I like the clarity of this statement:

Faith is an orientation toward trust and commitment.

Sometimes, UU's get hung up on this because so many people understand the word faith to automatically be connected to a deity as an object of that faith. Unitarian Universalists can choose to orient themselves to trust in and commit to our values and one another. It doesn't have to be, and I suggest shouldn't be, a statement of belief in the ultimate, but a statement about who we are together. We can orient ourselves intentionally toward trust and commitment. We can have faith, trust, in our collective capacity to do good and increase wholeness and justice.

Faith: an orientation toward commitment and trust.

What we commit to and what or whom we trust is up to us.

The song suggests:

"There is a hope that's been expressed in you:

the hope of seven generations, maybe more.
And this is the faith that they invest in you:

It's that you'll do one better than was done before.
Inside you know, inside you understand;

inside you know what's yours to finally set right..."

~Susan Werner

This song reminds us that commitment, trust, and faith are orientations that rest on love. Ruthie Foster - “Joy Comes Back”

The patchwork quilt of our theological heritage is torn and fraying in places, and it is stunningly vibrant in others. Some sections have been mended or wholly replaced... As we mature spiritually as a tradition and as people, we develop our capacities to be with the broken and the beautiful, the contradictions, and the complexities.

~Rev. Dr. Sheri Prud'homme, 2024

I am a "come'inner" to Unitarian Universalism. My spiritual journey took me from Christian holiness fundamentalism through social justice evangelicalism, then liberal and progressive Christianity, and finally to progressive, liberatory Unitarian Universalism, which has been my faith home for the past 30 years. All that time, people used words differently. Although all rooted in Jewish and Christian history and theology and used the same actual "words," these were distinctly different faith traditions.

With our various personal spiritual paths and past experience with religious language and Words Of Great Meaning, Unitarian Universalists can find it challenging to discuss principles and values with one another. Somehow, these words can seem ephemeral even as we are solidly committed to exactly what we know they mean.

This section is an opportunity to explore different understandings of these things, to reflect, and to consider if we, in our small gatherings in corners of our communities, are even always having the same conversation as we discuss Principles and Values.

CB

When I was a child, my family didn't have words like "anxiety." We knew mad, sad, and maybe glad. And worry. My grandmother, who was born in 1919, was a worrier. But when she wasn't worrying about something specific, there wasn't a word that spoke to how distressed she was. So my grandfather made one up. Sometimes, I would come running up the driveway, hollering or singing, and my grandfather would put up a hand and say., "Hey, slow down. Your grandmother is All a'Jangle. Don't bother her when you go in."

It didn't mean angry. I knew Nana wasn't angry. It meant anxious, on edge, and agitated, Jumpy. I don't think my grandmother ever learned what the word anxiety was to connect it to her feeling state, although she was a writer and aide in the children's section of the library. I'm not sure she ever made the connection between reading the word anxiety and the feeling of being All a'Jangle. Honestly, I was in my 30s before I did. As I said, there were not so many feeling words.

With so many family and cultural differences among us as UUs, we could be having entire conversations in which we are not using words the same way as other people. Especially language for emotions. Part of transforming conflict often requires us to slow down, reflect, and identify what we're feeling and why. We must accept those feelings; they're not bad, although they may be disconcerting. Where possible, we can calm or ground ourselves together.

~CB Beal

“My life means nothing, either theoretically or practically, unless I am a member of a community.”

Royce noted that, besides the actual communities we experience daily, there was also an ideal “beloved community” made up of all those who would be dedicated fully to the cause of loyalty, truth, and reality itself.

We relish the ways people spark with a glow uniquely their own.

We may have been raised with the idea that the individual is the only and highest way for humanity to experience itself. We may have been raised with the idea that individuals exist only in relation to community. We may have other ideas. Our faith has had some specific ideas that have shaped some of us and which invite, at a minimum, some reflection.

This is an invitation to explore the boundaries of these three words in your own life and the lives of those around you.

“Covenant” is both a noun and a verb. It can be a written agreement among individual community members promising to behave in certain ways or perform certain tasks as our values call us, and it can mean being meaningfully present with other people and communities in a mutual commitment.

In Unitarian Universalism, congregations often have a Covenant; as well, faith development groups and committees will often choose to collaboratively write a covenant outlining how we will be together.

Our congregations have long covenanted together collectively in the legal form of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

As a living faith, how we understand and articulate this covenant changes through time, awareness, and experience.

The proposed wording of the by-laws (required as a legal entity) states,

"As Unitarian Universalists, we covenant, congregation-to-congregation and through our Association, to support and assist one another in our ministries."

(May, 2024)

David O'Rankin, 2015.

Who in your world, not just a life partner but also a work partner, colleague, friend, or neighbor, makes your life better?

Tell them. Write a note of gratitude to them. Invite them to join you on Zoom or in a local park and share how they make your life better.

"Love is knotted and gnarled, like an old tree fighting with the wind, like branches too brittle for their own good, like roots that relentlessly inform how deeply we can trust and how freely we can forgive."

Jan Carlsson-Bull, 2015

A faith that is not the sister of justice is bound to bring people to grief. It thwarts creation, a divinely given possibility; it robs them of their birthright of freedom in an open universe; it robs the community of the spiritual richness latent in its members; it reduces the person to a beast of burden in slavish subservience to a state, a church, or a party—a god made by human hands.

~James Luther Adams, (1901–1994), "A Faith for the Free" in The Prophethood of All Believers, 1986.

Rev. Sinkford said, “I believe that Unitarian Universalism is growing up. Growing out of a cranky and contentious adolescence into a more confident maturity. A maturity in which we can not only claim our Good News, the value we have found in this free faith, but also begin to offer that Good News to the world outside these beautiful sanctuary walls. There is a new willingness on our part to come in from the margins."

