Friday, June 27
I had breakfast with Sherif and Peter and heard stories
about last night. Peter said that one of
the tires on his bus had blown out and the bus had jerked up and down and
swayed to one side horribly before stopping.
Images had flashed through his mind, including our conversation about
earthquakes that day during which I had been gesturing mystically with my left
hand. “That Witch was casting an
earthquake spell!”, he had thought before the bus stabilized. I explained about the surgical accident
leaving me with nerve damage and he seemed relieved, partly humorously, but
partly seriously. ;-)
After breakfast, Peter roped me into joining chorus practice
for the talent show on Saturday night.
If you walked past too slowly you became part of the chorus. He is very good at getting amateur singers to
produce beautiful harmonies. We’ll see
how the performance goes.
Today’s opening blessing was by the Middle East
and North Africa Region (MENA), but there was only one MENA person present:
* Sherif Awad Rizk (Christian / Egypt)
– Trustee
MENA has 67 Cooperation Circles. There are an additional two Trustees and four
Staff who could not be at this meeting.
Sherif played a beautiful recorded sung prayer and followed
it with three readings from the New Testament, including Sherif;s comments on
how they applied to our work in the URI:
* John 8:3-11
– about the woman accused of adultery, about whom Jesus said “Let he who is
without sin cast the first stone.”* Matthew 19:13-15 – about Jesus saying “Let the little children come unto me.”
* Luke
19:1-10 – about Jesus staying at the house of Zaccheus the publican.
Victor told us that today was the last Friday before the
beginning of Ramadan this weekend, so our Muslim participants would be taking a
bus to a local mosque for special prayers.
Today’s morning was focused on the Youth and two of our
Youth Leaders – Matthew and Krithika – led the program. They showed us videos of the work of several
members of the URI Youth Ambassadors CC (a
Multiregion CC, BTW). Check out the URI’s
amazing work led by Youth at: http://www.uri.org/action_areas/youth We heard about work led by Youth helping
young people in the Dominican Republic,
Sri Lanka, Bosnia
and Herzigovina, and Kenya. Matthew pointed out how critical it is that
all of the programs are not Elders helping Youth, but Youth helping Youth in a
much more empowering way.
Krithika led an exercise using a “Body Map”. Sande, Regional Coordinator (RC) for North
America) laid down on a big piece of paper and Krithika drew her
outline on the paper. the paper was then
taped up in a big easel and several areas were identified and connected with
comments called out by the group about what we think about young people, which
were then written down on the paper.
* Head / What do young people think?
Adults have
it all wrong. Why can’t I get a
job? We can change the world. We don’t care about artificial distinctions
between people. The world is in
chaos. Everything is possible. The world is a social network. The world is full of opportunities.
* Ears / How do young people listen?
They listen
critically. (Several parents shook their
heads.) They listen through the
heart. They pay attention only to people
they trust.
* Heart / How do young people feel?
Passionate. Excluded.
Hopeful. They want a more joyful
structure to work in. They are very
angry and aggressive when they don’t get what they want. (Several parents nodded their heads.) They seek to transcend norms.
* Mouth / How do young people speak?
Through
music with a beat. On the internet. Focused.
They speak their minds. Unaware
of limitations. They speak innocently,
with strength, full of potential.
* Eyes / What do young people see?
They don’t
distinguish formal and informal. They
are casual.
* Hands / What do young people do?
They are
quick planners. They want to get right
to a task. Commit quickly. Sex, drugs, and violence. ( !? )
Act before thinking. Inspire
others.
I’m not sure why we had to draw a big outline of a body to
do this, but there you go. At this point
I noticed that my notes were getting blurry as my pen slipped when I cam close
to dozing off. The schedule here really
doesn’t match mine and I’m not getting enough sleep. I though of slipping off to get a nap, but
didn’t. I am SO glad I stayed, since
what happened next was very significant for the Multiregion.
Matthew asked us to break into small groups to discuss and
answer three questions:
1) What
does Youth leadership look like in your Region?
2) What
more could the Global Council (GC) do to support Youth in your Region?
3) What
could the Youth Leadership Team (YLT) be doing to support the URI?
They were about to break us up into random groups of
five. I asked that the Multiregion be
permitted to stay together as a Region since our situation is unique:
1) Unlike
the other Regions, we rarely are able to speak face-to-face.
2) The URI
Global Youth CC (http://www.urimulti.org/cooperation-circles/youth/multi-global-youth.html)
and the Youth Ambassadors CC are both in our Region, so our responses would be
very different and probably useless for any other Region.
