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Showing posts with the label Generations

Pete Seeger & Generational Mourning

The Rev. Erika Hewitt launched a long Facebook discussion this week with this tweet: Gentle reminder to clergy mourning #PeteSeeger : too much of his music on Sunday & you'll exclude Gen X & Millennials. #NotJustBoomersInPews — Rev. Erika (@UUYogini) January 29, 2014 She later clarified and qualified that statement. But I think she was pointing at something that's important to remember, not unlike what I was saying a few months ago here .  The point I think is worth taking away from Hewitt's post is that while yes, certain people, Pete Seeger among them, were very important to history and have a strong connection to our Unitarian Universalist values, that it's not wrong or misguided or unfortunate to be someone who did not connect to Seeger's music, and that the sorrow that many are feeling at his death shouldn't be assumed to be universal, even among Unitarian Universalists.  The problem comes when people assume that their cultural memories are u...

What Makes a Unitarian Universalist?

I have eight relatives who at one time or another attended a Unitarian Universalist church and who are on Facebook.  A quick polling of what their info pages say about their "religious views" gives the following answers: 2 list Unitarian Universalist (or some combination of those two words). 2 have the field blank or not viewable to me, which would be understandable given that I do things like this. 1 says "atheistic jew." 1 says "loving kindness." 1 says "Peace and Social Justice." 1 says "Aid to and support of the widows, the children, and the outcast." Of these eight, I think two are members of Unitarian Universalist churches--one who lists UU and one who doesn't.  Most of the others attend from time to time, but not regularly enough to consider themselves members, and mostly when visiting a relative who is church-going.  So this shows that not everyone who calls themselves a Unitarian Universalist is a member of a churc...