Event: B2017 0625 Closing Celebration 1230 PM CST Captions Provided by: Hear Ink Http://www.hearink.com Phone: 314 427 1113 **********DISCLAIMER********** THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNEDITED ROUGH DRAFT TRANSLATION FROM THE CART CAPTIONER'S OUTPUT FILE. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT VERBATIM AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. TO DO SO IS AN EXTRA FEE. THIS FILE MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE SPEAKER(S) FOR ANY CLARIFICATION. THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU OBTAIN WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE OFFICE OR SERVICE DEPARTMENT THAT IS PROVIDING CART CAPTIONING TO YOU; FINALLY, THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE USED IN A COURT OF LAW. **********DISCLAIMER********** >> Well, GA, we did some things. We've been sit fog a while, so if you would rise in body or spirit and join us in the one thing that I feel most this GA is that love will guide us. [Singing "Love Will Guide Us"] >> You're not done yet. No band breaks yet. Stage is not quite set. I also feel this G actual is the fire of commitment. Hit it. >> Thank you. And let's move now into the attitude of worship, I'd like to bring back the concluding hymn from that beautiful service this morning, life calls us on. And doesn't it, though. [Singing "Life Calls Us On"] [Applause] >> May our time here prepare us for the work ahead, as we return to our congregations and communities. And may the flame of this chalice be a beacon of hope we will carry in our hearts in all of the days ahead. >> On the board of review, Reverend Charlie Ortman and Karen hall. The Board of trustees, Kathy Burrick, Reverend Manish Mishra‑Marzetti, Christina Rivera, Sarah Dan Jones, and Tanner Lyndon. The commission on appraisal, Lucas Harget, and the commission on social witness, Reverend Meredith Garmon. On the General Assembly planning Committee, who I nearly forget earlier, Oshira Misha, Julie Patel, Chelsea Surface, and Debra GGray Boyd. [Applause] And on the nominating Committee, reverend Michael walker, Reverend Joanne Giamino, and Jessica Faulkner. By love for this tradition and hope for the future, this General Assembly has elected members of the Board of Trustees and committee members. These leaders represent both new and continuing leadership for our Association of congregations. Will these newly elected leaders ‑‑ they've already risen. Your colleagues and friends in this General Assembly to be installed to your positions of leadership? Now everyone, please join me as we covenant together to install these leaders to the offices to which we have elected them.May our Unitarian Universalist faith and heritage inform your work and deeds as you serve with our leadership and congregations and our staff. May your approach inspire good will among all. >> I covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations. >> As you signify Unitarian Universalism in the wider world, may you serve as an instrument of reconciliation, hope, and welcome. >> I covenant to affirm and promote a goal of community of peace, justice, and liberty for all. >> May you deal forthrightly and honestly with us, keeping foremost in your heart the health and well‑being of our movement, speaking your truth without fear of repercussion and encouraging others to do the same. >> I covenant to affirm and promote the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process. >> In the spirit of hospitality and understanding among people may all who cross your path feel they have been heard and seriously considered. >> I covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of all. >> We covenant to encourage you and support you as you serve our movement. May our trust carry you through both difficulty and triumph. In gratitude we thank you for your willingness to serve. >> With gratitude I acknowledge and accept the trust that you have placed in me. >> Thank you. [Applause] [Applause] >> We gather tonight in a spirit of interdependence and dedication to install as the ninth President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. In an election held at this General Assembly, the duly selected delegates of the member congregations of Association, have invited you, to be our new President. In electing you, we have called you to lead us in a spirit of engagement, collaboration, and prophetic ministry. Mindful of the centuries of tradition that have lead us to this moment and to the great promise that lies ahead, we look to you for leadership during the coming six years. Do you accept the invitation of our member congregations to be our President? >> I do. >> In formal recognition of the election of Susan Frederick‑Gray and her acceptance of the obligations of the office, I hereby install you as President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations. >> Susan, it is my privilege to charge you as you assume the mantle of leadership. I did this for your predecessor eight years ago. The challenges of these days are quite different, however, and so is my charge to you. This is a time of great opportunity for this community, but the dangers for Unitarian Universalism are real as well. You begin your presidency in a time of both heightened fear and heightened hope. Even the job you have been campaigning for is changing. New energy and new models of leadership have emerged among us. New partners are pointing the way. New priorities have been clearly set. You have been chosen to navigate choppy religious waters when many of our charts need to be redrawn. In good Unitarian fashion, there are three things with which I would charge you. [Laughter] First, I charge you not let this time of opportunity slip away. There is an openness now in which the need for real and perhaps dramatic change can be named and a new way forward can at least be glimpsed. Let me be clear. I offer no rosy picture of an easy way forward. There is real anxiety for the future of this faith we love as well. This extraordinary and unexpected new chance to move toward the Beloved community can be squandered by a failure of will, or by an insistence on holding to habits of heart and mind that point to our past rather than our