[Continued from Here.]
Having taken on the role of Chalice Lighter for the New York Metro District of the UUA, now I had to do something constructive.
As stated in the previous post, the average call for a chalice lighter was about $700, and if I wanted to do a good job all I had to do was double that... That's it? Where's the problem?
Confession time: I had already soured on the Chalice Lighters program in the New York Metro District. I had signed up to be a Chalice Lighter, which at the time meant I would receive no more than three calls a year, at $10 a call. I signed up as a high school student, ready for college. I received one call, paid it and never heard from them again.
It's not that I didn't try.
Each time I moved as a young adult, I sent in a change of address notification to the Chalice Lighters. I moved three times, and three times notifications were sent. I did that for a period of about five years.
I reasoned, rather naively, that if the entire program ran on an up-to-date mailing list, it was imperative that there be an up-to-date mailing list. So, as soon as I got my hands on the mailing list I looked for my name, I found it, ten years later... with my parents' address listed. Clearly the three change of address notifications had no effect. I concluded, also rather naively, that if my address had not been changed despite my reaching out [3x !!!] to keep my address current, this may have happened to other people.
As it turns out, that was the case with much of the list. The list was best described as a work of fiction.
So, when presented with something completely broken, one has options. One can rebuild what was broken. One can re-create something from scratch. Or one can create something brand new.
I went with the latter. I went with it for several reasons.
For starters, ever try to fix something completely broken? Imagine a car with two-thirds to three-quarters of the parts broken or missing. Is it better to rebuild the car? Maybe if it's a priceless vintage auto. But, some old beater car? Much, much easier to purchase a replacement car, and cheaper. Less headaches too.
So... if we're going to purchase a new vehicle, why just a car? The world of possibilities opens up. It's exciting and creative. Exciting and creative, as it turns out, makes bureaucrats squirmy and uncomfortable.
At this time, Denny was moderator. She had a propensity to fart out "programs" [edicts] for congregations to follow. One of which, the name eludes me, was some pronouncement that congregations would benefit from communicating and working together. There was more to it than that, but the general idea was the Unitarian Universalist Association wanted to see congregations communicating and working with each other.
To me that sounded great. What I naively misunderstood at the time was that when the Unitarian Universalist Association says it wants congregations communicating and working with each other, that's not what it means at all. What it meant was the UUA wanted to see congregations communicating and working together under its watchful eye, in carefully structured events, all under the direction and gaze of the bureaucrats.
I found out that the absolutely last thing the bureaucrats want, is for congregations to freely communicate, work together, and inspire each other. It makes them super uncomfortable and squirmy. Let's face it, if congregations communicate with each other, they may come up with ideas that work splendidly without the Associations assistance/direction. When they work together they discover they can do things they never thought possible... usually cheaper and without the bureaucratic ideological baggage attached. To the bureaucrats this sort of thinking is both heresy and treason. In my defense, I went with what they said they wanted, not the unspoken meaning behind their words.
And my final piece was my own perspective being a practitioner of ceremonial and chaos magicks. I desired a place where magick can happen. In the process we took away the $10 "limit" on Chalice Lighters and told people, be generous.
I communicated all of this (not the magick piece, I have always kept that to myself until now) to our District Executive and again stressed that I was going to build up a brand new program, and in the quest to raise money and assist congregations in the goal of working together, the old program would be dead as the new sprang from its ashes.
His reply, "Let's try it. See if it works."
[Continued...Here.]
Your Old Pal,
Devilhead
No comments:
Post a Comment