Photo: https://www.ted.com/speakers/sharon_brous

I am heading into a time of a change in focus.  First, I am participating in the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly.  This is a meeting of national Unitarian Universalists from any congregation who sends a delegate. This meeting is where policy and governance decisions are made for the denomination.  In addition to the governance work, there is also social justice work and educational programs.  This year, the General Assembly is entirely online.  

Prior to the General Assembly, there is Ministry Days which is a three day continuing education meeting for ministers.  Ministry Days is also entirely online this year.

After General Assembly and Ministry Days, I will be on a combination of vacation and Study Leave into early August.

This is a change of focus for me; a time to consider things other than Emerson.  A time to consider the denomination, my own skills as a minister and ministry in general.  In the time leading up to this time of change in focus, I have been considering the thought I have quoted below.  It comes from a 2016 TED Talk by Rabbi Sharon Brous who is the senior rabbi of IKAR, an innovative Jewish congregation in Los Angeles.  In this talk, she brings up many points that were of great interest to me.  I’ve posted the link below if you’re interested in watching the whole 16 minute talk.

Here is the quote that I’ll be thinking about as I move into June and July.  Maybe we can have a conversation about it when I get back.  Until then, I hope you enjoy your July.

My tradition tells a story of a traveler who is walking down a road when he sees a beautiful house on fire, and he says, “How can it be that something so beautiful would burn, and nobody seems to even care?” So too we learn that our world is on fire, and it is our job to keep our hearts and our eyes open, and to recognize that it’s our responsibility to help put out the flames.

This is extremely difficult to do. Psychologists tell us that the more we learn about what’s broken in our world, the less likely we are to do anything. It’s called psychic numbing. We just shut down at a certain point. Well, somewhere along the way, our religious leaders forgot that it’s our job to make people uncomfortable. It’s our job to wake people up, to pull them out of their apathy and into the anguish, and to insist that we do what we don’t want to do and see what we do not want to see. Because we know that social change only happens –when we are awake enough to see that the house is on fire.

Here is a link to the Rabbi’s whole talk, with which I found myself agreeing quite a bit:  https://www.ted.com/talks/sharon_brous_it_s_time_to_reclaim_religion?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare