uuworld.org: liberal religion and life

Mailbox, Fall 2008

Your letters let us know if we inspire, console, provoke, or even bore you.
By Jane Greer
Fall 2008 8.18.08

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We observed the usual drop in letters after the Summer issue, which seems to be a seasonal phenomenon. A total of 32 letters slid through our mail slot this time in comparison to the 69 letters for the Spring issue and the 110 letters for the Winter issue.

Although we cannot print all letters, we love hearing from you. It’s only from your reactions that we know whether we’ve managed to inspire, console, provoke, or even bore you. Letters should be no more than 200 words and should address articles appearing in the most recent issue of the magazine. Letters we receive within a month of your receiving the magazine have the best chance of appearing in print. Letters will be edited for length and style; see page 13 for guidelines.

Among the letters we did receive this time: Six responded to the Summer cover story, an excerpt from the book Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker; four addressed “The Sources Sing,” Kimberly French’s profile of a new musical work celebrating Unitarian Universalism’s Six Sources; two reacted to news stories about mountaintop removal coal mining and youth ministry; one responded to Manish Mishra’s essay “The Call of Self;” and one was a delayed response to “The Fellowship Movement,” a feature by Holley Ulbrich in the Spring 2008 issue.

The “other” file, containing 18 letters mostly on subjects unrelated to editorial content, was typically diverse. One writer bemoaned the replacement of the statue of nineteenth century Unitarian minister and activist Thomas Starr King by one of President Ronald Reagan at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Another urged UU congregations not to consider billboard advertising since billboards are a “blight” on the American landscape. And another asked whether the 1961 merger of Unitarianism and Universalism was the result of shared hatreds rather than shared beliefs.

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