Welcome to 2019! I hope that you had a wonderful holiday season, and that the return to the regular work days/week days hasn’t been too difficult.
I really enjoyed the theme of Mystery for December, and now the next theme for January, Possibility, seems perfectly timed. Perhaps you can guess what I am referring to: the upcoming vote at our Mid-Year Meeting on January 27th as to whether we continue forward with the process of coming up with an alternate name.
Possibility brings to my mind the variety of different futures that could come. Little things, like where you want to go for lunch, help determine what the rest of your day looks like. Larger decisions, like where to go to college, obviously have a larger personal impact than either Jersey Mike’s or the Habit on a Tuesday afternoon.
There are a variety of feelings, for sure, that you may have regarding this renaming process. These feelings may be slight or deeply embedded; they may be singular or somewhat conflicting. You may perhaps be intrigued by the idea itself, but get turned off by the term “nickname” or “alternate” name. I do not for a minute want to tell you how to think or feel, but I would like to take this opportunity to explain how I see this.
Put our Mission statement in front of you and think Possibility. To me, the question is this – how can we best move forward in our Mission. How can we give our Mission the best chance to be successful, the best chance to spread what we think and feel into the wider Ventura County community, and to truly give it our best shot at transforming the world through justice and compassion?
Our mission and our name are intertwined, and how they could work together even better with an alternate name as well as CVUUF is an interesting thought. I think it would help strengthen the connection in our hearts as well, with a name that speaks to some part of our tradition or spiritual values. I do not think it would be a repudiation of our past or of our history either. I believe it would be building on those, not crushing them. I believe we can indeed step into the future, bravely, without diminishing our past.
Think of the possibilities. Even better, come talk about them. Perhaps you came to one of the two workshops regarding the process. Whether you did or did not come to one of those, please attend one of the Listening Circles, between services on Sunday the 13th and 20th. We want to hear you.
Every point of view is important, every person has value, and we need to do this in a way that reflects our spiritual practices of inclusion and democracy. At the end of the month please come to the Mid-Year Meeting, on January 27th at 11:00. Examine the possibilities with an open mind, and come see and hear democracy in action.
Tom Wolf