As we light our own chalice this morning, let us remind ourselves that we are not alone in doing so. There are well over a thousand other Unitarian Universalist congregations around the globe that are also lighting their chalices today.

Opening Words – Al Carlson

Today’s worship service is being brought to you by the members of this congregation who went to the UUA General Assembly in St. Louis this past June. They are Mary Fenelon, Eddi Carlson, Karen Curnow, Barbara Berlage, and me. This morning we would like to give you a glimpse of what the world of Unitarian Universalism looks like beyond the walls of our own congregation.

If the General Assembly had been in Las Vegas, we would not be doing this worship service today because, as you know, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” But since the General Assembly did not take place in Vegas, here we are, telling you about what happened at GA in St. Louis, since what happens at GA does not stay at GA. Well, maybe a few things have to stay there, but Karen is not here today so we may never know.

The UUA General Assembly is an event that occurs every year and is held in different cities across the U.S. Typically there are around four or five thousand UUs attending each GA. This year’s attendance was nearly 4,400 people. In addition to taking care of business, there are numerous workshops, worship opportunities, entertainment, and many other programs and events, all taking place over a five-day period. In this hour-long service today, we will do our best to help you appreciate some of what did happen at GA. But you’ll have to use your imagination to get a sense of what it is like to with over 4,000 Unitarian Universalists.

Sermon - Beyond These Walls – Five views of the 2006 UUA General Assembly

Mary Fenelon:

What an embarrassment of riches!

Glorious music. Powerful sermons. 6.5 hour plenary sessions. Bookstores for browsing by the hour. Engaged Youth Group. And more. Much more.

How to choose from the literally hundreds of choices for enriching the mind? Ultimately my choices ranged from “The Spirtuality of Welcoming the Stranger” to “Passion & Presence: A Lay Ministry of Generosity” to “Growing UU Congregations in a Post Denominational World” to “Elder Cohousing – a Natural Fit for UUs 55 and Over” to “The Religious Right: More Intrusive Now Than Ever”. But of course, you just knew I would attend “Capital Campaigns: If you Build it, They Will Come”, subheading: “But will they stay?”

So some tidbits:

From Capital Campaigns: Do we have a vision of our intentions with the new space? How can we offer more to our surrounding community? What additional programs will we be able to offer? Perhaps we have been concentrating so much on serving present or immediate future needs in the context of how we operate now (and how to pay for it), we haven’t thought about the opportunities once we have the new space. Do we have a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” – really expanding our thinking on what wonderful, powerful, fun, educational, social values programs we could offer. Let’s think about it.

On Hospitality: The thesis here was personal growth leads to congregational growth. The greatest growth comes out of pain – the pain of thinking differently, the pain of change, the pain of listening. The thought her is staying dedicated to a larger purpose, with emphasis on spiritual growth and soul change and listening for what others have to teach us. Meet people where they are and ask open ended questions; be really interested in them – make a connection with them.

On Generosity: Listen to people’s passions and imagine paying for your own dreams. My personal favorite thought from this discussion: Think in terms of “culture of abundance”. Too often we concentrate on what we don’t have and not on what we do have. How the church is governed is not what matters; it is what the church does and how it serves.

On Growth: Ever thought about how a potential new member could feel welcomed into a “close knit family”? Think about that a minute. How often have you heard that phrase about this and other congregations?

With 250,000 potential members crossing the threshold of UU churches in a year, GA comes every Sunday. The key to growth is to repel fewer people.

And finally co-housing for the elderly: A concept for aging in place with people with a shared vision and values, sharing resources and still having private living quarters with less to maintain sounds like a pretty neat deal even if it weren’t environmentally conscientious.

Oh, I almost forgot: Barry Lynn said the religious right feels they have ten years to promote their way of thinking before the rest of us finally catch on and do something about it. Is that a call to action?

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to attend the session on “Establishing a UU College”, but isn’t it a delicious idea? Well, maybe we can at least join with our neighboring congregations and support a GMU liberal religious group. It would be a start.

