Something for the Journey
Rev. Wendy Bartel, UUMA Board of Trustees
“When colleagues ask, say ‘Yes!’ whenever you can.” This is a value that was instilled in me in seminary and in my first minister chapter-the Pacific Central District. Over the years, this has meant all kinds of opportunities to serve: in ordinations/installations, at the chapter level, the district, the region, and these days through the governance portfolio on the UUMA Board. I have been blessed with many adventures by saying yes. There has been beauty and there has been pain in serving people at every level. Still, I offer the integrity of my ‘Yes’ to colleagues whenever I can, even when I am nervous I do not know everything I need to know, for it is clear, we rarely, if ever, know everything we need to know in ministry, even as we are expected to know. We are in a time of mass cultural shifts and much is in flux and thus we find ourselves, in many ways, still in liminal space – in the not knowing everything.
Our colleague in ministry, Susan Beaumont, in her work on leading in liminal times, has been helpful to me in my own setting and in UUMA Board work. I have seen many of you post about her work as well. Beaumont reminds us that a different kind of leadership is needed in liminal times: a quality of presence that involves quieting the voices of cynicism, judgment, and fear, which she describes powerfully with examples and anecdotes. She invites leaders into three spiritual shifts: from knowing to unknowing, from advocating to attending, and from striving to surrender. These are not easy to engage or practice. And we know, the work of leadership is often hard.
It is harder when we are also striving to recognize the constant and pervasive presence of the cultural characteristics of white supremacy in ourselves, in our organizations, and institutions. Many of us were introduced to the work of Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun through the addressing White Supremacy Culture Teach-Ins led by our UU religious education professionals in 2017. Our call to justice implores us to deeply invest in this learning. That work is continuing to develop to provide more tools and resources for us to recognize and work to dismantle these systems of oppression that inflict real wounds in the forms of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, destruction to our precious Earth, and SO.MUCH.MORE. These wounds need tending and tending takes time, deep listening, courage to change, and faithfulness.
I sometimes think of the work of governance like setting up a playground. The Bylaws set the parameters: where does the fence go that lets us know where we are playing and what is beyond our realm? Board Policies helps us to know how to operate: how do we decide what play equipment to acquire and where to put it, who might install it, and make financial recommendations for how to pay for it? The Policies help us to get clear on lanes and delegation: who is responsible for what in the playground? And the Policies help us articulate accountability through relational monitoring and oversight: who is allowed to play on which parts of the playground and what are the safety mechanisms in place to help families be as safe as possible? They also increase transparency, especially in relationship to power and communication. It’s not a perfect metaphor. It’s a playful one in part because Board work and Ministry can get so difficult and the world needs our Unitarian Universalist JOY as much as it needs our values.
And speaking of values, the bolded words are the values by which the Board operates, as noted in the UUMA Bylaws and our Board Policy Book. May practicing integrity, accountability, justice, faithfulness, leadership, and transparency bring us all closer to compassion, healing, and joy.
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