May 2009 Board Meeting Minutes

by Posted in Board Minutes

Board of Trustees Meeting

May19th, 2009

The regularly scheduled monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin was held on Tuesday, May 19th, 6:30pm at the church. 

Members present: President Sheila Gladstone, Vice President Nell Newton, Treasurer Luther Elmore, Secretary Shannon Vyff, Mark Kilpatrick (Ex-Officio), Youth Trustee Aaron Osmer, Bonny Gardner, Derek Howard, Jeffrey Hutchens, Eric Stimmel, and Michael West.

Staff present: Sean Hale, Executive Director, Lara Douglass Director of Religious Education, and Brent Baldwin Music Director.

Visitor’s present: Brendan Sterne, Chris Jimmerson, Laura Wood, Margaret Borden, John Franks, Ruth Marie and Eugene Balaguer.                                                                              

Call to Order

President Sheila Gladstone called the meeting to order at 6:37pm.

Adopt Agenda

Michael West moved to adopt the agenda, it was seconded and the agenda was adopted as presented.

Opening Words

Nell Newton gave our opening words.  She used a poem provided by Michael West: “The Good Prayer”, adapted from “The Lord’s Prayer” and in the spirit of Jefferson’s Bible:

Hear me, all ye who do good,

I honor your deeds and praise them.

May goodness continue to flow from you

 and from us all,

Until life on Earth is perfected

 and none suffer.

By our efforts

 may all be ensured their daily bread.

By our efforts

  may we forgive those who trespass against us,

  that we may be forgiven too,

  and peace reign.

Let none of us be tempted into childishness or animality

  Though it bring us momentary pleasure.

Instead, let us call each other

   to greater kindness and wisdom,

   to greater forbearance and creativity,

   in everything we do.

For in goodness lies the path

   to more freedom and more life,

In goodness lies the power,

And in goodness lies the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

Sheila Gladstone thanked the incoming board members for attending the meeting, Brenden Sterne, Laura Wood, Margaret Borden and Chris Jimmerson.

Visitor’s Forum

There were 8 visitors.

Nancy Neavel shared a letter from UU Houston that was to be passed around and included in the minutes (Exhibit A).

Beverly Donoghue thanked the current board for all, all they endured for the past year and all they accomplished. She thanked them for their leadership.

 Consent Agenda:

Approve Minutes

The April minutes were approved.

New Members and Resignations:

There were 5 new members since the April board meeting and 0 resignation. The following new members were announced and recorded at the May board meeting: Name redated from web versions of minutes at the member’s request, Peter Pope, Amy Edwards McFadden, Emily Wethington and Vanessa MacDougal.

Reports

*Director of Religious Education Lara Douglass’ report is attached (Exhibit B).

*Treasurer Luther Elmore’s reports are attached (Exhibits C).

*Director of Music Brent Baldwin’s report is attached (Exhibit D).

*Executive Director Sean Hale’s reports are attached (Exhibits E).

There was discussion on the consent agenda items.

From the Executive Director’s report, a particular issue regarding the office being closed to the public on Mondays so that the office staff can have time to focus was discussed.  They will still check messages.  Derek and Bonny had questions for Sean about how it will work. Bonny said she had called 5 mid-sized area churches earlier in the day and only one did not have a live person answer the phone, it was another UU church.  Both Bonny and Derek expressed concern that there should be a live person answering our church phone, Derek pointed out that this is common practice in many businesses as well as most churches. Derek said that maybe we can have volunteers answer phones. Sheila said that we cannot discuss every staff issue and that some things we need to leave to the discretion of our Executive Director, such as our staff issues for which we hired him. She asked if anyone was willing to help coordinate volunteers to answer the phones, no one was. Sean thanked the volunteers that have been coming to help in the office but agreed that it would be hard to have volunteers there to answer the phones at all times.  Sean said that productivity has gone up when they have let the phone ring and check messages later, they are able to focus more and complete more work. Michael West suggested that with the remodel of the church office that perhaps there could be a secluded place established for people to work, allowing congregant access to the building without interrupting staff.  Visitor Chris Jimmerson, the incoming Board Secretary, said that when his workplace instated a similar policy, but to not answer the phones on Friday, they found that responsiveness was increased on the other four work week days, since staff had completed more and could more readily respond. Eric said this is a way Sean is trying to help the office staff focus on finance issues.  Bonny said she supports Sean and understands the need for office to focus, but wants flexibility to be an option. Bonny was worried that Sean’s report seemed to talk about using voice mail during the whole week. Visitor Margaret Borden, incoming Board member, said that the board is stuck in the nitty gritty right now and that she agrees with board President Sheila, that we need to trust Sean—and then ask for a report in the future, of how it is going. Jeff Hutchens agreed, and said he’d like to see a report about how the changes are going in a future board meeting.  Aaron also agreed that Sean can make decisions for the staff since that is what he is paid for, the board can be advisors but aren’t the be all and end all of what needs to be done with his job.  Nell said that the summer will be a great opportunity to see what will happen if we trust Sean to do his job.  Sheila pointed out that we don’t manage our Director of Religious Education or Music Director.  Sean assured all that in addition to the messages being regularly checked, they are looking at implementing a caller ID system and he will do a report on how the changes are going at a future board meeting.

From the DRE’s report, it was commented that RE has been having excellent attendance.  Lara said that we have a new Youth Director named Scott Butki.  Aaron Osmer our Youth Trustee said that from what he has seen of Scott so far that he is one of best Youth Advisors they’ve had in a long time. Lara said that is last DRE said he was wonderful and had been reliable as a volunteer. 