There was resistance to altering the plan, but with the
support of Victor, we got our way. This
was a good thing as the resulting meeting was critical for the Multiregion’s
relationship with Youth moving forward.
Vrajapati, Audri, Patrick, Matthew, and me (and sometimes
Krithika as she floated from group to group) first looked at the current
situation. The Youth CC (including the
Young Leaders Program) overlaps with the Youth Ambassadors CC. Both are CCs in the Multiregion. However, the URI’s
work with Youth has been so important to the organization that it has for a
long time had Staff – currently Matthew and Krithika – being paid by and
working closely with the Global Support Office in San
Francisco (the GSO, or what used to be called “the
Hub”). This relationship has been closer
than with the Multiregion.
However, Matthew shared that there is work he does as a
Staff person and work he does on his own time, unpaid, as a member of the
CCs. We all asked how the Multiregion
could support THAT work and so build a closer relationship. Matthew shared that many of the Youth already
have a global perspective that is trans-Regional and would be excited about
having a closer relationship with the Multiregion.
Audri suggested that we start out with getting more of the
stories of the Youth accomplishments on the Multiregion website. I said that we need to educate the Youth in
the CCs about their connection with the Multiregion and the possibilities
there. Matthew said that the URI
Global Youth CC may be becoming a Youth MCC
(i.e. a “Multiple Cooperation Circle”,
with at least three CCs as members) in the Multiregion. Patrick said that if that happened, his
Europe Youth Leadership CC would be interested in being part of it (http://www.uri.org/cooperation_circles/detail/europeyouth). Audri said that her Trail of Dreams CC has a
Youth program called Beyond the Global Divide.
Individuals from that group would probably be interested in joining the
Global Youth CC or, if the Global Youth CC became an MCC,
the Beyond the Global Divide group might just spin off and become a CC member
of the Youth MCC.
At this point, Vrajapati said that we needed Youth on the
Multiregion’s Regional Leadership Team (RLT).
I said that it seemed that Patrick had already stepped up and asked if
Matthew would be interested. He was
interested and would consider it. He
also aid that Rachael was already in communication with someone from the Youth
Ambassadors CC and that we should talk to her about someone from that group
joining the RLT.
Patrick pointed out that there was no reason that Elders
couldn’t join the Youth CC if they supported their work. This got us into a discussion of how, 14
years after the signing of the URI Charter,
some of our “Youth” now had kids of their own.
We thought we should break down this sharp distinction between “Youth”
and “non-Youth”, since we already have more of a continuum from “Young People”
(like High Schoolers), “Youth” (like college age into 30s),
“Elders-in-Training” (late 30s into 40s), and Elders (old farts… my words, not
theirs).
I said that the Multiregion has always led the way… The
first CC to make a cash contribution to the URI
was a Multiregion CC. We were the first
Region to do Seed Grants. All of the URI’s
early “Initiatives” started as Multiregion CC projects. The new “Resources CCs” are all in the
Mutiregion. … Why shouldn’t we lead the way into the transition to Youth
leadership in a Region? We already, more
than any other Region, rely on electronic communication to keep our Region
connected. We should be preparing to
pass it on to upcoming leaders who grew up with the technology.
We wrote everything up on a sheet for the wall so others
could read it and as notes for Matthew and Krithika.
When we re-gathered, we all heard about the new Resource
CCs. These are CCs that focus on
providing resources and assistance to the rest of the CCs. They have a somewhat closer relationship with
the GSO, which helps them find financial support. The now-forming Resource CCs are:
* Women – Despina and Kutub
They said
that we should always think of women
in “gender planning”. How will women be
included / accommodated in programs, budgets, child care at events and
meetings, other familial obligations.
* Talking Back to Hate – Sarah Talcott-Blair (not
here)
* Global Indigenous Initiative (GII) – Audri and
Alejandrino
See the
Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/globalindigenousinitiative Alejandrino said that at the Latin America
Regional Assembly in Ayacucho, Peru, in 2004 I had said to him (in a
conversation about the Lost and Endangered Religions Project) that “No religion
has to disappear.” This is the risk
faced by indigenous traditions all over the world. Through the GII, the URI
can help make sure this doesn’t happen.
He asked all of us to make connections with the indigenous people in our
areas at home and pass those connections along to the GII.
Audri asked
us all to support the work of the GII and to sign a banner that would go from this
meeting to the GII meeting, and to please include our well-wishes.
