Category Archives: leadership
Gender Equity on Sunday morning
Unitarians know that our religion has been at the forefront (or at least close to it) on ordaining women, abortion rights and fights for economic justice.
We’ve also fought for diversity of sexual orientation and gender expression such as same-sex marriage and we love Pride!
That said, this past Sunday was an interesting and to me welcome expression of masculine and feminine expressions.
The church is having a memorial show for artist Don Slade, a naturist, Wreck-Beach enthusiast and long-time active member and supporter of the church. I was on the arts committee with Don but many members knew this quiet, unassuming man only as the guy who handled liquor sales and licences for church events, because he earned his living working for the Liquor Control Board of BC – so knew the system. (We always “served it right” with Don’s help!)
Don did on occasion paint things other than the female nude body – but rarely. I met a number of the models at his memorial service!
Meanwhile, back at the pulpit, the Men’s Group was doing the service – lots of masculine energy from the front of the room and thoughtful homilies about what it’s like to go to a men’s retreat, be a member of the church as a male and just generally how to be a man.
Patrick Dubois did his usual eclectic mix of music including The Penis Song from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. Oh,my!
So… context is everything. It was introduced by saying something like: well, this is the basic thing that differentiates men from women. And these men are our men – thoughtful, caring, smart, energetic men who give of themselves as a gift of service. So,sure someone might be offended, but only if they didn’t have the whole context and knew the guys up there pretending to swill drinks around the piano while they sang!
Now there’s a bit of controversy going over – about the paintings more than about the penis song. I thankfully don’t know who objected initially (and then withdrew their complaint),but I agree with writer and member Giles Slade that it’s worth talking about, I’d be pleased to chat about my view with anyone who has a different opinion.
You can read Giles’ comments here: http://notrehta.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/controversy-nude-paintings-in-church/ And comment there or here.
It also spurred an interesting conversation with another female artist friend about why there are not as many paintings of nude men by women as vice versa.
Ceremonies and Rituals Committees
After participating in some online and in-person in Vancouver discussions around the recent lay chaplaincy resolutions, and being aware that the number of services have diminished over time and there continue to be, well, issues… I’ve begun to think that there may be a better way to include lay chaplaincy services within our congregational structures but within a context rather than as the primary purpose.
What is a congregation had a Ceremonies and Rituals Committee? The purpose would be to provide support, encouragement, training, resources for lay members of the congregation to participate in ceremonies and rituals.
One of the first courses I took at UCV was on “Creative Ritual” (Thanks, Vera Webb, wherever you are.)
We worked our way through a book, designed ritual as a group, thought about and shared ideas about rituals in our own lives.
In a large-ish church with a minister and various committees, this one would be connected to the minister, of course! and also to adult religious education and probably the worship committee as well.
It would also be the “lay chaplaincy committee” and include the lay chaplains but have a broader mandate beyond meeting the CUC requirements for training and support of lay chaplains.
Seems to me this might integrate the work of lay chaplains who could bring their experience to support congregational development as well as external services into a closer relationship with core congregational life.
What do you think?
Broken Strings?
Conversing (via email) with Rev. Ray Drennan about the Canadian UU Historical Society lecture, he directed me to this piece he delivered at the Eastern Regional gathering in Fredericton last fall.
http://cuc.ca/ministry/sermon-series/leading-what-where-and-how/
As an aside, I commend to you the postings in the sermon series. Initiated by Rev. Charles Eddis, I was concerned at the time that dozens of sermons would flow in each month and we wouldn’t be able to keep up with posting them or have any mechanism to determine which ones to post. So I suggested we post one per month. Even during my time, most postings were solicited and now it looks like a whole year went by without a posting. My guess is the lack of criteria might limit the submissions. Perhaps a yearly theme – or asking UUMoC if they’d like to help share items for the page.
Anyhow, back to Ray’s piece.
Here’s an excerpt tha I resonate with. (Although admittedly resonating with the music from a broken string might be an odd, if not mixed, metaphor.)
“Leader-full Congregations,” that has been our theme this week-end. When I was first asked to speak this morning, I must confess that I didn’t jump at the opportunity. I wondered if I had anything to say that could be heard. I once thought the two were synonymous. I hesitated because it seems to me that leading today feels too much like cheerleading and I wasn’t in the mood, nor did I simply want to use the occasion to promote my reputation as a grumpy old cynic. A reading that I have carried around in my hip pocket for many years; a reading that often whispers in my ear goes like this, “Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint – some of them are so hard to live with- but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil.” (17th Century Nun’s Prayer)
I don’t see a way to comment at the cuc.ca website, so I invite you to comment here if you wish.
I'm Mary and I'm a Unitarian 