Rev. Sana Saeed  0:12  
Welcome, everyone. We're gonna be exploring, having a conversation around the 25th anniversary of the UUA's commitment to antiracism, which is this year. This came up in a conversation with Paul Cole Jones at the Central East Region BIPOC gathering in May, I believe, of this year, and we wanted to have a conversation for you all to think about your own congregations or communities work around anti racism and their commitment to it. Reflecting on how far you've come and where we're at now, so.

Paula Cole Jones  1:03  
So Hi, I'm Paula Cole Jones. I'm a lifelong Unitarian Universalist. I grew up in All Souls Church, in Washington, DC, where I'm still a member. And I, for almost 25 years, I have, I've really dedicated my life, my professional life, to diversity and anti racism, anti oppression in our congregations. That means wearing a lot of different hats. I guess I'm sorry, always that last thought, including having worked with the Joseph Priestley district, where I've met many of the people that you serve, Sana, and two years on staff, with the Central East Region working with congregations. Well, it's helpful for people to see that we are, what we are doing now is the ongoing work and in some ways, the maturation of our work from, you know, the period that you're talking about now. Because the association passed in 1992 resolution, kicked off a five year period of study among congregations. And out of that, it culminated in to the 1997 resolution, which was the clear decision to become an anti racist Association. Now, I say 25 years is a very, very long time. And what I'm finding is that so many UUs in particular, lay people, aren't even aware of the 1997 resolution. So how can you commit? Or how can you support this ongoing history? If you don't know, you know, at least the most essential, right moments are efforts. In that history, and that is kind of what we're doing. Now. It's like, if you, if you mark moments in history, you mark that 10 year, you mark 25 years, you mark whatever those major, usually on the decades do. Look, we mark those major points, that we cannot let this 25th year go by, without calling it to everyone's attention, that this is where we are. And we have made progress. And it has been challenging. We've been working at trying to resource ourselves.

Rev. Mel Hoover  4:10  
I'm the Reverend Melvin Hoover but I'm known as Mel internally with folks. And it's interesting because my entry of Unitarian Universalism was kind of serial in some ways. And I went to seminary in 1968. Right after King was assassinated. And a number of us had to make the decision about how were we going to live our lives and I was actually headed towards the Air Force and doing things, but Vietnam said I didn't really want to go and kill a bunch of folks that I didn't think deserve being killed and that in the spirit of law, that didn't make sense. I resigned my commission and decided that I would go to seminary. And I was very involved in my Episcopal church growing up it was very nurturing. are in fact, in the segregated times that I grew up in, it was a UU congregation in terms of we had people of all colors, all classes and values that said, everybody who's part of our family. I say that because I, I actually was grounded in what much really what many people consider Unitarian Universalism of the day, way back then. And so I've been living my life trying to find a faith that was my congregation. In terms of how people operate it and how people were treated, and how we saw each other's family. So I say all that. In 68, I thought I found my faith in Unitarian Universalism. But that was because of the Black BAWA movement and the activeness of trying to bring blacks and whites together to do justice. And by 71, I lost my faith because it blew apart. It didn't survive in terms of dealing with integration. So I, that's kind of my framework of saying, I was introduced to Unitarian Universalist potential. And possibility, it's inspirational aspect. But it didn't. It didn't sink in and become operational. So that's part of I think, the story. We had several years when we couldn't even talk about race. So the next time my nice life touched Unitarian Universalism was in going back to the 80s, with the Urban Church Coalition, and working with those efforts, and then with the Black Concerns Working Group, where the faith said, what we're doing the last 20 years is just exclusionary, and we have not been in the movement to create integration and open ourselves to people. And that's when the Black Concerns Working Group was approved 1985 that came in at the end of the 1984 adoption about principles and purposes. We had not had clear things to gather around, kind of fly close to plan that people could see and say, This is what I'm grounded in, or what I'm pointing towards. And so that was a critical time, that it was a shift. Because we had been afraid we screwed up in the 60s, to be candid, and wouldn't talk about race. We're afraid of it. People were wounded because families had split up and ministers fought, we had a serious disruption in our faith, took 20 some years before we could get back on board. So I'll just simply say, that was a sharing now. Well, the story we're used to tell I'm gonna tell that that's good. Thank you. If I say Hurricane Gloria, there was a time when our faith that people really knew what that meant. And Hurricane Gloria happened back in 1987. And, as a result of that resolution that we talked, I mean, excuse me, 85 Excuse me, when we talked about the the resolution right away and who was getting the justice work at that time, African American leaders, strong activists, was charged with putting together a group of people on behalf of the nomination. I was one of the people who was invited to come, Leon Spencer, Norma Poinsett, Herb, not Herb, but I'll get in a second. I can't believe this. I just just blanked. But, but step five of us were asked to come for Miss Norris Edwards, George Squire, who's very key to the story and I don't want to lose them, to come together, and we got this charge from the board. The charge was your charge is to eliminate racism within the Unitarian Universalist Association, and beyond. And you have $5,000 to do it. And we looked at each other and basically said, How the heck can we get out of here? But we're in the middle of a hurricane and we couldn't. And where's the most expensive restaurant? But thank goodness, we couldn't leave and all of us really believed faith as possibility if they can only see itself and understand it. That night we actually stayed up at night talking. We finally said, We will not accept this charge. George Squire, who was at that time with Herb Jones, co chair of the New York Metro VEATCH program. I mean the congregation Shelter Rock then, at all allocated to Winnie Norman and I $100,000 because we were the co chairs of the Metro New York District who was doing this work seriously. We were able to offer on the table $100,000 to the UUA if they would commit for the next several years to create a similar match, matching money, so we could go out and talk to people in the pews and find out what was holding us back. And we wrote two letters. The first was to the board who says we refuse to accept your charge, because it doesn't make any sense. If this is what you think you need to do, you need to pay some more people to do it. We second letter said that here is a charge that we believe makes sense. And we are willing to commit ourselves. And we will put $100,000 on the table that we have we have access to, if you agree for the next two or three years, to let us go talk to people in our congregations, and hear what people are people are, to hear the pain, let people have an understanding what's going on. I say that because that was a critical period. Most people don't know it, but that's what we did.aul

