|
MAY 9, 2010
The Advocates have had an eventful month. We held our regular April
meeting on 4/18 after church in Plumer Hall. Felicity Figueroa, Marleen
Gillespie, Dean Inada, Marilyn Keslerwest, Joan Mortenson, Pat Sauter and
I were all in attendance. Despite efforts to "keep it short" the meeting
lasted until about 1 pm. We discussed the recently held Great American
Write-In and some ideas for new intiatives and speakers to come to the
church (on issues like war and peace, the Israel-Palestine conflict,
Christian Peacemaker teams, etc). There was a mention of the Oregon-based
"Mad as Hell Doctors" for Healthcare Reform (Felicity has followed up on
this, see below). There was also a brief update on the Prop 15 effort
and the resolution for the May meeting. There was some discussion on how
to tie the Advocates into the rising interest at IUCC in environmentalism
and "integrity of creation" issues. We tentatively decided that we might
not want to schedule a lot of new events in the next month or two as the
church year headed into summer.
The Advocates do a LOT of normal "business" online via our lists. This
month was no exception. On 4/22 a message was sent out to everyone
anouncing that the letter the ministry drafted on immigration reform
(which had been available for patio signatures from IUCC members in March)
was finally appearing in the IRVINE WORLD NEWS (a copy of this letter
appeared in the IUCC May newsletter). Also on this same topic: there was
some discussion of the controversial anti-immigrant law passed into law
in Arizona and responses to that. Terri LePage posted a link to an
interesting DVD on nonviolent social change in late April. And there was
an electronic announcement about the upcoming Orange County Progressive
Summit (at St. Michaels & All Angels Church in Corona del Mar, June 12th).
In the first week of this month a lot of the discussion among Advocates
revolved around the developing issues surrounding the churchwide
resolution on Proposition 15. As a result of some one-on-one and small
group discussions of the resolution in the aftermath of the May meeting
Agenda Forum/Moderator's "Gripe Session" held after church on Sunday, May
2nd, the Chair sent out a rather lengthy message explaining the
situation and outlining the concerns to the IUCC Advocates list (it was
also sent to the old list, "OC Progressive Christians" -- this was a
mistake, in retrospect, since there are some non-church members on that
one).
That message called a special Advocates meeting in Plumer Hall after
second service this past week, May 9th, Mother's Day. About an equal
number of regular attendees at Advocates for Peace and Justice meetings
and visitors concerned about the issues showed up for that meeting (I
think we had 15 or 16 people -- we should have passed a sign-in sheet
around but did not do that). At this meeting, once again, the history and
context of the churchwide resolution to support Proposition 15, the Fair
Elections initiative, was reviewed. Attendees were told about how it was
initially solicited from the Advocates by the Moderator, Keith Boyum (who
was in attendance) and how a March newsletter article explaining the
Advocate's positon elicited virtually no response. Several people
(including Dave Schofield, Suellen Rowe, Brian Pearcy and Suellen Rowe
and Keith) spoke about the procedural issues that had arisen in the course
of the past few months in regard to the resolution. Roni Portillo, who
doesn't regularly attend Advocates meetings, offered his view of the May
newsletter coverage (he thought it seemed a bit skewed against the
Advocates and the resolution). Members of the Advocates group offered up
our rationale for why we thought this was a sensible resolution that did
fit with the peace and justice mission of IUCC. In the end, this meeting
furthered a process of dialogue and reconciliation that had some of us
try to begin in various e-mail exchanges in the proceeding days. It was
decided by consensus that the Advocates would propose a motion at the May
annual meeting on May 16th that would formally withdraw the resolution
asking for all congregation approval and support for the Fair Elections
initiative -- and at that time we would have the opportunity to explain
to those in the meeting why weproposed this in the first place, how we
believe it does fit with the mission of progressive Christianity, and
why, in the interest of congregational unity and amity, we were now
withdrawing it. There was also wide agreement that various process and
procedure issues about congregational meeting resolutions needed to be
worked out -- but that that was best left to some future discussions.
We will not hold a monthly Advocates meeting in May (it would have been
5/16, the day of the congregational meeting). But our next scheduled
meeting is June 20th (yep, it's Father's Day!) -- we hope that newfound
interest in attending our meetings continues: all are welcome! See y'all
then!!!
That is about it for my report -- however, I do want to put forward one
additional item for the board consideration at this meeting. Felicity
reminded us earlier of the "Mad as Hell Doctor's" for healthcare reform
and their proposed tour through Orange County in early October (I believe,
specifically, 10/2). We now have considerable interest from
"co-sponsoring groups" on that, as well as interest from folks in the
congregation -- Howard Emery, for instance, would be willing to work on
this and, perhaps, house one of the doctors. They would be putting on a
forum at IUCC on Saturday night, so we should reserve a venue and try to
figure out how to meet that groups' other requirements. We may or may
not be able to finalize this today. but I think we should try to move
forward relatively soon on this. And, thanks to Felicity for taking a
leadership role on this one so far! But it sounds like we need to find
someone else to step up and take on the lead on this from here. I'm
willing to help out with the event and help find someone to be the primary
contact; but I would rather not be the "point person" on this (its often
not fun to be the Advocates "point person" for a variety of reasons...).
I am teaching a graduate seminar late this afternoon until at least 6:30
pm, so I will almost certainly be late for the meeting. But I will
try to come, eventually. So, I suppose, if you would like to discuss
replacing the incumbent Chair of the Advocates for Peace and Justice, the
beginning of the meeting would be a good time to do that! On a serious
note though... be assured: I have at least as much regret about the
unpleasantness of the past few days as anyone else at IUCC. Let's make
sure it doesn't happen again.
Respectfully submitted,
dave smith
chair, iucc advocates for peace and justice
|
