Cohousing-L Mailing List: Closing rituals

[Bob's Cohousing Mailbox (coho]

     It should be clear that the problem with the closing ceremony of 
Sufi dancing was NOT that it took place, but that the manner in which 
it was scheduled was in error.  Its significance to the conference as 
a whole was exaggerated by its scheduling as the sole closing event in 
that time period.  Lacking any alternatives, conference participants 
would feel pressured to participate by the alternative of feeling 
excluded from the closing events.
     The event may have been scheduled by some well-intentioned person 
who disregarded the misgivings of others, or it may have evolved in 
practice into something that the schedulers did not anticipate.
     Valuable lessons can be drawn from this:  that conference 
schedulers must use more care when planning events which could.
alienate participants; that in our enthusiasm we may tread on the toes 
of our colleagues; that when our toes are trodden upon, we should 
point out the error in a clear and polite manner in order to prevent 
such errors in the future.
     As an atheist and a skeptic, I would certainly have had a problem 
with the ceremony as described.  As a Unitarian-Universalist, I can 
appreciate the difficulty in designing a ceremony to promote 
community, without offending anyone, while retaining any substance at 
all.  I hope we can complete our critique of this event, glean from 
it its lessons, and move on to do better in the future.