Tag Archives: uuaga08

Leaving for General Assembly

Tomorrow I have to get up at four in the morning so I can catch my train. I’m headed off to General Assembly, the annual denominational meeting. Every year I ask myself: Why do I do this? As I get ready to leave (that means right now), I realize that I hate packing my bags, I hate the thought that I’ve forgotten something (and I always, always do forget something). Once I leave, I hate traveling long distances, I hate crowds of people, I hate staying in hotels and eating lousy restaurant food. And on top of that, I hate denominational politics. Yet every year I head off to General Assembly, like some kind of perverse swallow flying to San Juan Capistrano or whatever that place is that swallows fly to. Well, I know why I go:– I go so I can volunteer for the denominational Web staff; the Web staff is made up of fun, talented people that I enjoy spending time with, and I always learn something from them. That pretty much makes up for the miseries of traveling.

Anyway, this blog will be dominated by General Assembly for the next week….

Again this year, I will be video-blogging General Assembly, and I plan to post a short video to this blog every day. I’ll also try to micro-blog via Twitter — if Twitter posts are not visible in the sidebar, go here for my Twitter feed. I’ll be on the train for the next two days, and will post from the train via Twitter.

If you’re blogging from General Assembly, or if you’re blogging about General Assembly, don’t forget to tag your posts with “uuaga08” so it’s easy to find all General Assembly posts. And if you’re following from home, don’t hesitate to use the comments to communicate with me — if you want me to video-blog something, I’ll try to oblige!

Rise up singing at GA?…

My father and I were just talking about singing groups. His church has a monthly singing group that uses the book Rise Up Singing, and some of us from the choir at my church recently started our own monthly singing group here in New Bedford, which we’re calling Singing Out!

I asked Dad which songs his Rise Up Singing group likes to sing, and he gave me lots of good ideas for our New Bedford Rise Up Singing group. Then Dad had a question. Like me, he is going to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly (GA), the annual denominational meeting, and he asked if anyone was going to do a Rise Up Singing session at the denominational meeting. Well, near as I can tell, there will be no such singing session at our denominational meeting — but there should be. Elsewhere, I’ve shown how Rise Up Singing could serve as a liberal religious hymnal — so why not sing from Rise Up Singing at GA?

If you’re going to GA this year, and have any interest in doing something like this, leave a note in the comments section. Maybe we can get find a time, and a space in the convention center, and do some singing at GA.

Generation gap

I’ve been interested in the generational wars that we have seen in the presidential primaries. Hillary Clinton, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, is a product of the 1960s; culturally she is a Baby Boomer. Barack Obama, although demographically a member of the post-war “baby boom,” is a product of the 1970s and 1980s; culturally he is a Gen-Xer. A big part of Obama’s political strategy has been to cast Clinton as the out-of-touch Baby Boomer who doesn’t understand a post-racial, post-protest, post-New-Left, postmodern world.

I will be curious to see if Obama follows the same strategy with John McCain, who is not a Baby Boomer. McCain is a product of the late 1940s and 1950s; culturally, he is a member of the generation who dressed in gray flannel suits. I’d be tempted to call McCain a member of the Older Generation. How will Obama deal with the older generation? The Baby Boomer strategy of dealing with elders involved open warfare and ad hominem attacks. But I expect Obama to deal with McCain the same way he dealt with Jeremiah Wright: dismiss him as out of touch and out-dated, and be vaguely patronizing.

I’m willing to bet that other Gen-Xers will copy this strategy in their own lives. For example, in churches I expect that Gen-Xers will start being dismissive of the Baby Boomers who run most churches these days. I expect them to look pityingly at the Boomers, but not engage in direct conflict with the Boomer power structure. I expect them to start talking about what it might mean to be a post-racial church and a post-protest church. I expect all this will drive the Boomers crazy. Indeed, some of this is happening now.

The culture of presidential politics tends to have influence in the wider culture. When Bill Clinton insisted that fellatio wasn’t really sex, I was doing a lot of youth ministry, and I was very aware that more and more kids got involved in fellatio at a younger and younger age. With George W. Bush’s tendency to authoritarianism, I see many young people willing to accept a large degree of authoritarianism in their lives. So where else might the Obama/Gen-X trend play out?…

For example, if Barack Obama wins the presidential election in November — if he even runs a close race — what might that mean for the 2009 election for a new president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA)? Right now, we have two declared candidates, both of whom are Baby Boomers, and both of whom are pretty much indistinguishable. If a Gen-X candidate were to emerge in the next few months, I’d be willing to bet that s/he could easily win the UUA election. I can think of three or four possible Gen-Xers whom I would vote for. So if you happen to know a viable Gen-X candidate for UUA president, encourage him/her to make some connections at General Assembly….

Surviving General Assembly

I’ve begun planning for General Assembly, the annual convention of U.S. Unitarian Universalists. The key question to ask before going to any convention is where to find cheap food — no one wants to eat the expensive crap they dish out in convention centers. And when you’re at a convention in Fort Lauderdale in the summer, you really want to know how far you’re going to have to walk in the hot humid Florida air before you get to a restaurant.

I went to one of my favorite Web site, Walk Score, and typed in the address of the convention center: 1950 EISENHOWER BOULEVARD, FORT LAUDERDALE, FL 33316

The Walk Score Web site spit back its usual comprehensive list of nearby restaurants, stores, etc. Bad news: there aren’t that many restaurants near the convention center; only half a dozen restaurants and a couple of coffee shops within a third of a mile; and there’s a supermarket four-tenths of a mile away. More bad news: the nearest book store is half a mile away. Looks like we’ll have to choose between staying cool and eating yucky convention center food, or getting hot and sweaty walking in the Florida sunshine. On the other hand, it’s not as bad as it could be — the convention center gets a “walk score” of 66 out of 100, which is not as bad as it could be.

The good news is that Broward County bus #40 stops at the convention center — bus system map — schedule. The bus will take us to the downtown where there are lots more restaurants (and book stores and movie theatres) — or heading the opposite direction it will take us to the beach (South Beach Park).

From the comments: Scott M. has a Web site with basic General Assembly info up and posted here — thanks, Scott!!

Problem solved, or denominational politics



Looks like Unitarian Universalism is about to enter into another denominational conflict. Some folks are questioning plans for this year’s General Assembly, our annual denominational meeting. In this video, I outline the conflict, and (in imitation of King Solomon who said “cut the baby in half”) I offer my own novel resolution to the conflict.

4:35.