This speech, written for the UUA’s 2025 Trans Day of Visibility event, is shared here ahead of time as an offering—an invitation to reflect, imagine, and build communities where all of us belong.

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I believe we build the world with our choices.

With our habits, our rituals, our blueprints. 
With who we imagine into our lives—and who we forget to.

My name is Nat M. Esparza (he/they). I serve as a Southern Regional Administrator for the Unitarian Universalist Association, and I’m currently earning my Master of Arts in Religious Studies, on the path to becoming an interfaith chaplain. As a Wellstar Fellow, I’m conducting research on what it means to age and die as a trans person— work that is equal parts academic and deeply personal. I also serve as an interim board member for the LGBTQ+ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, where I help uplift and advocate for the sacred lives in our community.

From that brief bio, you can probably guess: I think a lot about systems, stories, and how we care for each other.

In short, I am a huge nerd.

One of the ways I explore those ideas is through story-rich games like Dungeons & Dragons.

Even if you’ve never played it, here’s what you need to know: at its heart, D&D is about building a world—together. A place where every person at the table matters. Where the story can’t move forward unless everyone has a role. Where imagination isn’t just encouraged—it’s how you survive.

In that way, it reminds me of our Unitarian Universalist principles—the way we commit to the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the call to justice and equity, and the invitation to build beloved community not just in theory, but in practice.

I believe imagination is a spiritual discipline—especially for those of us who’ve had to imagine ourselves into existence.

And that’s what I want to talk about today:

What happens when our communities are acts of creation—but the blueprint was never made with people like us in mind?

Who do we design for, even unconsciously?

Who do we forget?

And what does it cost to be the one always imagining your way in?

I didn’t grow up knowing what a trans man was. Not really.

The only trans stories I saw were cruel parodies. Trans women were mocked or erased. Femininity was treated like a joke. And masculinity? I was taught it could only be dominant, violent, or cold.

So I tried to be safe. Palatable. I thought if I disappeared just right, it might feel like peace.

And I’ll be honest: I was scared of trans people. Not because I hated them, but because I didn’t understand. Because no one had ever told me someone like me could be sacred. Could belong. Could be real.

It wasn’t until after my divorce—mid-twenties, heartbroken and cracked open—that I heard a whisper I could finally receive: You are a trans man. Not because I rejected the divine feminine, but because I was ready to love the divine masculine— in others, and in myself.

That was the beginning of my becoming.

But even now, most spaces weren’t built with someone like me in mind.

I’m trans. I’m autistic. I live with POTS, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and PTSD. I move through the world in a body and mind that don’t always cooperate, and systems that rarely accommodate.

Disability, for me, isn’t just physical—it’s cultural. It’s architectural. It’s spiritual. 
It’s being told: You can belong here, but only if you don’t need too much.

I’ve been labeled intense. Inflexible. Over-communicative. 
I’ve asked for access and been met with confusion or silence. 
I’ve tried to mask my needs just to stay in the room.

And every time I’ve done that, I’ve had to let go of a little meaning.

Because that’s the cost of forgetting people in our blueprints. 
We lose stories. We lose presence. We lose trust. 
We make people prove they belong instead of building spaces where they just do.

Too often, we treat access as something reactive—something we implement after someone speaks up. 
But that’s not care. 
That’s crisis management.

Care is design. 
And design is spiritual. 
Every choice we make about how we gather, speak, move, and listen is a theological statement about who we expect to show up—and who we expect to carry the burden of fitting in.

Unitarian Universalism gave me a doorway back into sacred story—not by asking me to be someone I wasn’t, but by letting me bring all of who I am into the room.

After years of being told my story was sinful, fragmented, or didn’t belong, UU didn’t hand me a script. It gave me space to hold the questions. It gave me the language to name myself as sacred.

I grew up watching religion divide people like me from the holy.

But here, in this tradition, I found something different. A story that could hold transness. That could hold disability. That could hold the full complexity of being human—and still call it divine.

