Unitarian Universalism emerging in Africa

My cousin Nancy, another lifelong Unitarian Universalist, is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya, doing research. About a month ago I got an email message from Nancy asking if I knew of any resources for people wanting to start a Unitarian Universalist congregation. While living in Nairobi, she had met some Kenyans who were interested in our liberal faith.

I did some quick research for Nancy and discovered that the International Council of Unitarians and Universalists (ICUU) was already making connections with emerging Unitarian Universalist groups in Africa:

In recent years there has been a growing interest in Unitarianism in… African countries. New fellowships have been established in Bujumbura, Burundi and Brazzaville, Congo…. More recently there has been a growing interest in Unitarianism in Kenya and Uganda.

With these factors in mind, the ICUU Executive Committee decided recently that ICUU President, Rev. Gordon Oliver of Cape Town, South Africa, should visit Central Africa to meet with Unitarians and Universalists in Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Congo (Brazzaville). This visit is scheduled to take place from 19th March to 5th April 2007.

The purpose of this visit is to explore the culture and vigour of Unitarian and Universalist groups in Africa, to explore with them their needs and goals, and to move toward development of strategies for support, self-sustainability, and growth.

Link to full notice. Even as I write this, Gordon Oliver is touring central Africa meeting with these groups.

Now I find myself engaged in email correspondence with Nancy and ICUU officers, and learning quite a bit about emerging Unitarian Universalist congregations in Africa. As you would expect of our liberal faith, these emerging congregations are not the result of proselytizing, but the result of Africans discovering liberal religion on their own.

If you’d like to read more about the emerging Unitarian congregations in the Kenya countryside, click the link below to read a report by Janice Brunson, a United States Unitarian Universalist who has recently visited Africa. In a few days, I plan to post another report from Janice about her contact with the two Unitarian congregations in Nigeria, one of which has been in existence since 1915.

If your congregation is looking for a unique partner church relationship, you will be especially interested in reading more.

Continue reading →

Roadkill revelation

If you live in the city, looking at roadkill is a good way to figure out which larger animals live nearby. Mostly, the only roadkill I see is dead gulls. So I was surprised to come across a dead rabbit out on Pope’s Island. The carcass was fairly old — most of the flesh had been picked out, and it was pretty dry. I hadn’t seen it before because I usually leave the road and walk through the small park.

How had the dead rabbit gotten there? I imagined it must have come across the bridge at night, when there weren’t many cars. And how long had it lived on the island? Were there other rabbits living there? I have never seen a rabbit on Pope’s Island, and it didn’t seem possible that rabbits would want to live on a small island that is mostly parking lot and industrial buildings, with only a small park.

About two minutes later, I saw a flash of a white tail out of the corner of my eye:– a rabbit running across the grass into a clump of bushes. Obviously the rabbits have been living there all along and I just haven’t noticed them;– it took roadkill to make me notice.

Friday video: “Learned ministry”

What does Zombies of the Gene Pool have to do with ministry? A video with no redeeming social value whatsoever. (2:40.)

Screen grab from the video showing Dan at his desk.

Quicktime video — Click link, and where it says “Select a format” choose “Source — Quicktime”. Wait until the file downloads to your computer, and then click play. This should work for dial-up connections, and offers higher-resolution for all connections.

Note: Although blip.tv is now defunct, I had a copy of this video and uploaded it to Vimeo. Click on the image above to view the video.

Spring watch

Monday:– The weather forecast had predicted a few snow flurries on Monday evening. Sure enough, as I went in to the district Board meeting over in Middleboro at 6:45, a few fat flakes floated down from the sky. But by the time I walked out of the Board meeting two hours later everything was covered with four inches of snow — that’s a little more than a flurry.

Tuesday and Wednesday:– It felt warm when the sun was out. But when the sun wasn’t out, and when the wind was blowing off the 35 degree ocean water, it felt like winter again.

Thursday:– The gulls are starting to get more active. I suppose they are starting to pair off for breeding season. I’ve been hearing them screaming at each other all evening long, and every once in a while it sounds like one gull throws another one down onto our roof from the building next door.

