There’s a joke that describes children in a classroom, gathered around a big fluffy bunny that was brought in for show-and-tell. 

The children marvel at its long ears, its twitchy little mouth and fuzzy tail.  They take turns feeding it, hugging it and hoping around the room to communicate solidarity! 

It occurs to one of them that bunnies are known for their reproductive prowess, and that it might be worthwhile to find out of it’s male or female – because if it’s female, they might experience the “marvel of new life”, right then and there!

So the question is posed:  “is it male or female?”  They ponder the question, scrutinizing the bunny from all manageable angles.

Finally, the Unitarian in the bunch, lights up and say’s:  “Let’s vote on it”.  

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I offer this little bit of humor because voting is one of the things Unitarian Universalists do!  It is one of the things that defines us and strengthens us as a community.   It happens regularly, spontaneously.  And, when the church year is planned out, mid-year and end-year dates are selected in honor of the wisdom of gathering together, finding out what’s-what, and voting on things that we anticipate will on fact foster “new life” among us!

(The difference is, of course, that our voting process is likely to be more…“effective” …than that in the story I just relayed.  It’s more likely to be focused on things over which we actually have some reasonable control!)