We're Seeking to Build a Network of UU YA Houses - Help Us Get to GA In Minneapolis!

Dear Friends,

In Summer 2009, we started hosting UU circle worships out of our house in Oakland, CA, which we call the Light House. We sought to rekindle old bonds from our YRUU days and to keep the participatory liturgical tradition of our youth alive.

We've found that this way of organizing our young adult community combines the deep bonding we shared in our youth and young adult conferences with the local presence of a regular congregation and the intimacy of a potluck among friends.

We've had such success with the Light House project so far that we are planning to move into a larger house this upcoming fall, and we've begun work on creating a national grassroots network of community houses for UU young adults.

We're actively looking for people who are interested in starting or supporting partner houses to hold events for UU young adults in their own cities. We envision a funding structure that can help our communities offer regular, local, free events that engage with our communities and our generation in an open and creative spiritual forum.

We want to share this vision with the UU community nationwide. To do this, we are committed to offer a space in the Exhibit Hall at General Assembly 2009. This space will help us connect with potential funders and house organizers nationwide, while also offering a space for GA attendees to create temporary intentional community.

We need to raise $1000 by January 15 to reserve a 10x20 space in the Exhibit Hall. This goal could be reached with 100 small donations of $10, or 200 donations of as little as $5.

Would you pledge $5, $10, or any amount that makes your heart sing, to engage the national community in building a grassroots network of young adult communities?

We truly believe that together, our small investments in this effort will make a huge difference in helping young adults nationwide keep the faith in community over the coming years. Please donate today!

And if you are interested in starting a house, or have any questions, please drop us a line at free.unitarians (at) gmail.com.

In faith and fellowship,
Michael Tank
Suzanne Bernardi

December Events on the road to being a great success!

Our solstice celebration in collaboration with Moishe House Oakland was a great success. We had at about three dozen folks join us from around the Bay Area, and the night went on late with singing and dancing and accordion music. I will share pictures as soon as I have a link to them!

FUUN is also holding its first Young Adult conference at the UU Church of the Mountains in Grass Valley, CA. We'll have over 40 young adults from throughout the West attending.

We're also brainstorming on having summer retreats for leadership of the autonomous movement, and working on launching our January fundraiser to offer an autonomous young adult space at General Assembly 2010, with which we hope to promote the idea of a national network of YA houses. Stay tuned for all these exciting developments!

Board Mandates vs. Healthy Community: Not A Duality.

In the Steering Committee's meeting with the board last spring, it became clear that the District boards do not have a broad enough mandate to be able to provide all the services that a strong young adult community needs. There are, in fact, three categories in which our young adult organizing can fall: what the board must do, work that the district can do, and work which the district cannot do. These are illustrated in the Venn diagram below and are explained presently:

The work that the board must do consists of to-do items, goals, and benchmarks that the board receives directly from the UUA. The board is held responsible for meeting this mandate. It will consistently pressure its young adult committee to meet these benchmarks. The board may also be obligated to appoint the replacement to a young adult committee that is not meeting these benchmarks.

Aside from what the board must do, young adults can also organize and volunteer to do work that the district can do, which I will call district-accountable board work. This is work that deals with legality, policy, the district budget, allocation of district resources, and lobbying for power within the UUA. The young adult committee can provide resources to congregational boards and recognized congregational groups but not necessarily to individual young adults seeking to do work within congregations.

Outside of this board lies what the board cannot do. Outside of the board mandate lies anything that does not directly serve congregational boards and existing congregational groups. This includes things that indirectly support congregational boards or the health of Unitarian Universalism as a whole, such as: support for individual organizers, district-wide conferences, the maintenance of a network of individuals, and the health of an ecstatic liturgical tradition. An organization doing this work must be run by grants or donations and organize separately from UUA and District boards.

About two years ago, I envisioned a model in which there were two sets of Young Adult committees. On the inside, the YA Steering Committee would run whatever District Programming fell under the mandate of the board. On the outside, a Programming committee would plan conferences and network events such as potlucks and Soulful Sundowns together to create healthy space for the movement as a whole. Additionally, the Outreach committee would promote these events and build the UUYAN network from congregations and the general public through field organizing and maintaining the "bridge" with YRUU and young groups.

It seems quite clear that our community needs have outgrown the structures of the UUA, and our transition towards independent structures is a reflection of that reality. What's more, our community offers a radical critique of the hierarchical nature of the UUA, and seeks a new way of organizing church community. We seek a democratic politics and a participatory liturgy.

It is within this wider framework that we can ask questions like: how do we create the community we want ten years from now? How do we include people from the wider community and grow our own? How is what we called "youth and young adult programming" in the past different from our congregational life?

