I'm currently reading "Testimony: The Transformative Power of Unitarian Universalism" edited by Meg Riley. It is a great book! I've found it to be so encouraging to my faith. My family officially joined our local UU Church last Sunday after about a year of virtually attending. I'm so glad we have finally found a place to belong.
I'd love to hear your story! What brought you to Unitarian Universalism? How has it changed your life over the years?
How was your service today? Did you have an Ingathering service? If so, what did that look like?
Susan Frederick-Gray
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: Ingathering In Complicated Times"
How was your service today? What was it about? Did anything about it challenge or inspire you?
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: Updated COVID Guidance for the Delta Variant"
Obviously, how Amazon and its seller categorize books is fairly arbitrary and this doesn't mean anything- but still - I was thinking we'd get some books on UUism, books from the Goodreads UU group, books from the UUA common read. But the Top 25 Bestselling Unitarian Universalist books include:
#1 Powerful morning prayers for Christians. OK sure that's 10% of us but I can see why it' the best selling.
#2 & #5 Laws of Attraction based books. Really?
#4 and #11 and #14 The Kingdom of Cults, helping Christians identify false ideologies masquerading as religion. Hmmmmmm.
#18 is an academic text on " religious history from 330 B.C. to 330 A.D." OK
#25 When Religion Becomes Evil........... actually is useful from a UU perspective. Carry on!
#26 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a straight up psychology self help book. Are they trying to tell us something? Or does this get put into every religious category? Honestly that book probably would help anyone......
This is a lighthearted post, hopefully did not offend anyway.
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: Take a break and find some joy!"
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: There Is So Much Going On at General Assembly This Year"
Susan Frederick-Gray
,LaTonya Richardson
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From The UUA President: Navigating an In-Between Time"
Can we please put a moratorium on Stone Soup? I've heard it in sermons. I've heard it in children's services. I've heard it from guest preachers. I've heard it from guest speakers. Enough!
(Joking, mostly. But c'mon folks. Enough.)
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: We Continue to Nurture the Bonds of Care and Love"
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: We Are Held In Covenant"
Susan Frederick-Gray
Hello all - for context, I am a lapsed Catholic who disagrees severely with their anti-LGBTQ teachings, and I'm disgusted by the lack of punishment for paedophile priests, and the horrific findings of recent "mother and baby home" investigations. In short, I respect the faith but NOT the institution, and I feel continuing to identify as Catholic outwardly suggests that I overlook, or even condone these crimes, which I absolutely do not.
I've questioned my faith for some time, but on the whole, I don't feel that I can say I've renounced all notions of the existence of a higher spiritual being (or some such). Unitarianism intrigues me as it seems a lot more open and tolerant, and fitting for a progressive society, but coming from a position of ignorance about it (pardon me), I'm worried I'd just be swapping one doctrine for another.
In short, has anyone else ever been in my position? Did Unitarianism help you at all? Thank you for your time.
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "From the UUA President: Listening to the Call of Love"
The older I get, the more I notice how much of an impact OWL has had on my life. I wonder if other people feel so strongly, though, as I’ve never actually met another adult graduate. They seem really hard to find! In the past 2 years of attending all 3 UU churches in my large metro area, I’ve never run into another late 20s/early 30s attendee who grew up in the church. I would really love to find a community of other people who also went through OWL, but it doesn’t even seem like there are forums or FB groups for graduates.
Thought maybe I’d have some luck here.
Mostly I’d like to hear from other OWL grads about how it’s affected your dating and friendships.
Personally I feel like the comprehensive curriculum, combined with lots of practice from a young age in having deep conversations about sex & relationships, was almost like being inadvertently signed up for a lifetime role as peer sex educator. Which was fine for a while, I was happy to do that in college, but now I guess I just feel kind of burnt out from years of being the person people called when they had a contraception question or STD crisis, or talk through their sex hangups or gender identity issues, or about their abusive relationships. (I also did literally work as rape crisis counselor and worked in the lab of for my family’s medical clinic, so those things probably also contributed to why people saw me as a resource. So, maybe this isn’t a common experience for OWL folks, I’m not sure.)
Relatedly: Does anyone else find having massively better sex ed than 99% of the population makes it really challenging to date?
I’m hoping I have just had a string of rotten luck and need to have my perspective reset, but I sometimes feel like I’m living a Groundhog Day style sex-ed nightmare in how often I find myself returning to middle-school level conversations about STD prevention with potential dates. I now literally keep a file of pamphlets about the Gardisil HPV vaccine to hand out, for instance. (All these people were eligible for free or affordable vaccination, and none had medical contraindications, I should note. Frankly, most of them have been science grad students or Ph.D.s, so it’s not like they lacked access to information or care.)
