Staff Retreat

For the last three days I retreated with the Washington Office Staff and the staffs of the Youth Office and the Young Adult and Campus Ministry office. We could be found near Frederick, Maryland at the beautifully bucolic Bishop Clagget Center. We shared our work, our spirits, and our stories. Coming away from that experience I have a great degree of gratitude for the work environment of which I am a part.

I am not going to expand upon the UUA as an employer, but I would like to expand upon Unitarian Universalists as co-workers. While running the risk of stereotyping our population, I would like to say that there is a level of consciousness among UUs that I find both challenging and refreshing. During the retreat we broke into both Gender and Race Identity Development Circles. Sitting with my identity peers (the empowered folks - white and male), I was surprised at the honesty of my peers to recognize their priviledge and the fact that the imbalances of power both within society, within our work environments, and within our souls needs to be addressed and changed. Returning to the larger group and sharing our experiences it is apparent that no matter the identity there is a general agreement that those imbalances need to change. Now this is not to say that we have yet figured out how to do that, but we are recognizing that it has to happen. In doing so we are launching ourselves down a path of trying to stay accountable to historically marginalized populations and in doing so stumbling over our words, squirming in our pants, engaging in emotionally charged discussions about power dynamics, and moaning/groaning about whether or not we are accomplishing anything. What fun!

Beyond the willingness of my colleagues to take a journey into the realities of empowerment, I also admire the lives they have led, the choices they have made, and the depth of who they are. In engaging with these folks I have often felt myself simultaneously welcomed and challenged. I have been able to open up and share my history, make my jokes (not the really off-color ones - but those with a slightly off-hue are generally acceptable), and depart my feelings; and in doing all of that I have seen myself growing and becoming more substantial and confident than I was the day before. I feel empowered and nourished by my work environment. It makes me want to excel, to give of myself, to pitch in and make the UU movement as powerful as it can be. And the more I look around at the world today, we could desperately use a major shift in power....