Baking a tasty radical ecstatic spiritual community pie!

So Debbie and I were brainstorming the other day about the key ingredents we wish for in spritual community.
Some of us grew up with the seven UU principals:
* The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
* Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
* Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
* A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
* The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
* The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
* Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.



What would you add or change?
These were originally written pertaining to congregations alone, but growing up UU my experience was that these were spiritual principals to live in my daily life. As a youth in YRUU I saw conferences as a place where we got together to embody theses principals by creating intentional community based on unconditional love and acceptance.
As an adult going to congregational services I saw us talking about our principles, but it lacked the joyous embodiment of the youth community.

So I'm curious, what are the most important ingredients to you in spiritual community? What is it about circle worship that makes you feel at home? What is it about dancing in a peace march that sets your soul ablaze? What is it that is so satisfying about making a decision based on consensus even if it took 6 fucking hours? There is something of the sacred in all of these things for me. Where do you find it? What do you find lacking in our community that you long for? What is it we're building?

Blessed Be,
Suzanne

Born-Again Unitarians?

I have been reading a book called "The Irresistible Revolution" by a young man named Shane Claiborne - a young Christian from Tennessee who poignantly describes his alienation from Christianity but his deepening relationship with Jesus. I know that may be a bit of a far-off topic for many reading this, but I wanted to share a passage from the book that struck me as familiar:

"In middle school, I had a sincere conversion experience. We took a trip to a large Christian festival with bands, speakers, and late-night pranks. One night a short, bald preacherman named Duffy Robbins gave us an invitation to 'accept Jesus,' and nearly our whole youth group went forward (a new concept for most of us), crying and snotting, hugging people we didn't know. I was born again. The next year, we went to that same festival, and most of us went forward again (it was so good the first time ) and got born again, again. In fact, we looked forward to it every year. I must have gotten born again six or eight times, and it was great every time. (I highly recommend it.)"

The parallel I see is this: in circle worship ceremonies such as Unconditional Love or Angel Wash, we are asked to accept not Jesus but simply each other. The effects of this prompt seems to be the same - the heightened emotional and spiritual feeling we feel in the worship space. Indeed, other faiths aim for this feeling as well - one of the teachers at my Sufi camp this summer stated one day that we were looking for a "born-again experience" in our dancing.

"Born-again" seems to be synonymous with "ecstatic." Would this make us "born-again" Unitarians? What does that term even mean, and what do we gain by seeking that experience?

Faith and Activism" Story Circle @ Berkeley Fellowship: October 4, 2009, 12:15 pm

Hey y'all,

Please forward this announcement to your young adult groups or to anyone who is interested:

This Sunday, October 4, the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists will have their first in a series of Story Circles. These Story Circles are a part of BFUU's Oral History Project, which is currently producing an audio documentary of the political and religious life of the Fellowship. The topic will be: "Faith and Activism" and we will be telling stories of what our faith means in relationship to our society and how has it fueled or not fueled activist work in our lives. Come listen and share stories with members of the community and with this historically activist fellowship!

Story Circle is from 12:15 to 1:30pm. BFUU is on the southwest corner of Cedar and Bonita in Berkeley. From downtown Berkeley, head north on Shattuck and left on Cedar three blocks toward the bay. It is about 15 minutes walk from BART.

FUUN Bay Area Dream Circle

Do you keep a dream journal? Do you wonder what they mean and what they can do? My housemate, Suzanne Bernardi and I will be starting a dream interpretation group this fall here in Oakland, based on the work of UU minister and dream counselor Jeremy Taylor. We aim to explore our dreams as a way of understanding the messages of our subconscious as well as promoting healing in ourselves and the world.

If you are interested, please contact Michael Tank at uutank@gmail.com to hop on the scheduling doodle! Also, Rev. Taylor has some upcoming workshops in the Bay Area which are definitely recommended for anyone interested in dreamwork:

October 12-16 - Oakland, CA
One week intensive seminar on projective dream work; part of a university level class, open to auditors (not sure if this can be audited for free)

October 17 - Walnut Creek, CA
Talk:"Dreams, Archetypes and their Influence on our Lives," 10:30-11:30. All are welcome.

October 18 - San Rafael, CA (Lucas Valley)
A Day of Dream Work - open to all; early registration advised. Come get your questions answered, meet others interested in dream work, perhaps form a group, and there's a chance your name will be "drawn out of the hat" and the group will explore your dream in depth (sharing a dream is always voluntary). $85.00. Contact Kathy (kathrytaylor123@comcast.net)

Welcoming BBQ for UU Campus Ministry at Cal

Just got this communique from Paul Hudson over the Oakland YA list. Anyone interested in dropping in for a meet and greet with the campus ministry at Cal? Check it out:

Dear UU Young Adult leaders,

The UU Campus Ministry Support Committee of the UU Church of Berkeley and the Berkeley Fellowship of UUs will be hosting a welcome back BBQ for the UU Campus Ministry group on Saturday, August 29th, in the afternoon, at the Starr King School for the Ministry.

