Is The UUA Board Of Trustees' "New Covenant" Worth The Paper It Is Written On Or The Breath That It Will Be Spoken With?
In the sixth in a series of blog posts about the October UUA Board Of Trustees meeting on her UUA View from Berkeley blog entitled Our covenant Pacific Central District UUA Trustee Linda Laskowski writes about a new "covenant" for UUA Trustees. Apparently the old UUA Board covenant, which I have not ever seen, was not up to scratch. In fact Linda asserts that back in 2007 she and five other newly elected UUA trustees were "somewhat put off by what appeared to be a cavalier attitude toward covenants" so they complained about the existing covenant; whereupon UUA Moderator Gini Courter gave them the opportunity to "readdress" the covenant during the next board meeting. Linda says that they did share their concerns about the old covenant during the next meeting but then goes on to say. . .
"Not much has been done by the Board with the covenant since, in spite of adding several new trustees."
Forgive me for saying so U*Us but *that* sounds like "par for the course" for the UUA Board of Trustees. Someone identifies a problem, it is "addressed" by the Board, and then nothing is done to change the problematic or outright unacceptable status quo for years. . .
Linda informs U*Us that during the October 2011 UUA Board meeting, four long years down the road from when she and five other new UUA Trustees first shared their concerns about the old covenant, UUA Trustees managed to draw up a brand spanking new Board covenant "from scratch" and agreed to begin each UUA Board Of Trustees meeting by reading this new covenant together. One can't help but wonder why it took four long years for the UUA Board of Trustees to finally get around to doing something that probably took at most an hour or two to get done.
Just as Linda Laskowski did on her blog post I am reproducing this "New Covenant" of the UUA Board Of Trustees below "in its exact form" aka verbatim -
We promise to:
....listen deeply, speak boldly and keep an open mind, balancing views of self and others authentically
....be humble, prepared and present and focus on governance as the board's essential role, while taking the long view, and maintaining accountability for anti-racism/anti-oppression/multi-culturalism
....have respect and affection for each other, assuming the best of intentions and honest needs and building new bridges and bridges that are broken
....remember our sources and whose we are, giving space for faith
....learn and grow, practice self-care, laugh and sing!
I actually have a few concerns of my own to share about some of the "promises" made in this "New Covenant" but for the time being I will simply reproduce the comment that I submitted in response to this blog post -
I don't think that any of you listened deeply to what I had to say at the April 2010 Board meeting, especially in light of the fact that you ALL totally ignored my follow-up emails. If any of you did listen you promptly and conveniently forgot what I said in the days, weeks and months following that meeting. I see no evidence whatsoever that the UUA Board of Trustees has responded in an even remotely responsible manner to the legitimate concerns about serious flaws and inadequacies in the MFC Rules and other UUA policies and procedures for dealing with clergy misconduct that I shared with the Board during the April 2010 UUA Board meeting. More than a year and a half has gone by since that meeting and I see no changes to the MFC Rules that responsibly correct the serious flaws that I identified during the meeting nor do I see any progress being made on other aspects of the unacceptable status quo which I made abundantly clear is NOT in alignment with the claimed principles & purposes of the Unitarian Universalist religious community. I thought that it was the Board's responsibility to ensure that all UUA bylaws etc. are in alignment with UUA principles and purposes.
Your new covenant is devoid of any sincerity AFA*I*AC. It is nothing but empty words that will be forgotten almost as soon as they are spoken. I recall that UUA Trustee Rev. Jake Morrill delivered a reading that called for similar values, at the beginning of the April 2010 Board of Trustees meeting. What came of that? UUA Trustees quite evidently did not honor and uphold those empty words then so why should anyone believe that Trustees will genuinely honor and uphold your "new" covenant now Linda?
"Not much has been done by the Board with the covenant since, in spite of adding several new trustees."
Forgive me for saying so U*Us but *that* sounds like "par for the course" for the UUA Board of Trustees. Someone identifies a problem, it is "addressed" by the Board, and then nothing is done to change the problematic or outright unacceptable status quo for years. . .
