Covenant Inspiration- September 20, 2020
Jesse Greist
There is, perhaps, no more sacred and important act in Unitarian Universalism than the co-creation of a shared covenant. Since we are not a religion that looks to a rule book or single source of power to govern us, we rely on communication, agreement and shared understanding of how we are going to be together, and that is covenant. This year, with us starting a new ministry with Rev. Lindasusan, and with us relying more and more on meeting each other from our little zoom boxes and other internet based ways of gathering, it is more important than ever that we work together to be in covenant when we do so.
So let us look for inspiration to the children and youth and the covenants they created last year. It is always inspiring to me to observe what happens when young people are invited into the process of deciding how they will share learning space, and how much ownership they take of it when the covenant is shared rather than imposed.
The youngest children last year focused on treating each other with respect, raising hands to speak, listening to each other, and one item that certainly applies to this year, “Sharing everything but our germs”
In upper primary class, students focused again on respect, kindness, patience when waiting for snack time, and on the importance of having fun.
By upper elementary age, students began to go beyond respect and patient listening, urging each other to be gentle with others’ mistakes. This is an age where getting laughed at or ridiculed can be quite scarring, and they showed their awareness of this by urging gentleness in their covenant.
Middle School grades also called for respect, kindness and gentleness, but began applying specifically Unitarian Universalist ideas, calling for respectful exploration of all religious and spiritual ideas, use of the democratic process in classrooms, and an acknowledgement of the possibility of multiple truths that might be called to co-exist peacefully within the class discussions.
Finally, the high school youth group zeros in on interpersonal relationships in their covenant, calling on themselves to examine what they might say before saying it, checking for pre-judgement and bias, to seek consent from each other in their interactions, to express themselves authentically, and to keep confidentiality, even as they look out for each others’ safety.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of the incredible depth reached each year in children and youth covenants, and I could go on forever about how much I’ve learned from witnessing their development, but I’ll leave you with just three more little details
- It is vital that people beyond the students be invited into covenant. Each year, parents, teachers, myself, and the minister are invited to sign and abide by each class’s covenant
- A covenant is only as good as the people who agree to it. When these covenants are created on the first day of class, everyone also agrees that they will be loving, gentle and kind as they invite others back into covenant when someone says or does something that is not covenantal. Here, we remember the words of Rumi reminding us “though you’ve broken your vows a thousand times, come yet again come”
- And finally, these covenants are never finished. Children and youth return to them again and again to adjust, to tweak, and to check that they still remain in sacred agreement. May it be so for all of us!