From the Music Director’s report there was a question about the Children’s Choir.  The parents of the children who had been in choir are looking for ways to continue it, as it had been cut from the budget. Currently it will not start up in fall unless funds are found. Brent said they are looking at having a benefit concert.  It was commented that the music has been excellent as usual and Brent was thanked for his work.

From the Treasurer’s report, Luther pointed out that some of the old restricted funds were closed and moved.  There is currently $66,000.00 outstanding from the Spring Stewardship campaign that raised the $100,000.00 amount to close the deficit.  The Finance Committee has been working on a new format; Sean has been using Quick Books, which has not been clear to use and not compatible with all our systems.  Stephan Windsor and Eugene Balaguer have been helping set up a new system that will be compatible and will work better.  Sheila said that in the past the Finance Committee has been working separately from the board, now they’ve moved their meeting time to work with the board more.

ACTION:  Derek Howard moved to approve the consent agenda items, the movement was seconded, the vote was taken and the consent agenda items were passed.

Stewardship

Bill Edwards passed out a report for stewardship, (Exhibit F).  He invited everyone to the celebratory potluck being put on by Stewardship this coming Saturday. Our incoming Interim Minister Janet Newman will be visiting our church in June and will be attending a dinner hosted by Stewardship on Monday June 15th at 6:30pm.  The focus will be to gage from our congregation what we should focus on as a theme for the Fall Stewardship campaign. There will be a presentation by Stewardship at the dinner, and a discussion—Stewardship will then present to the board at the next board meeting.  A few things have been suggested as a Fall Campaign focus such as creating a second minister position.  Bill said that the Fall Campaign will be plain, simple and by the book.  We do need to identify what will inspire our members to give, but also the “real deal” is that we must change the culture our church has with giving. 

Sean pointed out that in his “08 Incomplete Pledge Report” that there was $90,000.00 in incomplete pledges; this was 17% of all pledges. Other churches usually have 3 to 8% of their pledges unfulfilled to normal attrition; people moving or having hardship/losing jobs etc.  We have not been collecting this information on why our members are not fulfilling their pledges and are implementing systems so this can be done.  Mainly this much higher than average rate at First UU was due to internal problems. 25% of credit card pledges were incomplete; this is mostly an administrative issue.  Fixing these problems will help Stewardship.  Setting up a system on how to handle the sensitive calls, determining when to have follow up calls, or how to help when help is needed is all going to make Stewardship’s job easier.  Sean is looking at other churches and how they do this, and also looking at other organizations.  Ron Turner has been helping Sean with this.  The goal to get this new system in place is for ’10, but it may be starting to help with fall ‘09’s Campaign. Luther said that our rate of unfulfilled pledges compared to other churches is shocking. He feels a lot of this comes back to the culture of our church that must be changed.  Derek asked what our rate of unfulfilled pledges has been in past years.  Mark said that we’ve budgeted 5% into our budget for unfulfilled pledges in past years.  Sean said that we do have the raw data, but it would take a lot of time and talent to find out the actual figures.  Michael West said the staff time is better spent focusing on our present and future as a priority till we get extra staff.

Paradox Players

Anne Edwards passed out a paper with the history of Paradox Players (Exhibit G).  She says that they realize that some of their history with First UU has been lost over the years.  She thanked Chris Jimmerson for checking in the Policies and Procedures to see that Paradox Players is an “affiliated group”. Paradox Players got its start at First UU as being part of worship, and it then expanded into a part of church community.  Today it serves our church community and greater Austin community in many ways.  Local non-profits can buy a performance for five hundred and get all the profits from that performance’s house.  For all the other performances the full proceeds are donated to our church.  Paradox Players is currently funding and helping with the remodel of the church office. They appreciate all the support they get from First UU with meeting spaces, use of the copy machine, donating of props, and wonderful stage/lighting facilities.   They choose plays for their interesting artistic or political value and how they relate to or exemplify ono of our UU principles.  Actors say that working with Paradox Players feels more like being in a family, compared to working in other theatre groups, due to their diligence with upholding standards of respect. Paradox Player performances are also a portal for members of the greater Austin community to learn about and come into our church. One performance of each play has free childcare provided. Chris Jimmerson added that the opportunity to engage our greater Austin community with our UU principles during the Q&A with the audience after each play helps educate people.  Many plays such as Necessary Target deal with important current issues that are touchy subjects in our society. 

Congratulations First UU Member Lee Leffingwell Austin’s New Mayor

Sean Hale passed out a card for board members and senior staff to sign, congratulating Austin’s New Mayor, our First UU member Lee Leffingwell.  Lee has been a long time member and supporter of First UU and we wish him the best with his new position and thank him for his support of First UU in years past and presently.

Board Appointees to Nominating Committee

Sheila said that we were supposed to appoint the board appointees to the nominating committee in April.  We are in a wonderful situation where we have more volunteers than we have space, in particular for the Nominating Committee.  Jennifer Lohlin was appointed to the Nominating Committee to fill in a vacancy in spring, the Committee has been happy with her work.  Jeannette Swenson would like to see the Nominating Committee develop a strong focus on training and encouraging leadership.  Sandra Reis has similar ideas and also wanted to serve, but the two positions the board appoints to nominating are filled.  Shannon Vyff will be moving to England in August, so there will be another opening on the Nominating Committee and they may choose to include Sandra then. 

ACTION:  Michael West moved to approve the board appointees to Nominating Committee of Jennifer Lohlin and Jeanette Swenson, it was seconded, the vote was taken and the approval passed.

