Essentially, we need to have an overall goal that will move us from a difficult past into a rewarding future. Let me speak about this in rather general terms at this point. We have a year ahead of us in which we can deal with the concrete realities underlying these generalities.

In this regard I have found myself thinking about three words that characterize what we are doing together. They are interim, transition, and transformation. These words were on my mind because of their simple definitions. An interim is the time or space between two things (between two objects or two periods of time); transition is “going through” the interim; and transformation is what happens as you pass through the interim. After ten years as an interim minister, that is a process that these words describe for me.

I have seen this process begin with some distress but produce beneficent, creative outcomes; also, I have seen it produce more and different distress.

Since transformation is but another word to describe a change of some sort, the issue is not whether change will occur; the issue is wha tkind of transformation it will be. One can be changed (i.e. transformed) into something with more warts than before, or into something with greater virtues than before, or one may merely keep one’s earlier state of being but put on more up-to-date clothing.

The key to working this out well is to be clear on how we have gotten where we are, and what will carry us positively and creatively into the future. This is where one of my favorite phrases, “counting the ‘yes’ votes,” comes into play. What that means to me is not simply to ignore the negatives; it means not to build on or with those negatives.

Of course, we have to know what the negatives mean, otherwise we may not truly understand the potential of the positives. It means we cannot build with bricks that sink into emotional quicksand; we can only build on a positive, affirmative foundation. If we want a positive tomorrow, we have to leave the negative judgments and hard feelings of the past behind and aspire toward our highest values.

This summer I ran across an image that says this for me. It is of an aerialist swinging back and forth on a trapeze bar. He could keep swinging until, finally, he ran out of strength and the trapeze, like any pendulum, would slowly die to a stop. Or he could see that another trapeze bar is swinging toward him. At the propitious moment he could release his grip on the bar on which he is swinging, fly through that interim, transitional space between trapeze bars, confidently grasp the oncoming bar, and then swing to his destination.

Metaphorically speaking, of course, KUUF is the aerialist who has been swinging on a trapeze-bar-of- the-past. This first year of interim ministry has brought us to the place where we can see the new trapeze bar coming. This second year of interim ministry is where we must release our grip on the old bar and risk flying through the remaining interim to grasp the new bar.

So, let’s take the risk, fly through a few unknown unpredictables, and grab onto a creative, fulfilling future.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

Here are some things to ponder over the summer about the nature of religious community.

We religious liberals come together in settings like KUUF -- in fellowships and churches -- in search of a particular kind of community. We want community in which we can be ourselves, honestly and forthrightly. We want one where we can be stimulated by ideas and values that make a real and positive difference to life.

We want a community where we can be at rest and be restored after long hours and days and weeks of dealing with a world that seems more concerned with controlling others than with enabling them.

Furthermore, we want a community that will energize us and send us back into that world with our values strengthened, our ideas clarified, and our commitment to life intensified. We want a community that will contribute to the religious, intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical life of the larger community. We want it to stand for fairness and justice; we want it to show others the meaning of compassion.

We want a congregation of persons that is both a sanctuary in which we can restore our spirits and a springboard to give us the momentum to make our lives count in the larger community.

It is a profound characteristic of such a congregation that it is not set up to do anything for anyone. Rather, it is made up of persons who are all on an equal footing and who are all equally responsible for supporting and enhancing it.

This responsibility is met when the members of such a congregation recognize that their loyalty to and love for one another is matched by an equal loyalty to and love for the community that contains them.

This means, ultimately, that each person is responsible for the health and integrity of the community to which he or she belongs and that this community is only of value to them as far as they support it and involve themselves in its life.

This is a basic dynamic of religious congregations. The great aspect of KUUF is that there are so many people who understand this – and do this.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

We are approaching summer, a time in which to rest up from activities of the year that have been rather strenuous for some of us. Since I will be on vacation from late June to fairly late in August, I thought I would share some basic notions I have about religious liberals and us UUs in particular that might help to widen our perspective a bit.

Over the years, a reassuring thing I have found about us is that we strive to be open to the world. We try to keep our minds cleared of prejudice and predispositions that would prevent a clear experience of reality. If this is not always our practice, at least it is our aspiration.

However, as students of the human mind tell us, people (even religious liberals) seldom allow into themselves the whole of any truth. Rather, people (even religious liberals) tend to expose themselves only to that which they select as worthy of their attention -- and cut out all else. So, being people, we religious liberals all too often limit our perception to that to which we are willing to expose ourselves. And then, we tend to retain only that which enhances our established views.

We could not completely free ourselves of this process of selectivity even if we tried. It is as much a part of us as the way we see, the way we hear, and the way we feel. We do not see everything we look at nor hear every sound that comes our way. Neither do we always feel the way we say we feel.