Global warming and business

The March, 2007, issue of Harvard Business Review has a good article on global warming titled “Competitive Advantage on a Warming Planet.” Authors Jonathan Lash and Fred Wellington point out that it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe global warming is real because “investors already are discounting share prices of companies poorly positioned to compete in a warming world” (take that, Wall Street Journal editorial page). They point out the effects of climate change on business become clear when you consider the kinds of risk associated with it: regulatory risk, supply chain risk, technology risk, litigation risk (they predict that companies with lots of carbon emissions face lawsuits similar to those brought against tobacco and asbestos industries), and of course reputational risk.

Most often, you have to pay to view articles on the Harvard Business Review Web site, but in this case the complete article is available free — and definitely worth reading:

Link.

Welcome news on marriage in Mass.

I just got the news update below from Mass. Equality. A little background information:– Robert Travaglini was the fellow who forced a vote on the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment here in Massachusetts back on January 2. He claimed that the people of Massachusetts should have a right to vote on marriage equality, even though there were other ballot amendments that he refused to let the Massachusetts legislature vote on. So now he’s gone:

This afternoon the Senate elected pro-equality Senator Therese Murray (D-Plymouth and Barnstable) as its next leader. This follows the resignation of Senate President Robert Travaglini.

This is terrific news. Senator Murray is a long-time friend of the gay community and a strong supporter of equality. With her at the helm, we are one step closer to defeating this discriminatory effort to take away marriage rights from gay and lesbian couples.

Please email Senate President Murray today congratulating her on her historic victory (she is the first woman to lead either branch of the legislature). Please thank her for her opposition to the discriminatory, anti-marriage Constitutional amendmentand ask her to use her new leadership position to defeat this amendment once and for all.

You can be sure that our opponents will be putting relentless pressure on her to advance the meanspirited amendment to the ballot. So it is critically important that she hear from pro-equality voices from all over the state. Tell her how much you appreciate her past votes, and let her know that you believe it is WRONG to vote on rights. Please email Senate President Murray today!

Thanks so much for your leadership. Together, we will prevail.

Massachusetts residents may wish to send email to Senate President Murray at Therese.Murray AT state.ma.us

A koan?

One of my favorite religious blogs is “Speaking Truth to Power,” in which blogger “uugrrl” talks about clergy sexual misconduct. She writes with deep insight both because she’s naturally a thoughtful person, and because she herself is a survivor of clergy sexual misconduct (and yes, the perpetrator was a Unitarian Universalist minister). In an especially good post late last week, uugrrl quotes Thich Naht Hanh on sexual misconduct:

Responsibility’ is the key word in the Third Precept. In a community of practice, if there is no sexual misconduct, if the community practices this precept well, there will be stability and peace. This precept should be practiced by everyone…. If you don’t practice this precept, you may become irresponsible and create trouble in the community at large. We have all seen this. If a teacher cannot refrain from sleeping with one of his or her students, he or she will destroy everything, possibly for several generations.

Then uugrrl goes on to comment:

I once read of a Zen survivor of abuse who made the abuse her koan. It seemed a perfect fit to me. Perhaps this is why I still care about this subject so many years later.

I’m still working on how suffering sexual abuse could be a koan — I guess that will be a koan for me to work on. Anyway, read the whole post:

Link.

Re-entry

Yesterday morning, the Sunday sexton called in to say he would be out with a bad case of the flu so the ushers and I had to remember to do everything he usually does (unlocking the front gate, turning on lights, etc. etc.) — of course we forgot a few things. The sanctuary hadn’t been put back together again after the wedding the night before, and the Board chair and I had to scramble around moving furniture. The treasurer came up from the basement to tell us that the sump pumps had stopped working and we had four inches of water down there. Of course I had a meeting before and after the worship service. Spent the afternoon wading through some of the scores of email messages that had accumulated in my absence. Youth group in the evening. Long day.

It’s like when you go swimming in a cold lake. You know if you try to wade in and slowly get acclimated to the water, you’ll never make it in, and you’ll just get cold. So you dive right and and immediately begin swimming as hard as you can to get warmed up.