Paula Cole Jones  10:50  
Right. 

Rev. Mel Hoover  10:51  
And that's why I asked I couldn't remember, Paula, I know we came to All Souls, and then we purchase. And we would do two things we meet what we try and come in on that Friday, if we could and meet with people of color, just to say, We want to hear your story in this congregation, what it's like in this faith. And then when on Saturdays, we'd have a workshop and we do a Sunday morning service. We did that for about two years, just going around the country and putting the story together. And then we put that story together and brought it back to GA in terms of here's what you are telling us is happening. And the pain, the suffering, but the possibility, and that's when Bill Schultz and Kay Montgomery approached me about my willingness to join the staff. Because everyone said we need a minister of color on the staff. Well, Mark Morrison Reed was busy having a congregation, Bill Jones was doing. There were very few ministers of color who could even do it. To be honest, I was the only one who was not in a congregation, I knew situation. Because I was a leader in ecumenical interfaith group. My wife and I talked about it, Rose and I said this was a moment in time, we liked these principles and purposes, the vision of trying to have an authentic, integrated love community has always been our passion. So here, what can we do the next three or four years with our family. And that's where they asked me would I be willing to come on staff? Actually, the first year built Gene Pickett, who really did, was the barrister, the president who started lessness directly, who saw this as important. And Bill Schultz, it approached me but at that time, we didn't have the principles. We didn't have what I thought was a clear understanding of where people in the pews were, we now had that. And then I was able to say, I have a question for you. What kind of faith do you want to be? Who do you want to be in the future? Who do you see in the pews. If you just see and want to grow as a faith in terms of numbers, you don't need me. What you ought to do is keep going after a lot of intellectual folks and folks committed to learning and practicing and all that good things, and caring, who are white. Because that's what you're going to attract. If you're willing to try and create a faith for the future, it may be a faith that will be less people involved. But it will be deeper. And the issue is we haven't created that in the country yet. Are you willing to try? And so that was the question. And I said, if you're willing to do that, I asked one thing. I'll give you three years. You got to commit to have my back. And we'll see what happens. So that's the beginning from how we got there. And we're able to actually begin to launch an intentional effort inside the UUA to begin to look at policies practices as well. Sorry, I don't want to open

Paula Cole Jones  13:54  
And when you came on staff was that the the formation of Faith In Action, the staff group 

Rev. Mel Hoover  14:01  
No actually, be weeks, we could not use when, I first came, when Bill and Kay hired me. We couldn't use the word race inside of Unitarian Universalist because of the wounding still from the 60s, and the 

Paula Cole Jones  14:12  
And it was important for people to talk about. 

