At our recent BUUF Orientation session, Part 2, participants shared their “UU Elevator Speech.” This is a 30-45 second overview of the UU religion that you might recite to someone on an elevator who asked you what Unitarian Universalism, or BUUF, was all about. Participants have given permission to share their “speeches.” It’s interesting how many different ways you can describe our faith! What would your elevator speech sound like?
Vicki Dwyer Thomas: “We accept the good of all religions, philosophies and people. We work to support members, our community and the betterment of our world – many times having a lot of fun and fulfillment while doing this!”
June Blackwell: “We have no creed or dogma. It’s for those who are seeking knowledge from multiple sources; question “revealed truth;” reject authoritarian proclamations; and are willing to question themselves and to be questioned as they seek their own understanding.”
Joanne Krettek: “UUs share common values or principles rather than shared beliefs about a God or gods. We focus on the good we can do here on Earth rather than what happens in the afterlife. We actively work toward greater democracy, better stewardship of our planet and greater social justice. We value one another’s perspectives and learn from each other.”
Clark Gilpin: “Famous early members of the American Unitarian movement, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, thought that the form of our lives is not known in advance and must be sought, by daring to live experimentally toward it. Emerson made the point for in own life in a journal entry for September 1840, which later found its way into his essay “Circles.”
Let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least credit on which I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past at my back.
This daring to live experimental lives seems to me to be an enduring feature of the Unitarian Universalist fellowship.”
Rev. Jim McConnell: “BUUF is a safe and loving community, where we learn to live our greatest, most authentic, and artful lives. So that our Being is full of grace, compassion and Love and our doing is directed towards creating peace and justice in human society and wholeness for our planet and all its creatures.”
