[UUA-L:398] Holiday message from John Buehrens now on UUA web site

[Debbie Weiner]

UUA President John A. Buehrens has written a special holiday message 
regarding recent current events at home and abroad, and the 
challenges we face in the new year.  A link to the message can be 
found off the front page of the UUA web site;  the message is 
repeated here for those unable to access the web.

****************

Holiday Message from John Buehrens 
                      on Peace and Justice

Dec. 21, 1998 

Dear Fellow Unitarian Universalists: 

This season is meant to mark what T.S. Eliot called “the still point
of the turning year.”  With so many tumultuous events in recent days,
however, we have experienced anything but stillness. 

Instead, we have heard the sound of missles and bombs, and the sounds
of fierce partisan rancor. How should religious people respond? 

I claim no wisdom greater than your own on recent public events. While
I have strongly supported the United Nations on the matter of Iraq,
the recent use of force by the U.S. and Britain saddened me greatly.
It worries me that a military presence and economic sanctions will now
continue in place of inspections in Iraq. I find myself praying more
fervently than ever for peace in that region. Next year at this season
I plan to go to Jordan for a global assembly of the World Conference
on Religion and Peace, founded by our own Dana McLean Greeley and
Homer Jack. 

Several months ago I joined  many other religious leaders in urging
our representatives in Congress to treat the charges against Mr.
Clinton not with partisanship, but with proportionality -- to turn
their attention again to the real moral scandals in our land, like the
number of children denied an equal opportunity in life because of
poverty and poor schools. I still yearn for that. The politics of
personal destruction, led by neo-puritans and pornographers, can only
weaken our democratic institutions. We must resolve to defend and
improve those institutions. My own advocacy in the coming year will
again be for election finance reform, as successive General Assemblies
have urged. 

And so the challenge before us,  this holiday season, is deeply
spiritual. We must overcome cynicism with faith, despair with hope,
and rancor with a deeper love. We must turn to the stillness within
all things, not to escape the world, but to become better able to turn
the course of human events toward justice and toward peace. 

May the still small voice that beckons through the clamor of events be
heard in the stillness of the winter nights. May the quiet gatherings
at home and in congregations help us all to share our always imperfect
wisdom. And may the New Year be one of renewed commitment to living in
deeper devotion to the principles we Unitarian Universalists covenant
to affirm and to promote. With blessings for the holidays, 

        Yours faithfully, 
        John A. Buehrens 
        President 

***************


Debbie Weiner
Director of Electronic Communication
Unitarian Universalist Association
617-742-2100 x 104    FAX:  617-367-3237

For current uua news, visit our website:
http://www.uua.org/news