Measuring growth
Conversation continued this week about the proposed consultant who will help the Board and Administration find common ground.
The Rev. Tom Schade suggests that we have been shame-obsessed for too long, always asking ourselves the unhelpful question, “What’s wrong with us?”
Our shame is so great that we split it into two different emotions. One is grandiosity. Officially, we believe that Unitarian Universalism is the bestest, coolest, most wonderful religion possible in the whole wide world. . . . The other piece of our coping strategy is project the shame onto some other group of UU’s, whom we blame for what’s wrong with us. . . .
The question that ought to be foremost in our thinking is this: what can we do to nurture and develop open-hearted, reverent, fair-minded, self-possessed, generous and grateful people. (The Lively Tradition, May 3)
The Rev. Christine Robinson, senior minister of the thriving First Unitarian of Albuquerque, writes about the difficulty of planning and budgeting for growth, and the imperative to move beyond conflict.
Budgeting for vitality and growth is a matter of guesses, hopes, and projections. Strategic planning is a matter of courageous guessing, not of reassuring a skeptical boss who wants guarantees of outcomes.
I do know one thing about growth and vitality, however, which has nothing to do with reports and budgets, and that is that growth and vitality do not co-exist with the kind of conflict that the board and administration have engaged in over the past four years. . . . We live in a cultural era unfavorable to the health and vitality of religious institutions, which are shrinking, threatened, and dying all around us. This is no small matter and we are so tiny that we can not afford to waste our time on conflict. (iMinister, May 6)
UUA Trustee Linda Laskowski clarifies the consultant’s purpose.
This is not about “marriage counseling” or “a consultant to work out their relationship”; it is about a nuanced and complex set of skills needed to “measure the unmeasurable.”
. . . . How willing are you to continue to invest in an organization whose mission has lofty goals, but can’t tell you if we are making progress towards them? I do not think this is easy, nor do I think it is impossible. (UUA View from Berkeley, May 5)
The Rev. Amy Zucker Morgenstern wonders how we might measure maturational growth, rather than numerical growth.
What if we randomly sampled a group of members each year and asked them some questions that would reveal the maturity of their spiritual lives? Or followed several over the course of several years, in a longitudinal survey? What questions might we ask? (Sermons in Stones, May 3)
Practical considerations
Kari Kopnick writes that one of the most important tasks for UU congregations is taking care of their non-clergy workers—particularly their religious educators.
I know there’s a fuss about metrics and growth and mission and vision and leadership in the big picture UU stuff right now. I don’t know what to do about that, either. But we could remember that these are people who do the work, and people who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. . . .
Pay a living wage, give time off, support professional development. And hey all you big-wigs, remember that ministers and metrics and end statements are not the only reason churches and institutions thrive or fail. Start with people, end with people and take care of the people in between. It’s not the big answer, but it’s a place to start. (Chalice Spark, May 9)
Tim Atkins proposes a UU “center for innovation” that promotes skill-sharing and skill-building.
We as a faith need a place where innovators can go and get nurtured. To learn and get those skills they need. To meet and network with other innovators, to share struggles and strategies and victories. Whether they be ordained or lay. (Tim Atkins, May 9)
The Rev. Sean Dennison quotes Tim Atkins in this image from the UU Media Collaborative.
Marriage equality
After working hard to defeat last year’s anti-equality amendment in Minnesota, the Rev. Meg Riley is delighted that marriage equality seems to be moving through the state’s legislature with ease.
The thing is, if the Traditional Marriage zealots hadn’t pushed that awful ballot initiative at us, I don’t think we’d be doing this. But all of that grassroots organizing morphed seamlessly into a fight for marriage equality we’d never thought we could win. . . . So today I’ll be walking around the Minnesota House and the State Capitol with a big grin on my face, talking to people about when, where and how they plan to get married. (HuffPost Religion, May 9)
“Marry in Massachusetts” notes, with some surprise, that marriage equality seems to have passed a tipping point.
I thought getting this far would take another decade or two. Once I saw that my boomer generation was little better than our parents on gay rights, I feared for the nation until most of us from both groups had died. I, fortunately, was wrong. America is tired of the irrational and emotional crap and its distractions. (Marry in Massachusetts, May 9)
A resting place
Several UU bloggers weighed in on the issue of a burial place for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
For the Rev. Gary Kowalski, who currently serves as interim minister at the First Unitarian Church of Worcester, providing a proper burial is a mark of a civilized society.
Whether you consider him a heinous murderer, a misguided soul, a terrorist, or all of the above, he was also a human being: not an animal, an object or a piece of refuse. I have zero tolerance for his cause and condemn his actions, even as I grieve his victims and sympathize with the families of those who were killed or injured by his crimes.
But this is one of those decision points that reveals our own character as a people. Are we brutes, or are we members of a civilized nation?
Only the residents of Worcester can decide. (Revolutionary Spirits, May 6)
The Rev. Fred Hammond draws on our Universalist heritage.
[Providing] a burial site for Tsarnaev is a very strong proclamation of the Love that loves us all, in spite of his sins, in spite of all the hatred he spewed in his acts of violence. He is still that little baby boy that his mother held close to her breasts when he was born. He is still that laughing child on his father’s knee. He is still that child of god. And the god that loves unconditionally, our Universalist forebears taught, welcomes him home. (A Unitarian Universalist Minister in the South, May 8)
The Rev. Tony Lorenzen thinks that a Unitarian Universalist congregation should provide a burial place for Tsarnaev.
An offer to bury Tsarnaev calls our community to be its best self. We call people away from trying to punish his family, his uncle, his undertaker, or anyone else who is of and by necessity involved in the process. When we continue to rant and rave about how such a monster as Tsarnaev doesn’t deserve to have his remains put in the ground and forgotten . . . we also continue to give a murderous criminal more press than he deserves . . . . (Sunflower Chalice, May 7)
Celebrating Mother’s Day
The Rev. Lynn Ungar offers a virtual bouquet to all who do the work of mothering, no matter their gender or biological relation to their children.
I hope that sometime between now and Mother’s Day you get a quiet moment to remember the real gifts that you’ve gotten throughout the year: not only the hugs and the smiles and the sweet snuggling at bedtime, but also the moments when your child has trusted you enough to cry on your shoulder, the times when you genuinely laughed at your child’s joke or they laughed at yours, the flash of insight when you were able to see the world through their eyes. Truly, motherhood is the toughest job you’ll ever love. On a good day. (Quest for Meaning, May 8)
Sara Lewis reminds us that Mother’s Day began with Unitarian Julia Howe’s work for peace.
[As] Unitarian Universalists, we can lay claim to a tradition of seeing Mother’s Day as a day to call for peace. Yes, we still honor our own mothers, but if we expand that expression of love and caring to our global human family, if we recognize this as a day for honoring human relatedness and recognizing that peace is the only way to live if we are honoring that relatedness, then we have a holiday that is much more transformative and challenging. It is a truly religious holiday in this sense, calling us to reflect on that which binds us all together and seek to create a Beloved Community on earth. (The Children’s Chalice, May 9)
Beginning with an image created by Micah Bazant, Laura Evonne Steinman links Mother’s Day with the second UU principle of justice, equity and compassion; she writes, “To this day, many women are chained down while in labor giving birth in prison. Let us pray and work towards justice for all this Mama’s Day and always.”
