Leaving Legacies

Yesterday I attended a program on "Faithful Generosity" sponsored by the Pacific Central District of the UUA and led by Laurel Amabile, Director of the UUA Annual Program Fund. It got me thinking once again about legacies, a subject that has been much on my mind of late.

Although UUism as measured by the average age of members isn't aging as quickly as I am, the last figure I saw on the former was that it was at 50-something and rising. My experience with the Berkeley Fellowship of UUs, where the average age was and remains much higher (it's coming down), made me more aware of the need for action if my generation -- the front spear of the Baby Boomers -- and the generation that preceded it are to leave a legacy of UUism to the generations that follow.

I've also been thinking about "legacy" in negative terms as well. I fear the environmental legacy we are leaving future generations.

I'm happy to report that I see a positive nexus between the two concerns. We can leave a legacy of UUism and a more positive environmental legacy by increasing UU focus on environmental issues. In our ranks, we have the scientists and engineers; the organizational specialists, community organizers, and therapists; and the ministers to create change. We also have the capacity to engage young adults and youth around these issues. Now is the time to face these challenges. Now is the time to rejuvenate UUism.

Tactics, Emergency Preparedness, and Ministry

Thanks to Elizabeth Curtiss, AKA PolityWonk, wrote the following on Facebook in response to Friday's "Health, Trust, and Testing" post:

Today's post at PolityWonk says that with all the money flying into Congress from greedy corporations -- and all the elected officials who love that life -- we need to change tactics completely.

Elizabeth's post was prompted by the Supreme Court decision by this week's Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign financing described in this New Yorker article. She suggests ways of taking political and social justice actions to take back government from corporations.

I too want to take back government to help us veer off our environmentally destructive path. There's something in the air: both literally as in too much carbon and figuratively in terms of sensing it's time for a change. Recently, there was a outpouring of interest in trauma ministry among local UU community ministers. You could attribute this interest to our being in the earthquake-threatened SF Bay Area and the horror in Haiti, and you might be right. However, there are also predictions that water accumulating under the Greenland and Antarctica glaciers may result in their sliding into the oceans and raising sea levels 200 feet within 12-24 hours. This would put much of the SF Bay Area, including the humble abode of this author, underwater.

It's hard to write about this topic without appearing to be the friar from the old New Yorker cartoons who carried a sign "The end of the world is nigh." It's also hard to not to think about Gore's metaphor of the boiled frog (frogs won't jump into hot water but you can boil them by gradually increasing the temperature of the water that they're in because they can't sense the gradual increase).

During the years I worked in strategic planning, I had lots of opportunities to say that my crystal ball is cloudy. However, cloudy isn't the same empty. Look around you, what do you see? What does it say about ministry and our denomination?

The Critical Competency

Climate change, quite simply, is the issue of the 21st century. It is not one issue among many, but, like the canary in the mine, it is warning us that the way we are living on our planet is causing us to head for disaster. We must change. All of the other issues we care about--social justice, peace, prosperity, freedom--cannot occur unless our planet is healthy. It is the unifying issue of our time; it is our "World War II," as it were: the concern that must develop into a worldwide movement for change of mind and change of action.
--Sallie McFague A New Climate for Theology: God, the World, and Global Warming

McFague goes on to argue that our individualist theology, philosophy, and anthropology are exhausted and must be replaced by a communitarian (from "communitarianism" not "communism") perspective. How are we preparing UU ministers to lead this change?

Since we're talking communitarianism and a whole new view of humanity and divinity, how are we preparing UU laity to lead this change?

Christmas & Credentialing

Merry Christmas everyone!

I just got caught up on my e-mails yesterday. When that happens in Gmail, a little message appears asking whether you'd like to look at Google reader. I did so and found this most interesting post about ministerial credentialing at iMinister. Here are some responses to the points made there:

1. A cost-benefit analysis of UU credentialing is an excellent idea. I believe it is within the charge to the workgroup now being formed by the UUA Board in response to a recommendation from the Excellence in Ministry Summit.

2. A brief, high-stakes interview is a terrible way of determining who is qualified to be a UU minister. However, it's important not to confuse the culminating event in a process with the entire process. Now having served as a liaison to candidates, I am more aware of the importance of the packet review in the decision-making process of the Committee. From the outside, the interview appeared to have more weight in MFC decisions than it actually has.

