Hopefully soon, this blog will be a collective effort of the members of UUNICORN (Unitarian Universalists Not in Church or Religiously Networked.) Really, UUNICORN is a group of UU punks/radicals who all went through YRUU at roughly the same time (we have a couple of "generations") and who still feel attached to UUism but who don't feel served by the UU congregations available to them. We work well together because we have a collective history to base our shit talk on and because we all really enjoying making dumpstered eggs into fantastic spanish omlettes. And I mean, like any other UU community, we tend towards to radically exclusive, and are probably still decidedly narcissitic, but we've also managed to create a UU community without the help of the stupid UUA.

This Saturday we had a great conversation about the first principle. A principle which I generally use as the UU "selling point:"
respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people

It would seem, on the surface, that this is a pretty easy idea to get behind. Who doesn't love respect? Worth? Dignity? Exactly.

So that's what we hide behind as UU's - we love EVERYBODY! We are such awesome peace loving hippies! You would love to be a part of our community cos we won't judge you like all those christians you've met!

Bullshit. We are just as judgemental as the next group of people, maybe more so because we have this neat little principle to hide behind.

UU's don't often have to deal with issues of theodicy. Shit happens and God has nothing to do with it, right? So we just move on. But the thing is: shit does happen, it happens in our communities, and it rips them apart. We are seeing this happen wholesale with the ways in which we are handling the racism of our denomination. We've formed lots of committees and study groups and even training cadres, but we haven't changed the abject racism of our faith, because we aren't willing to deal with the fact that a lot of us white folx are doing really awful things to people of color, or standing by and letting them happen. If we were to do that, we might have to look more closely at that first principle and how well it stands up to the reality that people can be real asshats to each other.

There was a sexual assault at a youth conference a few years ago. The district is still dealing with the fallout. I think we're still dealing with it because we haven't been able to have real and genuine conversations about sexual assault, and what that means when we supposedly respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person. The inherent worth of a sexual predetor? That offends us, maybe, but also paralyzes us. So we react the same way people have been reacting for centuries and put a bunch of shitty rules in place that never address what is going on.

I'm a systems person - a sociologist. I understand that this is just as problematic as an individual person, someone who looks at psychology as the root of everything. But when I have to deal with evil, I deal with it on a systems level. Since my understanding of divinity is directly tied to my understanding of intentional community, my version of theodicy is when that community collectively fucks up and stops being accountable. That's every community, because community might be holy, but its not infalliable or omnipotent.

The question is how we can possibly create accountable communities that also respect everyone's inherent worth and dignity. How do we hold everyone accountable for the awful shit that happens and still be able to say to the perpetrators, "you are a human being worthy of respect and love?" CAN you do that? Does it even work?

And how can we do that when the system that we were raised in, that we understand as reality, is rotten to its core? How do I say to the perpetartors of sexual violence, "what you did is not acceptable and is awful and caused pain. But you are a worthy human being. You cannot behave like that in this community, but you are still a valuable part of it." while still taking into account the safety and needs of other members in the community, most notably the survivors of violence?

I have a totally irrational hope that there is a way to do that. Its the hope that keeps me alive. And even when I don't believe that anything will ever change, least of all in my lifetime, I still believe that it will because otherwise, what's the point?

Some people, I hear, call that faith.