Thoughts About the UUA Board Meeting

Tomorrow (1/19/07) the Board of Trust convenes. I try to imagine what a good outcome will look like. My hope is the Board will soon take an active leadership role in making sure that the work of the Safe Congregations Panel is not lost. But for now, the closest that it will come to this is the meeting of the Congregations Working Group. It includes one hour devoted to Restorative Justice, with Rev. Jory Agate, Chair of the MFC, and Tracey Robinson-Harris, Director of Congregational Services.

One thing that puzzles me is that this work (at least for now) falls under the Congregations Working Group. To my mind, if it’s going to be part of a Working Group at all, it would make more sense in the Living Our Faith Working Group. The needs of victims are not necessarily the same as the needs of congregations. From a victims' perspective, chances are the issue is first and foremost justice. Moreover, a victim is not necessarily part of a congregation. Some say, and I think they may be right, that a congregation can’t heal until the needs of victims are addressed. So in time maybe both can work on it? But perhaps that would be a bureaucratic nightmare.

Accepting this framework, and being grateful that it is being addressed at all (which I am), then what would the ideal outcome look like? I expect there are a number of good possibilities. My fondest hope is that a few minutes will be devoted at the start to silence or prayer dedicated to those most hurt by misconduct, and that this work is then undertaken in a spirit of humility and devotion, knowing that to work for those most broken will ultimately be of great benefit to all -- be it ministers, congregations or the association itself. If this perspective can be maintained, and not be lost in the shame, fear, minimization and denial that so commonly derail such work, I believe all will be well, whatever the particulars of the outcome.