Next Sunday you’re going to hear from four members who all attended General Assembly late June in Salt Lake City. I am sure they will share their impressions and what they learned.
We had a great time together and we learned a lot.
I traveled to my first General Assembly in 1998. Going to Salt Lake City this year, was the ninth time in the past 12 years that I have attended. I go looking for information, education, and to make new connections or to renew old ones. But mostly I go to get fired up! Just the numbers of UU’s all together thrills me.
I go for the inspiration! For me that comes from the sermons and lectures, from the stories of what other congregations are doing, from the singing, from the energy that just radiates from so much passion from so many...
By late June, when another “congregational” year is winding down, I need an infusion of passion. I need to hear the stories from other ministers and from congregational leaders. I love the energy I get from renewing connections with all kinds of UU’s from all over... I was thrilled to see and spend time with two of my favorite folks from the first UU congregation I ever joined.
By the end of a congregational year (which is the way most religious professionals mark time!) near the end of May/beginning of June, I have often found that I am overwhelmed by the details, dazed and confused by the plethora of personalities and opinions...I am tired, and then it is time to head to GA.
Maybe it’s a strange thing that I always find myself exhilarated by 30 to 40 times more UU’s than “normal”!
It’s exhilarating and exhausting! Maybe it is a good thing that GA comes just before vacation and a summer break, when there is time to rest and reflect and see what stays fresh!
This past year has been year especially exhilarating and exhausting. (And I don’t mean because of you!)
So much change has occurred since around this time last year. The economy has changed, our national leadership has changed, the ocean is hotter than ever, California denied marriage equality to gays and lesbians and Iowa granted it!, the push for health care reform is full of exhausting details and heated emotions....
We should all be tired!
YET, I sense a new level of enthusiasm... of determination among us... to make a difference in this world, in this community...
Every GA I’ve been to has included some kind of theme. This year the Standing on the Side of Love campaign was introduced. It’s a public advocacy effort inspired by the courage and the love shown by the East Tennessee UU’s who because of their liberal view and their acceptance of GLBT people were attacked by a gunman on July 27, 2008. They responded with shock, sadness and grief and an incredible resolve to continue to continue to stand on the side of love.
The campaign calls us to out to be advocates for every person who is dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression or violence because of their identity.
This campaign is very broad, highlighting that the reason we work for immigration reform, for marriage equality, for hate crime legislation, for health care reform, against racial stereotyping is so that all will have a place at the table.
It fits with what we have done as a people of liberal faith for centuries, tirelessly working against racism, for women’s rights, for civil rights, ...tirelessly working so that the worth and dignity of every person is respected by the whole of society.
This campaign is meant to be broad based, uniting all who recognize that everyone deserves love no matter what.
My colleague, Rev. Thom Belote in a sermon given to his congregation after returning from GA, shared his feelings about the Standing on the Side of Love campaign:
“My friends, let me tell you, I think we may have finally got it as a religious movement. This inspires me. Big blue billboards and bumper stickers calling us the “Uncommon Denomination” are nice. But, I feel it is sign of growth and maturity for us to turn our main public voice from an attempt to explain who we are to one that focuses on what we do in and for the world.”
We do a lot. We always have.
Last week I talked about what a blessing it is that UU’s value education, how we have historically understood that it is education that allows us to “possess our own souls”, freeing us from ignorance and falsehoods, teaching us to think for ourselves, to search for truth...to grow free minds...
We have learned well the art of critical inquiry!
Last year’s UnCommon Denomination campaign sought to tell a broad audience through whole page ads in Newsweek how different we are...how reasonable we are, what we don’t believe...
Standing on the Side of Love is about what we do.
Without free minds, capable and practiced in critical thinking, intelligent debate....“love” can be just so much sentimentality. By uniting free minds capable of questioning the status quo with fierce and courageous love we can bend the arc of the universe towards justice for all.
Instead of telling you. Let me show you! Click on this !
Here’s the music and lyrics to “Stand”, by Amy Carol Webb.