“My growing belief is that, as a religious community and as individuals, we may be secure enough, mature enough to find a language of reverence, a language that can acknowledge the presence of the holy in our lives…Perhaps, this faith we love is ready to stop calling itself a movement, and call itself a religion.”

“a feeling of profound awe and respect and often of love.”

UU Humanist Professor David Bumbaugh describes the vocabulary of reverence as

“the ability to speak of that which is sacred, holy, of ultimate importance to us, the language which would allow us to enter into critical dialogue with the rest of the religious community.”

"… although the past can teach us a great deal about the human experience of reverence, we will not find our own authentic language of reverence only there. The call for a language of reverence is in the end a call to move forward, not backward. It is a call for creativity, for experiment, a demand that we speak the truth as we know it. It summons us to entrust to one another the stories of those moments that left us with a lump in the throat or a song in the heart; those vigil nights in the hospital that ended in an embracing peace, or the hours of soul searching that ended in remorse and a resolution to do better next time. It is an invitation to build from the wrecked timbers of old ritual the new structures of ceremony that can give shape to our reverence in the most awesome, meaning laden moments of our lives."

Kendyl Gibbons, Journal of the UU Humanist Association, vol 37, no 2, 2004, https://huumanists.org/sites/huumanists.org/files/articles/vol%2037%20no%202%20Gibbons.pdf

bell hooks.

“Justice is what love looks like in public, just like tenderness is what love feels like in private,”

Dr. Cornel West

'To invoke love' is to open ourselves to the possibility of a life guided by love's spirit. This great gift, one that involves courage, vulnerability, and a willingness to risk lies at the very heart of our inherited religious teachings. When we gather together in the thousands and our hearts spill over with the wonder of resting our spirits among other bearers of love and justice, we are reminded of both the heartache and the awe that come of a life guided by love.

"[The early Christian writer Paul] challenged [the early Christian community] to keep love at the very center so that they might live a balanced life. As Unitarian Universalists, we still regularly sing of our own longings, of our desire to live up to that call, to give our hearts to this way of living that is grounded in the fullness of love.

In 1849, one of our greatest theologians, Hosea Ballou, wrote a short essay on Universalism, working to explain what made this part of our religious heritage unique among the Christian denominations of his day.

Time and again, he returned to the Universalist commitment to love, to embracing and understanding of our own inherent goodness that flows from all aspects of God, which themselves find harmony in an infinite, unchangeable love. Anything that was not born of this love could not come from God. That love became the standard by which all theological knowledge was judged. And as a result, Ballou claimed that a true religious life consists in possessing, living, and acting the spirit of that love.

Ballou's Universalism risks invoking love's great power.

Sofia Betancourt, 2014

Philip Phillips "Home" https://youtu.be/HoRkntoHkIE?si=SrLa6qHYXYMX85Mv

-excerpt from homily by Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt

Watch full service or read transcript at by clicking link image below. This link will open in a new window on your browser. https://www.uua.org/ga/past/2014/worship/296057.shtml

"...it is no accident . . . that the United States, with its high valuation of the individual person, is nonetheless alone among North Atlantic societies in the percentage who live in poverty. Just when we are moving into an ever greater validation of the sacredness of the individual person, our capacity to imagine a social fabric that would hold individuals together is vanishing.

And this is in no small part due to the fact that our religious individualism is linked to an economic individualism which, though it makes no distinction between persons except monetary ones, ultimately knows nothing of the sacredness of the individual."

Robert Bellah, internationally recognized scholar of the sociology of religion, 1997 General Assembly

Individualism is sometimes misunderstood as an individual right to do something alone, their way; to be right, or to get their way. Many people, including myself, were raised to think that our family/culture had the best ideas and the correct answers. Our ability in society to impose that belief on others is often directly proportional to our societal privilege. In some ways, our individualism prioritized our group norms.

Individualism often overemphasizes thinking, as if one individual thinking can accomplish a profound truth. But even the most extraordinary thinkers did their work in conversation with other humans, books, works of art and music, and the lived experience of all they came across if they chose to take that seriously. I am convinced that we wrongly point to individuals to elevate individualism in our faith. We love our famous forbears.

And.

Thoreau regularly went home to do chores, and his mom and sister fed him at night while he wrote Walden's Pond. He lived in an interdependent relationship with those around him.

~CB Beal

“[After 15 years] we should not be surprised at some restiveness. On the one hand, some are uneasy with what they see as a kind of creeping creedalism in the way we use [the principles]. On the other hand, there is a perception of incompleteness, with important, arguably necessary empowering assumptions about cosmic reality and our particular place in it that ‘P and P’ leave unsaid. Still others…are dissatisfied with what they see as excessive emphasis on the individual, so that ‘the creative nature of community and interdependence are only tardily and inadequately acknowledged.”

This vs. That defines a principle as a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior. "Principles are fundamental beliefs or rules that guide behavior and decision-making... Principles are concrete and specific, providing a framework for ethical and moral decision-making."

This vs. That says that values are beliefs or ideals that guide the way individuals live and make decisions. "Values are the beliefs and ideals that are important to an individual or group... values are more subjective and personal than principles, reflecting what is considered important or desirable."

“But the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of a beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this kind of understanding good will that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles.” 

Dr. King distinguished between three kinds of love: eros, “a sort of aesthetic or romantic love”; philia, “affection between friends” and agape, which he described as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,” an “overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative”…

”the love of God operating in the human heart.”