Interim Search Task Force

Michael West wanted his report attached so people can have it as reference in the future (Exhibit H)

Janet Newman will be starting as the Interim Minister at First UU this September 1st. She has even offered to come and start doing some work early without pay. She’ll be here June 15th through 17th to meet with church leadership, committees and congregants. There will be a dinner hosted by Stewardship Monday the 15th at 6:30pm that she’ll be attending, as well as a dinner at 6:00pm Wednesday the 17th.  She is moving from Alabama where she has been the Interim Minister for the past year, she is originally from Florida.  She specialized in being an Interim Minister, you can read more of her philosophy and work on her website—she usually completes her work in a year, we have offered two years of employment to her—but she’ll address how things are going next January to see if she thinks we need that or not, as she usually only needs one year to get her job done.  Michael West said the quality of the candidates was excellent.  All 4 that were presented to First UU had great experience; only 1 was not a specialized Interim Minister.  Janet’s background has included dealing with funding problems, property problems, big church splits, dismissals, retirings and more.  She has come up with Right Relations as solutions in some congregations, this is something that has been suggested for our and we look forward to her views on it. The references for all the candidates were quite candid about their strengths and weaknesses. All the candidates were highly recommended—the task force took the feedback they received from the congregation through surveys and meetings, to choose the candidate that would be best for First UU’s needs. Michael west will email the 9 things he thinks a Task Force should do in the future.  1. Start forming earlier 2. Meet earlier 3. Have good communication about time commitments before starting.  4. Have teleconference ability by phone or net set up before beginning. 5. Have fed ex set up.  6. Work with the tech team early on about creating surveys. & discuss and collect what relevant documents are needed for the candidates to review. 7.Create secure church overview packets online instead of mailing packets, as this would save mailing money and be easier for the candidates.  8. Begin checking references before packets are fully put together and shared. 9. Form an Interim Search & Welcoming Committee to help with their transition into our community. Michael said that all the candidates surprisingly knew a lot about our church and its recent activities by reading documents up on our web site. They all had great and valid suggestions. All the candidates were positive, encouraging and all were very well informed about the dismissal and its various issues. Michael spoke with District Executives about our recent work, including how we’ve put together the Interim position, how we’ve hired the consultants and how we are moving forward, the feedback has been very positive and favorable of the job we’ve been doing. They were impressed by how we have more people wanting to be on the board than we have board positions, that we’ve filled a hundred thousand dollar gap in our budget.  They had not heard that we are a “toxic church”; Sean noted that he also did not hear that from the UUA people he talked with or other churches.  Several of the people Michael talked to had known Davidson. They had a good understanding of what went on and were supportive of our work into the future.  There was a round of applause for all that the Interim Search Task Force did, and thanks for choosing such a stellar Interim Minister.  The Interim Task Force members are Michael West, Chris Jimmerson, Gary Bennett, Nance Benet, and Dale Witaker Lewis.

Pre-School RE Teacher

Our DRE has the authority to hire and fire our RE staff. She had the position for pre-school teacher advertised, and approached some parents about it with no luck on filling it. Her husband Bill Douglass agreed to be the teacher and said he’d love to come back and do it again. All on the board said he was a wonderful pre-school teacher. Sheila said he’d helped her daughter to overcome her shyness when he taught her in pre-K. Shannon said that she’d co-taught with him and he presented our UU ideals in a funny and engaging way that the children really responded to.  Aaron said he is excellent and much loved by all the age groups. If approved he’ll be under the supervision of Cyndi Stein the RE assistant and he can go to the board if he has any problems. 

ACTION: Bonny made a motion and it was seconded to approve Bill Douglass as the Pre-School teacher, the vote was taken and it was enthusiastically unanimous that “Mr. Bill” will be our Pre-School teacher.

Policies and Procedures Update

Sean presented a proposed update to our Policies and Procedures. He worked with Eric Stimmel to set up a default for board meeting and congregational meeting dates.  We have needed to formalize them for a while; this will make it easier for people considering a board position to see if they can commit to the time.  Nominating Committee will be able to show incoming board members the set schedule. Previously the incoming board has set the year’s meeting, and this causes it to change for year to year and it has not been able to present the next year’s calendar to incoming board members.  Having formalized dates helps the Senior Staff to be able to plan their upcoming years.

ACTION: Derek moved to approve the proposed Policies and Procedures wording regarding meeting times, the movement was seconded, the vote was taken, and it passed.

Board Approval Committee Chairs recommended by Nominating Committee

The Board is supposed to approve the Committee Chairs before the Spring Congregational meeting. Since the board did not do that in the meeting before the Spring Congregational meeting, the board is will do it at this meeting right after the Spring Congregational Meeting. 

ACTION: Derek moved to approve the Committee Chairs, it was seconded and the movement was approved.

Good-Bye to our departing board members

Sheila thanked the departing board members. Last year Mark made cute poems, today at work she spent time hand making book marks that have a chalice traversing rough waters with an inspirational poem.  She thanked the outgoing board members for what they went through, for all the hours they put in—for the compassion and strength that they showed.  Jeff and Luther gave presents to the outgoing board members. Emily Wethington gave baskets of gifts to them as well. Emily Wethington also gave gift baskets and cards signed by many church members to all board members as thanks for the year of service on behalf of Fellowship Committee.

Transition Issues

There will be an upcoming board retreat Saturday June 14th from 10:00am to 4:00pm where the incoming board and continuing board can talk about what the goals are for the next year.  The Edwards will be hosting at their beautiful ranch home, any board members that would like directions or additional information on what will be covered can contact Nell Newton.

Nell moved to extend the meeting 15 minutes at 9:36; the movement was seconded and approved.