Rev. Mel Hoover  14:14  
racial justice, because we could still talk about other white people and other folks who weren't getting it right. So we could talk about having racial justice. We hadn't been able to apply that term inside ourselves.

Paula Cole Jones  14:26  
But what language did you use?

Rev. Mel Hoover  14:29  
Well, here's here's your let me give you you know what my job title was? I was called. I was called the Advocate for Urban and International Ministries, and Special Assistant to the President.

Paula Cole Jones  14:49  
I say your reaction is like, oh.

Rev. Mel Hoover  14:53  
Well, because we had people was also when Unitarian Universalism was struggling whether to stay in cities, or go to the city suburbs because that was population trend time. And a lot of it

Paula Cole Jones  15:03  
And urban is also the code for race so that why, I think. That's what I was reacting to

Rev. Mel Hoover  15:08  
Now you bring it in fact, ourselves, of course, but I mean, but yeah, so that was the place where we could work when you had to have to deal with reality of people callers lives. And the opportunity for blacks and whites, mostly, I'm gonna be honest with that, at that time they engaged. So that was a critical point to be able to address and we were, the issue was, are we going to keep funding urban congregations, many people don't even remember that. The issue was, should we all move to work? We had consults.

Paula Cole Jones  15:38  
I've never heard that piece of it.

Rev. Mel Hoover  15:41  
I know. There's a whole lot of stuff everybody hadn't heard. But they had national consultants who basically said that we should not Unitarian Universalist, we're not fit for the cities, this point that they should become the Church of the suburbs, and of the new the new progressive movement.

Paula Cole Jones  15:55  
So you have to be careful when you bring consultants in.

Rev. Mel Hoover  15:59  
Well, that was That's true. That's exactly right. And I think a lot of the people who are interested a lot of us, a lot of the women, the Women's Federation, and a coalition of people of color that time said that's not our vision. That's not the kind of faith we want. And, and, and we really fought for that. So that's actually how they came up with the position to do that. So and then we had we had dropped, most people don't realize we dumped our international congregations in the merger. 90 We had a Unitarian Universalist discarded congregations, internationally. And when we came together, what is the name of our association? We're the association of congregations, right? of North America. And so by doing that, we eliminated the other folks from around the world that we've helped launch as being part of the thing.

Paula Cole Jones  16:58  
Was that was that in an effort to have the merger in a context where you could actually make decisions as opposed to, You know, it's it gets pretty complicated. The bigger it is, the more complicated it is to make some of these decisions.

Rev. Mel Hoover  17:17  
I think that's true, Paul, and I think to be candid, I think it also was the racial wounds of the time. I think that again, a lot of the International congregations were kind of seen as missions or efforts, they weren't seen as real in the same way that US congregations were real UU congregations. And most people don't realize the battle that had to be negotiated between Unitarians and Universalists who had very different governances. And part of the problem was that the Universalists had money. And, and they were knowing how to control it, the Unitarians had more numbers. And they were afraid that the decisions would be made more by Unitarians than Universalists and their money, if they pooled, it would be used in ways that they weren't going to participate or control. So that's part of what happened in the 60s and 70s. Is living into that, because we were faced becoming something new. 

Paula Cole Jones  18:14  
Yeah, yeah.

Rev. Mel Hoover  18:16  
You're right. In terms of the questions, you guys are really good.

Paula Cole Jones  18:19  
I'm glad you mentioned that we were to face becoming something new, because in our, our many, many conversations over the last couple of years, as we have worked at what does it mean for us to revise, review and revise the Article Two? I think we and certainly I can say for for myself, have. We have become one faith now, where I don't know how long it took for that merger to actually take hold. And maybe, another way I don't mean take hold but where the lines no longer were needed to demarcate one from the other. My guess is that it it's really kind of coincides with generational change. And I say that because for me, you know, I, when I was growing up, you know, it was Unitarian and All Souls is still All Souls Unitarian. They didn't change the name. But I understand myself as a Unitarian Universalist, there's no need for the one or the other. And as I've done this more recent work, we are there. The Unitarian Universalism is one denomination for sure. And so it's interesting just to kind of hear you touch on that earlier history. And I think we, I don't, I don't want to say there's nothing new about where we are. But I think we are at perhaps a phase in the development of Unitarian Universalism where the way that we can articulate it is different because of all of those years of working to to find out what our commonalities are, right. I don't know if I've said that well, but one of the ways I look at it is like, we have a UU theology that can be articulated. And I think that that's work to be done now, as opposed to relying on the two the histories of the two.

