When I started looking for this month’s stories, I was a little confused how we could tell new stories about equity that are different than the ones we told about justice in October and pluralism last month. All three of these ideas are so closely related, I didn’t know what else we could explore! And then I wondered, “How are the people who are reimagining our faith’s principles talking about equity?”
What I found is that they draw a line between equity and our current First Principle: to honor the inherent worth and dignity of all people. They write, “We declare that every person has the right to flourish with inherent dignity and worthiness”. It’s one thing to say that we believe everyone has worth and dignity, but how do we live like we believe this? Valuing equity helps us imagine how we uplift one another’s worth and dignity. When we value pluralism and know that everyone is different, with different needs and wants, we can start looking for the different things people need to live with worth and dignity. Practicing equity is what we do when we know that everyone will need something a little different to live their best lives, and we work to provide that for one another.
This first appeared in the February 2024 edition of First Unitarian Church of Des Moines's Connection Circles packet. This article references the then-proposed changes to Article II of the Unitarian Universalist Association's bylaws. The denomination adopted these changes at the 2024 General Assembly, shifting the foundation of our faith from Seven Principles to Shared Values.
I loved reading through my parents’ copies of National Geographic as a kid. The natural world has fascinated me ever since my early love of dinosaurs, and I loved reading about it in these magazines. But the older I got and the more I read, the more curious I became about people near and far, and the unique lives they all led. What food do they eat? What clothes do they wear? What do they do for fun? What breaks their hearts? I don’t remember focusing too much on how we might be alike. The things that make us different and unique were the things that really piqued my curiosity.
My love of how people can be so different and still grow together is what led me to Unitarian Universalism. Being a people who value pluralism means that we appreciate the many ways that our families, communities, and world are made up of people who are different. We might start appreciating one another’s differences by looking for how we are alike. That can help us get to know one another by giving us something familiar to focus on. But how do we learn to appreciate differences for what they truly are? The older I become, the more I realize how important simple curiosity is for valuing difference.
This first appeared in the January 2024 edition of First Unitarian Church of Des Moines's Connection Circles packet.
This month, we will explore Transformation. At its heart, transformation is about change. Change can be scary, or exciting, but it is almost always uncomfortable. Something we can take comfort in however is that change is always happening, even when we don’t realize it. You’re changing right now as you read this page! Sit with that idea for a while if it sounds trite. How are you changing right now? How have you changed in the last month? The last year? How did those changes make you feel?
The other thing we can take comfort in is that very often, we don’t have to encounter change alone. Whether we are changing by growing another year older, or getting messy in the process of learning something new, there are other people in our lives who can support us. The opposite of this is important to remember also: we have the opportunity to show up with love and compassion for the people experiencing change in our lives, however exciting, scary, or uncomfortable that change might be.
This first appeared in the December 2023 edition of First Unitarian Church of Des Moines's Connection Circles packet.