You are still avoiding the real issue I was raising, Ed. My concern is not interpreting the article about Dan Aldrich, or how many members we have now as compared to 10 years ago (there are many reasons for this, including the fact that there are more UU congregations around here now than there were 10 years ago). The real issue for me is that since the beginning of the ruckus you and a few others raised last summer I do not think you have been honest about what I think is the central issue for you: you do not like Jim and you do not like the direction he is GENTLY trying to take the congregation. I have said this before, but your e-mail re: the firing of Dan is in the same vain, by bringing in the red herring about the alleged CEO style, etc. You certainly have a right not to like Jim or not like the direction that he very openly has been going since 1993. What I think is dishonest is the refusal to directly say what you mean. You keep hiding behind other stuff. Why? Why cannot you say what you mean? Why all this crap about the whole congregagtion needs "healing" when fewer than 30 folks out of 600 seem to not like what is happening. I repeat, if that is how you and some others feel, fine, you have that right. But SAY WHAT YOU MEAN AND HOW YOU FEEL HONESTLY AND OPENLY. I feel what you are doing is not just sad but unnecessary.
Obviously, our (yours and my) perceptions of UUCF are very different: I do not think we are more "constrained," as you put it. I see us as both free spirited AND much more coherent than before Jim came here. Speaking as one who has spent most of my 66 years disdaining organized religion--and as one who still has serious doubts about it--I find the serious, religious quality that I think Jim has brought to UUCF wonderful. It gives me a way to deepen myself and my view of the world, my approach to the world. UUCF is, after all, a religious institution--not a social club. Having fun and enjoying each other is great. But being serious and growing and learning is critical if we are truly to be a UU congregation. I think Jim has created an environment that allows this to happen. Yes, I have questions and concerns--and doubts. Yes, sometimes I disagree with Jim. But I find him caring and loving as well as direct and strong--and, yes, approachable. I like that. I am sorry you do not feel you the same way. But if not, I repeat, say so and please do not keep hiding being walls of rhetoric--such as the "CEO" balony. If you and the others had been more honest and direct from the beginning last summer, I think we would have had far less contention than we had this past year. I only hope that the contention ends--not serious discussion or disagreement, but contention that is unproductive. Creative conflict, to borrow from the Quakers, is good. Stupid, dishonest whining and contentiousness is not. At least for me it is not. Bob Tripp