Rev. Mel Hoover  20:49  
I think that's right. I think an important piece that was that, for me, and I think it's I looked at the history, what made it possible for transformation. My judgment is that Universalism, offered a theological road to other people in a way that Unitarianism didn't, because of the ministry, and a whole sense of the focus on the brain, and the hyper individualism, of Unitarianism. That Universalism was the thing that brought love, and love for everyone, and access of everyone, at theologically into the mix. So So I think it's the, we need both of those, we need to have critical awareness, we need to be able to do accurately assess things and make judgments and, and act on things. But the other part of that is the compassion and the whole sense of collectiveness that comes together. So it's not an either or, I think we've grown into a both and, and I think that's critically important in terms of the faith we are today. The other reality is it was youth and women who actually were the catalyst for the two faiths coming together. Before we actually had the merger, that women from the to Unitarian Universalist, we're having interactions and relationships and working together, and youth. So it was kind of it took the men a little longer to get there, ther weren't men of color to do that. So the white men of that time, took a little longer to get to that point, they said that maybe we all should all should work together. And it is also if you go back to the other thing that happened in 60s with the merger, is that women's movement was very strong at that time with inside our movement. It was women who said the old ways that both Unitarians and Universalists have been working in terms of policy, who's in charge, who's gets to decide stuff doesn't work for us anymore. And people some people don't even realize in those early years and meetings and GA's and at apoint women were polite and ask for things and might it change suggested new ways of being, and kept not going that way. And so finally, some women said, Okay, if you use male a language, we don't think it's inclusive, you can think it's inclusive, but we're not gonna listen to it. And people will stand up in GAs they turn it back on speakers, they blow whistles, and stuff to interrupt the speakers and stuff like that. Very active, intentional, say, We will not let you do business as usual. Remember, we're all with a male worldview, controlling our lives. And that and then a lot of the youth began to come in again, our voices have to be heard. So this sense of rolling and changing was coming from that time, and that's revelation is unsealed. It's a part of our power. One of the things about our faith is unlike some other faith groups, is that we believe that revelation is unsealed. And therefore we have been able to make changes, we've been able to set up new directions, build new frameworks, through generations and through interventions that quite honestly, within traditional roots or roots of Christianity, and not been able to do. But the other half of that is one of the things has happened to us over the years is that we're also we also have history amnesia, because we started new, and we have not always done a good job of learning from or appreciating our past to incorporate its learnings into the present. So anyway, that's, that's, that's been a part that's changing. And a lot of the young folks and youth have been the ones who said, No, this is no longer going to be the way we can operate and began to build their own kind of youth culture, doing church and how to build different ways of being and building policies and decision making. And quite honestly, we're just now growing into in terms of the adult church. So I want to put those things out there as important changes that have happened within our faith. But unless you kind of been through the whole thing, you don't really see that realize how a really powerful and an essential these kinds of changes have been in terms of putting us in a place to be intersecting at this moment in our history.