He said that “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.”

from TheKingCenter.org

"Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.”

bell hooks, Killing Rage: Ending Racism

Rev. Dr. King again:

“I do not think of political power as an end. Neither do I think of economic power as an end. They are ingredients in the objective that we seek in life. And I think that end of that objective is a truly brotherly society, the creation of the beloved community”

Christian Century Magazine, July 13, 1966

"I would like to use as a subject the church remaining awake during a great revolution. I'm sure that each of you has read that arresting little story from the pen of Washington Irving entitled Rip Van Winkle .

One thing that we usually remember about the story of Rip Van Winkle is that he slept twenty years. But there is another point in that story which is almost always completely overlooked: it is the sign on the inn of the little town on the Hudson from which Rip went up into the mountains for his long sleep. When he went up, the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, the sign had a picture of George Washington, the first president of the United States. When Rip Van Winkle looked up at the picture of George Washington he was amazed, he was completely lost. He knew not who he was.

This incident reveals to us that the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that he slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully snoring up in the mountains a revolution was taking place in the world, that would alter the face of human history. Yet Rip knew nothing about it; he was asleep.

One of the great misfortunes of history is that all too many individuals and institutions find themselves in a great period of change and yet fail to achieve the new attitudes and outlooks that the new situation demands. There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution."

"The church has a great responsibility because when the church is true to its nature, it is a moral guardian of the community and of society. It has always been the role of the church to broaden horizons, to challenge the status quo, and to question and break mores if necessary.”

"To remain awake through this social revolution, the church must engage in strong action programs to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation and discrimination.”

"I'm sure that we all agree that the church has a major role to play in this period of social change. I would like to suggest some of the things that the church must continually do in order to remain awake through this revolution. First, we are challenged to instill within the people of our congregations a world perspective. The world in which we live is geographically one.

"...A second myth that we must deal with is that of exaggerated progress. Certainly we have made progress in race relations. And I think we can all glory that things are better today than they were ten years ago or even three years ago. We should be proud of the steps we've made to rid our nation of this great evil of racial segregation and discrimination. On the other hand, we must realize the plant of freedom is only a bud and not yet a flower."

~Dr. King at General Assembly, cont.

"Another thing about this philosophy which is often misunderstood and that it says that at its best the love ethic can be a reality in a social revolution. Most revolutions in the past have been based on hope and hate, with the rising expectations of the revolutionaries implemented by hate for the perpetrators of the unjust system in the old order. I think the different thing about the revolution that has taken place in our country is that it has maintained the hope element and at the same time it has added the dimension of love. Many people would disagree with me and say that love hasn't been there. I think we have to stop and talk about what we mean in this context because I would be the first to say that it is nonsense to urge oppressed people to love their violent oppressors in an affectionate sense. And I'm certainly not talking about that when I talk above love standing at the center of our struggle. I think it is necessary to see the meaning of love in higher terms. The Greek language has three words for love – one is the eros, another is the word filio, and another is the word agape. I'm thinking not of eros, or of friendship as expressed in filio, but of agape, which is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all men, an overflowing love which seeks nothing in return. When one rises to love on this level, he loves a person who does the evil deed while hating the deed."

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Don't Sleep Through The Revolution, The Ware Lecture, GA, 1966

~Jan Christian, March 2019.

Jan writes that we exist on a foundation of

"Community Values: The qualities of life we commit to nurture in order to establish and maintain our Beloved Community. We continue to explore these qualities together, with curiosity and openness to evolution in our understanding of what we value. These values form the center of our experience of Beloved Community and our Covenant.

Jan writes about working with groups

"Covenant: The specific strategies we commit to practice in order to nurture our community values. This living document evolves as we explore our values together. We co-create our covenant from a shared understanding of our community values."

As we are a living faith, so too, we have co-created, living covenants.

As we are together, learning, growing, healing or making mistakes and hurting others, we have Restorative Practices: "The range of options available for us to practice in order to bring us back into covenantal relationship when disconnection occurs. As a community, we commit to these practices as resources to return to Covenant."

You may choose to read more about this here. Embodying Beloved Community and Covenantal Relationship | LeaderLab | UUA.org

_{– Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s. This quote is often attributed to Lila Watson, who said she was “not comfortable being credited for something that had been born of a collective process” (The attribution here is the one she accepted)}

"In a world where white supremacy and all other forms of oppression feed on one another, all the logics of domination are blamed on the most ludicrous things—sleep medication, absent-minded employees, habit, resource scarcity in a nation shaped by greed, religion itself—we are called more than ever to testify with our lives. Poet and prophet Audre Lorde told those embarking on a next great journey that it was their small actions, their everyday decisions, and how they moved through this world that not only gave them power, but would define our future. She did not offer them a great redeeming moment, she simply steered them back to the daily struggle, to what we might call faithful living.

This is about the journey of redemption.

Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt, June 21, 2018, at the Service of the Living Tradition.

“we are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest . . . of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.”

The journey toward redemption is about truth-telling, lamentation, and owning our wrongs, while at the same time claiming the profound possibility that calls us forward. We are the inheritors of the legacies of white supremacy, but also of an unimaginable grace, of certainty in the possibility of redemption, of weaving a tapestry of leadership that may not yet be what we long for but is called to be the richest expression of humanity’s sacredness. We believe in human capacity great enough, a god loving enough, values strong enough, communities dedicated enough, and leaders humble enough to move us toward redemption.

And I think we know that redemption is a shared ministry that means everyone, that elevates all, that seeks out the suffering, neglected places of the world and breathes the Holy back into them. Redemption is a professional religious leadership that is humble, that apologizes, and that limits its own power to move us toward a greater truth. Moving in that direction means trying even when we don’t know how it can ever come to pass. Trying because the struggle itself is holy. It means celebrating the successes that do in fact exist among us, elevating them, and putting them to the service of creating even greater success. At the same time, it is modeling that the reality of our failings is not more powerful than the inherent goodness that we teach.

