RevCyn

Almost two weeks ago, a blogger going by "Wondertwisted" wrote a blog post titled A 'Dear John' Letter to Unitarian Universalism .  (Her real name appears to be "Cindy" based on the responses to the post, but since I'm a Cindy, that's confusing, so we'll call her "WT.")  In her post, WT outlines the reasons why she's leaving Unitarian Universalism.  The blog post immediately got a lot of my colleagues talking about it, mostly on Facebook as they posted up the piece.  I've been thinking about WT's post since then, and am still not really ready to put out a full response, but here goes for a bit anyway. I understand what it is my colleagues are saying when they are sympathizing with Wondertwisted.  They see in her post a desire for a deeper spiritual experience in Unitarian Universalism.  It's connected to the " Language of Reverence " discussions that went around a few years ago and the "Whose Are We...

For those who haven't been following this, Paul Rasor wrote an article in the UU World in which he said: And it is not just about numbers in another sense, too. Unitarian Universalism has its own cultural tradition, one that is rooted in European-American cultural norms and ways of being in the world. This normative lens is often invisible to those of us who look through it, but it is all too visible to those who view the world through different cultural lenses. This is why our ongoing antiracism work is so important. We cannot become a multicultural faith if we—subconsciously or otherwise—continue to treat a particular monocultural lens as normative.  This article was paired with one by Rosemary Bray McNatt in which she said: How, then, do we encounter those whose experience of church is different, whose experience of the holy is different, who find the truth of their lives in music from T.I. and Naz, in the Black Eyed Peas and A Tribe Called Quest? Where do they enter into t...

Here at UUMA Convocation 2009 in Ottawa, we are, necessarily, more aware of our international relations with other Unitarian and Universalist associations. The UUMA is our professional association for ministers serving or affiliated with UUA (Unitarian Universalist Association) congregations, but also for ministers serving or affiliated with CUC (Candadian Unitarian Council) churches. We are not, here, the ministers of one religious organization. At the ICUU (International Council of Unitarians and Universalists) workshop this afternoon, the point was really brought home that Unitarian Universalism is not a global religion. To paraphrase the ICUU president, we (the association of churches that is the UUA) are a global collection of religions that express liberal religion.

Thinking about the openness of our faith to many sources , and the way we use technology, I ran across this video of the Rev. Christine Robinson talking about open source technology and our faith, and our faith as an open source faith. Very cool. I think this should be a starting point from which we talk about technology and our faith. *Note to readers of this blog on facebook: videos may not come through to facebook. To view the original post, go to http://revcyn.blogspot.com .

Randy Pausch, who gave the " Last Lecture " and became an internet sensation, died recently. I learned that he was a UU when it was posted on the UUA's website. I suspected he might be a UU while reading his book of the Last Lecture, however. Sadly, the reasons I suspected it were that he mentioned his church but didn't say what his church was, and he mentioned his faith, but didn't mention what his faith was. He says in the book, "I was raised by parents who believed that faith was something very personal. I didn't discuss my specific religion in my lecture because I wanted to talk about universal principles that apply to all faiths--to share things I had learned through my relationships with all people." I think if he was Christian and his faith had helped him in his battle with cancer, he wouldn't hesitate to say so. It's a sad commentary on our faith when you suspect someone is a UU because they specifically don't say so. This is not...