Happy New Year!!

Odd to read that in September, I know, but this time of year always feels more like a beginning to me than January ever does. I’ve turned one year older, school has begun, and with school the Unitarian Universalist church year gets underway, as well.

The new year is always a good time to try new things. One of the new things we’ll try this year is a monthly theme for exploration. The themes are broad, and you’ll find them informing worship services in sermons and time for all ages, and even in our music. These themes will be part of the discussions in our covenant circles. If we’re fortunate, these topics will carry over into our conversations outside of the church, as well.

During the month of September, our theme is “vision.” You’re probably wondering why we bother starting with this theme when we spent so much time talking about it during our mission and vision process last year. The answer, quite simply, is now that we have a vision, we need to keep it in the forefront of our congregational consciousness and discover for ourselves how that vision becomes a reality. It’s a worthy exercise for the beginning of a new church year, because a vision, when embraced and followed, can be a powerful tool for change.

I saw one of the greatest examples of this reality in practice at this year’s General Assembly in Minneapolis. Prior to GA, there had been a recommendation by the UUA Board of Trustees to consider withdrawing GA 2012 from Phoenix due to the controversy over the state of Arizona’s new immigration laws. There was much energy, fairly evenly divided, on both the “pro” and “con” sides of the boycott debate. For the record, I was quite publicly against the proposed boycott, and like many others who spoke against the proposal; our opinions were most often based in our own vision of how an effective and justice-seeking denomination behaved (which was not by withdrawing). Those who were in favor of the boycott were concerned for the safety and well being of our Latino/a and Hispanic clergy and laity, as well as for other people of color (and quite rightly so, as I learned in hindsight after my experiences in Phoenix). Neither side had a 100% corner on the market of truth in this situation. Neither side was entirely wrong.

Emotions, however, were high on both sides. In the weeks leading up to GA, there was much vitriol expressed on both sides towards the other in online forums and elsewhere. I was saddened by some of the tone of the dialogue, and truly, I was beginning to dread what I was certain was going to be a terrible fight on the plenary floor in Minneapolis. My expectations would be confounded, for something rather wonderful happened in between the time of the initial arguments, and the arrival of delegates to Minneapolis: there was a mutual realization of what we shared in common in spite of our disagreements.

In several planning sessions long into the night, both the “pro” and “con” sides of the boycott issue got together in the same room and hammered out a new proposal to replace the UUA Board’s recommendation. Both sides of the argument realized that they shared a commitment to protesting the new Arizona laws and engaging with the issues of immigration in more productive ways. We came to an understanding in that week that (1) we could not abandon our brothers and sisters in Arizona who were on the ground 24/7 fighting injustice, pleading with us to come, and (2) a GA in Arizona, in light of what our allies were asking could not be an ordinary GA. “No Business as Usual” became the watchword.

By the end of GA 2010, the delegates had passed a motion to hold a “Justice GA” in Phoenix in 2012, with the minimum necessary business of the Association taken care of, and the rest of our time and resources directed towards social justice projects in Phoenix. In the end, both sides won a little bit—it was neither a boycott, nor a standard GA tone deaf to the needs of the communities within and outside of the UUA. And it was a resolution that was achieved in the end because of vision—a vision of who we are and what we believe in, and not internecine fights over what we are not.

Imagine what it would be like if we approached our disagreements in our congregations in this way, by laying aside differences and searching in earnest together for what it is that we share. This is why vision is so important and why we begin this new church year by keeping our own vision at the forefront of what we do. “We need not think alike to love alike,” has long been the watch-phrase of our living tradition. Sometimes, we forget this sentiment far too easily. It is the world we are building together—how we walk together—that matters most. Our vision is the roadmap.

As we move into our themed exploration this year, I’d like to invite you all to take part in the conversation. I want to hear your own thoughts on the subjects, and not just your responses to my sermons. This month, I present you all with two questions that tie in to the sermons I’ll preach on vision in September:

• What does it mean to celebrate diversity and seek unity in action?
• What does it mean to be a beacon of hope?

Send me an email, write me a letter, or give me a phone call. Tell me what you think the answers are.

