PeaceBang

The Commission on Appraisal Makes a Go At the Principles & Sources

Christine Robinson writes a great blog posting about the suggested revision here.

A PDF file of the Commission’s text (thanks to Scott Wells) is here.

I haven’t read the text carefully enough — it deserves more than a quick skim, but my initial reaction to the Preface and the Principles is that they are too verbose and written in a high-falutin’ prose style that I think communicates, “We all have graduate degrees” more clearly than it communicates, “Here’s what Unitarian Universalism is all about.” Salvation through verbiage; it hasn’t worked for us yet and I don’t think it’s gonna. I shudder to think of these looooong phrases being used liturgically. So many of the readings in Singing the Living Tradition are similarly excessively brainy and blathery, we really need to ask ourselves what kind of person really resonates with this kind of language (and so much of it!).

Don’t get me wrong — I personally really LIKE brainy and blathery. I’m a voracious reader and my mind likes long phrases and challenging vocabulary. The Commission folks are good writers who made a fine effort here. I just think that their final product smacks of a group of intelligent and well-meaning people shut up in a room with a huge boatload of information and input, who then tried to translate all of that input into meaningful phrases. Many thanks to them for their effort. Now let’s get out the red pen and simplify, simplify, simplify!

I think simplification of our “creedal statement” (*ducking cups of flying organic Fair Trade coffee*) is an issue of inclusivity, energy, image and ego. As in, “how ’bout trusting that people can get the spirit of what we are without cramming a sock with words and smacking them about the head with it?”

There’s a lot of good here, and a lot that I think ought to be streamlined or go. So tell me, what’s the next step in the process and how do we participate?

[UPDATE: The Commission on Appraisal welcomes feedback HERE. You and your congregation are welcome to write in until October 18, 2008. The Commission will meet soon thereafter to drink a lot of coffee, groan over how much work they have to do, and then do the best they can, only to be greeted by a hailstorm of criticism by people who didn’t bother to participate in the process. God bless the Commission on Appraisal.]