We can, however, by an act of will, make ourselves more open to information and experiences than we usually allow. We can consciously elect to expose ourselves to that which is different from our habitual, preconceived inclinations. We can intentionally

challenge ourselves with that with which we are not yet comfortable. We can deliberately take the risk of exposing ourselves to that which we do not yet under- stand without condemning it. We can do these things. And, if we do them, the likelihood of divisive factions developing is lessened and the possibility of a truly healthy diversity that is comprised by mutually respectful individuals is enhanced.

It isn’t easy, of course. People everywhere (at least everywhere I have been) often are victims of their limited capacity to take in more than makes them comfortable. But, isn’t that what Unitarian Uni- versalism is at root—the striving for truth no matter how difficult digesting it may be? Comfort and com- placency, while enjoyable, actually are prisons that lock us away in our own biases.

Anyway, these are some things to think about this summer that can bring us back together in the fall with renewed devotion to each other and to KUUF as a religious institution that has friendships within it and is not just a group of friends trying to be a reli- gious institution. But, after you’ve given some thought to such things, relax and enjoy yourselves. I plan to do just that.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

As UUs we certainly have our serious and even tense moments. However, there is a characteristic of Unitarian Universalism that I think sets us apart from most other religious groups in an unexpected way. This characteristic is what I would call “the light touch.” By that I mean there is more room for joy, optimism, and humor in the way we approach religion than in any other religious approach of which I am aware, despite those occasions at which we sometimes can be rather grim.

Obviously, the “light touch” is not our exclusive pos- session. Any other approach to religion that allows human beings spontaneously to express their human nature can have it. But, that is just the point. Not many other approaches to religion celebrate the actuality of being human as fully as we do. At least I don’t know of any. It is not that we deny the worth of the higher reaches of theological speculation or the imperatives of moral and spiritual aspiration. These are important to us in many ways and in many degrees.

It is not that we deny the worth of such things, but that, almost to a person, we affirm the beauty, the joy, and the liveliness of being human in the first place. We affirm being able to think for ourselves, to feel for ourselves, to do for ourselves, to laugh for ourselves and, when the inevitable occasion arises, to laugh at ourselves. It even makes sense to laugh at our own religion when it becomes stuffy and self-important.

It is almost second nature for many of us UUs to take a step back, look at ourselves and other human beings, and then acknowledge the quirkiness we see all around us. It is almost our second nature to analyze the strange sights we see and try to make artistic and metaphorical sense out of them.

That is why we produce such interesting celebrants of the human condition as Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, and Bela Bartok—each of them a Unitarian or Universalist or both. Sometimes it takes science fiction or fictionalized music to make sense of who we are, where we are, and why we are. Our penchant for acknowledging our quirkiness is, also, why Steve Allen said so much for us -- and to us. It is why P.T. Barnum, his circus, and his long stream of human oddities seem to fit so well within our tradition.

I am intrigued by Barnum’s three ring circus in which he had three acts going all at the same time. Univer- salist, though he was, there are reminiscences of the Trinity in that image -- as if, in one ring, we have the Father doing his heavenly high wire act; in another ring, the Son in a clown’s suit, his head in a dogmatic lion’s mouth; and, in the third, the Holy Ghost inspiring and then floating through hoops of moral fire. I don’t know that Barnum thought of his three rings in such terms but, being latter day UUs, we can. We can look on the circus seriously and religion humorously and celebrate them both.

We seriously (and lightly) celebrate the human in its many forms. Some of us may get a little stiff-necked and rigid at times -- like the puritanical religions out of which many of us came -- but we never lose the tug that the “light touch” makes on our religious heart.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

Here we are in April, the month that T.S. Eliot called “The cruelest month of the year” in his poem, The Wasteland. He made this judgment because, as he goes on to say, it breeds

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

It has always struck me as somewhat odd that a poet of his stature could have such a complaining attitude toward the month in which spring seriously asserts itself. But then he was, after all, born a Unitarian and turned Anglican.

Actually, I suppose I have a similar complicated personal reaction to April myself, because of the way it encourages life to grow out of dead things. However, what has struck me (professionally) as a UU minister is that annual meetings of congregations often fall in that month.

And, at annual meetings, the remains of the past year are either celebrated or critiqued; reports are submitted; budgets are passed; and forward looking exhortations are made. They are made, that is, unless the main effort has been to con- demn failures instead of identifying possibilities.

It is a time when the effort is to bring new life out of old. In people terms all this moves forward in a healthy way as long as people turn the past into food for the future and work together

respectfully and cooperatively – which to me means cooperating democratically.