We are left asking ourselves, What will we risk for this grace?"

_{Watch and listen to this sermon}

_{Recorded June 21, 2018, at the Service of the Living Tradition at the 2018 UUA General Assembly in Kansas City. Find the complete order of service and video of the full service at UUA.org.}

~James Vila Blake, 1894

Once it lives between us, it binds us one to another.

Once it is alive between the people of the community, it is alive in the community, and it binds the community together.

Covenant is a vow of our hearts. In community we share our heartfelt values, come to a common understanding of the values we share and create a Community Covenant grounded in our shared values. This Covenant we make together - keep together - break together - and fix together."

_{~Connie Goodbread, May, 2023}

You don't have to race ahead.

Still your body, breathe, and click play.

Embedded lyric captions.

Piano & Vocals: Allison Halerz

Vocals: theresa rohlck, Karishma Gottfried

I invite you to begin this section by singing along. Whether you came here out of curiosity or because you're feeling conflict and confusion, if you decided to go through this out of sturdy determination to explore one thing you don't like, or in preparation for a difficult conversation, don't skip the song. Start with singing.

We get ready again and again.

Change comes, and each time, we have to get ready to explore, receive, and decide how to travel with it.

_{People Get Ready - Sara Bareilles, Emily King, Jon Batiste, and Steve Jordan (Play On Performance) [captioned video.]}

"While we all accept being part of a covenantal faith, we don’t all understand covenant in the same way. Many of us wouldn’t share our ancestor’s [Puritans/Pilgrims] understanding of covenant, which began and ended with promises made between their God and themselves. They could not extend the grace of covenantal relationships to the indigenous communities they encountered here, nor later to the Black Africans who were enslaved and brought here. The land and the labor of those people were stolen and exploited to build some of the same churches we worship in today. While religiously progressive among European Christians, our ancestors’ practice of covenant was nonetheless as limiting at the time as we would see it today.

I was thinking of this recently while visiting one of our congregations. In a conversation after worship, I heard several earnest questions -

Will I be called out of covenant?

Will my friends be welcome here if they have different beliefs?

It breaks my heart a little when I hear covenant understood as punishment. As a weapon that delineates between the “in” crowd and the exiled. Those pilgrims, and the congregational DNA they left us, might be an unreconciled piece of our history it is time to reckon with. There is a seed of exclusivity in our history. A story in our past that says our covenant is for us, and alone. It is for keeping some others out. In that light it makes sense that we might have some fear that we could find ourselves exiled from covenant one day.

But friends, covenant isn’t a punishment, it is a practice. We inherit it freely, yes, but it is hard work to maintain and sustain it. Covenant doesn't decide who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out.’ Covenant is there to hold us together and guide us through when we are having tender, difficult conversations; when there are multiple values in tension with each other; when we are activated, and it’s hard to be our best self. More than words on a page, it is a living connection to our ancestors, calling us to remember the dreams they dreamed for us. Reminding us to be the people our descendants will be proud of. It is our link to one another, and the promises and concessions we make to live in diverse communities."

~wren Bellavance-Grace

Read the piece in its entirety at the link above

As we have engaged UUs around New England in reflecting on living in covenant we on regional staff have noticed an assumption so foundational that it is often revealed in storytelling but rarely said directly. That is: We can be either in covenant or in conflict, but not both at the same time.

the facilitator asks each participant to think about what they need from the others in the group in order to feel safe, or to do their best work, or to be fully present. The participants then share what they need. These items are written down, and everyone is asked if they can agree to all the items. This becomes the covenant.

Why do we do this? I mean, really?

What we say – what I think I usually believe at a surface level – is that we are creating the container that will allow for digging into our work, allow us to show up and be vulnerable. But beneath this, I think, secretly, in our heart of hearts… or at least, let me speak for me. Secretly, in my heart of hearts, I am hoping that this work of building the covenant will prevent conflict from ever happening.

But really, how can it? Somewhere along the way, I learned the formal definition of conflict as two or more people who want things that are mutually exclusive. Or at least they think the things they want are mutually exclusive. And the people have feelings about it. They care about the outcome.

There will always be things about which we disagree. And since congregations are one of the places where we engage in things that really matter, we are likely to have strong feelings about some of the things we disagree about.

But notice that in this definition of conflict, no one has actually behaved badly – at least not yet. If a covenant has been broken, someone has broken a promise. At the start of a conflict, what promise has been broken? None.

[What if we believed,] at a level below speech, maybe even below consciousness, that what we really meant by the covenant was a promise never to disagree with each other – at least not deeply, not about anything that really matters.

As we move into a conflict, if we thought, even if we didn’t say it out loud, that our covenant was supposed to prevent conflict, then the fact that conflict is now present must mean that someone has broken our covenant, even if we can’t really put our finger on how that happened."

"...what if it is possible to be in conflict and in covenant at the same time? What if it is possible to disagree – deeply, truly disagree – about things that really matter to us and still be in covenant all the way through the engagement and hopefully the resolution of that conflict? How would that change the way we show up in our conflicts? It might make us turn toward our covenants in times of conflict. Not because we think the covenant has failed and needs to change, but because we expect the covenant to be able to hold us through difficulty, and give us some guidance for the path through.

...The covenant might help us remember that we care about each other, even though we disagree right now. It gets a little easier to choose to engage with honesty, transparency, compassion, and a desire for cooperation if we remember that we care about each other’s well being. This might lead us to curiosity about why those we care about feel so deeply in a way we disagree with. This could lead us back into a space of creativity where we can find a way to meet the most important needs that once felt impossible to reconcile.

