1023 Opening Celebration & Plenary
I
Planning Committee Sponsored
Taquiena Boston
Full Remarks during Opening Ceremony
Québec, QUE (June 20, 2001)
"What motivates human beings are their dreams. . . It's what we wish would happen that makes us do everything that we do." These words come from Audition, a book about acting by Michael Shurtleff.
One of my dreams is a world community where everyone has a place, and all beings are valued and affirmed.
I used to think this dream came from living through so many social justice movements, from Civil Rights when I was born to today, Global Justice. Though I feel, to paraphrase Alice Walker, that my "small stone of activism" can never measure up to the boulders of the justice makers I admire, I continue to embrace the vision that a better world awaits everyone if people commit to making it happen.
The belief in the power of human beings to transform the world was what attracted me to Unitarian Universalism as a young adult. I resonated with the emphasis on "deeds not creeds."
However, the dream I described was nurtured earlier and more simply.
My pragmatic mother, Caroline Boston, wanted to give my sister and me advantages she never had, from piano lessons to having enough to eat and a warm, safe home with space to dream. But what was even more important to my mother was the development of what she called our "character."
Her stories about what it was like to be treated as "less than" because she was poor, Black, female, and biracial nurtured in my sister and me respect and value for all people. Even before we discovered Unitarian Universalism, my mother taught by example that our actions have impact on other people. Before I studied ensemble theater with activist artists in my teens, she showed me that each person co-creates the world by how we act.
Because she dreamed of being a "good mother," I learned from her that beloved community is not a vision to struggle for, but a work-in-progress that comes from living our values.
My mother is pragmatic in her faith as well as her dreams. She says that "God works through people, so you have to let people know your needs."
I dream of transforming the world as an act of my Unitarian Universalist faith. I need you, my beloved community, to make this dream come true. May we act tout ensemble -- together -- to transform the world.
back to Opening Celebration & Plenary I
Web Designer Julie Albanese
General Assembly 2002 · Program Grid 2002 · General Assembly Home