Eddi Carlson:

I will give a brief synopsis of several workshops which I attended and feel are relevant to UUCR. When we delegates met 2 weeks ago to plan this service we had no theme. Karen came up with “Beyond Our Walls”. How appropriate that the first workshop I attended was “How our Faith Matters in the World”. Speakers were from Canada, the UK and Transylvania. Canada and the US have similar values and morals. The Canadian UU’s have a problem with visibility because their numbers are small. The UK is dealing with secularization of their society, whereas, the US has a major concern with the religious right. Translyvania -the birthplace of Unitarianism has 50 years of Communism in its recent history which has resulted in a whole generation who were not churched. The goal for all is to build a liberal faith. The ICUU has a clear sense from the US that we have a responsibility to help with resources and to learn from new congregations in the world.

David C Korten, author of When Corporations Ruled the World, introduced his new book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.” He shows how we can turn this moment of potential terminal crisis into a new era, grounded in shared life-affirming values of community, caring and cooperation”.( I worry. I hope we’re not too late).

“Sharing Ministry Effectively” dealt with how a minister(s) and the lay leadership can share the ministry of the congregation by understanding the dynamics of power and how to share it effectively. Our ministers’ and our congregation’s sabbaticals are over. We will begin the work of melding what we have learned with the aid of Larry Peers to become a more effective congregation.

“Cakes for the Queen of Heaven – She Changes” In 1977 a feminist theologian, Carol Crist spoke at a goddess conference. Crist said that women need goddess for several reasons:”to honor their bodies, to honor the relationship between themselves and their mothers, to reclaim their power, and a need of a sense of the feminine devine. The Reverend Shirley Ranck was present and moved by this. She decided to concentrate on women’s studies. At the request of Leslie Westbrook who headed the UUA’s Women and Religion program, Rev. Ranck developed the “ Cakes for the Queen of Heaven” curriculum. It took five years to get it published because there was fear that it would exclude men. It was so popular that Rev. Ranck wrote the book Cakes for the Queen of Heaven adding women’s sexuality. Late in 2007, the 20th anniversary, an updated curriculum will be available. The original course was well received at UUCR and some of us plan to take it again. By the way, there were men, not many, at the workshop.

“After Disaster” was presented by the UU Trauma Response Ministry. (I wasn’t aware of this group before this workshop.) The program note is “When the building burns or is flooded, when a member-family is killed, when we confront lives forever changed by violence or disaster, Unitarian Universalists need one another, We are building a net-work of response to one another – and need you to join us in building that network”. The information I learned was invaluable. We never know when a crisis, trauma or disaster may occur. We were given guidelines to prepare for these situations in advance. How do we do church in a pandemic when we can’t be together? A very big concern is the avian flu which could possibly occur in12 – 18 months. We need the conversation now.

Karen Curnow:

My experiences at GA can be summed up in 3 words… We So Rock!

While I had been told that this faith is much bigger than what I had seen within the four walls of UUCR, I hadn’t really experienced the magnitude of us and of our impact until attending the General Assembly.

I thought I would share my experience as a first-time GA attendee through the snapshots I experienced while there. Here’s how the week went in my thoughts:

- Wow! There are a lot of people in this pre-conference workshop. Must be everyone who is coming to the GA decided to also do the pre-conference session.

- In that pre-GA session, Peter Steinke said, “You have to give people the freedom NOT to learn from their experience,” to remain emotionally blind. I wonder, what emotional blindness do we have at UUCR? In my family? In myself?

- Not sure my brain can take in much more after the many thought-provoking lessons from the pre-GA UU University Leadership program.

- Uh… scratch that earlier comment about attendance numbers. How many of us ARE there?? Now that I see the opening ceremony and what I’m told is over 4000- people, I see my estimates earlier were a bit off.

- The music takes me. I never knew “Spirit of Life” could be so penetrating.

- We have such a cool banner. Where did they hang it? I see everyone else’s, but make it my mission to find ours. I never did.

- Someone said, “Science tells us that the mind can affect molecules and mood can affect matter.” And that the best form of life insurance is companionship. How are we at companionship at UUCR?

- Being a non-anxious presence really means your capacity to regulate your instinctive side. – Are you going to allow the anxiety of another and their functioning to affect your functioning?