future. I charge you, first and most, not to let this time of opportunity slip away. [Applause] Second, call us to become the religious people that we want to be. Do not tempt us to settle for what we have achieved thus far. Do not tell us that we are a white faith…we have never been and there is no hopeful vision for our future in which we will be. [Applause] And do not repeat to us predictions of decline. We have already heard that narrative. We look to you for inspiration and commitment to a perhaps naive belief that love may in the end be stronger than either hate or fear. Call us to a belief in the Good News our tradition can offer and that our communities can sustain. Call us to become the religious people that we want to be.Third and finally, Susan, I charge you to minister to us. You are the UUA President and Chief Executive Officer. And you will be expected to function as manager of a complex institution with significant resources and abundant accountabilities. Those things are all true. But this is a community of faith, Susan, and we want our elected leaders, all of our leaders, whether ordained or not, to lead in faith. We want you to be a minister, not just a manager. [Applause] Be a pastor to this large and yearning flock. Speak out of your own faithfulness, not only about what you believe but about What makes you have hope. Invite us not to follow you but to journey with you toward that vision of the Beloved Community. So I charge you: Don't let the opportunity of this time slip away. Call us to be the religious people that we want to be. Minister to us and with us. I charge you. And we bless you and thank you for the gift of your leadership. [Applause] >> Susan, we don't simply install you in your office, but bless you on this journey. We invite you to be still, to particular a breath, to be held in trust by our physical and electronic presence, by the literal touch of our hands on the faithfulness of our hearts and spirits. Your companioned most closely now and will be in days to come by your family. So I ask Bryan and Henry, Henry Frederick‑Gray and pat and Gary Gray to join us, to gather here and lightly lay their hands upon you. We hold in our hearts others whom you love, not able to be with you tonight, yet present in spirit. We're holding your siblings and cousins, aunts and uncles, Bryan's family and extended family, all of your mentor and his companions on this journey. And still others present in Beloved memory. Grandparents, Marjorie Boyle, Kathryn way from and Lee Gray and so many loved ones and ancestors who have nurtured you on this path. Breathe deeply. Remember who you are. Remember where you come from. Where you live, where your heart is most at home. You are companioned in this call by a long line of worthy predecessors. I'd like to invite Bill Sinkford and Leon Spencer to join you now, to offer a symbol of religious leadership and to lay a hand upon you. As they do this, I also want to lift the spirit of Peter Morales and the gifts that he has offered us. And Leon, if you would, take that stole and place it about Susan's shoulders. You are exam I don't knowed by strong leaders of our association and called to serve and elected by our people, just as you have been. You will be partnered by comrades who will challenge and support you, who will draw your strength forward and look to you to draw out what is best in them. I want to ask Denise Rimes to join you now and members of the UUA Board of Trustees. If you are on the floor, that gathering will again at the front of the hall. I want to invoke the spirit of Jim Key and his fearless leadership. As we do this, we know how we do this in community. If you would rest your shoulder on the shoulder on the shoulder of someone whose hand in the center of an interconnected web is touching Susan. I invoke that spirit of Jim Key and his fearless leadership. Susan, you are companioned also by your Beloved colleagues and shared ministry. I would like to invite religious professionals here on the stage to join you. Friends, if you father now, can we win it to make concentric circles around Susan? I'm inviting men elders and religious educators and seminarians and religious administrators in the congregations, all those who serve professionally in the faith to rise in body and/or in spirit. Our ushers are going to help us form a sacred bridge here. You are companioned this work by our people, by countless lay leaders who serve their congregations and our movement. There is no one else, no ecclesiastical body, no Bishop who can recognize or authorize this naming. The very hands and hearts that embody our faith beyond this place in every congregation, large and small, in worship, in peacemaking and justice seeking and institutional commitment in the day‑to‑day celebration of life, the very hands that hold our faith are laid upon you now. I ask all those on stage to come forward, lay your hands on someone whose laying hands on someone who is laying hands on Susan, and I would like to invite all in the congregation to rise in body or in spirit. We're making a bridge, folks, so those of you who have a little bit more mobility, if you will facilitate this bridge and make sure to reach to those who are part of that web. Okay? Leave no hearts or hands behind. It is from this trust, from this vision that your authority derives. Susan, you are called specifically by these people, called out and chosen to lead and to listen, to lean on them, on us for whiz I did, clarity, and courage. Friends, join hands in body or spirit. Lift hearts filled with possibility. We're already making bridges. Well done. You, in the wider congregation, reach your spirits to those with us online. Those of you in cyber space, reach your hearts and spirits to us. Make this bridge stretch across our faith community. This wider congregation joins with us up here, because there is a love that unites us. [Singing "There is a Love Holding Me"] >> We are gathered here in one strong body. Gathered in the mystery of this hour, gathering in the need of prayer, imploring spirit to draw near. Please open your hearts, your minds and hands with me in a spirit of Medicare, a spirit of prayer. Spirit of life and love, moving in all things, in