But it also asked me, sometimes, to disappear a little.

And I know I’m not alone.

In our congregations, exclusion doesn’t always shout.

It whispers:

“You’re so strong.” 
“We’re still learning the right language.” 
“I don’t see you as trans—I just see you as you.”

These words are meant to comfort. 
But they often ask us to shrink. 
To make our needs and identities smaller so no one else has to stretch.

And then we end up giving from empty cups. 
We call it strength. We call it inclusion. 
But it’s not resilience. It’s depletion. 
It’s martyrdom masquerading as belonging.

Stop giving from an empty cup and calling it care.

That’s why I believe in community care. 
Not as charity. Not as pity. 
But as shared responsibility. 
As sacred design.

Advocacy only works when we radically care for each other—and when we radically care for ourselves.

And right now, we are so tired. 
The world is burning. 
We are grieving. 
And many of us—especially the most marginalized—are scared we won’t survive it.

But this is not the first time people have imagined their way out of erasure. 
We come from people who made ways out of no way. 
Who left marks in the margins when the center had no room. 
Who turned survival into song, ritual, story, and uprising.

We have done this before. 
And we can do it again.

So what does that look like?

What does it mean to build communities that imagine us in from the start?

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Build for difference.

Not after it’s requested—but from the start. 
Access isn’t about accommodating a single diagnosis. It’s about designing space that doesn’t assume sameness.

Show up even when it’s clumsy. 
Don’t wait to be perfect. Just don’t disappear.

Support local queer and disabled businesses—mechanics, cleaners, massage therapists, designers. Your money preaches too.

Create networks of care. 
Rideshares. Emergency funds. Buddy systems. Flexible roles. 
Let your community’s care be structured, not ad hoc.

Share your tools. 
If you use an app, a checklist, a captioning service—let someone else benefit too. We’re not meant to hoard care.

Resource and trust disabled and trans leaders. 
Don’t just invite us to the table—fund the damn table. Let us lead. Let us rest.

Keep learning. 
Access is not a checkbox. It’s a question you return to again and again: 
Who isn’t here? And why?

Because our communities are acts of creation. 
Every system, every gathering, every “welcome” is a blueprint for what we believe is sacred.

So I’ll ask you again:

If our communities are acts of creation—who are we imagining into them? 
And who are we leaving out?

If that question makes you uncomfortable—good. Discomfort is where change begins.

Whatever you do next, let it be real. 
Let it be rooted in love. 
Let it be imperfect, human, and ongoing.

Because that’s what true community care looks like. 
That’s what liberation demands.

We’ve been visible. Now it’s time to be heard, to be trusted, and to shape what comes next.

In the end, we all want the same thing— 
To feel less alone. 
To be seen. 
To know that our stories, our lives, and our futures truly matter.

“Whatever you are, be a good one” — William Makepeace Thackeray

Every month, a great number of congregations reach out to Regional Staff to ask questions about growth. If you have experienced a decline in membership and/or attendance in the past three to five years, you are certainly not alone.

And I’m sure many of you have been surprised by how we conduct these conversations. The first question we always ask is, “Why do you want to grow?” Because our financial situation is dire. Because we can’t afford our minister. Because we have no children anymore. Because we can’t afford our mortgage. Because we’ve never had this few members. Very few folks say it is because there are people in their communities who are hurting and reaching out for love, and they have love to offer.

The next question is, “What do you believe is holding you back?” Our building. The parking lot. We don’t have enough space. We don’t have any children. No one offers programming. We don’t have any volunteers. We can’t even get a full board together. Our minister. We are lay-led. We can’t afford a religious educator. Very few folks say it is because they are not yet the beloved community that they envision.

Look, I’m going to give it to you straight: people want to go where it is fun to be. They don’t want to go where they are asked to serve right away. They don’t want to go where people don’t laugh, don’t celebrate, don’t love out loud. They don’t want to go to a space that is exactly the same as the harsh world they stepped in from. People want hope. They want beauty. They want joy. They want their spirits uplifted. There is no magic formula: people want to go where they can leave the world behind and make a better one.

