Workshop 1: Lindsey Press New Books Launch featuring Revs. Kate Dean and Michael Allured and ‘Soul Deep’

Alas, your roving reporter has yet to master the fine art of being in two places at once (although, should I ever master it, no doubt I would be immediately required to try to be in three places at once), so the workshop write-ups are, of necessity, only of those workshops I made it to. This was one I had a particular interest in, as my congregation has been wondering about changing up our Sunday service structures to be more participatory, and ‘Soul Deep’ by Revs. Kate Dean and Michael Allured looks like an excellent potential way forwards.

Following an introduction to the Lindsey Press’s other new book, ‘Right Relationships’ (looking forward to this one too!), Kate and Michael demonstrated one of the ways they have led their ‘Soul Deep’ sessions, by engaging each other in conversation about what the approach involves and what inspired them to have the Soul Deep sessions, and write their book. We then tried out this approach, doing a short visualisation of ‘a place where we felt at peace’, and ‘a moment when we felt part of something bigger than ourselves’, then spending three minutes each talking to the person next to us about this. If there’s one thing Unitarians are good at, it’s talking! I’ll be picking up my copy at the bookshop shortly.

Workshop 2: National Unitarian Fellowship and Social Action

Having navigated the maze of corridors, and said hello to at least five people I haven’t seen in person for a year, I arrived in time to settle in for the NUF session, in which Ann Howell, the Unitarian Social Action Officer, discussed how her work has been going and plans for Unitarian Social Action in the future. Continuing the theme of participation and engagement, we split into groups to write our own beatitudes for social action, based on ‘Beatitudes for Justice Builders’ by Linda Ramsden. My group came up with:

“Blessed are you who do not give up easily; your persistence shall yield unexpected rewards.

“Blessed are you who do not make your own experience the yardstick of what is right; you shall discover new worlds.

“Blessed are you who run out of energy; for you shall know you have done all you can.”

We discussed our thoughts, including one very moving commentary on responding to the situation in Gaza, and the thought-provoking sentence: ‘At least we are good at being prepared to have conversations about what is horrible’.  Ann encouraged everyone to attend Workshop 5, ‘Our Social Action Future’ on Saturday morning at 10.40am in the York / Windsor Room, to learn about the findings from the recent Unitarian Social Action Audit research project and make plans for Unitarian Social Action in the future. I too would encourage the reader to do the same, for the entirely biased reason that I was one of the four researchers on the project, alongside Ann, Rev. Winnie Gordon and Rev. Stephanie Bisby, and we’d all like to have people to talk to about what we found out.

Keynote Speaker: Roman Krznaric and ‘How Can We Be Good Ancestors?’

Following a break for dinner, and, in at least one case, a quick sloping-off to the pool for a refreshing splash about (insider tip: if the locker swallows your pound coin and the key won’t turn, hit it really hard with your fist, and it should then work), we settled into the County Suite for one of the best keynote speakers we’ve had, in my opinion. Helen Mason, Director of Unitarian College, introduced the ‘John Relly Beard Lecture’ (sort of) with a potted history of John Relly Beard – her great-great-great-grandfather – then social philosopher Roman Krznaric took the stage.

With references to everything from the Svalbard Seed Bank to Native American governing philosophy by way of Kim Stanley Robinson and the founder of Greenpeace, Roman urged us to reconsider our perspective, and, when making decisions, consider what impact we will have on the future, all the way to the seventh generation. Again, we did a visualisation of imagining a young person close to us now, in their 30^th year, and in their 90^th year? What challenges will they face, what world will they live in, and what will they say of us? My immediate thought was ‘I hope I leave them a world where there are still some fish in the sea’ (no surprise to anyone who knows my hobby – I’m a scuba diver), as I want my niece and nephew to know the wonders of a natural world.

Dealing with the pressure of social, environmental, and technological change seems to be emerging as a theme of this year’s GA, and let’s hope we can emulate the optimism of one participant in the Q&A session, who commented that we should never underestimate the capacity of our descendants to come up with new and incredible solutions to human problems. And on that optimistic note, it was time for Peace Vespers, and a trip to the bar for a well-earned beverage.