And we're looking for participation from UUYAN'ers to welcome returning and new UU young adults.

It would be great to have members from your groups attend, and to bring a potluck item along, too. From experience, I know that organizing something like this on your ends is challenging, but if any of you can come, or if you know of anyone in your groups who might be interested and willing, please let me know, and please pass on the announcement.

I'm not quite sure what an "UUYAN" is these days, but apparently its really hard to organize one! Let's not break that stereotype too quickly, eh?

SF Bonfire a Success!

Thanks to everyone who came out and made the FUUN beach bonfire a success. I was shocked at how effective Twitter was as an organizing tool when set up properly. It was especially wonderful to be singing circle songs around the fire with all y'all again. And beach wink! Aaah!

A lot of folks expressed a sentiment that the bonfire was the perfect "comedown" from bridging from Youth community at WUUKY, the week-long youth camp we have here in the PCD. We were talking about this back at my house the next evening, and we came up with a proposal that we should have an unofficial gathering like that after every WUUKY, to welcome in the youth who are coming out of YRUU. I am looking forward to holding space for more gatherings and more community ritual!

"Earth as the Body of God" @ First UU Oakland, CA

Two weeks ago, my housemate and I decided to go to church in the morning. We looked up the sermon topic and found that an old friend of ours from YRUU, Marcus Liefert, was worship associate for the morning. The service was entitled "Earth as the Body of God." As worship associate, Marcus spoke directly from the heart about his recent experiences in Brazil, in which he realized that everything from the stunning natural beauty to the heartbreaking poverty of the favelas was a part of what he called "the body of god." The language he used cultivated a sense of spirit and reverence.

I was struck by the contrast between Marcus' heart-speak and the minister's head-speak. She shared her common struggle of trying to be eco-friendly, and drew keenly from the ecological literature. Her sermon was well thought out, but hardly as felt as the contributions of the worship associate.

At one point, the minister called on the congregation to share with one another - for about forty-five seconds - how they were struck by this idea that the earth is the body of god. I appreciated the gesture towards a more interactive service, but as my housemate observed later, the short time provided for that space allowed only for lip-service to an in-depth conversation. Only a small breadcrumb of our philosophies could be shared. Our soul-searches were not exposed, and more likely than not, little common ground was reached.

Indeed, if we were discussing this same topic in YRUU, we would take an hour to discuss the topic amongst each other, and still we would not be satisfied in the breadth of the discussion! Yet at least we would have the opportunity to truly break our barriers down, coming to a genuine rapport with one another's beliefs, and possibly some recognition of shared philosophy.

The worship associate model can be used to start engaging ministers in developing new patterns of organizing Sunday service. If I were to transform this service into the circular tradition, the worship associate would play as much of a role as he or she desired in setting the tone, and it might be the job of the minister to facilitate a deeper conversation amongst the congregation - lasting a half hour or even 45 minutes. The minister might use their intimate knowledge of spiritual literature to deepen the conversation, coaxing the congregation to share more freely and find new common ground.

FUUN Looking for Contributors.

The Free Unitarian Universalist Network is looking for writers who can passionately and powerfully discuss the political and spiritual dynamics of the growth of circular, ecstatic traditions in Unitarian Universalism and in larger society. This blog is intended to be a forum for ideas related to Unitarian Universalist ecstatic traditions, which have traditionally been practiced within the context of youth and young adult ministry.

We seek church-shoppers, autonomous youth and young adult activists, ministerial students, congregational young adult group leaders, campus ministry organizers. We seek yoga instructors, ecstatic dancers, musicians, priestesses and poets. We seek involved church members as well as those who cannot find their place in a church.

As a movement, we seek to inspire spiritual depth in our communities. We are the Unitarian Universalists' version of the Daily Kos. We might be more of a weekly, but we are similar in that we are building, sharing, broadcasting a common vision of what our faith communities could be, transcending the struggles of the past in order to create the communities of our future.

If you are interested, please email free.unitarians(at)gmail.com and describe what you're up to and why you would like to contribute to the FUUN blog.

Welcome to the Free Unitarian Universalist Network Blog!

This blog is intended to be a forum for ideas related to Unitarian Universalist ecstatic traditions, which have traditionally been practiced within the context of youth and young adult ministry.