You can do that at any size. You are fully equipped right now to offer everything the world needs so desperately right now. Whether there are eight or eight hundred of you, I am willing to bet you have untapped potential just waiting to blossom.

If you are a small congregation, be a good one. Your strength is in the way you know each other, the way you care for one another, the way you build strong multi-generational relationships.. You are flexible and able to respond to member needs with swift agility. Your programs consist of phone calls, meals shared, milestones celebrated. You have the ability to become rooted in local activism, seeking deep connections with other organizations working for justice. You create Beloved Community by welcoming folks into your homes and your hearts every time you gather. Give that away, and you will never be lost.

If you are a mid-sized congregation, be a good one. Your strength is in the way you hold each other, mentor each other, and believe in the big vision. You have a clear sense of who you are, and you are able to speak confidently and clearly about your mission. Your programs consist of classes and workshops, celebrations and milestones, rituals and worship, small groups and affinity groups. You have enough energy to thrive in any program you’d like to create while still maintaining a close community where it is possible to have deep and long-lasting relationships. You create Beloved Community through your extravagant sense of welcome and hospitality. Give that away, and you will never be lost.

If you are a large congregation, be a good one. Your strength is in the way you generously offer your members a way to be a part of something so much more. You offer a wide variety of methods to participate in that something, both inside your community and without. Your programs consist of large-scale worship and small group ministry, cluster workshops and religious education for everyone, leadership training and new member classes. You build Beloved Community through possibility and opportunity. Give that away, and you will never be lost.

Whatever you are, be a good one. Growth follows the good.

Many weeks, my family is on the road, co-creating Unitarian Universalism with congregations all over the Southern Region. I like to travel with my children, who have grown up in the Region with me, meeting so many UUs in their ten and twelve years. They always ask me, “Mommy, are we going to the fun church? The church with my friends? The church with the cookies? Mommy, are we going to the good church?” I can’t wait for the day that I can tell them absolutely yes every single week.

By Natalie Briscoe

I’d like to do an experiment with you. I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to say the answer out loud. Even a whisper counts if you happen to be in a place where you are unable to make a joyful noise. Okay, ready?

What color is your shirt?

Now I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you just to think the answer. Don’t say anything out loud. Not a peep. Okay, here goes:

What color is your shirt?

Same answer, right? Well, here’s the final question in the experiment: Which one of those voices is the real you? The one that spoke the answer aloud or the one that thought the answer?

That’s a trick question because the real you is neither of those. The real you is the observer who knows the difference.

You are not your thoughts, or your actions, or your feelings. You are not what you produce or how you present yourself. You are not your clothes or your job or your possessions. You are the observer, the part of you that unconditionally exists. The part of you that is infinitely connected to the universe and its divine nature.

Some people call it intuition. Some people call it the gut. Some people call it the heart center. In her book Untamed, Glennon Doyle calls it “The Deep Knowing.” For Doyle, it feels like sinking into a low, quiet place. She writes, “it struck me that this is why we say to people,’Calm down.’ Because beneath the noise of the pounding, swirling, surf is a place where all is quiet and clear.”

In Unitarian Universalism, we often call this encounter the “still small voice,” a Biblical reference from 1 Kings 19:12. In our gray hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, our hymn #391 written by John Corrado in 1987, is a call to the still small voice:

Voice still and small, deep inside all,

I hear you call, singing.

In storm and rain, sorrow and pain,

still we’ll remain singing.

Calming my fears, quenching my tears,

through all the years, singing.

Corrado describes the still small voice as a force that will guide us, comfort us, and grow with us, if, indeed, we can find it.

I say “if we can find it” because I don’t know about you, but I often have difficulty tapping into my still small voice. I can get really centered, really grounded, and it is easily accessible to me in the quiet, intentional space where I am. Then, in less than half the time it took me to find it, I’ve lost it again. Out in the world, where my emotions get the better of me, it’s difficult to listen to what that Real Natalie is saying.

