If you have been on a family or personal UU retreat, please tell me about it. I am in need of something. I want to know if these are worth the price, based on real experiences.
Thanks.

It's going to be in Providence RI this year, which is do-able for me. Is it for ministers and all politics, or is it enjoyable and soul-nourishing for everyday UUs?

Hello UUreddit! Many of us have been impacted by the high tensions that have gone on here and in our denomination in the past month. In recognition that this subreddit serves as the "welcome mat" for many people new to UUism, as the mod team here pointed out, some of us decided that there needed to be a separate subreddit for more difficult discussions about our religious tradition.

Thus, we have created r/UUnderstanding.

I hope this gets received as an attempt to find a way to continue discussion, not shut it down, and to do so in a healthier framework than we've been engaged in. As the name implies, it really is not about pushing an agenda, or about bickering, or about enabling toxic ideas. But it is about trying to understand where each other is coming from instead of trying to prove ourselves right. It is about doing the work of conversation as a community still covenanted by the 7 Principles. It is about maintaining an openness and freedom of discussion, but within a framework of constructive, non-violent communication. It can be a place to air grievances, but in a way that is productive. It is about letting people who are new to the tradition be excited by its possibilities and inclusion in the spaces where that is centered, while allowing those of us who have been around longer to get into the nitty gritty, messier conversations that are still nevertheless important.

For my part, I'd like to apologize for any pain I've caused in the course of discussions being heated on here. We often have passion because we have pain, but that does not excuse any pain that I may have caused in turn.

Another purpose for /r/UUnderstanding is to maintain a lay-organized historical resource for UU history and theology. We are still working out the specifics of how contributions and edits to the wikis will be made, but our interest is in not just representing one side of any issue, and to have this slowly grow over time.

So we hope that this community is not only a place for UUs to discuss difficult issues, but becomes a learning place for how to do that better, a living laboratory of how we can be together in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.

I hope you'll add your voice to the conversation and help us understand each other.

It was said in another thread that "Spirituality is nothing but feel good nothingness and academic gooblygook unless it leads to impactful direct action." Therefore, it was argued, we as UUs should be focusing primarily on activism. This may feel like it makes even more sense due to how hard it is for us to all theologically agree on anything. It seems like this is the predominant UUA culture nowadays.

This is actually not a particularly new religious debate or one unique to UU, as it parallels the debate over the Catholic doctrine that one is saved by both "faith and works". This was called "justification by works". Protestants rejected this, saying it is only by faith we are saved from Hell, but that good works should/would naturally follow as a result of this faith. (For more, here's the Wiki page on this debate)

"That's great, but I'm not a Christian. So how does this Christian debate about salvation apply to our modern UU church which includes buckets of atheists?"

So let's substitute the idea of "faith" with "spirituality" or "personal development", and substitute "salvation from hell" with "becoming more grounded, centered, compassionate, inspired, nourished, and filled with love for the world". So now it would look something like this:

It is not by our activism we become more grounded, centered, compassionate, inspired, nourished, and filled with love for the world, it is by spiritual and personal development. Out of our development, activism will then arise.

Maybe this seems like an obvious or unimportant nitpick, or maybe you're saying the goal shouldn't be just becoming more compassionate and nourished. But I would argue when we operate from the subtle "salvation through activism" mindset that we have, it's very problematic not only for our personal development, but it doesn't actually lead to more effective activism either.

I would argue that our role as a religious institution is not to do activism first, second, and third, just because those are the things we all can agree on (which as we've seen isn't true anyway). Our role, our talent, our gift is to--forgive me for invoking a Principle--encourage spiritual development in our congregations. Our unique position in the greater religious landscape is that we are one of the few places that atheists, agnostics, and anti-dogmatists can go to church and be fully honest about what they believe.

These outcasts of other religions need nourishment. They need inspiration. They need teachings to get through the tough parts of their daily lives and reminders of what's important. "They"? We do. I sure as hell do.

There are many other needs out there, but there are also many other secular institutions doing all kinds of justice work, which many of us have dual-memberships in. They are designed from the ground up to that. But there are very, very few others that seek to serve both people of all kinds of belief and no beliefs whatsoever in their spiritual development. We excel in serving the world's need when we focus on spiritual development that somehow still manages to serve all of us outcasts.

Now from this focus on spiritual or personal development, we can fully expect activism to naturally arise, as it historically has. But the problem I see is that we are wanting to shortcut our spiritual development into doing just the direct action, and that this phrase includes the hidden subtext "direct action that I agree with". Justification by works.

Thus, we have put the activist cart before the spiritual horse. And when we do that, we get caught in the trap of dualistic thinking, which is the antithesis of good spirituality.

