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  • Up early; to church. Today’s “sermon” was about a new “behavioral covenant” proposed for adoption by the congregation (The quotes aren’t ironic. The Unitarian Universalists tend to use very specific terms). There were seven proposed rules which are inspired by the seven guiding principles of the congregation, essentially meaning (to me, anyway) that they are things that the congregation should be doing already. They were also very specific that these were not meant to be enforceable rules but guidelines for a self-governing congregation. I’m not sure what the point is, then. They’re basically saying that you should abide by the principles of the church or excuse yourself from it, but most members of the church were drawn to it by those principles, so they will have already made their choice. This sort of thing (rules designed by committee, which aren’t enforceable, and don’t really add anything to the discussion) is why I’m reluctant to become a full member of the church, and is an example of why I find organized religion in general unappealing.
  • After church we went to the Gypsy Cafe Geek Brunch. Today’s theme was “Joss Whedon”, which meant dishes inspired by and named after Whedon creations like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. I had the “Serenity Scramble”, which is steak and eggs scrambled together with home fries, while Emily had the “Captain Hammer Crepes”, which were… crepes. Very tasty all around, especially with a little Frank’s Red Hot thrown in.
  • Stopped by Costco and signed ourselves up for a membership. Our first purchase will likely be a new set of tires for my car. Our second will likely be a pallet of peanut butter.
  • For dinner we made our way out to Wings, Suds, & Spuds in Moon and met up with Greg and Jim. The teryaki wings are still delicious, as are the fries. We ended up BSing for a couple of hours after eating, until the place started filling up and we finally freed up our table.
  • Home for some Mass Effect (really really almost done now!) and bed.

CC BY 4.0 10 July 2011 by ssweeny.net is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

2 thoughts on “10 July 2011”

  1. The Behavioral Covenant isn’t a set of rules; it is a promise that each church member will be mindful of how they should behave to maintain an environment that is welcoming to everyone.

    If you have a problem with it, you should send a comment to the committee.

    • That’s not how it was presented. The email from the committee said:

      Our covenant consists of seven brief statements each of which corresponds to one of the UU church’s seven principles. It was thought that it was appropriate to call attention to the behavior suggested by these well known and accepted principles and then to state more explicitly what that behavior should be.

      They are trying to dictate behavior, which implies rules. But they provide no grounds for enforcement of said rules.

      Also, I’m all for the use of the democratic process, but this excerpt from the latest Chalice really annoys me:

      In response to a recommendation from the Long Range Planning Committee, the Behavioral Covenant Committee was formed earlier this year and began its work in March.

      This was put together by a committee that was formed by recommendation of another committee. Bureaucracies make me twitchy.

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