Do we need a major change in our appearance, in our form, in our essence? This sounds suspiciously like a call to be “born again.” Something in me resists the theme for this month.

We have all experienced making New Year’s resolutions or something of the sort. We resolve to change this or that about ourselves. Some of you may be doing this during the Christian season of Lent. This year I resolved to keep a daily journal. I invested in a rather expensive journal with 2017 stamped in the hard binding and the date imprinted on each page. I thought this would be an incentive for me to actually follow through with my resolution. Sadly, I did not even make it through January. I think I need to accept that being a journal keeper is just not who I am. Does anyone want a very nice slightly used 2017 journal?

I’m not sure if the right question is: “How do we transform ourselves into something or someone else?” Maybe we ought to be asking: “How do we become more authentic, more genuine, to whom we are?”

I am more at ease with an approach to “transformation” that means “metamorphosis.” A caterpillar undergoes a transformation of sorts when the caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Is that caterpillar born again? The appearance changes; the form changes; the essence does not change.

For me, transformation means deepening, specifically, a deepening commitment to the covenantal commitments that we affirm and promote as Unitarian Universalists. Rather than ask, “What does it mean to be a community of transformation?” I prefer to ask: How committed am I personally to the UUA principles and purposes and the UUCRT which seeks to affirm and promote them? What can I do to nurture a deeper collective commitment to our covenant?