The General Assembly Boycott of Arizona

Sometimes I hesitate to write about Unitarian Universalist political stuff. This is for a couple reasons that deserve at least a line or two each that I feel compelled to outline as semi-disclaimers. First concern is offending people who are much more emotionally involved and perhaps much more informed and wise than I am about these things. I saw this with my, I thought, somewhat mild post on the UUA presidential election last year. I eventually had to close comments because I just couldn’t moderate all the strong feelings, misunderstandings, and purposeful misconstrual of others’ opinions.  I guess that is my way of trying to bring the tenor of the post down. These are just some ideas.

Also, I sometimes hesitate to write about these things because it could reinforce the idea that these sorts of questions are the real questions of life – that our little internal UUA decisions are somehow what we should really fret about. I know I know that politics is of course deeply connected to spirituality and prophetic work and so on. I just fear that there is a tendency of us Unitarian Universalist to somehow think advocacy work in and of itself is the work of the church and to take ourselves extremely seriously when it comes to our political stances and in terms of sort of impact our decisions have on the world.*

So, like with my last post, I did spend quite the time in preamble here. Anyway, if you are still reading, for whatever reason, even given my caveats, I still somehow feel compelled to write about the potential boycott of Arizona and switching of the GA location

Well, lets be honest. It isn’t like I “somehow” feel compelled to write about this. Really, I am compelled to write it because the potential $615,000 cost (in penalty fees) of boycotting Arizona seems like it might not be the best use of that much money. I think of this in the context that I owe a lot in student loans from getting my M. Div. And I am not some crazy anomaly. I know many-a ministers and future ministers who easily owe as much or more than me. I am not suggesting that $615,000 should go to pay off student loans for ministers or ministerial candidates, but rather that it behooves us to consider the very high cost of becoming a minister when we are considering the use of Unitarian Universalist resources now and in the future.

The second reason I feel compelled to write about this is that our congregation is in the middle of canvas (i.e. yearly pledge drive) and our minister is retiring and so we are, at the same time, looking for an interim minister and thinking about the period to come when we search for a settled minister.  How we will ever manage to pay a decent wage to our future ministers is not a minor issue. It is very serious and we are struggling with it. We vastly underpay our current minister for going over and above the call of ministry, including no health insurance. We are struggling to get pledges to meet our current budget which involves no pay increase for an interim minister. Part of the struggle is (as imagine is the case at a lot of places) that people simply don’t give enough to cover the cost of what it takes to run a church and rely on big givers and “the regulars” to step up. This said, it is also very much because people are trying to pay for houses, live on a fixed income, pay for college, pay off debt, and just sort of cobble enough together to make it. I do not know for sure, but I image that our per capita income is on the low end of most New England Unitarian Universalist congregations. I am not really suggesting that the $615,000 that we might raise to cover the cost of this boycott should be use to pay ministerial salaries or support struggling churches, but rather just to highlight how much money $615,000 is and the various other very pressing financial needs Unitarian Universalism faces.

(See also Boy in the Bands on what $615,000 could buy (or really he does $1.3 million which takes into account the desire of the board to raise an “equal or greater amount” to support public witness efforts in Arizona). And see also the UU World article which notes that “it is unclear how the resolution would raise this money—or the ‘equal or greater amount’ it also pledges to raise to support public witness efforts in Arizona—without cutting funding for other UUA programs and services.”)

So, given these two things that are quite present on my mind, coupled with the fact that many people who want to be ministers can’t even begin to afford school and other costs of ministry, I just can’t get my head around spending $615,000 to boycott Arizona. Not because I am somehow against the boycott of Arizona in general, and not because I don’t think that the law is just terrible in so many ways, but because I’m not sure that that would be $615,000 spent in the best way. That is more than half a million dollars. I wonder if we could somehow do very important work by holding GA in Arizona? How could our presence there be a move of solidarity with people there who are working for equality, justice, and the daily struggle for life and love and bread?

Via the UU World article, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, minister at the Phoenix church notes:

One of the things that religious groups bring and UUs would bring is a moral voice, an ability to engage around social justice advocacy. There is value that UUs bring that’s beyond financial, that’s something other groups don’t bring in terms of morally and politically engaging with what’s going on in Arizona.

There is that. Or, in the end, if we actually could raise $615,000 to support immigrants and civil rights in AZ, why not give it to some organization in Arizona that would likely put it to much better use than cancellation fees which, I imagine, ultimately end up with corporations?

I get that it is important and seems very prophetic to join a big boycott against such an obviously terrible terrible and unjust law. I have no doubt that the intentions of most if not all who believe we should boycott come from a place of compassion for those who will suffer because of this law and a hope for justice – a hope to bring about change.

Yet, I think the minister in Rev. Frederick-Gray has a good point:

I understand the reasons to support the boycott and even support some of those reasons myself… The groups calling for boycotts want to create an immediate financial impact and pressure on the state of Arizona, yet it is unclear if canceling GA in two years brings that kind of immediate financial impact.

