In June I was one of your representatives at General Assembly (GA), the annual meetings of the Unitarian Universalist Association, held this year in Spokane, WA. At the national level, we UU’s are trying to shift our culture, to align our actions with our values: Moving away from top-down decision-making to collaboration, from head to heart, with love at the center, and justice as love expressed in the world.
Purposeful, principled culture shift is messy business. We all resist change, even when it?s what we yearn for. This shift needs us to share our lived experiences, especially those exposing the gap between who we say we are (e.g., inherent worth and dignity) and how we act. This gap reveals wounds needing attention, love and healing.
One way we do this is through the testimony of those who have not been accepted – not because of what they’ve done, but because of who they are: a person of color, disability, gender, or age.
Witnessing their testimony is hard for everyone, painful and liberating: It removes obstacles to the flow of compassion, trust, justice.
GA met on the shore of the great Spokane River, converging streams churning over rocks, plunging over falls and through a dam, emerging as a broad river, flowing, powerful and peaceful. May we learn from that river, overcoming the obstacles of racism, sexism, homophobia. May we trust the flow of transformation, emerging with power and peace, to serve a world that needs our love and service.
Rev Mary