I used to think of congregational covenants as quite fragile things. I wouldn’t have articulated this out loud. But I thought about them breaking an awful lot. What I am coming to realize is that our covenants are more robust and more resilient than we think – or they could be if we practiced them with that intention. If we entered conflict, struggled together through it, processed it, and came out the other side understanding ourselves to be held by the covenant throughout. If we keep firm our commitment to belong to each other, to care about each other’s welfare, to treat each other well, even when that is hard."

~Erica Baron

you can read the whole piece by clicking the link above. It will take you to an external webpage.

And the first duty of this covenant relationship is that congregations must seriously consider each other’s welfare when making decisions. This mutual covenant stands at the deepest historically roots of our Unitarian Universalist way to doing church.

This mutual covenant stands at the deepest historically roots of our Unitarian Universalist way to doing church. And yet we tend to operate as if church autonomy requires a distorted form of congregational Darwisnism—an assumption that survival of the fittest is the way things are supposed to work and congregations compete with one another for scarce resources and members. The strong survive and the weak are relegated to the sideline to wither.

In all of my years of attending congregational meetings, I’ve rarely, if ever, heard a discussion about how the decisions we make might impact other Unitarian Universalist congregations in the cluster or district or region. Sometimes we reluctantly talk about our obligations to pay district or UUA fair share assessments, but we rarely discuss that financial obligation as part of the much larger covenantal duty we have to all of our sister congregations.

...

Our Puritan ancestors knew better. They believed in congregational autonomy in mutual covenant; not congregational Darwinism. They knew they were all in it together—and that the strength or weakness of one was the strength and weakness of all.

If we are concerned about the future of Unitarian Universalism and if we want to be true to our roots in congregational polity, we need to put a stop to congregational Darwinism - whether we find it on our boards, in our churches or in our districts."

~Rev. Joan Van Becelaere, 2014

We accidentally hurt one another. We apologize, repair, and return. It is core to who we are that we do the work of justice. It is core to who we are to choose to work so that we cause less harm, increase wholeness. and work toward justice and liberation. To do this, we return to the table again and again. We can do this hard thing.

You Can Do This Hard Thing - Carrie Newcomer

There are lots of definitions of conflict.

I long believed that conflict had to and could only be intractable, dramatic, and scary. I thought it was incompatibly antagonistic opposing positions about needs, desires, and demands that had only a yes/no, win/lose outcome. Conflict was so often about power, and scary and hurtful things happened when there was conflict related to power.

In my early experience of life, if two things seemed incompatible, usually the one with the most power got their way. If I was lucky and we were in some sort of ethical agreement to listen, reflect, and be reasonable, I might be able to prove that I needed things my way.

But probably not.

You may have experienced a similar understanding of conflict that you experience as discomfort, such as a stomach ache or feeling shaky.

Or maybe you relish conflict. The adrenaline of a good argument makes you feel alive. You lean into arguing. Maybe you love the feeling of competition. Maybe you love the feeling of winning.

Or maybe you're just busy, and addressing conflict can take so much time away from other obligations that you leave it to others.

Or this particular conflict is low on your priorities.

These are all real, individual, human responses to conflict.

We can choose to follow our preferences or to participate in the work of the community.

Sometimes, people ask me, "What is this 'work' people keep going on about?"

I think it's this:

We choose to engage with difficult things in the service of our faith, of Love, and of justice. We choose to set aside our preference for quiet and calm, for avoidance. We can choose to set aside our preference for dramatic interactions. We can choose to practice—yes, practice—engaging in conflict in a new and different way.

The work is

a) to not believe we already have everything figured out,

b) to not believe everything we already think and to pay attention to our feelings,

c) to learn new or different practices of relational engagement in how we deal with disagreement of ideas, beliefs, or customary procedures,

d) to put those into practice.

e - z) And again.

Whether it's the work of living faithfully with our planet, uncovering and correcting the ways we may unintentionally harm some of our peers or the work of shared ministry, we can choose to "do conflict" differently.

With Love at the center, covenant holding us, we faithfully choose to move together to build Beloved Community.

_{~CB Beal}

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

"Every Sunday morning, the church choir and I spend time in reflection and silence before we begin the first worship service. I often offer my thoughts on the day's theme or the state of the world, providing context to the message we bring.

On a recent Sunday, I said to the choir, “So often, we make the mistake of living according to our hopes instead of according to our realities.” I didn't mean to say it, and I didn't know that I would. But as I did, the statement became immediately true.

I wonder if, in our efforts to “be the change we wish to see in the world,” we stop short at our ideal selves: the idea of ourselves we are most comfortable with. I wonder how often I think I've already been the change—and I'm waiting idly for the tendencies of the world to catch up. I’m unsettled by how frequently I’m surprised by my own social idiocy. How many times need I screw up the same person's pronouns, or note that I am not surprised that the person who just nearly ran me off the road is of a certain race and/or age, or make immediate assumptions about someone because of what I perceive to be their class?

Or maybe this is a better question: How many times do I need to make mistakes at the expense of other people, or people’s groups, before I’m ready to admit that I’m not any better at this than the bigoted and willfully ignorant?

I am liberal. Often painfully so. I am not enlightened. I am not elevated. I am not better. But I believe, with everything I am, that I can be.

“Change” is a word on wheels. It’s not a destination, but a journey. If I am to “be change,” I must commit to humility and refuse to settle for my own comforting achievements.

Prayer

That which is in us and all around us and which constantly draws us to our holiest selves, remove from me any spirit of complacency that would aim to prevent me from seeing the truth of myself. Strengthen me as I commit to a lifestyle of development. And, remind me that that lifestyle is simply called love. Amen.