Given the lack of clarity about the impact this will have, I just wonder with the relatively few resources available, if there is not perhaps a better use of half a million dollars? Is it a prudent and responsible use of our limited resources? Is there better way to use our energies to be in solidarity with Arizonans who are struggling for justice and to be in solidarity with undocumented people who live and work in the United States?

*One could also surmise that someone takes themselves too seriously when their blog posts on relatively minor topics are very long and detailed. That is to say, I know this post got too long. I will try to be clearer and shorter in the future. Darn it. How does that always happen?

GA ID Issue Round-Up

I will be posting about this myself in the next day or two. In the meantime, while you breathlessly await one more opinion on this matter, you can read other takes on this issue at the following UU Blogs: Philocrities, Trustee Talk, UUA Politics, iMinister (and here), RadicalHapa, The Chaliceblog (here and here), the Yes Church, Boy in the Bands, Ministare, Transient and Permanent, and Making Chutney. Feel free to add posts I’ve missed. You can also read about it at UU World here and here. Finally, see the memo from UUA President William G. Sinkford, Moderator Gini Courter, and GA Planning Committee Chair Beth McGregor, where they respond to concerns about security checkpoints at the 2008 General Assembly here, and have your Frequently Asked Questions About Security in Fort Lauderdale answered on the UUA website.

Doing the Hard Work of Love and Justice: Where is energy best spent?

I wrote meditations and prayers for my internship congregation each week when I was the intern minister there.  One theme that came up over and over, for me, was to remind us what was involved and pray for what we needed to “do the hard work of love and justice.” The idea that it is important for us to remember that if we are going to talk about love and justice, as most UUs like to do, it is important to remember that it is about hard work and not just righteous talk or token actions. As I think about what it means to do this in my own life, I often wonder where my energy is best spent to bring about the most good. I know for me, it is often easy to convince myself that what I want to do, or what appeals to me the most, is the best use of my time, especially if what is appealing can seem righteous or really worthy.

All the hub-a-bub about General Assembly, and the not too distant brown bag controversy as had me thinking about what it means to be part of a faith, part of an association, and just what I want my life to look like and where I want to put my attention – how to live out my own call to do the hard work of love and justice.

I think it would be really easy for me to get involved in UUA politics (by this I mean both the important, good work of our Association, and also the somewhat jaded, gossipy politics). I could very easily be a snarky blogger making fun of all the unique and maybe less than common-sense seeming things that happen at GA and in UUism in general. In fact, I do this in my head more than I want, but I try to stop myself.  I think I could have written a scathing post on the whole brown bag thing. But I’m trying not to do this, and put my frustration, anger, and energy into those parts of my life and my faith that seem like they will make the biggest difference.* The question of course is what the best allocation of my time and energy is.
Not that General Assembly or language issues (how we talk about things, for instance, lunches where people need to bring their own lunch) aren’t important, but I am feeling more and more like there are a lot symbolic politics that I could really make a lot out of and that would be sort of fun and feel really important, but I’m not sure if that is where my time and energy should be spent.  And of course, there is the important question of being able to discern symbolic politics from actual important stuff that makes a difference in people’s lives (and makes a difference big enough to be justified, relative to the time and energy spent on it, since time and energy, institutionally and individually, is limited).

All that said, it also seems like one needs to keep one foot in institutional worlds, and bigger questions. I can be a bit leery of the potential for political correctness to run amok. But, then again, some people might tell me that using only male language for God is one of those areas, and what is all the fuss about? And of course, I would argue that it is an important area to be attentive to. Maybe all that happens at UUA headquarters in Boston is not earth-shattering, but certainly some things that happen there and some of what happens at our General Assembly is really important.  The question is how to manage my energy and time – how much can I/should I/must I give to these things that are sort of scarily appealing to jump into, yet at the same time, softly whisper to me that this is not where my energy should go? I think it is so easy to criticize what is not going right or well. It is so much harder to do something different that wouldn’t be make-fun-of-worthy.

Just some reflections on this. No conclusions yet.

*When I talk about making the biggest difference, I don’t mean to imply that UUism is some sort of big social service agency or something that is meant to change the world via our Social Action Committees. For me, I feel like my connection with the divine is, in many ways, through bringing about the kingdom of love/god here on earth. I feel a call to unconditional love, which in some way, I feel emanates from the divine to the world’s beings. This is not meant to be Elizabeth’s Spiritual Treatise on Divine love, but just to clarify that unconditional love is a guiding force in my spiritual journey, which, for me, translates to reducing the suffering of others in both spiritual and material ways, thus the whole thing about “hard work of love and justice.”

**Side note II: This is not to be some sort of broad criticism of snarky criticism or critique of things in general. I think sometimes it is good and needed and constructive. Sometimes it can just be too much, too frequent, and mean. This is mostly about my approach to things.

Wishing for Portland!

I am jealous that everyone is at GA and I am not.  Like the AAR meeting (American Academy of Religion meeting the everyone is always bemoaning in religious studies world) I guess I haven’t been enough times to not want to go.

Have fun and enjoy yourselves you lucky ducks.  Report real well from your blogs.