In Unitarian Universalism, that voice leads us into more love, more justice, more interdependence, more equity, more generosity, and more pluralism. We can use these anchors of our Faith to ground us in the deep and listen to that still small voice. It does take a lot of practice, though.

That is one of the main reasons we go to a Unitarian Universalist congregation: to give us space to practice listening to that still small voice and aligning it with our core values. Our gift of a never-ending search for truth and meaning means that we are always looking for ways that help us attend to that voice and then act in accordance with it. In this way, because that voice is so intimately connected to the divine, we are true co-creators with the universe. And in this way — by finding ways to attend to our Deep Knowing, by aligning ourselves toward love, justice, equity, generosity, pluralism, and interdependence, and then by using those resources to create beloved community with others who are on the same path and share those values — we can collectively shape the world. This is our great moral imperative, and it begins with each one of us.

I hope for all of us a year of Deep Knowing in 2025. I hope we create opportunities to practice sinking. I hope we gain alignment with and actions rooted in love, justice, equity, generosity, pluralism, and interdependence. And I hope we continue this sacred work of building Beloved Community, together. We can’t do it alone, but the good news is that we don’t have to.

These are difficult days.

Where just moments ago there was hope, now there is grief. Where there was clarity, now there is confusion. Where there were small comforts, now there is hurt. In many ways, the results of this year’s election feel like a shocking betrayal. In other ways, they feel despairingly familiar.

Perhaps the worst part of all the news we are receiving right now is the uncertainty of it. So much COULD happen, but we don’t know if it WILL happen. Even in the face of this uncertainty, a few things are for sure:

1. You are loved. It’s okay to be exactly as you are right now. You are enough. You are so very treasured.
2. You and your Unitarian Universalist community matter. Your existence matters. Your presence matters. You are doing so much good in the world by simply continuing to exist, never giving in, never giving up.
3. Living through yet another liminal period of time means that our nervous systems go into overdrive. It is critical now, more than ever, to pay attention to the signals our bodies are sending us as we persist in this moment. Eat well, sleep, stretch, relax your jaw and shoulders, and remember to breathe.
4. You do not have to do anything right now. There is no rush. Reaching out, holding each other in love, and embodying the Beloved Community that we aspire to be is plenty. As Unitarian Universalists, we have a deep and abiding knowledge that the universe is build on Love, and that Love makes us strong. We need each other. We’ve got each other.

Donate to the UUA Disaster Relief Fund

On the evening of Thursday, September 26, 2024 Hurrican Helene arrived at Florida’s Gulf Coast and carved a path of destruction throughout the Southern Region. In total, seven states and millions of people were impacted by this devastating weather event which reminds us of a number of other natural disasters that have impacted our region and country.

In the days since, Unitarian Universalists near and far have moved into position to respond to the dire needs of those impacted by the storm. Your Regional Staff have connected with congregational leaders to assess needs and provide initial care, national leaders have coordinated largescale responses that include financial relief, and most importantly, sibling congregations have connected with one another along the path of the Hurricane to check in, offer prayers, and to provide a variety of needed and necessary resources.

Like all-natural disasters of this scale, recovery will be slow and heartbreaking. Thousands still lack reliable access to food, water and electricity, many remain cut off due to washed out roads, churches have been greatly damaged, and over 200 people have lost their lives. But as covenanted people who are steadfast in our mutual love and care for one another, we will remain in place to offer our hearts and our resources to those impacted by the storm for the long haul. This will include ongoing efforts to raise money for the Disaster Relief Fund, coordinate the collection and distribution of goods in partnership with local organizations and religious communities, and to connect those in spiritual crisis with the Trauma Response Team.