Executive Session

Eric Stimel brought an issue to the board that required an executive session. Where staff is asked to leave while the board discusses a staff issues.  As we convened our senior staff and visitors were asked to leave so that we could discuss an issue regarding severance agreements. The issues were discussed, the background and what was being requested of the board. The board cannot take action during executive session since it is not public and thus not official. The board came out of executive session and took action on what they had discussed.

 ACTION: Nell moved that a draft proposal for severance coverage for the DRE and MD would be presented for approval at the next board meeting, the movement was seconded, and it passed. 

Calendar

The calendar dates are listed on the back of the meeting agenda.  The incoming Board Secretary will be setting the next year’s schedule at the next board meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Shannon Vyff, Secretary

Supporting Documents (Appendices A and F will be scanned and added soon)

In Search of Freedom

by Posted in Audio available, Gary Bennett, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Gary Bennett

May 17, 2009

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

READING:

What persons great and not so great have to say on the subject of freedom. All but the last two quotes from Dr. Laurence J. Peter, Peter’s Quotations , 1977

Will Rogers – Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

Mark Twain – It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Theodore Roosevelt – Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.

Abraham Lincoln – The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.

Albert Camus – Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

Ernest Benn – Liberty is being free from the things we don’t like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.

B. F. Skinner – By a careful cultural design, we control not the final behavior, but the inclination to behave – the motives, the desires, the wishes . . . we increase the feeling of freedom.

Eric Hoffer – When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.

Adlai Stevenson – A free society is one in which it is safe to be unpopular.

Abe Fortas – The story of man is the history, first of the acceptance and imposition of restraints necessary to permit communal life; and second, of the emancipation of the individual within the system of necessary restraints.

Bernard Malamud – The purpose of freedom is to create it for others.

Virginia Woolf – To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

Edmund B. Chaffee – The majority of us are for free speech only when it deals with those subjects concerning which we have no intense convictions.

Harold Ickes – Freedom to live one’s life with the window of the soul open to new thoughts, new ideas, new aspirations.

Gertrude Himmelfarb – Liberty too can corrupt, and absolute liberty can corrupt absolutely.

C. Wright Mills – Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and the best man winning than the man who inherited his father’s store or farm.

Norman Thomas – After I asked him what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement.

Daniel Webster – Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

Kris Kristofferson – Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Gary Bennett – America is 100 million people going to the same place at the same time to do the same thing, but traveling in 100 million different cars.

SERMON:

I really wanted to give this a title like Freedom: For and Against, but chickened out. After all, if there is any point on which pretty much all 6 billion of us are agree, it is that Freedom is a Good Thing. But deciding what it is exactly that we are for, that is a harder matter. I want us to think about the Tea Parties on April 15. Not the politics, which bothered me a lot; but what I would have to say shouldn’t come from the pulpit. But there were some serious moral issues that drew people to protest. There’s the legacy of debt we are still piling up for the future. The bumper sticker, “We’re spending our children’s inheritance,” isn’t so funny any more. And there’s the idea that taxes are an evil thing, because they take away our freedom.

“No taxation without representation,” the patriots of 1776 said, and for some the British tax on imported tea was such a dangerous matter, it justified dumping perhaps a million dollars worth of tea (10,000 at the time) into the harbor in a monstrous act of vandalism. “Liberty” was the word they used, a little more narrowly political than “freedom.” At the dawn of history we meet the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Sumerian priest-kings, gods or agents of gods who could not be crossed; there was only enough liberty for one. Actually wealthy nobles were there to fight for power with them from the beginning; and they established rules and boundaries over time. The Code of Hammurabi is the oldest set of written rules we know about; and from it we get that rudimentary concept of justice, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” As far as liberty goes, though, there still wasn’t much left over for anybody else. A similar struggle took place in England thousands of years later, leading to the Great Charter between King John and his barons, still considered the birthplace of our written law. One bullet point was the idea that new taxes could only be imposed by the King acting in Parliament; and some four hundred years later that was the wedge that led to the English Civil War and the transfer of ultimate power to Parliament. So it is no wonder that the idea that taxes were only just with the consent of the governed still was magic over a century after that.

But Americans today do have representative government; there’s nothing in the catchphrase that says that your party has to win for taxes to be legit. But the Libertarians who have been doing these tea parties for a number of years cite a different tradition, one in which taxes even with representation are pretty sketchy. Englishmen, including those of us on this side of the Pond, in the 18th century were actually pretty uncomfortable with the English Civil War as a model. It was bloody, filled with religious arguments, culture wars we might say, pretty dangerous to the propertied classes; a king was beheaded and even a primitive sort of democratic socialism (the Levellers) began to stir. So good Enlightenment thinkers preferred to talk about the Glorious or Bloodless Revolution of 1688. King James II was the sort of ruler who, by combining dangerous ambitions, ruthless means and incredible stupidity, manage to give despotism a bad name; and in short, he managed in three years to unite the whole country against him, went into exile and left everybody feeling that this was the way things were supposed to be done. The Revolution was popular, and so was its chief apologist, John Locke. Inspired by the example of Sir Isaac Newton, he proposed to show that the right to revolution arose from human nature itself. “Man in a State of Nature” is isolated from all other human beings, surrounded by the infinite bounty of the world; but those riches are worthless except insofar as he invests his own life force and liberty into shaping some of them into what then becomes his property. This leads naturally to trading with others, which requires contracts; and ultimately it becomes useful to having some impartial body around to interpret and enforce the contracts. That’s the government; just a bunch of hired hands, as easily dismissed as any unsatisfactory lawn mowing service. No Divine Right of Kings, no superior racial bloodlines, no sacrosanct traditions. And it was nothing like Thomas Hobbes’ assertion that human nature was so depraved and evil that only a crushingly oppressive force could keep people from destroying each other. So Locke’s ideas gained a great deal of favor from the progressive, secular-minded thinkers of the Enlightenment.

