We Are Building A New Way!
by Natalie Briscoe, UUA Southern Region Congregational Life staff
Congratulations Southern Region! You did it!
Five years ago, the boards and staff of the MidSouth District, the Florida District, the Southeast District, and the Southwestern Conference came together in Orlando to address issues of structure and governance. These leaders raised a few very fundamental questions, including “How do we best serve Unitarian Universalism in the south?” and “How do we build relationships and walk together in this work?”
Over the course of the next half a decade, the shape of those answers emerged from murky waters. The answer was: We get out of our own way. We do the work of living into our values by having authentic relationships with one another rooted in trust and mutual care. We practice what we preach. We become open to transformation. We work together.
Last week at our District Annual Assemblies, all four districts voted to walk into new relationship with one another. You decided to leave governance to the one governing body we have, our UUA board, as elected by the Association's member congregations. You decided that the best way to be together was rooted in our shared Faith. You decided that the most important time is now. You voted to stop allowing policy and procedure to dictate your relationships with one another and instead rely upon our covenants – our sacred promises – to guide us in transforming ourselves, our congregations, and our Faith into one that truly serves this world. You chose to live Unitarian Universalism out loud, to bring its values into the world in a very real and personal way. You chose love and trust over fear and pride.
HallelUUjah! What a great honor it is to be serving Unitarian Universalism at this time! What a wonder it is to see people so dedicated to bringing love and justice into the world that they would risk changing everything! What courage! What vision! Congratulations, Southern Region! You have truly done something unique, something that will rewrite the course of history for our entire association. The time to celebrate is now!
It must not go without saying, though, that with great joy often comes a sting of pain. In fact, one might say that the larger the celebration, the larger the uneasiness that follows. Some of us are still wading in that murky water, not quite sure where this path will lead. Some of us still need to grieve for the structures that have been dismantled and the work that seems unfinished and now can never be. The last five years have been a time of great change, and change never comes without a sense of loss for all that was. Many of us worked very hard over many years to build and uphold the structures that were dismantled or changed in the last five years. Many of us were served very well by those structures, and it can be difficult to walk forward and rejoice when we miss what is behind and what lies ahead is still unknown.
Yet we have chosen to walk forward together. The remarkable courage that this new path calls us to have cannot be understated. And you have chosen to be brave. You have chosen to live into a new covenant, one of mutual respect and caring. You have decided that the best way to serve Unitarian Universalism in the new day is to get out of its way, to unfurl its wings, and to break the chains of that have held it captive for too long. You have chosen to see this new day dawn with a promise of more joy, more love, more hope, more justice, and more courage as we walk together into a future where Unitarian Universalism is alive and at work to heal a broken world.
Brave, indeed! And the best part is that you have decided that we do not have to be brave alone. Our new covenant asks us to be both vulnerable and strong, to lean on each other and to be leaned upon. Our new relationships make it possible to bring our values into the world because it allows a deeper and wider space for our covenant to be practiced. No longer are there boundaries of governance around this work which dictate behavior, no longer are there policies which decide how we will be with one another. Finally, we can truly live our Faith through our authentic and deep relationships with one another. Individual to individual, congregation to congregation, cluster to cluster, throughout the whole Southern Region, we can finally live into our covenants without anything getting in the way.
No one is sure what will happen. We are all human beings: fallible and vulnerable. Our relationships will never be perfect, but working at them is the real work of our Faith. We can show the whole world a new way of being together, of working to bring more Love into the world, even when it is messy and we aren't exactly certain of the way. You can be certain of one thing, though: The Southern Region is building a new path, brick by brick. The path gets clearer and more beautiful and more generous every day. More and more people are standing on that path, hand in hand, ready to walk wherever it leads. It's a new day for the Southern Region! It's a new day for Unitarian Universalism! We come with praise and thanks for ALL that is our life! HallelUUjah!
