Recently I have been toying with the idea of shifting the name of what it is I oversee here at May. I am the director of religious education, but what if it were religious exploration?

What if I were the director of religious exploration? Now it could seem like this is nothing more than a question of semantics akin to counting the number angels on the head of a pin, essentially meaningless. And, honestly, I can kind of see that. Really, it doesn’t matter so much what we call things; it matters more how we do things.

Of course, any kind of name change is not up to only little ol’ me. I work, and love working, in the midst of community. How we call things is most often a community decision, either intentional or unintentional. Official names need to be shifted officially. But still the question can be raised.

Which really still leaves me with this question of whether or not to shift the name. After all our program goals actually have little to do with education — if one sees education as learning a set, repeatable collection of facts or stories.

On the other hand if one understands education to be about growth, and learning; how to ask the question, fostering a sense of openness and willingness to learn then our goals have everything to do with education.

I would be interested to hear from folk in the community as to how you weigh in on this. Do we do education here? Is that word broad enough? Do we do something more than what the word education usually brings to mind? Are our children, youth and adult programming about encouraging exploration of many kinds?

I don’t mean to bring up a question that then engenders all sorts of reactions, positive and negative. More I am looking for responses. Take a breath, let go of the voice that says “But we have always …” And ask the question, “What is it we do here?” And more importantly ask, “What is it we want to do here?” Are we doing what we want to do here?

What are our educational/explorational mission, vision, and goal? What are we heading toward and are we moving that way?

In what may be good UU tradition I have raised more questions than answers. Hopefully the questions can be good conversation starters. I would love to hear from you.