But the argument had a force of its own, and some of the conclusions were troubling. Locke agrees that voting is a good way to put governors in place, but he does not think it gives any special moral authority for robbing people of life, liberty or property; only impartial findings of breach of contract by a judge or jury could do that. So taxes, even for proper government services, really were an unjustifiable seizure of property. This has not been a popular idea for governments, not even revolutionary ones. The Declaration of Independence drops the word “property” and talks of “the pursuit of happiness” instead as an inalienable right; the Preamble to the Constitution states that “to promote the general welfare” is as basic an aim of our government as “to provide for the common defense.” Even Locke himself, a practical man, seems not to have taken the idea seriously. But it has taken on a life of its own, with the implicit promise that somewhere down the road all government should just wither away. And so modern Libertarians are inspired by the goal of absolute individual freedom.

But as inspiring as Locke’s words have been to generations of Americans, there are problems. You have to say that his argument is flawed at its most basic: his Man in the State of Nature has no navel. He has come somehow to full-blown civilized English manhood without being born, nourished or educated by the society of people around him; otherwise his absolute moral autonomy would be disappear in all these obligations to others. Any inherited wealth cannot be property created by his own labor. And if you take him out of the woods and put him into a modern American city, invested with the accumulated capital of technology and industry of earlier generations, then his property loses all relationship to Locke’s idea of property; at the same time, the notion that resources are infinite becomes more and more absurd. Perhaps people do have the right to vastly unequal amounts of wealth, but you will have to find a different way of grounding that right from Locke. Try Social Darwinist arguments about “survival of the fittest,” perhaps.

We also see that insisting on an absolute right to wealth will undermine other basic human values, and in the end undercut freedom itself. If you are at the bottom of the economic ladder, you cannot negotiate fairly with giant, immortal corporations; nor is there any good way of providing for the sick, handicapped or elderly in our anonymous cities. And no matter what your skills, you may find yourself in economic trouble if you exercise your freedom of speech, as many people discovered as a result of the McCarthy Era blacklists, or your freedom of religion, as many Moslems found out in the last seven years. So there is a completely different strand of liberal tradition summarized by Franklin Roosevelt in his Four Freedoms Speech: not only should all human beings have freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also freedom from want and freedom from fear.

So freedom is not just a relationship between the individual and the state; it also involves relationships of individuals with one another, and of entire peoples with one another. In the West we have tended to forget this in the last few centuries, as we have been obsessed with Individualism. In ancient and medieval times it was different. For example, the Greeks prized freedom above all things, but they measured it in the independence of their city-states, regardless of how they were governed; they considered inhabitants of empires to be slaves, even the relatively benevolent Persian empire. Let’s take another look at America in 1776. What did the British do that justified bloody red revolution? Taxes on stamps and tea? Really? Restricting settlement west of the Appalachians to protect the Indians? Oh, nasty. And of course they passed some punitive laws after the Boston Tea Party. Even so, it never added up to the level of abuse that a revolution should demand. And then there’s the question: what would the disgruntled Americans have done if they had gotten representation in Parliament? Would it have quieted them down? Probably not. The real beef our forefathers had was they wanted to govern themselves, and had come to think of us as a different nation. But nobody in the 18th century said that empires were wrong, or that nations had the right to be independent; so we borrowed the vocabulary from very different struggles in 17th century England. We still don’t seem to understand this deep need for national independence. After World War II, Americans came to believe that there was no more urgent moral cause in the world than the struggle for democracy, capitalism and freedom against Communism; we were drawn into struggles in places like Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Cuba and Vietnam, assuming these peoples would share our values. We didn’t see that for many of them, distaste for American armies of occupation or puppet regimes would be a much stronger emotion than anti-Communism; they were traditional cultures that thought in terms of freedom for the whole people rather than for expanded individual opportunity. For them, the magic word was “anti-colonialism.” I will leave it to you to judge whether our past several decades of Middle Eastern policy have suffered from the same blind spot.

I think there’s another problem in our idea of freedom: if everyone does everything he or she can, not just in terms of what’s legal but of what we can do without being punished, can ours or any nation survive? Maybe I could get along, taking short cuts in my job, cheating on taxes, stepping out on my wife and, in the wonderful words of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, stealing the change from blind men’s cups. Some people do, and we probably even know a few. When Amy and I lived in Philadelphia, the story we heard was that whenever a city bus was involved in any kind of accident, more people filed whiplash lawsuits than could ever have fit on the bus. Even in Philadelphia, only a small fraction of people push the envelope this way; and no, if everybody did it, we could not remain free. There aren’t enough enforcers, and more importantly we don’t want for there to be enough enforcers, to have eyes everywhere at once. We just expect that most people will try to operate at a higher standard. So what is the point of individual freedom, if it only works when most people are careful not to use it? Perhaps thinking and speaking freely are always good (except for shouting FIRE in a crowded theater). Other nations disagree with us on this; democracies like Britain, France and Germany clamp down much harder on what they consider hate speech and libel. You can make similar arguments for freedom of religion, of assembly, and of the press; and certainly for all sorts of freedom FROM government intrusion. But in practice, we allow a great deal of freedom of action, including many actions which are not good for us or for society as a whole. Perhaps freedom is a precondition for moral behavior; I get no brownie points for not cheating on the test if the teacher is watching closely the whole time I take it. The Puritans who in the 1600s were arguing politically for the rights of Englishmen, even as they also pressed religiously for the priesthood of believers, must have taken this attitude. Just as a priest cannot assume responsibility for my ultimate salvation or damnation, so the state should not block me from going to hell in my own fashion. Only by being free to sin can I be virtuous in not sinning. Thinkers from Zeno and Epicurus to the Buddha saw liberation in self-denial. Doing what came naturally was to act in a subhuman or bestial fashion; the opposite of freedom was slavery to one’s appetites. Whenever government forces us to good things, such as using our tax money to provide for society’s victims, perhaps it robs us of the chance to aspire to virtue by choosing to contribute of own own free will to charity.