- COOL STUFF in the vendor section. I got the best buttons, earrings, tee shirts, magnets, books, books, and more books.

- Okay, so I’m noticing a little self-righteousness showing up in one workshop when I realized we are already doing much of what they were proposing.

- And then humility struck as in the next one I realized that we weren’t doing much of what they proposed.

- There is so very much I don’t know.

- Note to self: you should not have 2 glasses of wine after 10 p.m., even if he’s cute. It makes you late for the 8 a.m. session.

- Other lessons from various workshops included: Sometimes people are “hostilely dependent in their organization – keeping them connected to each other.”

- “I think you are a jerk.” Is not a good example of an effective “I statement.”

- People handle truth better than they handle secrecy – we can’t over-inform our congregations, our families, our true friends.

- Mary Oliver read her poetry to us for a magical evening. It hits me that she is so attuned to nature and her surroundings that anything could be an inspiration to her. Even the way the ice was missing from her drink caused her to describe that missing “ice” sound. I bought every Mary Oliver CD, video, and book for sale, and held up the line of attendees as they waited for her to sign each and every book. I’m on the edge of my seat as she reads one of my favorite poems, “Wild Geese.”

- Another workshop leader said, “The key to growth is to repel fewer visitors – and we do it by being religious, doing what we do with passion. The whole congregation is the membership committee.”

- From the “Excellence in Worship” workshop, a joke that stuck: “Do you know the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? Sometimes you can negotiate with a terrorist.”

- I realize again how much I don’t know.

- One of my favorite lines of the conference was when someone said – “I want to love and invite you into service, following the model they had heard when someone has said to them, “I was mentored, encouraged and loved into power.”

- The music at Sunday’s morning service takes me again. The sermon reminds me of my deepest commitments and values and why I am a UU.

- Today I declare that I am a Unitarian Universalist and I am part of a beloved community that reaches so very very far beyond our walls.

- Ugh! This suitcase is so heavy with all these books in it…… At the airport where there are many of us waiting for our planes, someone turns to me, looks lovingly at my pained expression at hauling everything I had accumulated, and asks, “First timer?” I nod with sheepish humility and he proceeds to tell me about the books he bought at his first GA….

- I really AM a Unitarian Universalist.

Barbara Berlage:

(Text not available)

Al Carlson:

Before this year, I had attended eight previous UUA General Assemblies and enjoyed every one of them. But I will have to confess that I was beginning to lose some of my enthusiasm for going to GA and even thought of changing my mind in the last minute. But then I told myself that if I did not go, I would probably regret it, and at least I would get a chance to see the famous St. Louis Arch symbolizing “The Gateway to the West.”

But when we arrived at GA, my enthusiasm quickly began to rekindle. As soon as Eddi and I got off the plane at St. Louis, a woman about our age turned around and asked us “Are you coming here for the GA?” When replied yes, she said, “I thought so, you look like UUs.” In the shuttle bus on the way to the hotel, we met a woman from New Jersey who had known Dennis and Sydney, and right behind us was Rev. Kenneth MacLean, who had been the senior minister at Cedar Lane when Sydney served there as an assistant minister years ago.

This became typical of many interactions throughout the week as St. Louis swarmed with people like us. We later learned that there were nearly 4,400 people registered for GA.

As soon as we got through the line to register, we ran into Gretchen Woods our minister who served here from about 1992 to 1999. We always look forward to seeing Gretchen each year we go to GA. We were anxious to catch up on the latest news and we informed her of recent sad news about the passing of Jane Carter, Sheila Gallegos, and Margaret Woodworth. It turned out that she already knew this since she still receives our newsletter. There was another woman there in line who just happened to be from Arlington Street Church in Boston where John Woodworth had served as organist and music director for many years. She also was already aware that Margaret had passed away. Later that week we ran into Peri Murdock, who was Reston’s interim minister before Gretchen’s came to this churc.

