Love-Making Elephants and Moments of Clarity

The last sentence of my previous post was too long, complicated, and obscure. Clarity hopefully follows.

When I worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), we used to say that all the major projects were like elephants making love: the underbrush was trampled, small creatures and flora could be damaged or even destroyed if they were in the way, there was a lot of trumpeting and other unpleasant noises, and there was no visible result for at least three years. (The actual gestation period for elephants is around 22 months, but for VA projects, 3 years could be just the kickoff.)

Over at the UUA View from Berkeley, UUA Trustee Linda Laskowski reports that the UUA Board has created a working group on excellence in ministry that will be convened by Rev. Doug Gallager. Starting on page 3 of its April 16, 2009, Report to the Board, the Ministerial Fellowshipping Committee (MFC) recommended a "comprehensive review of the MFC's role in fostering excellence in ministry" which is anticipated to take 2 to 3 years.

I applaud this recommendation of the MFC and wonder what might be done while the review is being undertaken. My previous post on prototyping was an argument for making adjustments while data collection and analysis occur.