So here we are. For some, freedom is a matter of absence of any external restraint, so that even taxation for good causes is a kind of slavery; for others, only in the absence of outside coercion can we act morally. And a far older tradition says that freedom is the right of your group, your tribe, your nation not to be controlled by others, and that the amount of coercion you personally feel is much less important. To the people at the top of the totem pole, it is about not being restrained from exercising power; to the people at the bottom, it is how effectively their bosses can be reined in. And yet, with all these conflicting ideas of what they are talking about, most people assume that they can bandy the term around and have everyone understand. Why? Perhaps because all of these are pieces of an intuitive feeling for freedom which is hard-wired. The True State of Nature for humanity is not what Locke postulates: it is the lives we lived and which shaped us over hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years, wandering in small hunter/gatherer bands. The early humans, even the protohumans had no strong sense of individuality, or of conflict between their own needs and the needs of the group; there were no police to force actions needed for the survival of the whole, yet the tribes survived. If a tribe did shatter through selfish behavior into individuals or even couples pursuing their own aims, the needs of the dependent, unskilled young would not have been met and the genes of the whole group would have disappeared; so natural selection pushed very hard against selfishness and for what we call altruism. Emotions, religious feelings and moral beliefs reinforced tribal identification; and a concept of freedom which was both tribal and individual became part of our wiring. In evolutionary terms, the last 10,000 years was the blink of an eye. Through all the despotisms and imperfect lives, the image of tribal freedom has endured, and visionaries have kept pressing for it. Confucius’ teachings center on the right relationship of self and society; the Hebrew prophets argued for social justice and compassion, as did Mohammed a millennium later. Jesus emphasized the spirit over the letter of the law. Augustine saw freedom in an all-consuming love for God; but Jesus reminded us that God is invisible and can therefore only be loved through our feelings and action for the people around us. So perhaps the ultimate statement of freedom is this: Love your neighbor, and do whatever you will.

Spring 2009 First Unitarian Universalist Congregational Meeting Invitation

by Posted in Board Minutes, Congregational Meeting Documents

Dear Church Members,

You are invited to attend our Spring Congregational Meeting this coming May the 3rd at 1:30pm directly following a lunch that is being served by our FUUCA Teens as a fundraiser from 12:30pm to 1:15pm for a moderate donation. Childcare reservations can be made by contacting , or calling the church at 452-6168.

You have received this invitation because you may be a voting member of our church:

“According to ARTICLE IV, Section 2 of the Bylaws of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin:

“Individuals who have been members of the church for thirty days or more and who have (as an individual or part of a family unit) made a recorded financial contribution during the last eighteen months, have the right to vote at all official church meetings.”

Any questions regarding voting status may be directed to the Treasurer, Luther Elmore. He can be contacted by email at: Any FUUCA member who has not contributed a financial donation is an associate member and is welcome to attend but would be unable to vote.

In accordance with Article VII, Section 6 of the bylaws, notice of the time and place of the meeting is being mailed to members and posted on the church bulletin board at least twenty days prior to the meeting day.

We’d love to hear your ideas, views, questions and concerns at our upcoming congregational meeting.

Enclosed within this mailing are the following documents for review:

1. The May 3rd Spring Congregational Meeting Agenda.

2. Proposed changes/updating to the bylaws and FAMP (Financial Asset Management Policy) that will be discussed and voted on at our meeting.

3. Nominating Committee’s proposed slate of board candidates for the congregation to vote on.

4. Contingency Options for working with our budget that will be discussed and feedback taken.

5. Executive Director’s Report to the Congregation.

These documents can also be accessed on-line from our church website www.austinuu.org. The Board Meeting minutes, the Spring All Council Meeting Minutes, and the reports that will be presented at the Congregation Meeting will all be accessible by the day of the meeting from the church website.

If you have any questions about the contents of this mailing, please call me at 673-3431 or email .

We look forward to seeing you at the Spring Congregational Meeting.

Sincerely,

Shannon Vyff Secretary FUUCA ‘08/’09 Board of Trustees

Sacred Palimpsest: the Rites of Spring

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Ron Phares, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Ron Phares

April 12, 2009

Mark 16

1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”

8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Gilgamesh; a verse narrative

Friendship is vowing toward immortality and does not know the passing away of beauty… You have known, oh Gilgamesh, what interests me, to drink from the well of immortality. Which means to make the dead rise from their graves and the prisoners from their cells and the sinners from their sins. I think love’s kiss kills the heart of flesh. It is the only way to eternal life.

Song of Myself

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy.

Prayer

We come here today in the midst of a loss, a loss of trust, and of community and of direction within our congregation. These are troubled times. Congregation: Let us be a light. We are here in the midst of global ecological and political turmoil. These are troubled times. Congregation: Let us be a light. As our spiritual disenchantment festers, our financial philanthropy dwindles. These are troubled times. Congregation: Let us be a light. We are here in the midst of a global economic crisis. Which touches not only our friends and neighbors, but also those we may not have met; our global brothers and sisters. These are troubled times. Congregation: Let us be a light.

