Submission 10 Matthew Johnson The Unitarian Universalist Church (Rockford, IL) 3414
What is your suggestion or idea?
Pluralism. We celebrate that we are all sacred beings diverse in culture, experience, and theology. We covenant to learn from one another inas part of our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
This replaces “in” with “as part of” before the phase “our free and responsible search.” Learning from one another is part of our free and responsible search for meaning, but so is learning from our own life experience, the world, intuition, and more. This minor change makes the relationship between pluralism and our search more clear.
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
Yes, I’ve shared this with multiple other colleagues who immediately saw the reason for this minor change and supported it.
This makes me want to retain the Principles in an additional section. Because it almost begs the question of where the free and responsible search comes from, if we’re talking in the Values about part of it.
“Retain the Principles in a different section” I hadn’t thought of that but perhaps that would reassure some of the UU’s who aren’t as occupied with the Article II Proposal as we are, but are voicing, “They can’t take away our Principles – they are why I became a UU!”
Here’s the language the group is at: Pluralism. We learn from one another as part of our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We covenant to embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect. We celebrate that we are all sacred beings diverse in culture, experience, and theology.
I think how the Proposed Revision of Article II describes Pluralism is best. It states, “Pluralism. We celebrate that we are all sacred beings, diverse in culture, experience and theology. We covenant to learn from one another in our free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We embrace our differences and commonalities with Love, curiosity, and respect.”
Hi Cynthia,
One our delegates, Mimi GephartSeeley has submitted our amendment to include Reason as a value. The responsible search is central to that. Please check #483, bu I think it may get a number now that it has been submitted by a delegate.
Note re amendments that weren’t prioritized or presented: This forum is closing for comment tomorrow, but our lay-led public Facebook group, Blue Boat Passengers, will remain open for another few weeks for commenting (and still be viewable after that). People who want to find others to coordinate about the 15-congregation amendment process may use the group to do so while it is open. There’s now a specific post for this in the group Please read both the rules and the pinned post before posting or commenting there.