Pause to Savor the Moment

GA 2006 is now best placed in the past tense. It drew to a close last night with the 2,000 or so hard core UUs who hung in until the very end of a five-day gathering.

The curtain closed (or would have had there been one) with a rousing rendition of the Senegalese harvest song, "Kaki Lambe". I wondered if the choir conductor was ever going to shut it down, but I have to admit that I was in no hurry for the last note. A harvest song is as good a way as any to send UUs back to 1000+ congregations, societies and fellowships. If the planners' intention was to infuse the moment with energy, success was theirs.

Tamara Payne-Alex struck just the right note when she used her five-minute reflection near the end of the proceedings to encourage those present to "pause to savor the moment."

For Ms. Payne-Alex, one of those rare admitted lifelong UUs, this GA was a bit different than some past ones. It might have been the realization that local Native people might have something better to do with their time than make us feel good about ourselves. Or the change might have come from the fact that this GA at least attempted to deal directly with our ongoing challenges around racism and differences, racial, gender and generational.

Whatever it was, she was ready to savor by Sunday night, and I take that as a good sign for a group of people pledged to make a difference in the world. I'm ready to follow Tamara's lead and pause to savor, too. If only we were better at pausing for any reason at UUSC...

As was the case last year, the UUA arranged streaming video of much of the plenary activities. If you can watch the entire thing, more power to you. But if you want to try my own best picks, then find your way to these four:

• The 20-minute presentation during Plenary IV on Friday night that united Charlie Clements' report on the Yad Vashem recognition of Martha and Waitstill Sharp with a presentation by Bill Sinkford and Atema Eclai on Darfur (only moderately self-serving).
• Then stay tuned immediately following the Yad Vashem/Darfur presentation to the Gulf Coast session that same evening when Rev. Tyrone Edwards, a Baptist minister, took a sleepy crowd in his hands and lifted it toward the heavens.
• The one woman show given as a sermon by Rev. Gail Geisenhainer of Vero Beach, Fla., at the Sunday worship.
• The choir's inspired performance during Sunday night's closing ceremony, especially the Canticle of St. Francis of Assisi.

Before that last song, Judi McGavin, district coordinator of GA 2007 in Portland, Ore., offered all present a warm invitation to the City of Roses. As a truly liveable city that has broken new ground in all kinds of urban social and environmental policy--and has one of Unitarian Universalism's fastest growing congregations to boot--where better to gather this crowd next?