But as the winter becomes the spring, so shall the troubled past become the promising future.

We come here to understand that the investment of our energies into our community lead to a greater personal and communal spiritual growth. These are hopeful times. Congregation: Let us be a light. We come here to understand that a commitment to political and ecological non-violence will help us to change the world. These are hopeful times. Congregation: Let us be a light. We come here and recognize that good life is giving life and that is accomplished through compassion, respect and interest in eachother. These are hopeful times. Congregation: Let us be a light. We come here and recognize that in supporting all of the earth’s creatures we support ourselves. These are hopeful times. Congregation: Let us be a light.

Amen.

Sermon

Isn’t it delightful that there’s the whiff of iconoclasm in reading the Bible in a UU church? I’m going to actually take it step further and make a confession. This will be a sermon of sentiment. It is sentimental. And I’ll own that and confess that as long as you all understand that a confession is not an apology. Because I feel today drawn between two ordeals. I feel it in myself. I feel it in our community. I feel it in the nation. I feel it in the land. I feel today drawn between beauty and ruin. The feeling took root two mornings past. It just so happened to be Good Friday. You’ll remember because it was probably the same for you, I walked out into the crisp, bright morning and inhaled… the scent of burning. And as I drove to Mayfield park that day, I could see the smoke, come down from the fires far, far north of us, fuzzing out the horizon of hills. So there was that tension, of beauty and ruin, right there in the day. You could see it. You could smell it.

It did occur to me that the day was significant. Perhaps not as much for our community, but for our greater heritage and the culture at large and certainly for many of my classmates at seminary, Good Friday is a momentous notch in the year. It is the day Jesus is put on the cross. And so, it was the day a hero died and a god was born. Beauty and ruin.

Now, this was a couple of days after Passover, which celebrates the freedom of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Pharo granted this beloved freedom after the breath of the Hebrew God killed the first born of every non-Jewish house. Beauty and ruin.

And this morning we have seen a fine piece of theatre about Brother Capek, who, like Jesus, spread his gospel of life while in the belly of a system of death, meeting a similar fate and producing a resonant faith. This is not to mention the performance of the play itself, which appropriately had its own share of beauty and ruin. It’s meta-theatre here at the UU church. Very avante garde. And here we have our flowers, which represent our own flowering and our willingness to give ourselves to others and to receive and recognize the loveliness of our fellows. These flowers are gorgeous. But these flowers are dead. Or dying. Beauty and ruin.

Meanwhile, pulling the lens back to wide angle once again, our economy continues to molt. One has the sense that the system wants to die or is, for all purposes already dead, except for one last mission; for there is a persistent will to not die to nothing, but instead to create another vessel for life, a similar but changed system for the energy of the dieing system to inhabit and invigorate. So that seems ruinous. But there is beauty there too. It’s quite a time to be alive.

So this tension felt, feels, very personal. But maybe you feel it too. Because the personal was just one plane upon which the tension arose. It was in the land, in the economy. It was on the calendar, in the significance of this time of year to our culture, to our practice of Unitarian Universalism, to Christians, to Jews, and, given that not for nothing does this all occur around the vernal equinox, it is significant as well to our pagan forbearers and contemporaries. It’s loaded. It is, and here I get to use the ten-cent word of the sermon title, a palimpsest.

That’s a mighty fine word. As a word, you’d think it might be good for ten dollars, not just cents. But while the economy is cracking, inflation has remained stable, so it’s still ten cents. And worthless in Europe. At any rate, a palimpsest is, first definition, “a manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible,” and, second definition, “an object, place, or area that reflects its history.”

And so here, with this beauty and ruin in this calendrical space, we a have a sacred palimpsest. Humans throughout time have responded to this period of year, with the deepest method at their disposal: the art of mythmaking. Particularly in the west there is a sense of pairing, not of opposites necessarily, but of a pairing of beauty and ruin, which are perhaps only a prettier gloss for the clearly oppositional words: life and death. But I don’t want to make this binary. It is more subtle than a play of opposites. And so I will use, rather than life and death, beauty and ruin. I think it more accurately captures the nuance and desperation that culture after culture have felt, crafted stories around, and then placed and recalled for good reason at this time of year.

This palimpsest reminds me of a story in a book I read for class, though now I can’t recall which book or even which class. At any rate, an astrologist or physicist or some such was lecturing about the earth’s place in the solar system, it’s orbit and the implications thereof. At the end of his lecture there was a question and answer period. An elderly woman stood and reprimanded the lecturer. She told him that his words were wrong, that everyone knew that the earth was flat and that it was held up by the back of a turtle. The clever scientist saw quickly how to outflank the woman. Sure that the logic of a simple question would startle her out of her superstition, he asked her, “Well, what’s the turtle standing on?” But she was entirely unphased and replied conclusively, “It’s turtles! All the way down.”

I’m not agreeing with her science, but taken as a testimony to something like a sociology of spirituality, it rings true. What I mean is that, given the sacred palimpsest of this day, right now, and maybe always, maybe everyday, its beauty and ruin – all the way up, all the way down. I don’t think the theme is limited to this time of year necessarily, but its prominence is heightened by the earth’s current alignment, the cyclical flowering of life out of death and back, no doubt.

