Emerging Wisdom Culture
Ed Mendez
The workshop began with a definition of “cultural creatives.” There are an estimated 70 million of us across the globe, and, perhaps 50 million in the U.S. alone. Who are these people? They are:
- Open to all sources of wisdom.
- Create their own values & spirituality.
- Don’t consider themselves to be “new age;” they believe themselves to be main stream.
- Not just “baby boomers,” young people are part of this movement.
- They may constitute a new “political north;” 36% of all voters fall into this group.
- They are not all from California!
- They are in all income levels & economic classes.
- Includes ecologists, supporters of women’s rights, gay rights, & new psychotherapies.
- Insist on authenticity.
- They are not very public, fearing ridicule, career damage, feeling unique; many have arrived at their beliefs on their own.
- They are UUs but don’t know it!
- How do they find each other & communicate if they are in our churches? The Internet.
What can UU churches do?
- Be “Welcoming Congregations.” (Oddly, many UU churches are not.)
- Declare themselves to be a “peace site.”
- Be accessible.
- Offer “Journey Toward Wholeness.”
- Create a green sanctuary.
- Use the Internet to reach out. “Make your website so compelling & linked, that people stay there.” This may attract them to find our sanctuary.
My take:
Since I ran to this workshop because I identified with it, my comments are necessarily biased. Needless to say, I loved this. We include a wide variety of wisdom in our worship, but we primarily stay with main stream, Abrahamic wisdom. We also have interesting speakers and groups like the “Buddhist Meditation” group. However, the facilitators cited their uses of Native American, Himalayan, Mayan, Druid, and Wiccan wisdom in their worship services. I believe that there are opportunities for our church to take some risks in including unexpected sources of wisdom into our offerings. Keep in mind that my thoughts come from a self-described mystical, humanist, Panentheist with pagan leanings. Perhaps we should start with some new, limited experiments in our worship.
One point that was made that I really agree with is to change the title of our “Director of Religious Education” to “Director of Spiritual Exploration.” The former implies a traditional steeping in “our dogma,” (that’s not to suggest that we actually do that, but we are inside the congregation) while the latter speaks less to dogma and more to openness. Perhaps this would make us more attractive to folks who don’t know they’re looking for us.
--Submitted by Ed Mendez
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