"Egon... You''re scaring the straights."
There are weeks that I miss church (let's say one of the kids is sick or I am out of town) and I stil end up able to read blogs. I live a pretty healthy distance from my nearest congregation and consider myself a member of both my nearest congregation and the Church of the Larger Fellowship. Even when I can't make it to church in person I still really like to participate in the Sunday sharing of joys and concerns with CLF.
Anyhow, when I miss church and read UU blogs all too often I get the impression that there is so little love for Unitarian Universalism among my co-religionists. Fortunately there seem to always be a few cheery first year seminarians, a couple energized lay leaders, and a few religious professionals who manage to keep it positive and remind me that what I keep reading about online is the same faith that I see in my church.
My congregation is tiny, but energetic and growing. It's vibrant and theologically diverse, if mostly "humanist' in orientation. A big Sunday might be 35 adults and 15 kids. But last year it might have been 20 adults and 4 kids.
After the service today I was asked about UU history and how we got from the Divinity School Address to where we are today and how Transylvanian Unitarians might see things differently. This is fairly typical.
Last year I gave up snark for lent. It's a litle early this year, but in the spirit of Peter Morales' Lay Leader Drivetime Essay "Repel Fewer Newcomers" I'd really like to see your suggestions for what is right about Unitarian Universalism. Please let me know what your congregation does really well or what you like about Unitarian Universalism.
posted by jfield @ 7:21 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
I'm with Chutney when he notes that the complaints people have registered have barely been about UUism as a faith at all, but rather about our national organization.
That said, I wrote about what I love about UUism as eloquantly as I know how here.
CC
My Church and our faith as practiced there; and the UUA seem worlds apart. The Church is healthy but UUA seems broke.
Some of the friendliest Churches i have even been in were UU. Even if you admit (as I do) that you are from way out-of-town, you are invited to participate and join in the fellowship while you're there....
.. and if you're not careful, you can spend delightful hours and hours in fellowship!(which is dangerous if you have another 3 hours driving to do)
StevenR
Thanks for the kick in the pants, James. ;-)
I love Unitarian Universalism because it is imperfect and doesn't pretend to perfection. This faith is as human as the greatest and least of all of us, and is a living, breathing, evolving, growing religion that seeks nothing less than the healing of and yes, the salvation of the world. And I love being a part of that, even in my own small way.
(also posted at my place)
My prediction: even though there is a lot that is right with UUism, and the average UU perceives far more right with UUism than wrong with UUism, this thread will receive significantly fewer comments and contributions that Fixing UUism or similar threads. I probably don't need to point out the specific nature of both UUs and online discourse that makes this an easy prediction.
Love your title, though. It makes me laugh every time I see it in the UU RSS aggregator. Thanks very much.
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