Now, April, with its paradoxes, may not be the most democratic of months but it is probably the

most generative. But so, also, is the democratic process paradoxical and generative.

Even as April makes use of life that has degenerated into humus so democracy makes use of human efforts and desires that have devolved into differences. In fact differences between people are what provide the grist for democratic resolution.

Harmony, after all, is what occurs when cacophonies have been resolved into mutually compatible sounds. For me, what April does best is to bring new life out of the death of old life. So, why should not an annual meeting do the same and create new possibilities out of the spent momentum of the past?

Perhaps if T.S. Eliot had seen Unitarians do a lot of this, he might have remained one. At any rate, this congregation has a great opportunity to generate a strong and healthy new life for itself when it does its annual thing and meets on April 17th.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

This is the month when the pledge campaign is underway. It’s also the month before the annual meeting of the congregation, which means the welfare of KUUF is on our minds in more than one way. It is necessary to raise enough pledges so that a healthy, forward-looking budget can be passed; it also is necessary to bring the KUUF organization up to more efficient and effective functioning. Over the past five months I have noted several areas to which attention should be given and some revision made. Space here does not allow a full discussion of each area, so I will simply list them with a few remarks and look forward to a more complete discussion in coming weeks and months.

Items:

• Membership Committee: Currently there is not one. This committee is a bedrock essential committee that determines much of the quality of life in a congregation.

• Committee functioning in general is some- what muddled. A strong need here is for the Board to have more responsibility in setting up and overseeing committee work. This will probably require a change in the bylaws to empower the Board to appoint committee chairs. Currently committees seem to form themselves and elect their chairs, which sometimes works in a congregation of fifty but can become anarchic in a congregation of 200 plus.

• Program Planning: There is need for more coordination here. Committees and groups need to be in more consistent communication

and an official church program calendar needs to be implemented. The role of a Fel- lowship Council (which is in the bylaws but not currently existent) can do this effectively.

• Role of the Minister and the Responsibility of the Board of Trustees: There seems to be no clear agreement that the minister is the leader primarily responsible for the spiritual or religious (choose your own term) dimension of congregational life. A bylaw change that specifies the Minister as the spiritual/ religious head of the congregation and the Board as in charge of material matters (policy, finance, facilities, etc.) would help clarify a situation that in the past has been a source of misunderstanding and could be so again in the future.

This column is not to be taken as a call to immediate action at the upcoming annual meeting because each item needs more time for discussion and general agreement before concrete action can be taken. This is, however, an effort to start everyone thinking about what needs to be done to bring the organizational functioning of KUUF in line with current needs.

Things that worked when membership was at smaller, more informal levels don’t work as size and complexity increase. Please give attention to these items and whatever else you see that needs handling in order to bring KUUF through its recent rocky years into not just a smoothly functioning organization but also an efficient and effective community of friends.

As the saying goes, money is “root of all evil” -- or at least, the love of money is. But, whether we love it or not, we still have to talk about it. Especially, when it comes time for the annual pledge drive, we must. Money, after all, is the root that feeds any religious trunk that branches out into the world to spread its leaves of faith. It follows that, if money is the root of evil, it is also the root of much good. Without money, it is hard to get things done in this very practical world. The real issue is not money itself, but how money is used.

How does this relate to a free faith? -- to our liberal religion? -- to KUUF? In a basic way, it is a key to how realistic and worldly we are about our religion. A most interesting comparison can be made between fundamentalists and religious liberals. Fundamentalists, as we all know, are exceedingly unworldly and supernaturally oriented in their faith -- until it comes to money. Then, they are hard nosed, up front, matter-of-fact and exceedingly worldly. Religious liberals, on the other hand, are exceedingly worldly and pragmatic about their faith -- until it comes to money. Then, they often become unworldly and exceedingly faith-centered -- acting as if somehow Heaven or the Universe will pay the bills or the bills will go away if they are just ignored.

My justification for saying this is an observation under how to create a church budget in the UU Congregational Handbook. The Handbook reports a survey published in a national news magazine showed that Unitarian Universalists had the highest average incomes of twenty major denominations. However, the average UU pledge was the lowest of all groups studied. Apparently, when it comes actually to giving money to one’s religious organization, Unitarian Universalists, as a group, suddenly become obsessed by faith in things not seen. It’s as if fundamentalist theology is transmogrified into liberal behavior.

So, the question is just how unworldly are the members of KUUF when it comes actually to support- ing their religion at pledge time? This is one of the few times when urging a practical attitude in a UU group is not "preaching to the choir."