Throughout the week we ran into people with whom we discovered we had some connection. We met several folks from the church we had attended in Garden City on Long Island for 14 years before we moved to Virginia. We had lunch with a friend we had know in Garden City, who had gone on to become a minister and is now serving the UU church in Kingston, NY. But by pure chance we ran into another woman from the Garden City church, who was collecting signatures on a petition. We did not know her, but struck up a conversation when we learned where she was from. When we told her we used to be members there, she introduced us to several other members from Garden City, including their current minister.

Needless to say, being part of GA, mingling with over 4,000 UUs revived my enthusiasm and I would not have missed this for anything. We were especially proud when Amy DeBeck was received into preliminary fellowship during the Service of the Living Tradition. I saw many UUs from churches in the Greater Washington area that I have know since I became involved with the Greater Washington Association about 15 years ago. I was particularly pleased to see many of these friends and acquaintances in workshops having to do with environmental issues. Since our church has just formed a Green Sanctuary Committee, I am hoping that we can get in touch with these folks from nearby churches and have an exchange of ideas.

But there were two cases in particular that made me realize how some of the work Eddi and I had accomplished during our 43 years as Unitarian Universalists still lives on.

In the early 1960’s and 1970’s we were very active in the UU church in Woburn, Massachusetts for a period of ten years. However, by 1990, the congregation was too small to survive and had to close its doors. At one of the workshops I attended at GA, I sat next to a woman from the church in Waltham, Massachusetts and mentioned that I used to belong to the church in Woburn and how sad I was that it had closed down. Then this woman told me that the remaining assets of the Woburn church had been used to establish a fund and that the Waltham church had received a grant from this fund enabling them to install a handicapped-accessible bathroom. I was deeply moved to think that the effort that Eddi and I had put in to keep the Woburn church going was still paying off after all.

Another case with a similar outcome came when we visited a booth that displayed information about UU camps and conference centers. When we were members of the UU church in Garden City on Long Island in the 70s and 80s, I became the chair of the Long Island Area Council Religious Education Committee representing ten UU churches on Long Island. We applied for and received a grant from the Veatch program which enabled us to do many things in support of religious education on the Island. One of these was to establish a week-long retreat every summer for children from all the Long Island UU churches. Our youngest daughter went there and loved it. I knew that the Veatch money had eventually dried up and assumed the summer retreat had been discontinued. As we wandered among the booths in the Exhibit Hall at GA, we stopped at a booth that displayed information about UU camps and conference centers. There was a map on display at the booth, and it showed a star at the tip of Long Island. When we inquired, we found that the summer retreat we established years ago is still going strong.

Needless to say, I came home from GA uplifted not only by attending some excellent workshops, listening to excellent sermons and music, seeing old friends, but learning that some of the contributions Eddi and I have made in several UU churches over the past 43 years are still having a positive impact on other Unitarian Universalists.

There are two messages I would like everyone to take away from all this.

It is important that we all realize that what each of us contributes to this church in terms of volunteer activities is important and the value of all of our efforts does not end when each task is done, but lives on and the effects of our work continues have positive benefits for other people for a long time.

Secondly, I have been involved with many facets of the larger denomination for many years, and it has given me a broader perspective of my own church. It is somewhat like the experience of the astronauts as they viewed the earth from the moon. Although seeing one’s own congregation from a distance is not quite as dramatic as seeing the earth from space, you do get the sense that we are part of a solar system and a larger universe of Unitarian Universalist congregations. And when you return to earth from space or return to your own congregation, you have a much better appreciation of being home.

Closing Words - Al Carlson

We all returned from St. Louis feeling that the experience of going to General Assembly is enlightening, inspiring, uplifting, rewarding, stimulating, and a lot of fun. We hope we have given you a bit of a glimpse of what lies beyond these walls. Since it is impractical for many of us to go to GA, we want to let you know about other opportunities to participate in UU events that occur much closer to home. In particular, I would like to recommend to you an event that will take place in late September called the Liberal Religious Revival that will take place at the UU Congregation of Fairfax. The date is Saturday, September 30. Unfortunately, this date conflicts with our own retreat that takes place on the same weekend. But if you are not planning to attend the retreat, the program at the Fairfax church will give you some sense of what it is like to be part of an assembly of UUs from many congregations – not quite 4,000, but a good number for starters.