DeReau K. Farrar

from: Braver/Wiser: A Weekly Message of Courage and Compassion, September 12, 2017

It read:

We avow our faith: In God as eternal and all-conquering love; In the spiritual leadership of Jesus; In the supreme worth of every human personality; In the authority of truth, known or to be known; And in the power of men of goodwill and sacrificial spirit to overcome all evil and progressively establish the Kingdom of God.

In 1944, a committee of the American Unitarian Association issued a statement of “Five Principles of Modern Unitarianism”:

Individual freedom of belief;

Discipleship to advancing truth;

Democratic process in human relations;

Universal brotherhood, undivided by nation, race, or

creed; [and]

Allegiance to the cause of a United World Community.

David Bumbaugh spoke of these differences in 2009 at the fiftieth anniversary of the vote to unite the Universalist and Unitarian denominations. He said the AUA statement "is a programmatic statement intended to suggest and support an important social vision. It does little to root that vision in any specific religious claim. Indeed, it is a statement of principles that a wide array of groups, religious and secular, could readily embrace."

He said of the Universalist statement, "...this was a theological statement; it departed in significant ways from earlier faith statements, but it affirmed Universalism’s ancient, central commitments, it spoke of those commitments in the language of the day, and it rooted the call for social justice in a religious vision."

I don't think that Unitarian Universalists ever experienced a time when we were not struggling with our diversity of religious beliefs, identity, and experience in the world. No time we have not had different ideas about our commitment to justice, our sense of how our congregations can best be in relationship with one another, and our theological understanding of why any of that matters.

Recently, I (CB) was part of a conversation in which someone said that some people "... are trying to turn UU into a Social Justice Organization." I reminded them that two decades before the merger, 80 years ago, it was the Unitarians that wrote a statement that was clearly about social justice as they understood it at the time. Social Justice is in our DNA, and perhaps the challenge was that this person didn't agree with the particular positions we are taking for justice, who was included (all are included), or how.

These aren't conversations where there are winners and losers or people score points. These are conversations where we strive for increasing understanding of how we move forward as a diverse people in covenant.

There has never not been conflict.

What we have in common are our Values.

Love.

Justice.

Equity.

Transformation.

Pluralism.

Interdependence.

Generosity.

I write this before the 2024 General Assembly, and another Value or two may be added. Or the delegates, in our democratic system, may vote it down. I look forward to the conversation. I believe we share these values at the core of our faith, whether or not they pass, and that our future challenges will be as we discern, in times of conflict, how we live them out.

How we live these Values in the world, what force drives us to demonstrate them better (social justice,) how we make meaning about our lives and actions, and what, if any, force supports and drives us, (theology) will likely always involve conflict and change.

Our only faithful response to this challenge is to get better at healthy, productive, generative, and humane conflict.

.

.

.

There will be those who recognize Dr. Bumbaugh's words here. In the larger piece, he offered a good deal of challenge and invited us to engage our theology, our core convictions, in more contemporary terms because we had failed to do so. He said, "This becomes clear when we consider the all-but-sanctified Principles and Purposes. They simply hang there as unanchored assertion—not a covenant, but a temporal agreement."

You can read more here. The unfulfilled dream | UU World Magazine

The live version above is great for lots of reasons, but has meh audio.

Here's an alt link to a higher-quality audio with lyrics on the screen. https://youtu.be/4BgF7Y3q-as?si=H0stlS533DenBqrP (this link will open in a new window.)

I hear this song as a plea to invite community, Spirit, all that is good to join together to move forward into whatever comes next.

As you listen, notice your breathing and emotional response. Notice where your mind goes and how your heart feels as you listen and/or view the images.

Who are your angels? For whom do you show up in community, even when we're not sure how it all goes.

_{Lyrics are available here: (link opens new window) https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/4279877/Jane+Siberry/Calling+All+Angels}

"In a world marked by imperfections and the passage of time, the concept of repair takes on a profound significance. Repair is not merely about fixing broken objects or restoring functionality; it extends to healing relationships, bridging divides, and nurturing our connection with the world around us.

Repair, at its heart, embodies the essence of compassion, forgiveness, and growth. It’s not about sweeping problems under the rug; it’s about facing them head-on, armed with the belief that even the most shattered connections can be healed.

...Rooted in the Unitarian Universalist values, the idea of repair is not just a practical necessity but a spiritual calling that encourages us to cultivate compassion, empathy, and a commitment to justice.

...Communities can heal and thrive through repair. In a world filled with divisiveness, UUs stand as advocates for unity and harmony. Repairing the bonds that hold communities together exemplifies the transformative power of commitment to growth, both individually and collectively.

...In the warm embrace of Unitarian Universalist values, the concept of repair takes on a transformative meaning. It becomes a guiding light, illuminating the path toward justice, compassion, and interconnectedness. Repairing brokenness, be it in relationships, communities, or the environment, aligns harmoniously with the principles that Unitarian Universalists hold dear."

these are excerpts of the wonderful piece by JeKaren Olaoya, Embracing Repair. This link will take you to the whole. Embracing Repair - Quest for Meaning

Scars
Are proof that
Life has moved forward
Has either hurt
Or healed
Changed

There is strength there
In the space between
Where the skin
Knits itself together

The power of what
We can’t see easily
Gives us strength
We didn’t know we had

There is beauty there
Where the healing happens
It seems angry like fire
But it is life

Eager to be repaired

There is no brokenness
Though fragile
Our skin is strong enough
To break only under
Extreme pressure
And we are mostly ok
After

Scars don’t take away from
Or make us less
It’s ok to be afraid
To show them

But know
You will always be
Worthy
And free to be
Whole
No matter how many scars
Grace your body
In service to who you are

The thin horizon of a plan is almost clear,
my friends and i have had a tough time
bruising our brains hard up against change;
all the old dogs and the magician
Now i see we're in the boat in two-by-twos,
only the heart that we have for a tool we could use
and the very close quarters are hard to get used to;
love weighs the hull down with it's weight
But the wood is tired, and the wood is old,
and we'll make it fine, if the weather holds.
but if the weather holds, we'll have missed the point;
that's where i need to go.

