Using a script written by the Rev. W. Frederick Wooden, actors Beth Pritchard, Jodie Cohen, and John Tolley presented blackout scenes which illustrated the challenges Unitarian Universalism faces — articulating the principles of UUism, promoting a family belief system, identifying key values of UUism.
Kay Aler Maida, Chair of the Fulfilling the Promise Committee, and Chris Trace, of the Fulfilling the Promise Committee, talked about the connection of work that examines our faith covenant to the work done on the Journey Toward Wholeness. "We have not yet fulfilled the promise," Aler Maida said, "but that is good news. Our faith demands that we live in the world and believe in it as much as we believe in ourselves. It is important for us to fulfill our promise…It would not be loving of us to arrive alone."
A dramatic scene, involving "Celia," "Ken," and "Frances," showed what the newcomer's experience with the unfamiliar is like at a church. Trace said, people hunger for "the intimacy of knowing everyone, of sharing everything," -- it is a "lure. Congregational life easily becomes the byword for intimacy. But is this what a congregation is for? Are we in touch with our core, with our common center? Religion is the need for intimacy, and ultimacy. Are we meeting peoples' needs for ultimacy?"
To address those questions, Aler Maida introduced William McKinney, Professor at the Pacific School of Religion, noted sociologist, and an expert on religious leadership. McKinney, a member of the United Church of Christ, said, "I am a longtime fan of UUism…and we (at Pacific School of Religion) share with Starr King (School for the Ministry) in the work of the Graduate Theological Union. I have been invited to say a word about UUism's place in the larger religious ecology of North America.
"In a sermon ten years ago," he continued, "I worried about the tendency of some UUs to retreat to a sort of psychological suburbia…about temptations toward sectarianism…to a tendency to withdraw from the public square. I am less worried (about those things) today. Your GA program shows commitment to engaging powers, to be in active dialogue with other faith traditions. I hope you know just how highly your President and Moderator are regarded in the ranks of American religions.
"I want to talk briefly about your promise as a religious movement. UUism can be, I believe, a desperately needed resource for religion in the U.S. and in Canada, for transformation and renewal. Let me give at least a hint (of this promise). James Carroll, former Roman Catholic priest and novelist who writes in the Boston Globe, reflected on his family's annual visit to the town of Well in the Netherlands. Always, at ten minutes to eight, the calm of this village…would be shattered by the peal of a bell …as it had been for hundreds of years…But the bells did not ring that day. He found that there was no loner a mass at 8, no longer a mass at all. A priest had retired, and the church was locked on Sunday morning. (The church's) future was in doubt. (Carroll) was more worried by the larger meaning of this: That God shaped the whole of the village, he writes, (and that this symbolism was juxtaposed against) a locked church…
"James Carroll could not avoid concluding that western Europeans were abandoning the spirituality they had helped to create….
"I tell this story because it summarizes the complex situation in which we find ourselves today in American religion. The tale begins with an individual who has religious yearnings…the church has its own story. It has been around for hundreds of years and occupies a space in the village center. …it exists in the time and space of the late twentieth century. Carroll is correct in seeing connection between the silence of the bells, his sense of personal loss, the locked religious space, and the changing culture of the late twentieth century.
"None of us has much chance of personal renewal and transformation if our churches are dysfunctional. Nor will we feel very good about our churches if we live in a sick and unjust world. I believe that you will fulfill your promise when you realize that you are called as a movement to personal, faith community, and wider community transformation at the same time.
"We are in the season of national denominational meetings. The United Methodists…the Presbyterians…both are deeply divided and worried about their future. Their leaders are openly worried about schism, about whether they can remain together. Many think we may be on the verge of a major religious realignment…I hope this will not happen but it is another sign that the culture war is very much alive in North American Protestantism.
"I hope the UUA will be supportive of its partners across the religious perspective. Part of your promise is the safe space you provide to religious exiles…I fear in the time ahead, (that) you may be called to do this again, in what may be unprecedented ways.
"The wider religious community needs the gifts of Unitarian Universalism, and UUism needs its faith community partners. Bridges, after all, go both ways. And after all, neither UUs nor the rest of us can fulfill the promise in isolation from one another."
Following McKinney's comments, another dramatic vignette was presented, centering on the challenges of faith-based sexuality education, what gets talked about in Sunday School, and how the newcomer relates to a faith without a creed or easy definitions.
Following the skit, Trace said, "Our commitment to racial justice, sexual justice, human justice, are part of our common call. The idea of destiny may trouble you…but all it means is destination. Our Universalist ancestors believed we are all destined to be saved, that there was but one destination in history: the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. If we believe justice will prevail, somehow, then that is destiny. Fulfilling the promise, journey toward wholeness, safe congregations, covenants and missions, are all means to help us toward destiny. And their completion is not fulfillment. Any more than the work of a pianist playing scales is a destination in itself. To be free requires discipline. To be present fully requires training the mind, the body, and the soul. In this way, we can achieve the freedom we seek.
"The same is true for congregations," Aler Maida said. "We need spiritual discipline to train us. What are our scales, our hurdles, our forums? 'Rank by rank again we stand, from the four winds gathered hither…' through our ancestors we invoke the names of our churches. These names inspire us to live up to a great name and says, hold us up to a great name.
"That hymn concludes with the essence of fulfilling the promise. 'One in name, in honor one. Guard we well the crown they won, what they dreamed be ours to do, hope their hopes, and seal them true.' The promise they fulfilled is the one they made when they made the pledge to faith themselves. Every fellowship hall, classroom, sanctuary, is a promise. There is not a coffee pot or chair that did not get there without intention…
"How many of us enjoy the benefits of money left fifty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred years ago?" asked Trace. "They had a vision larger than their own lives. 'What they dream be ours to do…' That dream was our inheritance as surely as it springs up in our buildings and endowment…something to serve as a beacon…'what they dreamed be ours to do…the spiritual discipline we need is in the work of our ancestors…to dream at all… How many of us entered UUism with a dream for more than our personal needs?…It is the question of ultimacy, which along with intimacy, makes a living faith.
"We UUs affirm that the ultimate is not ours alone…we are part of a larger creation that exceeds our life, our sight, but not our vision. Forming those partnerships is what Fulfilling the promise is all about: to learn, to teach, to share, to explore, to inspire, magnifies us."
The connection of UUs to the past, to the history and the work of Unitarians and Universalists, was illustrated in a final blackout skit. "(This work and legacy are) our story…work from the past, still unfinished. We will advance it, and others will learn from the story and go a little further yet. Fulfilling the Promise workshops, to help with writing the next chapter in the story, are offered at this General Assembly. Come to one, (and) help to write the future…join us, because we are going to be starting to craft something that we hope we can agree on as our common future."
The prop phone on Aler-Maida's podium rang, as it had done at the beginning of the program. She picked it up and answered it, and said to the audience, holding out the phone, "It's our common call -- and it's for you."