rich bayous and rolling rivers, through red rock desert and deciduous forests, running silent under ice, among the stars and between the stars and atoms and part and parcel of them. Spirit that sounds in the voices of birds, the voice of thunder the laughing voices of children and the tireless wisdom of ancestors spirit of life and love, moving in all things and in each of us gracious God of a thousand names. Be with us now. For the gift of wise and willing leaders, lay and ordained, we are grateful. For this historic beginning of our first elected woman as President of the UUA ‑‑ no, as president of the UUA. I'm excited, ya'll. Are you excited? We are humbled. Let me say that again. We are humbled and proud. May Susan lead us with courage and humility. Fully certain of the authority we bestow upon her here fully certain of the authority of her own heart. And of her call to do this work, this ministry, this sacred servant‑leadership. May she invoke often the spirit of those who have journeyed this way before and those whose leadership was never recognized all the saints who from their labors rest. And may she heed with open heart and open mind. The various, variegated voices of our living faith. Now harmonious, now and then discordant: the rich music of our people. May she heed especially the voices of the voiceless, and of the young. Who are not only our future, but our present. Above all, may she listen every day. To the constant whisper underneath the clatter of responsibility:the voice of the God of her understanding. The voice of all that is holy. May Susan speak plainly, tenderly and boldly to the wider world. The saving message of Unitarian Universalism, our principles, its purpose. May her conscience resist the compromise of conformity, convention. And an excess of caution. May we, who are her partners in this work offer Susan Frederick‑Gray. Our deep trust and the pledge of our support. She has taken up a joyful but sometimes lonely office. And we would offer the best ministry we know. May our Association thrive through Susan's tenure, our movement grow deeper, stronger, broader in spirit. Our calling, one by one and as a gathered people. Is to grow our souls and serve the world.together with Susan, hand to hand, and heart to heart. May each of us answer with gladness and gratitude. Amen and amen. Amen, amen. Amen, amen. Amen, amen. Amen, amen! Amen, amen. Amen, amen! [Applause] >> These last few days, we have created a temporary home for our hard, loving, joyful work, for learning to resist hate and harm, for rejoicing together. We have found a deeper understanding of what it means to be home as Unitarian Universalists in this time and in this place. >> Home … is complicated. >> Home is a place we share; the home you claim is never just yours. >> Home is every place, and every place is someone's home, and often the stranger isn't who you think it is. >> Home is where the heart is, and a part of us will always stay here in this enchanted city. >> Home is culture and resilience, it's the food, the people, the music that spills out onto the streets. >> Home is opportunity and struggle and both have been found here. >> Home is a place we each experience differently. >> Home is the witness and the will of a people always striving and overcoming. >> Home is the promise to support each other and the commitment to be our best selves. >> Home is a place to begin again in love. >> Home is complicated. >> Home is the place our heart wants to return to when there is no place else we can be. >> Home is a refuge, a place to recharge our spirits, our bodies, and our courage. >> Home is abundant love and radical hospitality. >> We found all of these things here and so much more. >> There is No Place quite like New Orleans. >> There is no home like Unitarian Universalism. >> Welcome Home. Beloved Unitarian Universalists! "We have spent time together… We have spent this time together on a journey, finding our way together, sharing our stories in this beautiful city and this sacred space that we have, for "And these holy moments…" In these holy moments we have become more courageous, confident in our call to resist and rejoice. "…give us strength…" We have become stronger, resisting the urge to go back to the way things were…. "give us strength go down the winding road…" The winding road is illuminated by love… "until we meet again." We know the way ‑ however hard the road, we know our faith is big enough and strong enough to be home wherever we are… "And our prayer for you / is a peace that's true / until we meet again." We will meet again ‑ whether we're back home, or gathered together next year Kansas City. We know the way… our hearts and souls will lead us to ease on down the road. See you next year! [Applause] >> We send you out with a joyful song by Charlie smalls from the musical the Wiz. I now call the official adjournment of the assembly. Is there a motion from the board. >> Move that this General Assembly is now adjourned. >> This is not debatable. All of those, including our off‑site delegates in favor of adjournment, please so signify by raising your voting cards. The motion to adjourn is carried. I declare that the 2017 ‑‑ oh, any opposed? Seriously? I declare that the 2017 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist association now stands finally adjourned. Have a wonderful summer, and I'll see you in Kansas City. [Applause] **********DISCLAIMER********** THE FOLLOWING IS AN UNEDITED ROUGH DRAFT TRANSLATION FROM THE CART CAPTIONER'S OUTPUT FILE. THIS TRANSCRIPT IS NOT VERBATIM AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFREAD. TO DO SO IS AN EXTRA FEE. THIS FILE MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. PLEASE CHECK WITH THE SPEAKER(S) FOR ANY CLARIFICATION. THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE COPIED OR DISSEMINATED TO ANYONE UNLESS YOU OBTAIN WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE OFFICE OR SERVICE DEPARTMENT THAT IS PROVIDING CART CAPTIONING TO YOU; FINALLY, THIS TRANSCRIPT MAY NOT BE USED IN A COURT OF LAW. **********DISCLAIMER********** Event: B2017 0625 General Session V and Closing Celebration 1230 PM CST Captions Provided by: Hear Ink Http://www.hearink.com Phone: 314 427 1113