Linda informs U*Us that during the October 2011 UUA Board meeting, four long years down the road from when she and five other new UUA Trustees first shared their concerns about the old covenant, UUA Trustees managed to draw up a brand spanking new Board covenant "from scratch" and agreed to begin each UUA Board Of Trustees meeting by reading this new covenant together. One can't help but wonder why it took four long years for the UUA Board of Trustees to finally get around to doing something that probably took at most an hour or two to get done.
Just as Linda Laskowski did on her blog post I am reproducing this "New Covenant" of the UUA Board Of Trustees below "in its exact form" aka verbatim -
We promise to:
....listen deeply, speak boldly and keep an open mind, balancing views of self and others authentically
....be humble, prepared and present and focus on governance as the board's essential role, while taking the long view, and maintaining accountability for anti-racism/anti-oppression/multi-culturalism
....have respect and affection for each other, assuming the best of intentions and honest needs and building new bridges and bridges that are broken
....remember our sources and whose we are, giving space for faith
....learn and grow, practice self-care, laugh and sing!
I actually have a few concerns of my own to share about some of the "promises" made in this "New Covenant" but for the time being I will simply reproduce the comment that I submitted in response to this blog post -
I don't think that any of you listened deeply to what I had to say at the April 2010 Board meeting, especially in light of the fact that you ALL totally ignored my follow-up emails. If any of you did listen you promptly and conveniently forgot what I said in the days, weeks and months following that meeting. I see no evidence whatsoever that the UUA Board of Trustees has responded in an even remotely responsible manner to the legitimate concerns about serious flaws and inadequacies in the MFC Rules and other UUA policies and procedures for dealing with clergy misconduct that I shared with the Board during the April 2010 UUA Board meeting. More than a year and a half has gone by since that meeting and I see no changes to the MFC Rules that responsibly correct the serious flaws that I identified during the meeting nor do I see any progress being made on other aspects of the unacceptable status quo which I made abundantly clear is NOT in alignment with the claimed principles & purposes of the Unitarian Universalist religious community. I thought that it was the Board's responsibility to ensure that all UUA bylaws etc. are in alignment with UUA principles and purposes.
Your new covenant is devoid of any sincerity AFA*I*AC. It is nothing but empty words that will be forgotten almost as soon as they are spoken. I recall that UUA Trustee Rev. Jake Morrill delivered a reading that called for similar values, at the beginning of the April 2010 Board of Trustees meeting. What came of that? UUA Trustees quite evidently did not honor and uphold those empty words then so why should anyone believe that Trustees will genuinely honor and uphold your "new" covenant now Linda?
After all, through your ongoing negligence towards, and thus effective complicity in. . . all manner of UU clergy misconduct you are ALL disregarding, and even outright violating, the "covenants" that are expressed in the Seven Principles of the Unitarian Universalist religious community. You have ALL failed, and seemingly even outright refused, to genuinely practice justice, equity and compassion in your human relations with me and other victims of UU clergy misconduct and/or other related UU injustices and abuses such as the egregious institutional stonewalling and denial that the UUA & MFC are clearly and unequivocally guilty of engaging in for decades.
How many UUA Trustees actually entered into a free and genuinely *responsible* search for the Truth and meaning of what I said during the April 2010 Board meeting, to say nothing of my previous and subsequent emails to UUA Board members? What did UUA Trustees actually DO to work towards the goal of a UU World community with peace, liberty, and some long overdue restorative justice for ALL victims of UU clergy misconduct? How did UUA Trustees affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of UU clergy misconduct victims in the wake of that meeting? What has the UUA Board of Trustees done to build bridges with me and other past victims of clergy misconduct? From where I stand it would appear that you are ALL "standing on the side of love" as in zero, nothing, nada. . .
I demand genuine restorative justice for myself and ALL other victims of UU clergy misconduct whose complaints to the UUA & MFC were arbitrarily dismissed out-of-hand soon after being submitted to the UUA or were unjustly or otherwise inadequately responded to by the UUA & MFC. I further demand that this long overdue restorative justice must be very publicly seen to be done by UUA delegates during this year's "Justice GA". You can expect to see me standing in front of 25 Beacon Street with strongly worded picket signs condemning the UUA & MFC in the coming months if UUA Trustees fail to respond in responsibility to the letter and the Spirit of this comment and my previous "electronic communications" with you.
Sincerely,
Robin Edgar
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