In the coming days and weeks needs will increase. Individuals and congregations like yours can aid in the efforts by giving generously to the Disaster Relief Fund. We will also be providing further updates and ways you might be able to support Unitarian Universalists in affected areas as Hurricane Milton makes landfall and the storm season rages on.

The one thing that your Southern Region staff would like you to know during the upcoming months is that you are not alone. Your Regional Staff, President Sofia Betancourt, Executive Vice President Carey McDonald, Vice President for Programs and Ministries Ashley Horan, Director of Congregational Life Jessica York, and all of your UU sibling congregations are holding you, praying for you, and working within and beyond the UUA to bring you emotional, structural, and financial support both in these first few weeks and into the future. We see you. We grieve with you. We love you. We are with you for the long haul.

By Nancy Combs-Morgan

Friends, I was delighted recently to preach at the Georgia Mountains Unitarian Universalist Church (GMUUC) in Dahlonega, Georgia, on ways to, faithfully and healthfully, engage in conflict. Rev. Charlotte Arsenault, and the wonderful leaders at GMUUC, have been exploring ways to engage in conflict reverently and with humility. Their good work led me to reflect on ways for all of us to engage in conflict.

We start with the importance of relationships…the ways we go deeper with one another, in spite of our differences, in spite of our strong and/or hurt feelings, in spite of the anxieties we carry, indicate the depth of our relatedness. The depth of our relatedness becomes the foundation for expressing ourselves, and it is the depth of our relationships which will serve us when we collectively face profound challenges. In our collective and individual lives – a challenge emerges, loss of job, illness, natural disasters, unsettling political discord, and even a profound change in self-understanding, which compels radical change in our relationships. With those challenges, it compels you, and the circles of community of which you take part, to face the challenge. Inevitably, not with dread, but with an awareness that when facing challenge it is often accompanied by conflicts. Conflicts, due to the packed layers of emotion and urgency which work through our family, congregational, and community systems like lightning rods of anxiety.

Well, how do we remain in loving community while weathering those direct hits of challenge and what tools will serve us as we navigate the challenge, while remaining thoughtfully connected? As Unitarian Universalists we embody a radical experiment in community, which does not seek for all to think alike, yet celebrates that we are each distinct, yet grounded in shared values. For me it is good news, that we don’t charge one another with absolutism – we do not expect a cookie cutter expression of faith and ideas, which translates as we are non-creedal. That lack of fundamentalism then serves us as a tool to engage in conflict, for we are allowed to change our minds and change who we are!

Another faith tool which serves our health, is that we are covenantal not creedal. That is one of our three core truths of Unitarian Universalism. Here is the second tool, and truth, and that which may feel like a heavy lift at times, and even provide an aerobic stretch, is that we practice pluralism. Wow, talk about inviting conflict! Living pluralistically means we can all be in and seek to create beloved community while having a wide range of beliefs, beliefs that may seem at times to be on either end of a polarity, yet, UU expressions of pluralism move beyond polarities, to ideas and bonds that illuminate and lean into our shared values.

We can, and do, differ on ways to approach building beloved community, which compels us to deeply listen to one another. Your community, all of our UU communities, would forever remain in a virtual round-a-bout of discord and division, if we simply lived in the places of our differences. Living covenantly and plurastically compels us to have shared practices of ways to embody beloved community.

When we share our personal narratives and reasons as to why we feel so strongly about a particular idea, it is then we are heard. Each narrative brought as an offering to a collective vision that is mutually created but that also serves as a clear grounding. Yet, it requires that we have shared practices of deep listening. Listening that is not framed, in your simply waiting to express your prior idea, or defense of the idea, but listening that is truly attuned to be fully present to hearing what another person is expressing.

That type of deep listening, and the practices of covenant and pluralism may sound rather naïve or idealistic, yet we are the co-religionists who carry forward the wisdom from our ancestors that that we need not “think alike to love alike” as our ancestor Francis David charged us, yet it is absolutely true.

We can differ in opinion, while sharing in a community that leaves room for care and courage, while seeking to be a community that esteems process as well as outcomes. 