There’s an article on the UUworld website written by a doctor and OWL facilitator which talks about a similar experience:
I was discussing a case about contraception with my first-year medical students recently and had just launched into a tirade about how latex and polyurethane condoms are the only kinds that protect against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Looking around the table, I was taken aback to see blank stares. These brilliant, accomplished adults knew less about condoms, I realized, than the seventh graders in the sexuality-education class I teach at my church.
Frankly, part of me worries about offending people even here by putting it so bluntly (because people have been), but can't figure out why I'm failing to meet more adults who have “mastered” basic sex ed, or at least the OWL basics — like contraception, disease prevention, and understand the differences between intimacy/romance/sensuality/sexuality, and how varied sexuality is across people and cultures. Somewhere between high school and my late 20s, finding a community of people like this has started to feel like an impossible dream — at least in the US. (According to the statistics I dug up there are only 200,000 people who have ever taken even 1 OWL class in the last 50 years…)
Perhaps I’ve somehow been going about it wrong and failing to attract the right people? (I admit I am an introvert, and not on social media … but I’d consider joining Twitter or using Reddit more if people could point me to an appropriate community for this type of stuff.)
Maybe someone here has some suggestions, or at least relate. If people want to talk about other experiences with OWL, I’d love to hear those, too. There weren’t many OWL-related results when I searched this forum. Thanks for reading.
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "A Prayer for This Transgender Day of Remembrance"
I am so eager for Small Group ministry type programs, and our church has a Soul Matters group. I am grateful that a volunteer runs it. But oh my. Is it a slog. Every time it is a reflection on trauma. This month the theme is "Healing" and here's a handful of the questions to ponder: Has keeping the secret finally become too painful? Are you trying to forget when healing wants you to remember?.Do you need to be reminded that you made a mistake, not are a mistake? Is it possible to see pain as an invitation not just an enemy?
For some people pondering these topics is therapeutic. For others it is, frankl,y triggering. For me ......... I would love to include some theology as a prism to see this through. Not theistic, necessary, just some bit of guidance beyond "ponder your pain, and talk about it".
If you have any tips, or experience with Soul Matters or SGM, please share any tips.
Susan Frederick-Gray
Susan Frederick-Gray
Continue reading "A Message From The UUA President: Holding One Another In Compassion and Prayer"
Most churches are livestreaming right now. Church's first and primary responsibility is to their members - but- understand that some people are seeking connection for the first time, or willing to step into a different church to give it a try. This is a lot easier if services are streamed, not zoomed.
Zoom requires each person to sign in, and either show a video of their face OR leave a blank screen with a name. It's much less anonymous than streaming so can be intimidating to join in.
Zoom is great for coffee hour, small groups, youth groups, sunday school, etc - I like zoom - I am just suggesting using something less intimate for Sunday services, so people can pop in and leave quietly as a trial. So many people really need community now, let's make it very easy.
As a first grader, Ruby Bridges was part of the first group of students to racially integrate schools in Louisiana. In 1960, six African American children passed placement tests to go to white schools. Ruby was one of them. Two of the six children decided to stay at their all-black schools, three were assigned to McDonough School and Ruby was the one student assigned to integrate William Frantz public school. She integrated that school all on her own. In that first year, many white parents pulled their children from the school, including the parents of the rest of the first grade class. Most of the teachers left too. For all of first grade it was only Ruby and her teacher.
As Ruby remembers it, her mother rode with her in the car with the federal marshals for the first two days of school. After that, her mother had to get back to work and look after the two younger children. So, Ruby rode with the marshals by herself. Ruby’s mom told her, “If you feel afraid, say your prayers. You can pray anytime and God will hear you.”
I highlight this because when I explore faith, I keep bumping up against courage. When we look at faith not as a set of beliefs, but rather as a source of strength that keeps us holding on to our values when it gets difficult, or a source of hope when we feel lost, we are also talking about courage. In Ruby’s story, you hear how her mom was showing her how to keep moving forward even when she was afraid, through prayer, through her faith.
It’s so easy to see courage as boldness, bravery, fearlessness. It’s so easy to ascribe courage to heroic figures throughout time, to put it on such a high shelf that it feels unattainable. I want to rid you of that idea.
Courage is something we all need. It’s something we all can live in our lives—something attainable. More than this, it is needed. Not just in historic lives, not just in dramatic moments, but every day. We need the courage to show another way to live—a way that is not based in ego or control, not out of domination, power or materialism. We need ways of being in the world that don’t place our sense of worth in being right or being successful, but rather in being human, in being true to ourselves. And for this, we absolutely need courage.
