The power of dreams

This week's quotation is by Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, above a beautiful photo of Neuschwanstein Castle. It reads "Wenn wir von unseren Träumen leiten lassen, wird der Erfolg all unsere Erwartungen übertreffen."

Which being translated, means: "If we let our dreams guide us, success will surpass all our expectations."

I have a dream.

At the 2015 General Assembly meetings, all ldelegates were given a 48-page document entitled Vision for Our Future produced by the Executive Committee, which also went out to all congregations. It was followed by another, entitled The Next Steps.

In the Vision for Our Future document, there were a series of headings, the first of which read, "We want to be a faith that matters." Well, our faith does matter - it matters enormously, both to current Unitarians, and to potential Unitarians, who are out there, desperately seeking somewhere they can call home, somewhere they can find like-hearted (not necessarily like-minded) folk to accompany them on their own spiritual / religious journeys.

BUT, unless those seekers (and current Unitarians) clearly understand who we are and what we're about, we aren't going to attract new people through our doors.

We Unitarians have always been so hot and strong about being the "faith without a creed" and about the pre-eminence of freedom of belief. And that is right and good. BUT I'm afraid it is now becoming a disadvantage in some ways, as only too often we find it difficult to articulate our faith, except in negative terms. For example, there was a photo of a particular congregation's noticeboard on Facebook a while back - five sheets of paper with statements that started "We don't".

We need to find easy-to-articulate, POSITIVE answers to "What do Unitarians believe?" and "What are Unitarians?" Which is why I carried out my survey in 2017, which resulted in the book Unitarians: Together in Diversity. Which is chock-full of positive statements about what Unitarians believe, and how we come together in community.

But I have come to believe that the statement the Executive Committee made in Vision for Our Future, about needing to "re-establish an identity, a unique spiritual position" is key to our future as a denomination, as a movement. As James Barry so acutely pointed out in his contribution, "We don't have the advantage of the UUA, who have their seven principles defined."

I believe that the most vital task for British Unitarians today is to adopt a widely agreed statement such as the UUA's Seven Principles (or why not just adopt them wholesale? - they work for me!). I believe that one of the main reasons why the Quakers are so much more successful than we are, is that other people understand what they believe in and stand for.

We could even produce our own versions of Advices and Queries, the Quaker touchstones, and of Quaker Faith and Practice, their comprehensive book about Quaker beliefs and practices. Why not?