Submission 319
Mary and Mark Tuller
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito (Solana Beach, CA) 2521
What is your suggestion or idea?
We applaud the work done behind this proposal. There is a
lot to like and inspire in your work. Thank you. However, we would like to propose
for discussion several amendments to fix omissions and slightly redirect the
values.
Each is submitted separately as requested but they are related for the
reasons below.
This is suggestion number 2 of 4:
Replace the new Section C-2-3, Inspirations, with the
exact current wording of the six sources.
What is the reason for your amendment idea?
We really mourn the loss of explicit reference to humanism,
science, and idolatries of the mind and spirit. This reference was critical
to our becoming UUs. As atheist/humanists we reject supernatural and irrational
beliefs, yet we felt welcomed and included, like we finally were home. We’re
sure the other five sources speak just as loudly to UU Christians, Jews,
ethicists, earth-centered UUs, and UUs who find meaning through revelatory
experiences. The six sources are entirely gone, replaced by a paragraph of flowery
feel-good words that read like a poorly-written corporate mission statement
that no one ever looks at again because it doesn’t really mean anything. Restore
the six sources as currently written.
We’re not historians of UUism, but our big-picture view is
that the Unitarian tradition includes a strain of hard-headed practical rationalism,
and the Universalist tradition includes a strain of universal love and
inclusion. Those are both very good strains. But we fear the universal-love-and-inclusion
strain has grown at the expense of the hard-headed-rationalism strain, and we
would like to see that balance restored, which we hope our proposals contribute
to.
Have you discussed this idea with your congregation or other UUs?
We have shown this to about a dozen friends at UU Fellowship of San Dieguito. Their response has all been positive. We showed it to our minister as well.