I have many people to thank for their help and service over the past several months. If you joined us for any of our Dinner and a Movie nights as part of this summer’s Summer Blockbusters series, you enjoyed some wonderful meals and company. My deepest thanks go to Sherry Hardage, who has coordinated these dinners for the past two summers and has kept them creative and entertaining. My thanks also go out to our other chefs and volunteers who helped make these evenings such a success: Helen Deaven, Janet VanCleave, KokHeong McNaughton, and Felicia Orth.

I also need to say a big “thank you” to Kathy Gursky. Kathy has spent some of her free time over the past several weeks transcribing sermons from the podcasts. Preaching from an outline has meant no texts to share, and I’m very grateful to Kathy for taking the time to help put my words on the written page.

Our Mountain Desert District Assembly will be held from October 8-10 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We are eligible to send four delegates to the assembly. If you have the time and you’re interested in attending, please get in touch with Mike McNaughton, our Denominational Affairs chair, for more information, or visit mdduua.org.

My regular office hours have resumed, Monday-Wednesday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

See you in church,
Rev. John Cullinan

The text of this past Sunday’s sermon is up at my blog: http://www.returningblog.com/?p=523

General Assembly opened this evening with its usual celebratory zeal. I’m attempting to come back with a video report for you all when we reconvene after Labor Day. Below is a very quick clip of some of what I’ve got so far. Blink, and you’ll miss our very own Leo Rose marching the UULA banner in the traditional opening banner parade.

ga2010blog1

Lots to come in just a few days. I’ll try to post more as we go along.

“. . . the very word ‘religion’ comes from a Latin root that means to tie, to bind. Ultimately what ties us together, what makes us a religion, a united people, is what we love. Religion, our religion, is what we truly care about, what we want to preserve, embrace, and create.”—“The ‘It’ Church” by the Rev. Peter Morales, UUA president, in UU World, Spring 2010 (http://uuworld.org/life/articles/158390.shtml)

The question is asked of us all the time: “Is Unitarian Universalism a religion?”

Many of us are quick to jump on the bandwagon of either side of what seems to be a “yes or no” question. Usually, our answers have a lot to do with our own personal relationship with that loaded little word, “religion.” Those comfortable with the presumably traditional idea of “being religious” are more likely to say “yes” than those who are more critical of religion or count themselves among the crowd who consider themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”

I think where we get stuck in this conversation is around that traditional idea of what “religion” means. Belief in a deity, a creedal checklist, some sort of stark moral absolutism—all of this is wrapped up in what many people hear when they hear the word “religion.” And while that is certainly a definition of religion, it is not the only definition. As Rev. Morales notes in his column in the current UU World, and as every first year seminarian hears ad nauseum, “religion” derives from the Latin—to bind together. Religion, then, at its best is the practice of connection. If there is anything truly sacred in this world, it is the connections between us – those we know, and those we don’t yet know. Or, as the residents of Grovers Corners refrain throughout Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town, “Blessed be the ties that bind.”

I’ve told newcomers for years that Unitarian Universalism is a religion, but not a religion that stresses what to believe. Rather, we focus on how we should be together. You’ve heard me preach about the importance of how we “walk together,” and that it’s action—the empirically observable output of belief—that matters more than language. Beyond action, though, is what Rev. Morales has to offer. The answer to the question “What do we love?” may be even more important than the question of how we act. Unitarian Universalism is the religion that asks not “what do we believe?” but “what do we love?”

As we explore what it means to “celebrate diversity in belief, and seek unity in action,” it is perhaps the question of what we truly love that points us in that direction of unity. That is my question for meditation over these summer months. I invite you to ponder it with me.

What do we love?

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“Summer Blockbusters” returns in June and July. We had a lot of fun with the series last year. If you didn’t get a chance to try it out last year, give it a try now. I’ll e-mail information on the Saturday night dinners (and the family-friendliness of each movie) just ahead of our Blockbuster weekends. We begin June 13^th with Where the Wild Things Are.

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I’m on vacation and study leave for the majority of these next two months. I’ll have office hours in the weeks preceding my pulpit dates in June and July. As always, I’m available for emergencies via cell phone and e-mail.

See you in church,
Rev. John Cullinan