As researcher and author Brené Brown says, we need the courage to show up fully as ourselves in our lives and to let ourselves be seen. Vulnerability begets vulnerability and courage is contagious. She points to Harvard researchers who show that real change is sustained by leaders who are able to show vulnerability. This vulnerability is perceived as courage and it inspires others to be courageous. We need this kind of courage in a world, in a country, in a society, that needs great change. To do this, we need to learn how to develop courage in our own lives and how to teach courage to our children.
Courage is not simply a virtue—it is a quality that the rest of the virtues depend on. C.S. Lewis puts it this way: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” Whatever it is we hold highest—if it is a commitment to peace and nonviolence, if it is a commitment to human dignity for all, if it is equality, if it is kindness or compassion, a respect for the interdependence of creation—to live these in our lives, to inspire them in our world, we need courage. To truly live these values, there will come a time where we need
courage to stay true to them, to practice them at the testing point.
Courage isn’t just strength, and it is certainly not just a forcefulness of will. We look to Dr. King, Ruby Bridges, Mahatma Gandhi, Harriet Tubman, Harvey Milk and we call them courageous because in their dedication to principles of human dignity and worth, of equity and opportunity, they risked themselves. Their actions made them vulnerable. Brené Brown, in her book Daring Greatly, writes “Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.”
Vulnerable comes from the Latin, “to wound;” it means being in a place of risking yourself. Brown talks about the problem of being so afraid (even unconsciously) of our vulnerability that we seek to control everything around us in order to minimize risk and avoid being hurt. When we do this we separate ourselves from others, and even from our own lives, in order to distance ourselves from the possibility of pain. In this circumstance beginning to learn to share yourself—your whole self, your fears, your needs—being willing to be seen is a critical step to developing courage.
It takes courage to let ourselves be seen. But it is so important because it is in being seen, in vulnerability, Brown says, that we find the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, authenticity and courage. The vulnerability of sharing our whole selves opens up a door to a level of connection and being and understanding that is a source of incredible strength and joy.
On the other hand, I want to be careful about how we look at different types of vulnerability. Brown’s definition and perspective is valuable, but it might sound different from a place of social or physical vulnerability. Many of the people I named as models of courage were or are people marginalized because of the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation. They would rightly argue they didn’t need courage to get in touch with their vulnerability; they needed courage not to be victimized by it.
Vulnerability on its own is not courage. We can make ourselves vulnerable out of stupidity, out of a thirst for drama or danger or adventure. Sometimes we are vulnerable because of our position in life, vulnerable because of poverty, vulnerable as children to the power of adults, vulnerable for any number of reasons beyond our control.
Vulnerability and courage are not the same thing. In fact, Brown says “Perfect and bullet-proof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.” All of us are vulnerable. Of course, we are vulnerable to the elements of nature and illness, but also to the risks of loving and losing, of trying and being unsuccessful, vulnerable to social and political circumstances. We are not all equally vulnerable, to be sure. Nevertheless, it is simply a fact of existence. Courage is how we respond to that vulnerability.
So courage is not the same thing as vulnerability. Courage is an inner strength to recognize our vulnerabilities, yet to go forward in spite of them. The courage to take action is not about being certain about what’s next. It is instead a determination not to surrender to the vulnerability, but rather to try to go forward despite the risks.
This is important because I don’t want to leave you with the idea that vulnerability is something we ought to seek, or cling to. Attempts at perfectionism and control are dangerous, but it is just as problematic to think only of our vulnerability, to deny our power, our agency, our choices, our worth.
When it comes to developing courage, or inspiring it in others, the very first step is being able to be fully yourself.
Sometimes sharing your story of truth—sharing fully the way you doubt or fail, the way you experience the world, that “raw truth” as Brown describes it—is the most courageous thing we can do in a moment. And in those moments, vulnerability not only sounds like truth and feels like courage—it looks like courage. And it can inspire others to be courageous in telling their truths, in being fully themselves and openly engaged.
We remember our agency, and we hold on to the faith—by whatever name we call it—that gives us strength to keep working for what we believe in, to advocate for ourselves and others. We teach courage by living it in whatever ways present themselves, by getting off the sidelines and letting ourselves be seen.
Ruby Bridges says she remembers that her dad didn’t want her to go to the white school. Her mom did. She thought it would give Ruby better opportunities later on and she thought it would matter to other black children and families. She said her parents talked all summer about it and finally her dad was persuaded by her mom. I have no doubt that her mom’s courage, her parents’ courage, and that of the families that stood with them, and the teacher who taught and came to love Ruby, all helped her develop courage—a courage that stayed with her throughout her life.
We teach courage by modeling it. We grow our courage by being able to name our own vulnerability—connecting with others by sharing our truth, but not getting stuck there. We grow our courage by holding to our agency, our sense of worth and our own power to shape our lives. And we grow our courage by living our values, even at the testing point. May we all grow courageous hearts, and may we teach courage to our children.
Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211110105514/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/20_02/03.mp3
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