Where Is Everybody?

I rushed into the Oregon Conference Center, just before the "Spirituality and Social Justice" workshop that Rachel Jordan reports on below. The conference center was absolutely empty. Where was everybody? Had someone pulled the fire alarm? Was I missing something really important?

Yes, I was. No UUs were anywhere to be found because they were all piled into the giant room set aside for GA plenaries. In that room, Democracy Now host Amy Goodman was preparing to moderate a panel to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the UUA's Beacon Press.

In addition to Goodman, the panel featured Daniel Ellsberg, former UUA President Robert West and Sen. Mike Gravel, the only presidential candidate to appear at this year's GA.

I stuck my head into the plenary room and the energy of the place was like no other moment during GA 2007. A huge crowd had gathered for this momentous event.

A good doobie (and a chump) to the end, I somehow turned around and marched off to UUSC's scheduled workshop. I can't report on the Pentagon Papers discussion until I am able to view it one the UUA website. I can, however, report that I interviewed several people right after the discussion, and they all found it to be an incredibly moving ode to the courage of those who did the deed in 1971, and a call for someone on the inside to release today's Pentagon Papers.

As I hurried through the nearly abandoned corridors, I wondered who so disliked UUSC and Rev. Marilyn Sewell that they scheduled this workshop opposite the Goodman-Ellsberg-West- Gravel extravaganza? Were Jesus Christ to have the ironic sensibility to schedule his long-promised return appearance on earth for the Saturday afternoon session of GA 2008 in Fort Lauderdale, would the GA program include a full set of workshops alongside that appearance? In that case, I suppose it most certainly would...and those workshops would be well-attended.

As Ms. Rachel reports, the Sewell-Lore workshop was a fine one. It is a tribute to the importance of the topic and the Rev. Sewell's renown that well over 100 people joined me in participation. I'm sure that was the only event that could have kept Charlie Clements out of the Pentagon Papers talk. I went up to Charlie after the workshop to be sure it was him. Sewell, Kate Lore, and the inspired leadership of Portland's First Unitarian Church have done an amazing job of modeling a faith of "deeds, not creeds."