So here is this stack of turtle-backs of beauty and ruin, running through culture and time, through me, through us, through economy and ecology, from the concept of God through to the concept of Nature. And since these last two seem to meet, we may have a circle rather than an ascending line. So its stacked turtle backs, all the way around. Beauty and ruin, all the way around. It is not likely that we are left out of this great change taking place in our ecosystem, and by that I simply mean spring. We are of the ecosystem, after all. And so maybe this theme is biological, at its root. And if that’s the case, and I tend to think it is at least that, then we as individuals and as culture are, by our very hope and discomfort, expressions of something, articulations of something that is deep within ecological and, by extension, cosmic processes.

So what’s the message? Why is God, the universe, ecology, the pagans, the Jews, the Christians, and Norbert Capeck (in conjunction with whoever moved the flower communion from early summer to the equinox… I think I’ve just gone deterministically from God to a committee, which is true.) At any rate, what are they trying to tell me with this undercurrent of beauty and ruin? What am I trying to tell myself? And quite to the point, what in the name of beauty and ruin am I trying to tell you? What are we supposed to learn or be reminded of? How do we apply it?

For me, the answer has something to do with the notion that creation is a product of tension. Tension is what occurs between a writer and an empty page, between sculptor and clay, between lovers, between the promise of life and an empty tomb.

Recall the readings. The women find the tomb of Jesus empty. This is from the book of Mark, which is incidentally, the first gospel to be written. In Mark’s tale of the resurrection, we don’t ever see Jesus. We see this odd little dude in white, which may very likely be a later edition to the text, but we don’t see Jesus. We just know that his corpse is gone. We are told by this avatar narrator in white that he is risen. But the main thing to understand is that the tomb is empty. This is how Jesus becomes the Christ. His particular, locational absence makes possible his ubiquitous presence. The fact that he is not there, means he can be everywhere, incarnate now in us. The emptiness of the tomb begs questions, calls to our religious imaginations, leads us into that emptiness, so that we too might be everywhere in our reckoning and Christ-like in our compassion. The ruin of the tomb is the beauty of resurrection. It is a new life in the mold of the hero Jesus and therein a kind immortality.

This was also the quest of Gilgamesh and the meditation of its authors. The ancients who carved this tale into stone understood that immortality was not found in the conquest of time but in the timeless act of love. For though friends pass out of our lives, it is acts of true friendship, they tell us, where life is unbound.

So what of beauty and ruin? What of that tension? What are we to do with that sensation? Well, for one, take heart. Celebrate. Savor. The tension between beauty and ruin, gives us hope amidst the rubble of our lives. And when we are feeling high and fine and light, it reminds us to revel in every drop of light, every sweet breath because it is fleeting and will pass. But its passing makes it’s apprehension all the more exquisite. Beauty and ruin, but… beauty and ruin. It plants hope in horror, seeds forgiveness in evil, and from dry boredom, despair and lonliness, coaxes life and worth and laughter. It will come again. And more than that it is here now. Beauty is not permanent, but neither is it permanently suppressible. It is erupting and dying all about us all the time, even in our sorrow, even in our sin, even in our suffering and struggle. It is there. We find it. We nurture it. We savor its every sensation because we know beauty will pass and in that we are sustained. We are nurtured ourselves. We are found. We are given the great gift of unsustainable satisfaction. Beauty and ruin.

So here I am tempted, in response to our congregational episodes of beauty and ruin, to cajole you all into recommitting to this church and to each other, to finding that immortal sensation in friendship, to find life in the empty tomb of this building. But, alas, I see that I am too late. You guys are way ahead of me. I look around and I see the vibrancy of the children’s religious education program. I see book groups and philosophical discussion forums. I see the dedication of our church staff. I see covenant groups and adult education programs. I see, and usually smell, the men’s group breakfast (I smell the breakfast. I see the group.) I hear the talented voices of our congregation lifted and crafted in song and sermon. I see hours and effort put in by caring people in countless committees and positions of leadership and volunteerism. I see an updated web page listing these and many other ways to get involved. I see the senior luncheon and the Voyagers and the FuucYaa’s, a brave few of which are set to do a little evangelizing as they participate in the Hill Country ride for aids very soon. I see an active social action committee inviting our engagement. I see hands on housing and freeze night. I see you. I see you here today holding your flowers and sharing this moment with each other. We are here to refine our best nature. And I gotta say, on the whole, you guys are great. You’re doing it. You’re doing it.

I mean, we’re a little bit all over the map. We make mistakes. And where our mission ought to be, where our purpose ought to be, there is instead a big empty tomb. And that is alarming. But don’t run away. Run in. That’s where we will find life, that’s where we will find each other, if only our attitude is of life, or rather of beauty. Because beauty implies ruin, and that will make compassion the rule, and the key to unlocking immortality in each other. The Navajo have a benediction, or a parting wish classically given; “Walk in beauty.” But I say walk in beauty and ruin and be thereby compelled into a resurrection, into life. Not just life but life unbound. Original energy. And here, because I am a sentimental fool and willingly blind when I know I can get away with it, I have brought a little resurrection of my own. The flower communion is a meaningful event that affirms our principles, our compassion and interconnection. It is beautiful. But, as we noted before, it’s beauty in-folds ruin, as we have sacrificed some life by exchanging it. So I have brought something magical with which we can rejuvenate life. I have brought seeds. We’ll have them for you in the lobby as you leave. What you do is find a little spot of ruin, throw a few bits of good intention into it. Cover it so that it is protected from birds. Give it water and light, watch it grow. Invite your soul. Plant it. Nurture it. Savor it.

Consider the flowers in your hand the seeds of our community. Plant their image and significance in your mind. See it’s beauty and ruin in the hearts of your fellow seekers. Attend to that, protect it and watch it grow. Plant it. Nuture it. Savor it. It is all around you. It is you, every atom.