This is not to say that the ministerial examining process could not be improved. A subgroup of the MFC Process Working Group is being created to further examine the interviewing process.

3. I couldn't agree more that "it would be best to be clearer and more transparent about who needs ministers to know what." It's even more important to be clearer and more transparent about who needs ministers to do what.

Furthermore, there's a disconnect between how the MFC sees itself, and how it is perceived by others. More transparency in the examining process, including how the MFC determines what questions to ask, can help to close this gap.

Yet an important part of the gap is not informational. It is, to use a phrase made famous during the Johnson Administration, a credibility gap. This credibility gap isn't generated by misdeeds and deceit. Rather it is a consequence of the fears generated by the high stakes involved in the MFC's decisions, the need to protect the privacy of candidates, the weight of tradition, and the paucity of resources. We can reduce it.

In this paragraph of the post, there is a misconception that the MFC interview is primarily fact-based, like a game of Jeopardy. Candidates can't afford to miss all the fact-based questions, but they are not the primary focus/point of the interview.

Finally, while we have congregational polity, we have an increasing number of community ministers. The needs of the communities they serve--hospitals, shelters, prisons, birth control clinics--should also be taken into account in designing and implementing ministerial examining processes.

4. Yes, written comprehensive exams--and alternatives to accommodate candidates with learning disabilities--would be fairer that a short oral interview covering 16 competencies if it is decided that the candidates' ability to recall such factual information is critical. In today's wired world, this is an anachronism. UU ministers should be able to locate facts, not be walking encyclopedias. Our exams should speak to whether they are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready for UU ministry.

5. The point of the Gladwell article is that in many occupations, the examining (and possibly the educational) process is flawed and does a terrible job of predicting success in the occupation. We can't conclude from it or from our current experience that all examining processes would not be predictive of ministerial success.

It is possible to put more weight on internships and residencies. It may even be possible to hold internship and residency supervisors accountable for their recommendations. Then the MFC examination would be likely to be more predictive of success because it would be based on more reliable and valid evaluations of candidates doing ministry.

6. The MFC's workload is massive. And it ties into orge's remark about competencies propagating like tribbles (for non-Star Trek fans, think "rabbits"). I am making recommendations to the subgroup of the Process Working Group on both of these topics.

As mentioned above, in addition to the MFC subgroup, a UUA Board inititated workgroup is being formed to look at all UU credentialing processes.

I am so pleased that this topic is generating such interest. It's a wonderful Christmas present.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the UU Principles Vote

As a delegate to the 2009 UU General Assembly, I became engaged in the discussion and vote to amend the UU Principles. The proposed amendments spoke to UU identity and to competencies for UU ministry.

Before GA, I was aware of, but not deeply engaged in, the Commission on Appraisal review of the Principles. The editing of the Principles was minor. The changes to the Sources provoked some concern, but my attention was elsewhere.

The funny thing that happened on the way to the vote were my multiple visits to the HUUmanists booth in the exhibition hall. They had a petition to reject the changes, and I fell into discussion regarding their objections.

I'm not a religious humanist (or at least not exclusively a religious humanist); I'm a mystical nondualist. The HUUmanists objected to the changes in the Sources because they no longer sufficiently acknowledged "Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit." I objected to the deletion of "Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life" as our first source.

I also objected to the new opening to the Sources:

Unitarian Universalism is rooted in two religious heritages. Both are grounded on thousands of years of Jewish and Christian teachings, traditions, and experiences.

The "rooted" imagery gives the impression that UUism still draws its primary nourishment from Judaism and Christianity.

For many of us, the history of Unitarianism is a newly 200-year movement away from Christianity. We draw our spiritual nourishment from other sources. However, the current list of Competencies for UU Ministry, with their privileging of Christian Church history and Jewish and Christian scriptures, does not seem to adequately recognize that change nor the diversity within UUism.

Someone once told me that hymnals often lag behind changes in theology that are appear elsewhere in worship. Is our list of ministerial competencies also lagging behind? Or are we turning back to Christianity, disappointed with humanism and mysticism?