Those of us who love this faith owe Bill an enormous debt of gratitude for making credible a liberal religious voice amid the conservative noise that passes for public debate.  In his strategic commitment to speaking faithfully, Bill changed the game for Unitarian Universalism’s public witness. Today, our faith once again provides respected testimony to our liberal values. Hearing Unitarian Universalists speak truth to power is expected—even assumed.  The first phase of the reclamation of our historic power has been wildly successful, and as a parish minister who has worked to leverage that public voice in her local community, I’m delighted with that success.

It’s time once again for Unitarian Universalists to elect a religious professional to lead our movement into the 21st century. Yet the urgent work that faces our association is very different now than it was when Bill chose to run for the presidency.  As liberal religious people, we are called now, more than ever, to be both articulate in naming the brokenness of this world and effective in the work of healing our world.  That’s why I am supporting The Rev. Dr. Laurel Hallman as the next President of our Association.

In his brilliant Ware Lecture from 2008, the African American community activist Van Jones spoke about the next level of insight, awareness and activism that we must embrace as human beings living on this fragile and endangered planet.  And one of his themes—not unique to us as UUs, but so very relevant for us—is that it’s not enough to have a critique; you have to have a plan.  I am supporting Laurel because she has a plan, not a critique of how awful/unprepared/inept we are.mach-zehnder Laurel has a plan that takes Unitarian Universalism to the next level of insight and influence, based on her decades of experience, not only as a parish minister, not only as a brilliant fundraiser, but also as a committed community organizer working with Ernesto Cortes and other members of Dallas Area Interfaith.

Those of us who have been exposed to the community-organizing model know intimately that it’s never about talk, because talk is cheap.  Those of us who know community organizing know that it’s never about what a single person can do, but about what a committed group can do when it works together to hold powerful people accountable.  Most importantly, those of us who know community organizing have seen what can happen when a collaborative leader brings together people who are so different that they shouldn’t even be able to stand next to each other.  We know that amazing things happen when such disparate people unite in a common purpose! I support Laurel because she has lived and ministered in that knowledge for nearly three decades.

Bill Sinkford’s exemplary success in leading Unitarian Universalism has served to raise the bar for liberal religious leadership itself.  We have traveled beyond the point where our movement can empower religious leaders who often talk a good game, but in the end hesitate to change the game.  I am impatient with those leaders in our movement who participate in press conferences and public actions that make liberal religious people feel good, but leave those we oppose feeling angry or dismissive, and leave those unfamiliar with our faith—the movable middle—feeling both unmoved and unchanged. I support Laurel because she knows very well how to argue with people like the late Jerry Falwell, or how to get face time with people like President Bill Clinton, (for the record, she’s done both!) But she also knows, and will institutionalize, ways to build capacity in the tiniest congregation, ways to support the midsize congregations that are betwixt and between, ways to challenge large congregations to step forward for our faith.  Even more important, Laurel knows how to support all our congregations as they work strategically within their own communities, so that our congregations become known as trusted partners in the work of justice, so that real and lasting change occurs.

Most of all, I support Laurel because I feel in her presence what I feel in Bill Sinkford’s presence: a deep knowledge of The Holy, and a deep commitment to Unitarian Universalism as a liberal religious faith as opposed to some random nonprofit group.  I resonate deeply with those within our movement like Laurel who find depth, strength and focus in a consistent religious practice, and whose spirituality grounds the work they accomplish.  I have confidence that when Laurel leads—even when I disagree with her—she will lead from the core of our Living Tradition, that she will support religious leaders like myself in the work of justice and peace, and that she will call on each and every one of us to reach deeper and do more. Laurel leads with the spirit of a pastor, the focus of a seasoned executive and the insight of the community activist that she’s been for more than 20 years. She has my unqualified support, and I hope you will join me in voting for her at our next General Assembly.

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My two children have been coming to MountainCamp since 2002, when they found in the splendor of these woods a respite from the post-Sept. 11 world. For sure, being at the Mountain healed my older son, saved his shell-shocked heart, and my family and I have loved this camp and its staff ever since. [The family love runs so deep that my meeting-averse husband serves on the board of trustees.] So every year, I come here, to teach or to serve as a minister of the week for some camp or another, and to sit during my spare time in one of the rocking chairs on the porch outside the Great Room at the Lodge, looking out over the Blue Valley of Western North Carolina.

The Mountain was the first place I ever touched a cloud; one literally floated by a group of us sitting out on the porch one afternoon. It’s the first place I ever went on a “trust walk,” taking a path in the darkness on the strength of a single person’s hand. And it’s one of the first places I learned to pay close attention to the weather. One year, there were riotous thunderstorms every afternoon, with lightning strikes that took out the servers and killed the Internet connections here for two days (*that* hurt my feelings!)

