We're Not in Kansas, Anymore...

A new article from UUWorld came out today. It contained the following paragraph:

This urgency comes from major changes in the make-up of the American population that are on the horizon, [Rev. Peter] Morales said. “Of Americans who are 70 years of age or older, three-quarters are white, European-extraction, Anglo.” he said. “Of Americans who are 10 and younger, one-quarter are. If not a single immigrant crosses our border for the next 20 years, three-quarters of young adults in America are going to be African American, African-Latino, Asian, or some mixture thereof.” If UU congregations fail to welcome and include this changing American face, Morales said, Unitarian Universalism faces a strong possibility of becoming irrelevant. He also stressed the need to recruit more ministers to lead this change because it is possible that half of all current parish ministers will be retiring in the next eight years.

This floored me. I don't mean that it scared me or made me worry that I would have to move somewhere else. Having just finished Building the Dream, it struck me that the work we're embarking on is truly the work we need to do to revitalize our churches, congregations and fellowships and that this course came out at the right time because we're going to need it something fierce. This is rebuilding our world.

Demographics²

There are two parts to Morales' quote. First the demographics of our society is changing and our congregations need to meet that challenge and change, too. Second, our Unitarian Universalist ministry will undergo a significant changing of the guard in the near future.

Embracing the Change

Our society is changing - it's always changing, duh! - but it's usually hard to see. We can read the news about demographics but the reality of its short- and long-term impact has a hard time breaching our impervious complacency. I believe I read recently that last year fewer than half of the children born in California were born to white families. It made a bit of a splash when it was announced but Morales' claim is even more radical than that.

Proactive Leadership for a Multicultural Society

Morales says that we will have a turn-over of up to half of the Unitarian Universalist ministers in the next decade. This means that the pulpits of our congregations will be filled with (relatively) younger ministers. As pointed out in Reverend X, these ministers will take us in new directions and I believe they are being trained to work in a multicultural world. God, I hope so!

Hitting Home

This demographic reality must start driving everything we do in our congregations if we are to remain relevant. California, and especially Southern California, is going to be one of the places we find out if we can do this. Each congregation will (as is our UU wont) approach this challenge differently. This is the strength of diversity: first, because our congregations vary quite a bit in outlook, constituency, history, and size and second, because the more ideas we - as a collective - attempt the more ways we will find to succeed.

Building the Dream

Have you ever noticed the similarity between the words "workshop" and "worship"? I've heard my minister, Rev. Dr. Arvid Straube, define worship as "to consider that which has worth". Workshops like the twenty-plus evenings and afternoons I've participated in this year meet that definition.

The series is called "Building the World We Dream About: A Welcoming Congregation Curriculum on Race and Ethnicity". I call the series "Building the Dream" for short and to tie it to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. The workshops called me to consider worthy topics and challenged me to consider them and myself in new ways. There were a lot of surprises for me.

I started the year expecting that we would talk about the experience of being "other" in America, black or Latino or Asian. It came as a shock to spend so much time talking about being white. I found out that I took a lot of pride in being "counter-cultural", of not sharing the mindset that others were not as good as me. I was stunned by my dawning realization that this is a luxury that I as a white, male, straight, married, able, middle-class employed person could have because of all the privileges - earned and unearned - that I enjoy. It had never dawned on me how all-encompassing my white privilege is.

I was also surprised at how engaged I became in the process. Part of it was the covenant-group-like structure that encourages intimacy and trust. Part of it was the authenticity and generosity of my companions. Some parts were challenging - hard, even - and I often found myself in uncomfortable territory. It's not fun to realize - again! - that many of the freedoms I enjoy are not equally shared in this country, in this society. Because we are all immersed in this culture, we find it here in my church community, too.

I don't consider myself racist on a personal level and I think that I don't harbor a lot of mass prejudice (though I'm open to guidance, there). Where my racism manifests is by my participation in and support of institutions - educational, political, employment, social, civic, cultural and religious - that have racial and other biases built into their structures and practices. Withdrawing my support for these institutions is not feasible - I would not enjoy being a hermit! - so changing them has to happen as they continue to function. Some, if not most, of those changes will inconvenience those of us who hold privileged status in these institutions. We've seen many examples of this in the educational and employment fields over the last fifty years; desegregation, busing, Equal Opportunity Employment laws, "quotas" and calls of "reverse discrimination".

One of my most painful realizations has been that measured, sustainable change in these institutions necessarily means prolonging and supporting their unjust and oppressive elements for another generation (or more!) but that revolutionary change is risky, too! The good gets thrown out with the bad and everyone suffers until - hopefully! - non-oppressive systems replace them. There are no perfect solutions and yet we must move forward. I look forward to when this curriculum is released and, when that happens, I will take it again.

Revelation

Since about Sunday, I've been back on the Protein Power induction plan that I had such good success with several years ago. (This time for sure, Rocky!) Monday and Tuesday I felt ecstatic! I was dropping weight and feeling good, confident, powerful.

Wednesday evening I ate some very yummy taco casserole. The bottom of the dish is lined with corn tortillas then layered on top are beans, ground meat (turkey, I think), sour cream and cheese. I knew I should avoid the tortilla level but - dang! - it was tasty! I ate two servings.

Now, realize that I really don't to the beating-myself-up thing. Nutritional vacations come and go. No big deal. I get back on the bike and keep going. Then, I started feeling cravings. *sigh* I decided not to take any of the left-overs for lunch because I didn't want to go through that at work today.

Then, I started feeling stupid. Again, I don't mean that in a beat-myself-up way. I started feeling slower, duller, weak. What sprang to mind was Flowers for Algernon. That feeling was a real bummer. I started feeling down, too. The feeling lasted through this morning and started to lift. By this evening I felt good, again.

My name is ScottMGS and I am a carboholic.

Sometimes I wonder if Graham and Kellogg could have been right (in a very wrong way). There's a lot of salacious information on them here.

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value self-reflection and the insight I can gain by paying attention.

Transition II

It has always been my habit to try to control everything around me. I've suppressed that in my life, knowing that "It's not fair." Now, I see that I need to do what I need to do for internally-driven reasons.

The egalitarian ideal is just that, an ideal. It can never be implemented faithfully, try as people might, and I waste my time and energy trying to conform. There is always a power balance that favors some and is denied others. I have been feeling the stirrings of my own power for several years but I've been whining and fearful about using it, afraid that it not fair to other people, that I would be making choices for them.

Now, I see it differently. I can't empower people to do what they want and need while holding myself back. If nothing else, being in charge of myself is a good example! My community, my family and my friends need me to do what I need to do just like I need them to do what they need to do.

Dang! That sounds so... libertarian!

Taarna's question: What do I value most? I value the ability to transform myself to define who I am and make myself more useful to the world.

Transformation

If we want to transform society, we need to start with people because society is not a thing, it is the environment and accumulation of people. We are components of this society. Everything we do and every choice we make affects our society to some small extent.

You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. — Marie Curie (1867-1934)

If we believe that we should not choose changes for other people we must change ourselves and be so successful that people are encouraged by our example.