Unitarian Universalists: June 2006 Archives

I wrote about the St. Louis arch celebrating Westward expansion and the Louisiana Purchase as a "symbol of genocide."  In a comment to that same piece Fausto writes "I'm sure our own "famous UU" TJ didn't have genocide in mind when he bought Louisiana or commissioned Lewis and Clark, but the fact remains that in the way things came to pass, genocide became an integral element of the whole package."

When governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson stated: "If we are to wage a campaign against these Indians the end proposed should be their extermination, or their removal beyond the lakes of the Illinois River. The same world would scarcely do for them and us." When he became President he had a standing army to wage his campaign of extermination and during his administration many of the nations were eliminated on the Atlantic side of the Eastern Mountains.  His administration then waged war against the people indigenous to the "near West" beyond the Appalachians.  Then he "bought" the West from France (whose claim to the land was based on the theology of the Christians Crusades (non Christians have no rights a Christian is bound to recognize.)

Did Jefferson mean it?  His whole life reveals an Enlightenment gentleman, curious about the new science, opinionated about the project of a propertied persons' democratic republic, who was openly racist, genocidal,  grandiose, and patriarchal.  The Louisiana Purchase was intended as a way to provide opportunities to his people (White People) and "extermination" of the same final solution to the native people west of the Illinois River.  The word genocide didn't exist in his vocabulary, but his "extermination" policy was very real, very intentional, and very calculated.  The West he envisioned would include slavery.  His writings make this clear, and when the senators and representatives in congress representing the Northern states tried to restrict slavery in the West he was alarmed and spoke of dissolving the United States.

Did Jefferson mean genocide?  He didn't consider Africans and Native Americans to be fully human, so enslaving them and exterminating them did not bother his conscience.  At least he does not share any self criticism for his words or actions in his writings, or any agonizing that as a result of his policies and practices hundreds of thousands of people were burned to death, shoot to death and starved to death, and hundreds of thousands were held in degrading slavery with their families ripped from them and all the fruits of their labor taken for the enrichment of generations of white people.

Unitarian Universalists speak of our continuing work against our own institutionalized racism.  We insist that racism is not just bad attitudes held by bigots (who are of course are not Unitarian Universalists) but built into the way this nation was built on conquest, plunder, and slavery and has subsequently evolved its institutional arrangements of power.  We see an example of this in our own practice.  Jefferson is sanitized and served up as a "famous UU" by Unitarian Universalist religious educators and clergy rather than presented as a morally questionable and politically contradictory example of Unitarian origins in the Enlightenment elite.  By doing this and allowing this to be done in our name we are perpetuating racism and contributing to holocaust denial.

Here is an example of what we must do more often.

An adult UU shares with me his impressions of GA and asks me what I think about the GA.

I tell him that it is apparent to me that we still have much work to do about racism, that again this year there was insensitivity and arrogance on the part of white Unitarian Universalists toward people of color. I share that adult people of color tend to be more accustomed to this kind of behavior on the part of well meaning, but clueless white folk, but that the youth of color are outraged that Unitarian Universalist adults could come across as arrogant, imperious, culturally incompetent, and/or oblivious jerks.

He opines that the problem with racism at General Assembly has been overblown.

I assure him that the problem is real and experienced, and results in pain among people of color and youth of color that undermines their confidence in Unitarian Universalism. In that we are a faith that proclaims "deeds not creeds" that proclamation creates an expectation that we might try to walk our talk. (I know it did for me as a Unitarian youth, but I soon came to realize that the vast majority of pew sitters were not faithful Unitarians, they came for intellectual stimulation not transformation.)

He offers the observation that the youth of color at General Assembly dress like they were in a street gang. I am taken aback by his characterization of our youth's dress. I know many of the youth by name, I have know several of them since they were children. I know their parents. The parents include UU ministers, Trustees, Congregational leaders, and the youth appear to me to be dressed like middle class youth dress when they are being hip, which is not at all like street gangsters. I reply that I know the youth and I disagree with his judgment of their attire, but perhaps making the distinction between youthful attire and street gangs requires some discernment and recognition of distinctions. (I am trying to be persuasive and not come across as dismissive.) He concedes that I might be right, and shares that Black youth make him nervous.

I am reminded that five centuries ago when the Europeans first encountered the Africans and the Native Americans they concluded that these "strange" people were promiscuous because they didn't wear clothing ("save for their privies") in the summer time.

Youth and the culturally marginalized must learn to dress "right" or they won't get any respect!

Some youth and young adults of color from the DRUUM YAYA website. (If you see the gang colors please email me and help me out.)

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.

Chalice Lighter, ministrare and Yet Another Unitarian Universalist discuss the bloggers discussion last night. It was good to see everyone. And it was good to talk about blogging even after a long day of meetings and conversations.

There was a reception for Unitarian Universalists of color next door, and many good friends and colleagues were there, so I found myself enjoying being in two places at once (not literally) meeting the bloggers who as Chalice Chick reports it is easy to have affection for, after reading their writing for so long one knows their thoughts and then having a chance to catch up with people I have known in hard meetings and joyous occasions for years.