By the way, here is a suggestion on how you might increase the budgeted amount you give to KUUF without increasing your expenditures at all. If you take an annual vacation and also make a pledge to KUUF, simply switch the amounts you spend. What you spend on vacations, now give to support your liberal religious faith and what you pledge to KUUF use for your vacation. Which is more important?

Don Vaughn-Foerster

With the turning of the last page of the December calendar, a long standing custom has been to face the New Year with new resolve. One device that has been used to encourage this effort is the making of New Year’s resolutions – an essay into setting goals (usually behavioral goals) that will make our life better than we think it has been.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions is that they are based more on optimism than on hope. Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary, cynically (but perhaps too accurately) defines an optimist as "A proponent of the doctrine that black is white."

This dooms many of our January 1 resolutions from the start. However, Bierce, in that same book, defines hope as "desire and expectation rolled into one." This is a more substantial basis on which to create behavior changing goals. It is only by expecting improvement that improvement will happen. Thus, I take resolu- tions made with hope to be more effective than those made with optimism.

In the coming year, I truly hope that the desire both to strengthen interpersonal relationships within the congregation and to set the Fellowship on a positive, productive course will take on real flesh.

Even more, I truly hope that everyone will expect this to happen. What's at stake is not the creation of resolutions that

are soon forgotten or ignored but actually expecting the strengthening and growth of KUUF and deeply desiring that this actually happen.

Of course, this demands a positive attitude usually absent from thinking only optimistically. Seriously to hope is to be seriously com- mitted to hoped-for outcomes. I have seen many evidences that such hope and commit- ment exist here in KUUF.

This evidence becomes ever more apparent as persons stop reliving the past conflicts and failures and, instead, focus on the positive possibilities of the future. I'm looking forward to 2011 being a year in which positive, hopeful expectations are pursued.

Don Vaughn-Foerster

December -- that enigmatic month of joy and frustration -- is upon us. December is an intoxicating time of fellowship and good will; it is a wistful time of wishing things had worked out differently in some phases of our lives and relationships.

Santa Claus is more symbolic of the time than we sometimes realize. Santa Claus is another name for Saint Nicholas who not only is the patron saint of children and sailors but also the patron saint of pawnbrokers. He is a saint who not only says it's wonderful to enjoy the child in everyone (and in ourselves) and to journey to wherever that joy takes us; he, also, says it's okay to go into hock for our pleasure.

Add that mixed message to the other personal and interpersonal difficulties we create for ourselves and it becomes obvious why sometimes we just muddle through every year at this time.

December is also when the winter solstice reminds us of transitions by reassuring us with its apparent rebirth of the sun. No, afterward we won't get any warmer in the coming, but we will have increasing daylight hours to see better where we are going if we will just pay attention.

It is a time when, if we become a bit more aware of the people around us, we realize just how much we need them in spite of some of the ways we may have treated each other. One of the perennial messages of the holiday season is to remind us of the great need we have for peace and goodwill in our lives. It also reminds us that we have these things within us just waiting for us to give them to one another. The uncertainty lies in just how ready we are to give them.

In such an ambiguous time, it is helpful to pause and acknowledge that what is dark will not always be so and what is stressful and a bit disordered will relax and organize with a bit of calm attention from us.

KUUF is entering this winter holiday period truly as a transitional child of seasons. Things seem a bit confusing, naturally; but the energies are flowing. They are even building to a sustained pitch of cope-ability.

More importantly, there is a conspicuous willing- ness on the part of everyone to make sure this coming year is truly one of promise. This makes it easy to say Seasons Greetings! Joyous Solstice! Merry Christmas! And it’s great to look forward to a Happy New Year in which old stresses are transcended and new joys will be made real!

Don Vaughn-Foerster

We could not completely free ourselves of this process of selectivity even if we tried. It is as much a part of us as the way we see, the way we hear, and the way we feel.

We can, however, add to it. We can, by an act of will, make ourselves more open to information and experiences than we usually allow. We can consciously elect to expose ourselves to that which is different from our habitual, preconceived inclinations. We can intentionally challenge ourselves with that with which we are not yet comfortable. We can deliberately take the risk of exposing ourselves to that which we do not yet understand without condemning it.

We can do these things. And, if we do them, the likelihood of divisive factions developing is lessened and the possibility of a truly healthy diversity comprised by mutually respectful individuals is enhanced. It isn’t easy, of course. People everywhere (at least everywhere I have been) often are victims of their limited will to take in more than makes them comfortable. But, isn’t that what Unitarian Universalism is at root -- the striving for truth no matter how difficult digesting it may be? Comfort and compla- cency, while enjoyable, actually are prisons that lock us away in our own biases.

Don Vaughn-Foerster