Some years, I stay in the modern Lodge, but this year, I am in one of the cabins, nestled amid giant rhododendrons blooming everywhere. At night, the sky here is awash with more stars than this city girl ever gets to see; the sky seems not just dark blue, but veiled in silver light. Sometimes I stand in the darkness near my cabin just to watch it, and to listen to the silence of this different world.

I feel especially at home here this year, after the alien experience of Ft. Lauderdale and the General Assembly. It was such a strange experience that I am still processing it, hoping to know more about what it means. After my freely chosen exile of sorts, I was surprised at how good it felt to drive up the road to The Mountain, taking the switchbacks slowly, recognizing all the places my sons talk about the other 50 weeks of the year, passing the Dining Room and Heritage Hall, parking near the office and the pathway to Meditation Rock.

The Mountain has had its share of troubles these past few years, and more than its share of detractors. But I am an unabashed partisan, because when so many people have needed what this camp and conference center has to give—its warm hospitality, its generous welcome, its soul-deep commitment to Unitarian Universalist values—The Mountain has been there. I’m one of those people. It’s good to be home.

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It was funny to notice things I didn’t like about being on sabbatical–the sense of rootlessness. I completely lost my sense of church time. I lost track of the UU liturgical year; I didn’t know when Passover was, and didn’t find myself again until I returned and sat down to pull together my preaching calendar for the next church year. Suddenly, I found my sense of time again: Homecoming Sunday and the Blessing of the Animals; Church Auction and the Holiday Pageant and the Christmas Eve Service; Martin Luther King Sunday and Freedom to Marry Day; International Women’s Sunday and Passover and Easter and Mother’s Day, RE Sunday and Recognition Sunday and Father’s Day. Before I know it, it will be time for General Assembly again, in Salt Lake City this time.

It took sabbatical to show me how central the church is to our family’s life. When we are not at the church I serve, we are most often at other UU venues, living a UU life. My kids go to UU camps; I am usually with my UU friends; perhaps the only major event of the year for my family is my brother’s forthcoming wedding. Considering that my brother and his fiancee are Baptists, we’re sure to be the only UUs at the ceremony. But that’s ok; I’ll be leaving there to be minister of the week at Ferry Beach!

I’m getting better at expanding my circle of friendships, reclaiming the writer friends I once knew before I answered the call to ministry. But even that’s difficult, because they often seek me out to talk, not about books or ideas, but about the state of their spirits. I can’t even say that I mind; it’s where I live these days. Still, it makes sense in the long run for me to broaden the kinds of people who know me and know my heart, so that I can keep on doing the work I love.

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So let’s add one more reason to the pile: his stunning speech on race in America. I couldn’t see it live, and spent most of yesterday trying to find a site that hadn’t crashed from all the traffic. But I finally got to see it last night; what a brave, brilliant moment. It was a speech of such courage and compassion, such honesty and respect. I felt he articulated on my behalf the wound of slavery in a way no contemporary public person has in a generation. And in articulating it so clearly, and in its full context, he invited me and other African-Americans, to risk putting aside its memory for the sake of something more important: the future of my country. The brilliance of his speech was that he did not simply do the same old thing and ask black people to get over it. He asked us to own the truth of our experiences, to acknowledge the truth of the experiences of whites, and to recognize that some of what troubles us is our collective ignorance about race , about history and about one another. I know that he will have disappointed some Latino/Latina and Asian people by seeming to focus on the black/white aspect of the racial divide. But I believe that such focus is entirely appropriate, because I believe slavery and its legacy in the United States is our country’s primary, deepest festering wound.

To me, the least interesting thing about the speech was the ostensible reason for giving it: an opportunity for Obama to reject/denounce/decry the words of his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Watching the news coverage of Rev. Wright over the past several days has been a textbook example of religious illiteracy in the American media. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. It’s perfectly obvious that most reporters and commentators don’t go to church/synagogue/mosque, so they don’t have any idea of what a relationship with your pastor/rabbi/iman can be like. It’s just as obvious that none of them have a clue about the black church in general or black theology in particular. Mad props to Chris Walton for his brilliant Philocrites post of a few days ago on this very subject; you go, Chris!

Most telling of all, for me anyway, is the complete lack of cultural understanding about this “rejecting/denouncing” business that seems to have such currency in the public arena. At the risk of making too broad a statement about African-American values, and with the full knowledge that I don’t speak for all black people, let me say that we don’t do the “rejecting/denouncing” things with family. We just don’t do it. Nearly every black person I know has family members and close friends who have said and done all kinds of uncool things, even criminal things. Every one of us that I know of have been clear about disapproving of the offending party’s behavior. But all those folks are still part of our respective circles, even amid all their imperfections and failures.