Care and courage to lean into process will guide us to engage deeply, despite our differences.

Friends, the measure of a beloved community is not in the ideal of sustained harmony, where conflict and challenge do not occur, the measure of beloved community is how the values of love, care, and concern for one another guide and ground all of our intersecting feelings and convictions, in the midst of our growing pains.

I bet you’ve been wondering what our third truth of Unitarian Universalism is, (recalling that our first is that we are covenantal, not creedal, the second that we seek pluralism, and for our third, well, here is more good news, we are a Living Tradition.

We boldly and even humbly believe that prophecy is not sealed – that as we grow in our humanity in pursuit of wisdom and scientific advancements, that our understandings will therefore grow and change.

All of these reflections on engaging faithfully and healthfully in conflict call us to always be seeking some sort of collective education about those newer ideas, which will lead to our transformation.

By Natalie Briscoe

The first few lines of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey” read: EN”>

“Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?”EN”>

Before I took some time away for my sabbatical this past April, I felt the weight of the world in my heart. I burdened myself with the responsibility for not just my world, but the world of my children, my family, my friends, my team, and our congregations. EN”>

It takes a really long time to unwind those thoughts. Uprooting them is like hiking through the jungle, whacking at vines with a machete. I spent the beginning of my sabbatical just feeling my feelings. I sat with myself. I accepted all feelings that came to me and tried to understand their messages, even when they were ugly, even when they were unwanted, even when they hurt. I cried. I grieved. I raged. EN”>

Then my body became sick. My body started to show that it was reaching its limit as the stress started to unwind. Three weeks into my sabbatical I got COVID, my second time to have it in less than six months. Once I tested negative for COVID, my entire household contracted the most terrible stomach virus and upper respiratory infection that I have ever had. After that, I suffered insomnia, migraines, and flare ups of Ehlers-Danlos. It felt like every one of my joints were full of hardened concrete, and moving meant cracking that cement and carrying it around. EN”>

And then, blissfully, came what I call “the sleeping time.” As the stress left my body, it became completely drained. I spent my days walking through honey: it was sweet, but it was also so slow. I honestly couldn’t keep my eyes open for longer than two hours at a time. Doctors told me that this was trauma leaving the body. I hadn’t truly rested for so long that my body needed to catch up.EN”>

In the final stretches of my time away, I studied a lot about trust, trust-building, and being trust-worthy. I discovered more about how trauma moves through a system and how it destroys that sense of trust in each other and in itself. I found ways of community-building that begin with relationships grounded in trust and methods for getting there. I’m really excited to bring all that I learned during this time back to the practices and curriculum of our Southern Region. EN”>

One late night in June, as I was going through my nightly routine and putting my ear buds in my ears to listen to my true crime podcast that lulls me to sleep, I suddenly felt tears streaming down my cheeks. This time, however, I was smiling. In an instant, as my head hit the pillow, I felt as if a dam broke in my soul and my heart unfurled. I was filled with the overwhelming presence of gratitude: for my life, for my family, for my work, and for you. It is with this profound gratitude that I return to my regular work this August, open to the transformational spirit of Love that moves between, among, and through each one of us. EN”>

As for the routine of the work, the Fall begins with Installations, Start-Ups, and Board Training. The fall is also an intense time of consulting and partnering with Religious Educators as they begin their RE year as well. For the not-so-routine work, your Southern Region staff is envisioning our programming anew, with new leadership opportunities and more time spent in intentional relationship with our congregational partners to support you in this upcoming year. Please be on the lookout for invitations to cohort-specific gatherings as well as newly-revised training opportunities. EN”>

In the beginning of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey,” when she writes, “Who made the world,” the answer was never me and me alone. To let go of that notion is to be open to partnership, shared ministry, and the gratitude for all we can accomplish together. Near the end of the poem, Oliver asks a different question: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Her answer is not to toil away, to work past the point of exhaustion, or to assume burdens and responsibilities that are impossible to carry alone. Her answer is to become soft and observe. Smell the air and touch the grass. Experience this world that you did not create, but that is ever becoming around you. Be present to the awe and the wonder of life, and let the gratitude of your connections flow through you until your heart unfurls. EN”>

I look forward to renewing our connections in this spirit in the upcoming year and for many years to come.

By Kathy McGowan

It seems to me that we are currently living in a time when so much feels binary. If we do not feel “this way” then we must feel “that way”. It is so easy to be triggered by words which make us internally say “hell no” or the opposite. Our bodies are made to react to threats. Have you noticed that everything feels like a threat these days?

I am constantly asking myself what our unique role as Unitarian Universalists is in our current time. I continually come back to thinking about how we are different from other groups, organizations, and affiliations. Well, we are religious people so what does the world need from us that it does not get from schools, governments, community organizers etc.?

I always come back to our ability to be reflective. It is our job to be able to observe what is happening around us, which in this day, means around the globe. We observe, allow ourselves to take the time to feel our feelings, take in the real pain that others are feeling, put all of that into a larger context in order to make meaning out of all of it.

Whew, that’s a lot. But meaning making is what we are all about.

We were built to react for survival…you know, fight, flight, or freeze. But I am reminding us that we need to respond not react. We need to be guided by love, not fear. Our current culture wants us to react to fear. In order to live our faith to the fullest we need to respond in love.

Keeping love at the center does not means that we do not feel things other than love. It does mean however that as we take the journey around all of the many things we are feeling and want to react to, we come back to responding in love.

Let us be good observers of all that is happening around us. And it is a lot. Let’s be together in loving spaces that help put our observations into a context that goes beyond our own desires. The world needs us to feel love, be loving, and send love to those whom we may not think are deserving so that we may know each other better.

Take good care of yourselves friends, for in order to put love at the center, we must first love ourselves. Know that you are lovable so that you may be loving to others.

Love,

Kathy

By Cameron Young

Dear Congregations,

This May marked a very important milestone for me. After 6 arduous years of 81 credit hours, I completed my Master of Divinity, the degree that is generally required for those pursuing ordained ministry. I began my studies as a religious educator in a local congregation and was fortunate enough to be hired by the Southern Region toward the end of my second semester. While I was apprehensive about my ability to manage the workload of full-time work for the UUA and half-time graduate school, there were those, our lead Natalie Briscoe included, that believed in me. Having been able to participate in an immersive learning experience and having a direct ministry context such in which to apply has been invaluable — a gift not afforded to many.

I do plan on engaging the rest of the process of ordination in Unitarian Universalism with our Ministerial Fellowship Committee, not because it is essential to my career, but because it is a sacred calling that I’ve felt for 12 years now. There was something greater than myself which was pulling me in that direction of serving our people and our faith. Many have asked me if I am leaving the UUA to pursue a congregational ministry. To this I say, “why serve only one church when I can serve two hundred?” Sharing this journey with all of you has affirmed my vocation in denominational ministry. In my five years on Southern Region staff, I have celebrated with you as you’ve ordained and installed ministers, opened new buildings, and celebrated anniversaries, grieved with you as our congregations changed through COVID, suffered losses, and navigated conflict, and finally, we’ve fought like hell together against the hostile political climate we’re facing in the south whilst championing our faith and its values. It’s been a privilege to share in this journey, both mine and yours.

In closing, the late author Toni Morrison says “I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.” It is my vocation to empower you all, just as you have empowered me.

With Gratitude,

Cameron Young (they/them)

Congregational Life Staff

Southern Region UUA

cyoung@uua.org

By Byron Tyler Coles

Hi everyone! This month, we invite you to view a reflection from Rev. Byron Tyler Coles — Love and Hope.

Transcript: UUA Southern Region May 2024 Vlog Love and Hope (Microsoft Word) | Transcript: UUA Southern Region May 2024 Vlog Love and Hope (PDF)