I have been pondering what being Unitarian Universalist means to me lately. It is something I seem to do every six months or so. This particular bout of navel gazing was brought on by the nomination for the UU Blog Awards (thanks, I am blushing). I have been a life long UU and there are things I love about it and things that drive me mad.
Let's start with the things that drive me mad:
- The somewhat omnipresent educational elitism: It seems that everyone boasts of a PhD. or working on one. I am sure there are more of us without those credentials, but it seems like they are the vocal majority. Perhaps it is time for the less educated among us to stand up and be counted! Not to mention it would be helpful if the UUA helped those aspiring ministers to pay for their incredibly expensive degree just to serve.
- The inability to get connected to the larger UUA organization: Granted as a small fellowship I am not a prime constituent of their ongoing growth campaign, but I have wanted to be part of the workings at the district level for years to no avail. Perhaps it is that pesky PhD thing... whatever it is I find it annoying that there is this hierarchy that is not easily penetrated. I always feel like I don't know the secret password.
- The idea that we are all a homogeneous group: It drives me crazy that there is the idea that we are all liberal spiritual seekers (ok, I am, but I recognize that we are not all that way) on the path for peace and justice. I think we miss the mark of the idea of being UU when we "preach to the choir" without including the smaller dissident voices amongst us. We will never be part of the global solution to interfaith violence if we can not truly open our doors to those that disagree with us.
- Lastly, Sundays that feel like lectures drive me batty. I am not, as noted above, in an academic program. I do not want my Sundays to feel like I am. Nothing is worse then have a pseudo academic lecture on some esoteric subject for an hour on a Sunday morning. Horrible.
There are, of course, other things. It drives me mad that we are mostly white, that we have a million sub-groups, that we can't keep our UU children in the church past 15... the list goes on.
Do I have answers? Not really. There are so many underlying issues that I don't see a big fix for any of this. It just drives me batty. Tomorrow I'll tell you what I love about being UU... right now I am just to frustrated.
