A story about an UUYAN conference:
It's the beginning of a new cycle of UUYAN organizing in our district. There hasn't been a real conference for a few years; most of the registrants don't know each other. A lot of them have never been to a conference before.
First scene: Friday night, about 6pm. People are still arriving; orientation will not happen for another couple of hours. The planners have decided that people will be most comfortable if we start gradually, so the event scheduled is an "adult-style" coffeehouse with some really good musicians performing. The conference participants-- remember, most of them are new-- help set up the chairs. They set them in neat rows, like pews, or an audience.
When I walk into the room, I see them all sitting in rows, and scattered. Lots of empty seats between each person, no one sitting close to one another. I feel a little concerned, but they're happy enough, or so they tell me. They like the music. The rows and the separation are normal adult behavior. It looks a little like church on a Sunday morning.
Next scene: the following morning, Saturday, 9am. Fifteen hours later. Just after breakfast and before the first workshop. Something is different. If this were a play, you'd think that Scene Two was supposed to represent an alternate reality, not the same people. The participants are now sitting close to one another, in groups or piles. Their bodies lean trustingly against one another. Hugs have become part of a normal greeting; reassuring or affectionate touch has become part of a normal conversation. "Normal" conversation is no longer the polite social chat of the evening before; now it is either a free-flowing sharing of the heart, of real life issues, or a free-flowing sharing of silliness, of spontaneous word games and free-association humor.
Something has melted. The "normal adult" well-being people claimed to be feeling during last night's music performance now seems like a distant and shallow mask.
Walking into the conference after a morning errand in the outside world, I can feel the conference like a strong energy field that is warm, like a physical warmth; relaxing, like a bubble bath or a day at the beach.
It's this energy field that the YRUU call, "community."
I happen to think that this is not really the right name for it; a "community" is more like all the people who live in the same town together. They may or may not feel this deep sense of love and connection. Even if they are hippies who have all moved into the woods together to form an Intentional Community, they may or may not have this energy field with each other. Chances are, at least most of the time, they don't.
The conference is not a community. It's a weekend event. What it is, is a religious ritual. I think a closer word for that magical feeling that YRUU calls "community" is actually: communion. Because it feels like a relaxing bath, I've been calling it "The Magic Pool of Communion." And because I tend not to use Christian language, I've been calling it just: the Magic Pool.
This Magic Pool is a powerful thing. People organize their lives around it, and yet they don't really know how to explain what it is. They just say "conferences," "community," sometimes "workshops," or "worship." YRUUers sometimes call it "UUism." Other people might try "circle worship," "youth worship," or "participatory, experiential worship." They might also try "mysticism," "ecstasy," sometimes maybe "paganism" or "animism."
I often hear adults say that there is a spiritual nothingness, a spiritual flatness, at the center of UUism. They write about it in World magazine. They speculate on whether it ought to be filled with Ecofeminism or Science or Christianity.
One thing is certain. The youth who go to conferences do not think that there is "nothing" at the center.
The Magic Pool of Communion is a powerful ritual and a powerful spiritual experience. As far as I can tell, it is the UU conversion experience. Not only youth converts, but also young adults, ministers and lay leaders will tell you: intellectually, they think the ideas are nice, but they first knew they were really a UU when they attended a certain conference, summer camp, assembly or retreat. That's why our adult lay Leadership Schools last for a week and focus so much on bonding: we know that once someone has been to the Magic Pool, chances are high that they will serve this movement for life.
Even if they still can't explain what it is.
Being a visitor to a UU congregation can be a frustrating experience. It's like, you know that there is a flame burning somewhere, because it attracted all of these people. But you might not see it really burning at the Sunday Service. (I have seen it there, but not often.) You might not see it at coffee hour or at the monthly potluck. If you ask, people might give you a little printed card full of nice words, or they might say, "well, it's the community." Those things make reference to it, and yet they are not the flame itself. It's as if you can't find it, but you can smell it. It's around here somewhere. Maybe it's being used to heat the building, or something. A lot of these people have seen it-- they look happy.
Maybe it's hidden down in the basement somewhere. (Like, near the RE rooms?)
I have talked to people who have been in a UU congregation for years and they are still feeling confused and looking. And they are still "new members"-- when they finally give up and leave, they will feel as if they never were able to quite make it "in." No one could explain to them how to reach the spiritual flame, the center, the Magic Pool.
One of the reasons why it is hard for people to name and talk about the Magic Pool is the paradoxical nature of its magic. On the one hand, a visit to the Pool is a rare and ecstatic experience that totally changes your whole life; on the other hand, what it feels like while you're in it is profoundly, profoundly, ordinary. Like, everyone is finally acting normal.
The spell we cast is that "it's OK to be yourself." Just normal people, humans. Humanism.
The trick is, when you really do that, "normal" turns out to not be what you see on TV.