Submission 222
Kara Stebbins
UU Fellowship of Madison County (Richmond, KY) 3726
What is your suggestion or idea?
A ““bookmark/elevator summary”” of Amendment ideasCan we Amend the Proposed Revision to make it work for
everyone?
Probably not, but below is a “bookmark/elevator summary” of
Amendment ideas that has helped members of UU Fellowship of Madison County feel
a little better about the Proposed Revision. (The detailed suggestions for each section will be posted individually as soon as I can get around to it!)
C2.1. The purpose of UUA is to foster freedom of belief and
support its congregations and members to transform their beliefs into loving
actions. C2.2. Our covenants of shared values are to: Acknowledge
Interdependence; Celebrate Diversity; Support Equity; Seek Justice; Adapt with
Change; and Share Generosity. C2.3. Our inspirations come from many sacred and
secular sources, and we strive to deepen and expand our wisdom as part of our
Living Tradition. C2.4. We welcome all persons and work to empower and enhance
everyone’s participation.C2.5. We value freedom of belief and the right of
conscience, so congregations may have other statements of purpose and covenants
as long as they’re not used as a creed.”
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
You may or may not agree with how we have summarized our Amendment ideas.
But I think it’s important to be able to summarize Article II - for ourselves and for people we want to share our values with.
For ourselves, it can help us understand what is most important to us - or where we may fundamentally disagree and need to try to understand each other better.
(A famous writer once said something like ““it will take me 1 day to write 10 pages, but I’ll need 10 days if you want me to just write 1 page.””)
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
This is a summary of the collective work on Amendments for UUFMC. We began writing Amendments in response to our congregation’s input while reviewing the Proposed Revision during our Sunday Service. We later word-smithed suggested Amendments with our congregational work group. Finally, the full congregation had an opportunity to review this summary of Amendments. There was general support, with no strong objections. (We also shared our Amendment ideas with the minister at the UUCL. He specifically said he could imagine using our summary statement of C2.2 in religious exploration classrooms. He said he would share the summary with his congregation, but we haven’t heard back from them yet.)