Let’s begin at the end.On the final day of General Assembly, at the closing worship service, our moderator, Gini Courter spoke:
“In just a few minutes I am to summarize in totality why we meet and how we do our business religiously.I will start then with 2 brief readings:From our bylaws:powers and duties of the General Assembly.General Assemblies shall make overall policy for carrying out the purposes of the association and shall direct and control its affairs.
Our second reading is from Conrad Wright’s Congregational Polity:Polity defines the way in which we believe human beings should be related to each other.It is not a matter of casual social arrangements but goes very directly to the heart of basic matters of theology.
Our ancestors, the Unitarians and Universalists on whose shoulders we stand chose congregational polity.This was not a haphazard choice, a “let’s try this polity for a while” choice, an arbitrary choice.There are other choices, other polities and by choosing congregational polity we were not choosing the Episcopalian polity used by many faith communities.Anglicans for sure but also Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Where governance, this sacred thing we have been doing here together, is done by bishops and arch bishops and bishops by any other name.In choosing congregational polity we were not choosing the Presbyterian polity used by many other faith communities: Presbyterians and reformed traditions among others.Where governance, this sacred thing we have been doing here together, is owned by a hierarchy of councils presided over by the clergy from the congregation on up.Where decisions of congregational councils can be overturned by higher level councils.
You see, our choice of polity – congregational – is based on our understanding of our relationship, our accountability to each other, and to the community, and to the holy; however you choose to hear and understand the words community and holy.Our choice of congregational polity reflects our sure knowledge that divine inspiration, human reason, and the prophetic voice that calls us to compassion and action in the service of justice resounds from the pews as well as the pulpits.
Congregational polity reflects our recognition that the ministry of the congregation is always shared.Our choice of congregational policy then requires that WE meet, that WE assemble, ministers and lay people from the congregations to make the decisions that in other polities are made only by the clergy, or by the clergy and the select few lay folks.And so, we UUs travel to Ft. Worth, to St. Louis, to Portland.We come together to Ft. Lauderdale.We will journey to Salt Lake City, to Minneapolis, to Charlotte.
We come here because we are more together than we are alone.We come here to learn and to train and to share best practices.We gather to celebrate once again!All these reasons to gather are wonderful, amazing, even true.But we don’t come here just to huddle together for the kind of warmth shared by a litter of puppies.We don’t gather in all this wondrous plurality to just find some affirmation of our uniqueness.We don’t assemble just to learn, as important as learning is.We don’t gather to just celebrate our possibility and our promise because these reasons alone are not enough, no!
WE gather here, free congregations, freely assembled, freely choosing to walk together, to stand together, to roll together, to discuss, to debate, to discern together.Our congregational polity must be exercised.It must be exercised or it will die.Whether or not we make decisions, decisions will be made.Decisions that direct our faith are made every day.Someone makes them.It is supposed to be WE.So WE gather here, free congregations, freely assembled, freely choosing to walk together, to stand together, to roll together, perhaps even to rock and roll together, to discuss, to debate, to discern, and finally to decide, and then we must do one thing more.
When we separate, when we leave, when we disassemble and return to our congregations, we’ll take back inspiration and new skills and new songs and new ways of thinking about pluralism and welcoming the stranger and being in solidarity, and, and, and, and yet… we must take this General Assembly home; most especially the decisions made here together in plenary – decisions that could change the future of our faith, but only if WE, writ large, engage with them fully.Take them home.It is our theology.It is our unique and precious Unitarian Universalist way.Our polity, our hope, and our promise.It will take all of us, the entire village. “
Now let’s rewind the tape a bit.During plenary, when the ‘business’ of General Assembly is conducted, it came time for the Congregational Study Action Issue (CSAI) process, and the mood in the hall where over 1,000 were gathered, shifted from one of appreciation and connection to anticipation. The process was outlined for the delegates, with an explanation the a CSAI "merits two full years of study and action before we begin to distill our experience into a draft Statement of Conscience (SOC)." The assembly would select one of two issues to refer to the congregations to begin that process. The resulting SOC will be voted on by the delegates at the General Assembly of 2011. In the meantime, workshops and mini assemblies will be organized for the next several GAs on the selected issue. The year after the adoption of an SOC is a fifth year, an additional year for implementation and follow-up.
Once the process was outlined, our moderator officially began the 2008 CSAI selection process by saying "Pursuant to Rule 11 of the Rules of Procedure, 'the sponsor of the issue will have two minutes to speak in favor of the issue.' ".
The proposed CSAIs were Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice, and Nuclear Disarmament. Each sponsor spoke for two minutes and moved that their proposal be adopted as the 2008 CSAI.Our moderator called for up to four additional statements of support for each issue.It is now time vote.All those in favor of adopting Ethical Eating as our 2008 CSAI please raise your delegate cards.All those in favor of adopting Nuclear Disarmament as our 2008 CSAI please raise your delegate cards.Ethical Eating has won the vote.
For many people I spoke with, it didn’t matter so much which of the two issues we voted to adopt.What mattered is that we were committed to standing on the side of love – in community.