Dualism, or "black and white", "us vs. them", is the enemy to seeing the common humanity in one another, and a common trait in harmful religion throughout history (the Crusaders certainly had a dualistic, "good vs. evil" conviction about their "activism").

Conversely, seeing the non-dualistic humanity in one another is the foundation of effective activism. It's why it's our first principle points to the worth and dignity of every person, and not just "every person we like". For me personally, seeing the humanity in all is also the foundation of my progressivism, but that spiritual foundation reigns supreme over my progressive politics. In Buddhist terms, politics are "conventional truths" (or 'relative' truth) and non-dualism is "ultimate truth".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine

So, healthy spirituality really speaks to reminding us of these ultimate truths more than these relative truths, and therefore is non-sectarian and apolitical. This doesn't require you sacrificing your politics, but if your spiritual lessons and teachings are always centered in assuming progressive orthodoxies as truth a priori, you are going to reinforce dualistic, "our enemies are things to be defeated" thinking that is inherently anti-spiritual. By reinforcing this thinking, the enemies become not just conservatives, they become anyone who doesn't pass your own personal "purity" test.

This is best illustrated in the classic Emo Philips joke:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"

He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"

He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"

Northern Conservative†Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.

In short, dualism always leads not only to a hostile relationship towards the outside world who isn't like us and "doesn't get it", but it leads to infighting and internal judgments that we see all across our denomination today. We UUs agree on so much in principle. But just as the Catholic problem of focusing on works, when you measure someone else's spiritual worthiness by their level of activism, you now have a new weapon of your judgment and a feeding ground for your ego. You have a tool to manipulate people into giving you their money as penance for their guilt. I would caution any of us against thinking our institutional leaders are immune from wielding this tool.

I also think it often doesn't lead to as much "direct action" as we think, because a lot of that action is centered on attempts to purify our denomination rather than helping people in concrete ways. The Catholics experienced this when their priests taught parishoners could be saved through the "good works" of enriching the church. So, then, should we be having more workshops than soup kitchens? Should our forums be on why we need more forums?

I firmly believe the way forward is for us to focus on our spiritual development. This focus will actually result in better, more unified activism; it will nourish that activism. It will inform that activism. Rather than leaving yet another UU interaction with anger, resentment, and judgment, it will allow us to leave our shared spaces with energy, hope, and joy. That is fuel for our activism, and that is what we need.

So this really bothers me.

The UUA appropriately issued press releases on the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand and the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in solidarity with our Muslim and Jewish friends the same day of those attacks.

https://www.uua.org/pressroom/press-releases/message-solidarity-after-terrorist-attacks-new-zealand-mosques-0

https://www.uua.org/pressroom/press-releases/uua-president-responds-shooting-tree-life-synagogue

Rev. Susan Ferederick-Gray issued statements on each on her personal facebook page as well. But nothing on Sri Lanka, four days later.

https://www.facebook.com/revsusanfrederickgray/

Now, she does have a single tweet linking to a WaPo story of the attack: https://twitter.com/sfrederickgray/status/1119948519958355968

But curiously, while she usually mirrors all of her tweets on her Facebook page, there is again, no mention of this attack anywhere on her page, UU World, or the UUA official accounts. The UUA didn't even bother to deeem it necessary to retweet her.

Yet there is silence on the Sri Lanka attack. Why? Is all religious violence not to be denounced? Do our global Christian friends not deserve solidarity when being targeted?

It gives me serious pause, and yes, offends me. And there are only two reasonable reasons I can see why this happened:

A) Many UUs, and apparently many in the UUA, have a bias against Christianity that prevents them from caring about the attacks as much

B) There is no bigotry or "white supremacy" angle to be played here, both of which are featured in their Christchurch and Tree of Life shooting press releases.

In the absence of a good reason, for which I see none, I would love to hear at least an excuse for it.

Here: https://www.uua.org/uuagovernance/committees/commission-institutional-change/blogre/tapestry/adults/commitment/statement?fbclid=IwAR2aGN_fjHFTN9cunTCwEqsedv1ZJSwsru7rByGQ6JHwbLIdf-QHb-DJ-W0

I agree with some parts of this but I also find it so frustrating.

" To some of us, the conversation about white supremacy culture, its reach, and impacts are a given that impacts our daily lives. For others, perhaps a significant majority, naming white supremacy culture or even the existence of racial bias is an affront, offensive, and may even, for them, seem to interrupt the justice work of our Association by questioning its goals and values. "

Then they go on to characterize people in the "significant majority" as being just those who think there is no racism since we "won" the civil rights movement, or people who think racism exists only in terms of individual relationships / not systematic.

There's more to it, but this is so dismissive of any voice that isn't fully committees to major institutional change, that it feels more like an indictment than a welcoming to continued conversation. Is there a middle ground?

Or am I asking the wrong question?