Today was the Service of Celebration of Ministry, which honors the ministers who have served for 50 years and 25 years. David Parke respresented those who were ordained in 1956 and Laurel Hallman represented those who were ordained in 1981. David was a church historian and his presentation was very much like a history lecture. I found David's sermon informative but Laurel's was much more engaging. There sermons will be avaiiable in an audio format soon.

The annual meeting of the Unitarian Universaiist Minister's Association followed immediately after the Service of Celebration. The Executive of the UUMA decided to feature a discussion of an important topic as central to the meeting, rather than reports from various exec members. In my opinion in worked, the meeting was much more interesting than the hearing from each portfolio on the exec.

I led a collegial conversation on the Special Review Commission in the afternoon. I will write more about that at another time. The afternoon was finished of by the Berry Street Conference, which was addressed by Bill Schultz, former UUA President and former Chief Exec of Amnesty International. That address was powerful and profound, but I will need to come back to it later as well.

Must run.

This afternoon I went to a workshop on Pastoring Difficult Conversations, which was on how ministers could "talk" about racism, heterosexism, and ablism with their congregations. It was a useful discussion exploring the relation of the prophetic to the pastoral. Can we separate prophetic ministry from pastoral ministry, and have effective ministry. It was a good discussion, but we could have had more focus than we did.

After the workshop Bill Sinkford spoke to the ministers and answered questions. The ministers asked probing questions, and Bill was able to answer them candidly and with informed answers.

The one question that Bill could not answer is what are we doing to keep the young people who grew up Unitarian Universalist. He answered that they hadn't studied that question. Actually many life time UUs have opinions similar to the one Christian Robinson offers in her blog.

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.

This was my first full day here, and already I have had:

€¢ seven hours of meeting with the UUMA exec (3 and a half hours on Sunday and three hours and a half hours today.

€¢ six hours of Chapter Leadership Training

* three and a half hours of an evening Committee on Ministry for Anti Racism, Anti Oppression and Multi culturalism

* and dozen or so mini meetings with colleagues and friends that I meet as I go from one place to other

A lot of work gets done at GA. It is hardly a party for GA junkies.

Some of the work is fun, most of it is necessary, and almost all of it is important to somebody. Sometimes we meet on a topic of marginal import to ourselves that is very important to someone else. I suspect that make it a labor of love.

With that thought I will get some sleep, for tomorrow is day one.

The hotel's internet connection turns out to be more complex than the airport. There is a fee for the rooms, and only some parts of the lobby have free wireless.

It is only Sunday night, GA begins Wednesday. I am here for the UUMA exec meetings, but LREDA is here, the District Execs are here, the Ministry Couple's have meetings tomorrow, and half a dozen other groups that I haven't identified as yet. The pre GA is a good time meeting people and have some serious conversations. It doesn't seem so busy.

The Exec has been able to handle some details about the upcoming worship services and meetings that would be more difficult to handle once the meetings start. We have some difficult conversations on our agenda, I don't know if we will finish them before October.

None of your trusted networks is available. Would you like to log into open network TPA?

I click yes. The airport has free wireless. What has changed since I first travelled to a GA. A whole lot of things, but maybe the idea of a wireless computer laptop and a free wireless airport lobby is the most striking.

Later this week I might be impressed with how many more UUs go to GA than they did when I first went to GA. But then when I was young there seemed to be a lot of people at GA as well, as GA gets bigger, my ability to handle big GA grows as well. Sitting here waiting for boarding I am impressed with wireless airports.

This will be the first GA since 1996 that I have travelled alone. Marjorie is home, being taken care of my her nephew. His mother, Marjorie's sister arrives tonight. She will have someone with her 24/7 until I get back. A few days ago that seemed to be a necessity, but now Marjorie can get out of her bed and chair by herself. She still has to carry some medical equipment with her as she strolls about the house. But what a difference a week makes. She came home Monday night, and she had difficulty with movement. I am confident that it will all go well. Confident but I will call home to check with her and check with her care keepers. Looking at my schedule I think I will be busy, busy, busy. I don't worry unless i am alone and at rest. So I will keep moving.

This idea of blogging "GA" might work. I was skeptical. When would I ever find the time? But then it occurred to me, just write. Let the wireless internet connection thing take care of the postings.

I just learned that John Andrew Ross, Minister of Music Emeritus at the First Parish in Brookline, died  "after a very long illness. He was the spiritual and cultural heir of Elma Lewis and the man behind Boston's Black Nativity."  The Rev. Martha Niebanck, co-minister at the First Parish writes that she will conduct the memorial service which will be "mostly music with a drum fanfare as a prelude." (It will be at First Parish, July 23rd at 3 pm)

I met John more than twenty years ago at the Elma Lewis Center, and we drove together to a Unitarian Universalist Musician's Network meeting back about 1992.  I remember hearing his music many a Sunday morning on the Boston University radio station.  He was a Boston institution, and the city will never be the same without John.

I suppose I could get the Globe on line, but I rely on epistles from my friends, and the occasional Boston blogger, but sometimes I miss the people of Boston.  Not the ice on the streets in March, the people.

Here is John Andrew Ross as told by the Globe.