* Environment – Bill
Bill
explained the history of the Environment CC and how it became a Resources
CC. He said that they are in the process
of producing an assessment of the resources available in the URI
and of those CCs with an interest in environmental issues. Bill also told us that the 2015 Circles of
Light annual fundraising dinner would have the Environment as its theme.
During a
break, I spoke with Bill’s Assistant, Debbie Jasso, and asked if they were including
spirituality in their assessment of resources, since almost all folks
practicing or supporting Earth spirituality are also concerned with the environment. She seemed as little surprised at the
idea. I pointed out that when we were
creating the Earth Wisdom MCC a few years
ago I had gone over a database of all of the URI
CCs looking for those who might be interested, indicated by who they included
in their minimum of three “religions, spiritual expressions, or indigenous
traditions” or what they mentioned as areas of interest. The membership question was not
straightforward since, unlike something simple like “Christianity”, Earth
spirituality might be listed on a membership for as “Nature religion” or
Earth-centered spirituality” or Eco-spirituality” or the name of a specific
indigenous tradition or Shinto or Wicca or any combination of the above and
many more. It took a practitioner to
recognize the many possible permutations.
I found that over a third of the URI
CCs included some form of Earth spirituality in their membership. She was surprised and we promised to
follow-up on this after the meeting.
* United Nations – Monica, Patrick, Mussie
The URI
has been a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) at the UN for many years. Monica is one of our representatives at the
UN in New York, while Patrick
Nickisch is our rep at the UN in Geneva. Almost everyone present felt some connection
with the UN through the URI and had done
some sort of program connected with the UN through their own CC. Monica said that the two legs supporting URI
actions at the UN are the International Day of Peace (IDP) and Interfaith World
Harmony Week. The IDP is September 21st each
year and IWHW is the first week of February – both coinciding with Wiccan
Sabbats. Monica showed a video of URI
IDP and IWHW events at the UN, with Mr. and Mrs. Ban Ki-Moon in attendance.
Patrick told
us about URI work at the UN in Geneva,
mostly around global access to clean water.
Mussie told
us about work with the African Union in meetings at the UN. He is know for his work with the Golden Rule
CC, but is also involved with the Green Rule Initiative, collecting environmental
statements from the world’s religions.
Monica
asked us each to make commitments to do something in support of the IDP this
year. I said that I would approach my
fellow organizers of the annual People of the Earth conference about making the
event an IDP event this year.
Over lunch, I spoke with Victor about the need to provide
some sort of basic briefing of new Trustees to the effect that they should be
prepared to encounter and work with people with different assumptions not only
about administrative structures and decision-making processes, but also of
personal space and appropriate physical contact. We all come from very different cultures and
should be prepared to address these differences before they become problems.
After lunch, Kiran said that the contingent from Southeast
Asia and the Pacific (SEAPac) was still at the mosque and so she
and Victor would be doing the opening blessing in their place. As part of it, they distributed gifts of lavender
and cedar. After this, the Global
Council and Global Support Staff once again divided for separate meetings.
In the Global Council Meeting, Kiran led us through
reflections on what we’d experienced in the meetings so far. These included:
* Many Trustees said that the sessions hade been very
productive for understanding where the URI
is now and charting a course for what is being called “URI
2.0”.
* Several of the new Trustees appreciated how the staggered
elections allowed them to meet with more experienced Trustees.
* Several people appreciated arriving in the Bay Area a couple
of days early, to get over jet lag and adjust to the local time.
* Trustees expressed their clear sense of responsibility to
the Regions that had elected them and their commitment to honor that
responsibility.
* One Trustee said that although this is his first GC
meeting, after the last few days it doesn’t feel like the first. He feels that he knows us all.
* Many Trustees shared personal stories of inter-religious
violence and how building interfaith bridges had given them hope for a better
future.
We heard reports from the various Global Council Committees,
including the new Trustee appointments: Finance and Operations, Audit, CC
Approval, Standing Committee (our Executive Committee, including the Officers
and the Chairs of the others Committees.
We broke into small groups of 2 or 3 to discuss what it
would take for the Global Council to more effectively perform its role in the URI. When we shared the fruits of these
discussions, several trends emerged:
* We need to strengthen the connections between Trustees and
the CCs in the Region that elected them.
* We have “Energizing the Network” materials for Regional
Coordinators and CCs, but not for Trustees.
We need this.
* Trustees are overloaded with email. We need to ensure that Trustees are actually
receiving the crucial messages sent to them.
(I have brought up CoG’s AIR vs. DD
list system several times, to no avail.
I’ll try again with URI 2.0)
After dinner, I crashed early.
Blessed Be,
Don Frew
