From Our Ministers

People of all races and cultures, beliefs and values, will unite to share common goals. Each person with his or her unique identity, story, experience, limitations and gifts will be needed for our communal good. We will share common goals of mutual respect, education, opportunity, health care, housing, the greening of our planet, peace and justice. There will be no disparity based on gender, sexual identity, creed, or race.

As a religious community, our congregation would help create such a world. We would reflect the diversity of our larger community of the Bay Area. We would offer safe places for the sharing of each person's life experiences of joy, sorrow, pain and promise. We'd take the risk of sharing our racial and cultural identities. There would be pain and hurts; it would be messy and confusing. We wouldn't run away; we'd keep in dialogue, in relationship. We would grow emotionally, learning to love, to forgive each other again and again.

We would keep before us our vision of a just and loving world. The vision may never be fully realized, but the goal would give us enthusiasm and hope. Being in authentic relationship with people different from ourselves, we would grow in mind and heart and spirit.

We would remind one another of why we are doing the tasks we are doing. It wouldn't be all rush and busyness, and the who we are being and becoming would be at the heart of our lives.

Spiritual maturity and spiritual practice would happen in our committee and board meetings, coffee hours, in all our activities, in the kitchen and the classrooms, in the parking lot and in the atrium, in the sanctuary, in our homes and out in the world.

In the midst of challenges and conflicts, we would remember our sparkling moments. We'd imagine what it could be like when we are beyond our obstacles, and we would keep on. We would be respectful of ourselves and all others and be generous with our lives.

We would be known for our genuine warm welcome of strangers and friends, seeing and hearing each person as precious, as worthy. Our worship and congregational life would celebrate the diversity of individual stories and our common aspirations. We would learn and know and be emboldened by our Unitarian Universalist heritage, rich with moral and ethical principles and with social justice leadership.

All of us would be active participants in creating a just and loving world.

That's a start. What do you envision?

How would you and all of us participate?