Even though Sandy and I only attended the first 2 days, we still found the experience of being around thousands of dedicated UU’s very exciting. To start, it was quite an adrenaline rush to carry our church banner into the open ceremony along with the banners from hundreds of other UU churches throughout the country. The energy level of the convention center was very high as inspirational music played and audience members cheered loudly as they could see their church banners come by as we weaved up and down the aisles.

The next day we attended a variety of sessions such as “Building Contemplative UU practices” and a workshop on how to initiate the conversation about life’s end with those close to us. The latter session is of importance to us as we both have an elderly parent whose time on earth may be coming to an end soon. We picked up literature from the session organizers who maintain a website where this Conversation Starter kit is available to download for free: http://theconversationproject.org

Because talking about death is a topic that most of us tend to avoid, the desires and needs of our loved ones are often not known at the time when it is desirable to know them. In fact, the organizers gave the following survey results: 90% of people say that talking with their loved ones about end-of-life care is important, but only 27% have actually done so. We thought that this could be a good session to host for our church members.