Find the rest of the lyrics here.

Indigo Girls - The Wood Song Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

_{Songwriter Emily Ann Saliers}

Lyrics:

We have come with a force more powerful.

Than the guns in our enemies hands.

It's our love of all creation.

That will liberate this land.

Lyrics:

Keep your heart

wide open

though the waves

gonna push you 'round

you gotta keep your heart

wide open

till your faith

brings you back

to solid ground.

I'm gonna keep my heart wide open

though these waves wanna push me 'round

I'm gonna keep my heart wide open

till my faith brings me back to solid ground.

We gotta keep our hearts wide open

though these waves wanna push me 'round

we gotta keep our hearts wide open

till our faith brings us back to solid ground.

You can find more, and support Lea Morris here LEA MORRIS (thisislea.com)

printed lyrics here. Belinda Carlisle - Heaven Is A Place On Earth Lyrics | AZLyrics.com

_{All lyrics avail here:}

_{The Highwomen - Crowded Table Lyrics | AZLyrics.com}

_Lyrics:

_{We are moving in wider circles
We are opening our circle
We are moving in wider circles
We are opening our circles (2)}

_{Oh be a compass
I'll be your lighthouse
Speak your words with triumph
And I will watch your mouth}

_{I'll march with you my sister
To your place of fearing
We'll dive into those waters
Swim into the clearing}

_{We'll always keep our heads up
We'll always sing along
We'll walk the path of kindness
Know where we belong}

_{And I'll march with you my brother
To the mountaintop
We'll hold back the dynamite
Make the rumble stop}

_{Oh be a pillar
I'll be your mockingbird
We'll sing the rock of ages
Yes, we will be heard}

_{Let's form a great salvation
Through harmony and sound
We'll know the shape of progress
Like nature, it's always round
Like nature, it's always round}

_{We are moving in wider circles
We are opening our circle
We are moving in wider circles
We are opening our circles (2)}

Sometimes, we discuss managing change by "moving at the speed of trust" (Adrienne Maree Brown.) This is important because trust is necessary for conflict transformation and moving forward together. But it's not simple, because we each have responsibility to make ourselves trustworthy.

We don't just sit around waiting for someone to trust us or for someone to suddenly smack their heads in surprise, "I could have had a V8! Gosh, I trust you now!"

Instead, we practice becoming more trustworthy.

We practice communication skills and practices of soothing and calming, reorienting, bearing witness, apologizing, and offering repair.

We practice the skills of honesty and boundary setting;

"Oh! I was wrong about that!" or

"I need time to think about this more before we continue this conversation." or

"You keep saying this thing I have told you hurts me. Please figure out how to stop doing that and come back to talk to me when you have some new thoughts about that."

We can simultaneously have faith in one another, recognize the reality that we will fall short of our intentions, and that we can increase our capacity to show up the ways we have promised to show up.

This exploration in this pad here is an invitation to think broadly, deeply, and perhaps differently about some of these things. Ideas that Unitarian Universalists have been batting around for decades.

~CB

Our communities of memory and promise are founded upon covenants because we all need a defense against the impulse of immediate feelings that challenge our best intentions. It is necessary to be reminded from time to time of what you said you were going to do, and what you really want, over and above the lure of momentary comfort.

"Covenant" is our word for the solemn promises that counteract the randomness of a future in which anything and everything is possible, by committing us in advance to certain relationships and values. We do [this] because what we build with intention, and even with difficulty, is more satisfying in the long run than the pleasures that we happen to encounter. We do it in time-consuming rituals, invoking powers that we scarcely know how to name, because we are seeking some way to give our lives the density, and dignity, and depth that we suspect, with longing, might yet be possible.

Kendyl R. L. Gibbons, 2018

I put my faith in you.
I put my faith in every one of you who woke up this morning with the weight of loss—manifesting as numbness, anger, fear, or an alienating, aching pain.
I put my faith in you, and I pray you will put your faith in me.
We need one another now, because we will not make it alone.

~Anya Sammler-Michael, 2018

A covenant is not a definition of a relationship; it is the framework for our relating. A covenant leaves room for chance and change, it is humble toward evolution. It claims: I will abide with you in this common endeavor, be present as best as I can in our becoming. This calls for a level of trust, courage and sacrifice that needs to be nurtured, renewed and affirmed on a regular basis.

A creed creates a static truth, something that does not incorporate new insights and realities.
A covenant is a dance of co-creation, keeping in step with one another in the flow of our lives.

A creed seeks uniformity and a unison voice.
A covenant seeks harmony and a shared voice. Sometimes we may arrive at a unison, but it is not required.

A creed gives authority to the statement.
A covenant gives authority to shared intention.

A creed creates an “us” and “them.”
A covenant invites relationship.

A creed is a prescription that must be relied on.
A covenant relies on the treasures of shared truth.

Lisa Ward, 2015.

If what we think something is about comes from a faith tradition we have left or a worldview we have chosen to challenge, it can be helpful to find ways to spark different perspectives.

Sometimes, when people disagree in congregational and community life, part of the challenge is because we have a thought and then believe that thought. This includes things as seemingly simple as definitions and concepts. This page offers avenues to bring curiosity, to rest and reflect rather than energetically enter a fray.

We hope you will follow the path along each entry, taking time to breathe, invite curiosity, check your thoughts, and ponder. This won't happen by accident.

We must intentionally carve out time for a good ponder in a world of immediate communication.

