Why I Go To G. A.

G.A. stands for General Assembly. It is the annual gathering of clergy and representatives of most Unitarian Universalist congregations as well as miscellaneous others. In the past roughly twenty one years, I’ve attended twenty as either a seminarian or minister.

I have many criticisms of G.A. I will not bore you with that litany here.

This is a particularly important gathering as it will be the one at which we elect our next denominational president. We will also be voting on a draft replacement for the Principles and Purposes, a quasi-creedal statement that attempts to describe what the majority of Unitarian Universalists believe at a given moment in time. It is not a true creed in that no one must subscribe to it in order to belong, indeed, all such statements over time have been popular punching bags for someone and usually someones among the leadership and various others. Nonetheless an important exercise. And a third issue this years is how we’re at a critical step in an ongoing conversation about whether we should take a stance as a “peace church,” that is a religious community that counsels pacifism, something we’ve never done in our history, having produced both war heroes and leading pacifists, often in the same wars. So, you can bet, controversial…

But, actually there’s a different reason I come to G.A.

Right now we’re in a pre-G.A. mode, mainly only religious educators and clergy have gathered, each to do a little professional support and continuing education.

I had passed on the afternoon workshops, and instead took a nap.

After which I sauntered back to the hotel where the minister’s meetings were taking place. I arrived a bit before the afternoon worship service to be followed by our current president, Bill Sinkford’s valedictory address to the colleagues. So, I sat on one of the couches in the foyer, as a comfortable spot to wait.

An elderly woman sat down beside me and we began to exchange pleasantries. She had a Southern accent, a bit a rarity among Unitarian Universalists. She explained she hadn’t been to G.A. in several years and was not used to attending without things to do.

She was, in fact, here because her husband, a UU minister had died some nine or ten moths past and she wanted to attend to Service of the Living Tradition, a part of which lists a necrology of those ministers who had died in the past year.

We talked on, mostly, actually I listened. It had been a rough decade. He had suffered from Alzheimer’s. And this is never an easy death, and rarely a short dying.

Somewhere along the line he forgot his theology. I thought about that, and it grieved me.

For a fair amount of time all he was left with were the hymns of his childhood.

And they filled his remaining years.

She sang to and with him. She had friends sing to and with him. And when he advanced to nursing care, people from local churches came and sang to him – he gradually forgot the words and could only listen, but still they comforted him…

A while later he forgot how to swallow.

And a day or so later, he died.

I sat there, thinking about this minister and his wife and all of us.

I thought about his theology and how it abandoned him.

And while he also lost the music, it lasted so much longer.

I thought about music.

And then I excused myself to go to the worship service.

There the opening hymn was one of those newer hymns.

One I like very much.

And thinking of that minister and his wife and all of us and listening to it, I felt so much, so much…