On this day, we focused on establishing the RE Year Covenant in the Big Room and the Turning Tides Room. Most of the young folks will have been through this process before. Working on their Covenant with them multiple times gives us the opportunity to focus a little less on the process (though this is important!) and more on the ideas behind it. For example, we can emphasize the Seven Principles (see here for resources) and we can also talk about the idea of being a covenantal, rather than credal, religious community.
Communities are made up, in part, of communication, and so we also want to instill the idea of taking up one’s voice in a community, as well as the ways in which respect and attention ensure everyone has a voice. As it seems helpful or appropriate, we mention the monotheistic tradition of the “prophetic voice”, by which we mean the act of speaking out on behalf of those who for some reason have been marginalized, repressed/suppressed/oppressed, or excluded from our everyday world. In the next two weeks, we’ll build on these ideas. Next Sunday, we’ll be talking about listening and what that has to do with our values. The following week, we’ll be looking at the idea of circles of compassion and asking what it means for us to expand them.
This week, we sought also to invoke the examples of Clara Barton and Margaret Fuller. You can find some links to material about the above topics and these remarkable women below: