I pray everyday that individual Unitarian Universalists will have what Emerson called "an original revelation of the divine", and if they wish to call it God,  I say more power to them.  We are overcoming the practice of using "lowest common denominator" religious language that was once our way to being welcoming to theological diversity.  It didn't work because it meant we weren't welcoming to those who were exploring non humanist religious commitments.  But does that mean that we can use theological language from our own historical tradition without alienating many Unitarian Universalists?  I will have to think about this, it isn't simple.  It occurs to me that there is a difference between a language of reverence (the words we use in worship) and theological language (for example, the words we use to describe our common aspirations as expressed in the Association's covenant between congregations.

I think this is the first anniversary of A People So Bold! I will reflect on what I have learned in the past year soon.