There were other points of business to be discussed, debated, discerned, and decided.There were bylaw changes and much debate on issues of how we minister to youth and young adults, with passionate responses from the youth delegates.In private conversation, I heard personal stories from UU youth about how their congregation and the message of UUism had literally saved their life.One young woman spoke about the difficulties she had been going through and how she had been contemplating suicide.It was her congregation and their ministry to youth that ‘saved’ her.And then there was a young man who said, “Well, I don’t know if I can say it ‘saved’ me, but it does let me have a purple Mohawk, wear a skirt, and have piercings if I want to!”
“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”Words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.In 1966, he spoke at our General Assembly; delivering what is called the Ware lecture.Dr. King warned us not to sleep through the revolution, which sounded not unlike the words of this year’s speaker Van Jones.One of the highlights of GA this year, for me.
Before speaking, the organizations that Van Jones has founded or been part of, were listed, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which promotes positive alternatives to violence and incarceration; the center's Books Not Bars campaign, which has helped reduce California's overall youth prison population by more than 30 percent; Color Of Change, the nation's biggest e-advocacy organization tackling Black issues; a "Green Jobs Corps" that will train youth for eco-friendly "green-collar" jobs; a project of the center working with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies to create the country's first-ever Green Enterprise Zone to attract environmentally sound industry to Oakland; and, with the center, working with Congress to pass the Green Jobs Act of 2007.A comment was made that Van Jones has "co-founded more organizations than many of us belong to,"
Jones says that we need to stop interpreting our political action through the lens of the David-and-Goliath story. The problem, Jones says, comes when Goliath is nowhere in sight, and you have a roomful of Davids spinning their slingshots and figuring that Goliath has to be here somewhere. "Have you been at that meeting?" he asks. That's the image. Instead, Jones wants us to try out the lens of the Noah story: What can we build that will save life?
It's time, he said, to "reconnect with love and enthusiasm." Martin Luther King's speech was not "I Have a Complaint," "I Have a Critique," or "I Have a Long List of Issues." We need beautiful dreams; the country isn't looking for critique but inspiration to be our best self. At the end of the lecture, as the crowd of 3,000 was standing and clapping and cheering, Van Jones ran down into the crowd and headed straight to where the Youth Caucus was sitting.He hugged and cheered and jumped up and down with those youth.It was a most moving experience to see some of those youth with tears streaming down their faces as they laughed and cheered and felt affirmed and filled with hope.A DVD of the Ware Lecture will be available in our library soon and we hope to have a special viewing in the next month or so.
During General Assembly there were also Actions of immediate witness voted on, and a shadowing controversy this year, both of which you’ll have to come to the Circle Discussion to hear about!But throughout it all, we were standing as a community, on the side of love.
And that is really what I want you to know about General Assembly.It is about community.A community with a saving message.This was made clear in the Sunday morning worship service as Rev. Marlin Lavanhar from our sister congregation, All Souls, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, gave the sermon.He started out saying, “Two years ago my daughter Sienna died suddenly and unexpectedly in my arms in the middle of the night, 3 days after her third birthday. When it happened, I couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat, I could barely stand on my own two feet, all I could do was weep. But my church, and my colleagues held me up and gave me strength and courage to face my shattered heart. And, healing came from UU’s around the country in the form of cards and prayers and prayer shawls.
A number of colleagues came to be with us, including Bill Sinkford. As our president, I knew that he was standing in for a lot of others that couldn’t be there. Bill’s taken a lot of important stands during his presidency, but for me the most important stand he ever took was on his knees. Only minutes after arriving in Tulsa to be with me and my family he got down on his knees and made chalk drawings on the sidewalk in front of my house with a frightened and confused little boy who had just lost his baby sister. Even on his knees, Bill knows what he stands for and what our faith stands for. This community, its people and its love has helped save my life -- at the time of my deepest despair.
At our best, we are not an activist organization, We are not a social club,
We are a religious community in the greatest sense of the word.And a religious community knows something about broken hearts and about standing up.It knows something about what to do when your world has been turned completely upside down.And a true religious community shows us how to take our heartbreak and transform it into a sacred fire for change.”
I think that in some ways, General Assembly is a mega congregation.We debate with each other, worship together, break bread together (a lot), drink lots of coffee, laugh and cry and dance together, disagree with one another, learn with and from one another, and recognize the importance of religious community – being together.
And, so, Gini Courter our UUA moderator reminds us, “We meet here then to make policy, to direct and to control affairs of our association of congregations, so that we can say“Ministry for young UUs is critical not only for our future but for the present health of our faith.”And so we can say“Ministry for young adult Unitarian Universalists is of paramount importance.”We meet to say that if we knew more about ethical eating we would better live our values in the world.We meet to say this and more and the most important word I have uttered since I began is short, is simple, is WE.Connecting, empowering – WE.Not the UUA board, but WE.Not the UUA president or UUA moderator, but WE.Not just the professional ministry or just the laity, but WE.
And then our UUA president, Bill Sinkford said “I hope you take back home a kind of confidence you didn’t have before.A confidence in who we are.And a confidence in who we can become.We are individuals, yes, but we live in relationship and connection and I hope that we can understand that we’re really in this together.That we’re blessed by the rich tradition we have received, and we’re bound by our covenant, and we’re centered in our commitments.Take home the deep understanding that WE are one.”And we are standing on the side of love.