When I was growing up, I was taught that you don’t turn your back on family, no matter what they’ve done. (Sociologists have long documented the incorporation of good friends and mentors into the structures of black family life. In studies, such people are referred to as “fictive kin.” When I was growing up, we just called such people our “play sisters/brothers/cousins/uncles/aunts.”) So when Obama talked about Wright being like an uncle to him, it made complete sense to me, especially considering that Wright performed the Obamas’ wedding and baptized their children. You don’t stop going to your family’s house for Thanksgiving because your family members start acting out, do you? (In my house, the only question on Thanksgiving is: who’s turn is it to act out this year?) Your people are your people. Period. You can hate what they say and do, but at their core, you belong to them and they belong to you. This posture is, among other things, Universalist theology 101.

As always, nobody wanted to talk about anything else but that speech today. The only trouble is, today is the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, and so many of us seemed resigned to it. I like to think it’s because we are waiting for November to remedy this tragedy. It would be nice to think that Americans could carry on more than one serious national debate at a time, wouldn’t it?

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“Do Unitarian Universalists ordain women?”

I was surprised; all of us on the leadership faculty had introduced ourselves as ministers, including myself and Jill McAllister from People’s Church in Kalamazoo, MI. But I was coming to understand that most of the leaders we were working with were known as ministers in their emerging congregations–but that had nothing to do with ordination.

So I answered simply, “Yes, we ordain women. I’m ordained.”

Her shy smile grew broad and full. “You are ordained?” She asked as if she could not believe it.

“I am. So is Jill. Half of the UU ministers in the United States are women,” I told her.

“This is good! Here in Kenya, many of the churches do not allow the women to stand in front of men. They say God did not mean women to preach. But in our church, I am the Sunday School teacher, I am the preacher, too!” Suddenly the woman who hardly said a word in our covenant group had a great deal to talk about.

“You are learning to be a Unitarian Universalist leader,” I told her. “In our churches, women preach and lead, just as men do.”

Later, during check in, R. held the stone in her hand and spoke. “I am happy today,” she said. “I have learned that the UUs ordain women, to be the ministers of their churches. And I am asking God to give me the strength, so that I will grow and be a leader.” And she smiled at me with confidence.

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One night as they were talking, the man asked A. what religion he was. A. responded by saying he was an animist, a traditional, earth-centered religion with variations throughout Africa. But he was planning to give up his beliefs, A told the man, because people thought he was the devil; he was trying hard to become a Christian. But the laughing white man from America said, “No.”

“There is some place where you can be what you are,” the man told A. He kept saying that, again and again.

The next day, as the man was leaving the hotel, he found A., and gave him a slip of paper, with these words written on it: UUA, 25 Beacon St., Boston, Massachusetts. For months, A looked at the paper, then wrote a letter, asking for information, daring to hope.

The answer took a long time, but when it came, it was in French–from Jean-Claude Barbier, leader of the French Unitarian group. A. and Jean-Claude corresponded; A. learned more about Unitarian Universalism. Finally, in 2004, A. gathered his family members and friends, and started a fellowship in his living room.

Today, there are 33 members of that fellowship in Congo-Brazzeville, along with many more “sympathizers. I know they will join us someday,” A. says.

My heart is full.

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Take this outline from one of the lay-led fellowship groups in Nairobi: “We light the chalice, and one of us says a short prayer. Next, there is a reading from the Bible. We focus on issues pertinent to the time; now that our country in turmoil, our reading is on reconciliation and healing. Next, there is a song; if you feeel edified enough, you can dance. Depending on how prepared we are, one of us may choose to give a short sermon based on the reading, though it doesn’t have to be from the Bible. Then we end with a short prayer and extinguish the chalice.

In the outlying Nairobi areas of Tena and Ruira, things are different. Church members arrive at 9 a.m for a service that begins at 10:30. They visit with one another, then receive introductory words from the minister. Members introduce themselves, speak of the congregation’s programs and projects, as well as any joys or concerns among them. Finally, the chalice is lit, followed by a reading, a song, and a story. Then the congregation’s children leave, while preaching and discussions continue, along with hymns. By the time the chalice is extinguished, it’s 12:30 p.m.

In Burundi, the leaders explained that “we dress formally to respect each other; we make a circle, light the chalice, read from the Bible. Then we exchange commentaries on what we have read, then meditate. There is an ending prayer.” The delegation assured us that they practice solidarity among their members, and that any one of the members is capable of conducting the service.

The constant, it seems, is the chalice. All other elements are in flux. But what a wealth of information and ideas we have covered on this Saturday afternoon.

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Then he asked us each to say the Prayer of Jesus, each in our own language–English and Kisii; French and Yoruba, Swahili and a host of other dialects. The air was filled with the murmur of our shared voices (“Give us this day, our daily bread…”), floating across the veranda on a Kenyan afternoon filled with sun.

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