CB's work at Justice and Peace Consulting calls us to lean into the practices of Preemptive Radical Inclusion.

Preemptive Radical Inclusion is an orientation, philosophy, and set of practices to support individuals and groups in making meaningful moves toward justice and liberation. It's grounded in the intersection of trauma-aware and anti-oppression practices. It is a framework that intentionally positions us to presuppose that everyone is already and always in the room without waiting for them to express their needs individually. We practice curiosity about our own thoughts and beliefs and where they came from and choose not to believe everything we already think. We bear witness. We learn from communities' best practices and emerging consensus about how the world impacts them.

We can bear witness...Blackbird. The invitation here is to use this as a meditation and watch and read in the order they appear. Notice what changes in the music, in the sound, in yourself. Notice what you think and feel as you listen, and how that thinking and feeling may shift.

This is folklore that is well known to many of us UU's, and will likely be new to others.

It does not appear that Paul McCartney knew of this level of meaning, but when we do, the song gains depth of meaning.

Individuality - total character peculiar to and distinguishing an individual from others

Individualism -

1. a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount, the conception that all values, rights, and duties originate in individuals, and

2. a theory maintaining the political and economic independence of the individual and stressing individual initiative, action, and interests.

Come, come, whoever you are

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vows

a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

-- Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī

(Sufi mystic poet, 1207-1273 CE)

Faith-rooted solidarity is not transactional. It might be described as universal relational because its adherents say, “I know that my well-being is totally and irrevocably tied up with yours. My liberation is dependent on yours.

~Pam Sparr, “Transforming Unitarian Universalist Culture” _{from the 2018-19 UUA Common Read book, Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class and the Environment.}

How does this truth enter our decision-making processes on both large and small scales? How do we remind ourselves that liberation isn't a zero-sum game, that liberation isn't pie -- there must be enough for everyone.

It is to our peril that we prioritize comfort, or avoid discomfort, by abstaining from difficult conversations or decisions. No change throughout our institutional history was received, initially, with ease. None of them”

“Comfort doesn’t come from resistance. Resistance eats at us. Comfort comes from integrity – from knowing that we are consistent with our values. And when our values are challenged, comfort comes from doing the work, the courageous work, of opening ourselves [and asking]

What if we were wrong about this?

Integrity is when we live, fully, in alignment with our highest understanding. And is a continuously evolving process.”

~Rev. Anne Barker

What automatic thoughts have you noticed when considering Beloved Community?

Have you noticed thoughts or beliefs that you might want to examine to find out if you are accidentally repeating old tropes and beliefs instead of learning and growing? Where are you completely sure of yourself, and what may be in your own mind that you wonder if there's more to learn?

Who can help you over the barriers that prevent you from noticing what else there still is to learn?

Who can you help?

Unitarian Universalists sometimes find ourselves feeling some kind of way about power. I like that phrase, some kind of way, because it allows for multiple emotions that mix into something akin to unease. But we have to recognize that there is power wielded to harm and power of rising up and opposing harm. We need to get comfortable with the second.

This song speaks to the importance of not simply knowing the right thing to do but doing it; not just waking up to the depths of oppression but rising to oppose it, and in doing so, changing the world for the better.

It's not the wakin', it's the risin'
It is the groundin' of a foot uncompromisin'
It's not forgoin' of the lie, It's not the openin' of eyes
It's not the wakin', it's the risin'

It's not the shade we should be casting
It's the light, it's the obstacle that casts it
It's the heat that drives the light
It's the fire it ignites
It's not the wakin', it's the risin'

It's not the song, it is the singin'
It's the heaven of the human spirit ringin'
It is the bringin' of the line
It is the bearin' of the rhyme
It's not the wakin', it's the risin'

We can take strength from the reality that those who have come before us spoke truth to power.

And I could cry power (power)
Power (power)
Power, Lord!
Nina cried power
Billie cried power
Mavis cried power
And I could cry power
Power (power)
Power (power)
Power, Lord!
Curtis cried power
Patti cried power
Nina cried power

Hozier writes about this song and video,

"This song was intended as a thank you note to the spirit and legacy of protest; to the artists who imbued their work with the vigour of dissent, and a reflection on the importance of that tradition in the context of the rights, and lives, we enjoy today. My hope for this video is much the same. Ireland has undergone a socio-cultural sea change, the results of which will benefit generations to come. We are witness to a new Ireland waking to the consciousness of itself; a kinder, more inclusive nation. This video is an attempt to acknowledge just a handful of those who have fought for this new Ireland, and whose work continues to inspire me."

This video is made more powerful to know that the people listening to the song are the activists that are being thanked by this song. If you click through to YouTube itself, the notes under the video identify them by name and note some of what they have contributed to creating a more inclusive and just Ireland.

And I could cry power
Power has been cried by those stronger than me
Straight into the face that tells you to rattle your chains
If you love bein' free

We are accountable to one another as our predecessors were accountable to one another and to their future, our present. We are accountable to make things better for those who come next. We can be the ancestors someone sings about one day.

Full lyrics are available here. Hozier – Nina Cried Power Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

You can download the track and get the full lyrics here. Plowshare Prayer | Spencer LaJoye (bandcamp.com)

David Frasier wrote a song he calls "I need you to survive:" I'd like to say that as we endeavor to be a community standing together affirming the worth and dignity of Black lives, we must enter the songs of Black lives with humility, curiosity, and first, we must endeavor consciously to resist the temptation to colonize it with the changes that make us more comfortable inside of it. If we can be present to Black faith and Black faiths then in solidarity we might enter into the blessed relationship that allows us to deserve to be called allies. In this sense, sing this song with me, with curiosity, with humility, and with joined faith.