Founding Assembly of DANE COUNTY UNITED
Founding Assembly Address
by Reverend Michael Schuler
Parish Minister, First Unitarian Society of Madison
November 2, 2003
I have now lived in this community for over fifteen years and am deeply appreciative of its many amenities, deeply committed to its well-being, deeply grateful for its citizens consistent efforts to promote and advance the greater good.
One of the primary reasons that I continue to reside in the Madison area and choose to serve one of its largest congregations is the vibrant quality of its civic culture. People here are passionate about public issues, convinced that community involvement is meritorious, confident that as citizens they can make a difference. Others may rave about balmy evenings at the Union Terrace, the number of restaurants we boast per capita, the abundant recreational opportunities in and around the city, but for me "quality of life" is, more than anything else, about peoples willingness (people like you!) to strive together in common purpose and for common goals.
In this spirit we now gather to mark the founding of Dane County United -- gather in all our glorious diversity and as members of organizations spanning the ideological and cultural spectrum -- knowing that it is from a solid base of human capital that we build. We proceed confident that in this corner of the world at least, citizens are as committed to the greater public good as they are to narrow private gain.
We stand, however, in need of a powerful vehicle to help us articulate and accomplish our dreams for this community. To be sure, Madison and Dane County boast a long history of civic and social reform. From environmental stewardship to a living wage, from "clean government" to community policing, we note a consistent willingness by local citizens to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to defend common values against private, parochial opposition.
But now it is time for Madisons burnished record, its distinguished legacy of cause-specific activism to be complemented by a change-agent of a different sort. Dane County has entered a new era. The population continues to burgeon; newcomers, unfamiliar with our history and culture but eager to enjoy its fruits arrive daily. Residential and business developments are rapidly transforming the landscape. In response to these needs and pressures, government has expanded in scope and size, yet seems to the average citizen increasingly inaccessible.
This epoch calls, then, for a new form of organizational activism: a broad-based consortium of diverse but allied interests with the capacity to set and achieve goals that separately none would dare contemplate. But perhaps we wonder how such an entity, cobbled together from so many disparate elements, could possibly reach consensus on any platform, any far-reaching initiative.
I am here to tell you, from my own experience serving a Faith Community of free thinkers -- of sincere seekers who run the gamut from agnostics to spiritualists, from Zen Buddhists to Benedictine-style Christians -- that unity can be forged from diversity and a powerful, positive force be created.
And, truth be told, do we not have a common focus already? Do we not agree that the needs and interests of the many ought not be shouldered aside so that the few might prosper? Whether we represent a faith community or a secular association, I presume that we all share that baseline conviction, and out of that consensus priorities will be established and powerful strategies applied.
A final word, if you will, about the composition of this Assembly. As the "roll-call of delegations" a few moments ago dramatized, religious groups are handsomely represented among us. It has been rare, in my experience, for Madison area congregations to convene in large numbers with a sense of common cause and purpose. As people of faith, we havent typically been willing to set aside our theological differences in order collaboratively to promote justice and practice social reconstruction, as all major religions counsel.
And too often we have abdicated our legitimate role as ethical spokesmen in the public square, thereby abandoning that arena to interests -- economic and political -- for whom ethics are incidental rather than central. The plain fact is, we live at a time in which notions of the "common good" have less and less currency; an era in which institutions that once were identified with democratic, civic and ethical virtue have lost credibility. In launching Dane County United we seek to reverse this trend and re-claim our voice, our authority and our hope. May it be so! Amen.
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