Published in the Newburyport Daily News on June 28, 2024
“Why do you want to be a minister?” Carroll asked, leaning across the table. We were in a stately, old study room in the town library. I had worked with this retired professor for years, raising money needed to build a new library. Together we had, along with a strong team of volunteers and library staff, worked with the town government and residents to reimagine the role of libraries in the 21st century and to design and build a state-of-the-art new library.
I was leaving a nearly 30-year career in nonprofit management and fundraising to become an ordained minister. Many of my clients were not surprised about this shift in my career path as my love of mission, people, and purpose was the guiding light in fundraising. It was time to take the leap and formally integrate my Unitarian Universalist values of radical inclusivity, work for justice, and faith into my profession.
Carroll had known me for years and it was a natural choice to ask for a reference as part of my application to divinity school. He was smart, astute, and faithful in his own religious tradition. I took his question seriously when he asked me why I was becoming a minister. I knew his question was genuine. He deserved a thoughtful, honest response.
After a minute of contemplation, I answered him. “I am called to be a minister because I believe that no one need ever be alone.” He responded with a reserved but respectful smile and made some notes on his legal pad. A few months later I enrolled at Andover Newton Theological School.
That conversation has guided my ministry for fifteen years.
No one need ever be alone.
That belief is why I am committed to nurturing and sustaining a beloved faith community that collectively works for justice and inclusion. As part of that commitment, when the safety and lives of trans people are endangered, as is happening in New Hampshire and across our country right now, we respond. We are here when trans people of all ages and their families need a safe and welcoming spiritual community. We have been a welcoming congregation to the LGTBQ+ community for decades.
The First Religious Society UU church in Newburyport recently voted to add what is called the 8th Principle as one of our foundational values. It reads:
“We, the member congregations of the Unitarian Universalist Association, covenant to affirm and promote: Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
This principle reflects our commitment to helping to end oppression of all people, especially Black, Indigenous and People of Color, members of the LGTBQ+ community, and those impacted by ableism, ageism, and sexism. These aims expand our preexisting commitments to democracy, the inherent worth and dignity of all people, religious plurality, and climate justice.
Separation and oppression of people is not an option and never has been. We must include all people if we are to save our democracy and our planet and to create peace.
Including all people means that we also must understand ourselves through honest self-reflection and appropriate change. This is spiritual work for our times. It needs to be done both in community and individually. Communities of radical hospitality and diversity of all kinds are critical to creating cultures of inclusivity, where there is room for everyone. These communities are necessary in religious organizations, schools, libraries, and other civic organizations. Martin Luther King called this The Beloved Community, where no one need ever be alone.