Paula Cole Jones  25:12  
So soin part of saying that, you know, that over time Unitarian Universalists have learned to be inclusive, based on the energy and the voices of people inside. Of course, there's a there's a larger social context that's happening in the wider society. But so the piece around the women's movement and how women who were critical in numbers enough so that they could enact, or challenge the the male dominance in the association? Well, we know that much of that has shifted just from the sheer numbers of women who are ministers now. And that's been there for a while. And then, of course, the the voice of youth, which has always been important to any social movement, I think. But that change and the BIPOC voice and an experience, which has, has been present, but and well, I guess, was present enough, prior to that 1997 resolution, to help move the association out of status quo, and to a new commitment, a new covenant, if we want to say that agreement around becoming an anti racist Association. Yeah, that was a long way of getting there. But I do think it's important for people to see that history so that folks don't feel like this is moment where somebody is pressuring their association to do something. No, this is an ongoing, evolving process of Unitarian Universalism to, to learn what inclusion means, but also to be very careful with this word conform, but to do to change, according to the presence of people and Unitarian Universalism. I say that, because prior to Brown versus Board, in the mid 50s, there were probably, during the period of legal segregation in this country, I'm sure they were very, very, very few BIPOC members, and I just think about the the history of my own congregation. And you know, how we grew in terms of diversity and in our church. Its its important for people to understand that because the, the resistance to change has, I think it's always been present, and the resistance to change tests our commitment to change, because of in the face of resistance, if your commitment is weak, then the change will not happen. And we're at one of those points now. And we were at one of those points in 1997. I came the kind of into all of this in 1998, as my congregation was reeling from challenges, difficulties around racial dynamics, and without going into that, I started looking at how can I help the church have a very healthy conversation about race so that people did not easily become polarized when challenges were there, and that folks could stay at the table and work through it. And, and 1999 while maybe it was like late 1998, the minister who was had been brought back as hired back to help us through the early part of of a transition Reverend John DeTaeye, and he handed me a flyer and he said, I think you might be interested in this and it was a Creating a Jubilee World workshop being held by the Joseph Priestley District at the UU Church in Annapolis. I went and that was a January when I actually went. There were I went with my mother and there was one other member from my congregation and there were 80 people there, from all these different churches that was also kind of my introduction to Unitarian Universalism, beyond my local church. Which is important for people to begin to stretch out and to see the other people other UUs in different congregations are experiencing some of the same things. And if not the same, at least we're when we say many paths, one journey. Alright. But I got excited because I was trying to do work in my home congregation. And what I saw was that there were resources available through I guess, through the Faith In Action Office at that time. That's when I met, you know, I think you, you were there, Bill Gardner was there and a number of other people. And not only did I get excited to see that the association was so willing to actually call it anti racism, because I think so many of us, when we're trying to do the work and other settings, which can't talk about it, just like you said, when Faith In Action started, you couldn't talk about it. I was thinking about that I was working in federal government. And, you know, we were we were trying to do the work of inclusion and justice and equity. But you couldn't call it that, you know, but here, we were calling it that. That's what surprised me. And so that's how I started getting involved. And I became a part of the Joseph Priestley District JourneyToward Wholeness Transformation Team. So you could talk a little bit about that, that was saying 1999,

Rev. Mel Hoover  31:55  
That was actually the early 90s, to be honest, early 90s. Actually, the irony, quick story, which most people don't know, is that a number of us in the mid 80s, in the ecumenical and interfaith movement, a lot of folks who were doing community organizing, some people from universities, in the Reagan era, and this is where the urban church coalition came in, because Loretta was part of that. And she became a representative to this kind of group from religiously started asking ourselves, what do we need to do for the future? When, right now, we can't figure out how to create integration, that white people have not really committed to be an integrated country that was inclusive and equal. And Reagan and others had to come in and they were dismantling, and beginning to undo some of the things that other people, the rights and privileges we thought we'd want, and they were already starting to diminish them and ignore them. And so we began a conversation and interesting through Loretta's initial work, and interesting Marjorie Bowens Wheatley, many people don't know at that time was a program officer for the VETACH program or are a great resource has kept this faith alive. And we need to talk more about that at another time. We probably wouldn't exist without each and in its efforts over the decades. But anyway, funded this group to begin to ask the question, how can religious community find a new way of working together and trying to look up a vision to help people grow into merely creating an inclusive democracy. And that was the name Joe Garner that time was one of those members from a number of us got to know each other for those couple years. And then we began to say, the church's religious creed has a commitment to love and to try and supposedly believe that all so part of God's family are all of us are part of the universe together. And so we started thinking, how can we do some things differently? Ah sorry, And we got funded to do that. To bring some folks together over some gatherings. And that was the concept of what Crossroads came out of. It was to say that we needed to teach ourselves how to organize, you don't educate, you don't pray things, you organize oppression away. You came with framework. And so we need to learn how to do that. And that's what we began to do. And that thing, it so happened that because UUs at that time, as Paula said, we were trying to figure out how to talk about racism, and not just racial justice, but internal racism, and those dynamics in store. And so that all that led us to say we need to create and teach people in our congregations g=how to do this. This cost congregations had the most important level change and sustaining change in the religious community. But it's also the level right now where most people have a lack of history and a lack of experience about how to do this. So we still haven't figured all this stuff out. So that's what we started thinking about. We need some training programs, we need to train leaders, we need to help equip them to be able to talk to the members to help other members see why we needed to change or how they could change even more effectively, to be something that we are now. And so the issue, and we vision, the not yet. And that's 

Paula Cole Jones  35:34  
I'd like to say that that work was successful. Because look at where we are now. 

Rev. Mel Hoover  35:39  
Well, that is right. That is right. 

Paula Cole Jones  35:41  
Yeah, I come at

Rev. Mel Hoover  35:43  
The resistance. The issue was we agreed to be part of this. And then being UUs at a certain point, we decided to break we were supposed to be a partnership, a lifelong learning, partnership of different faith groups and others. And our faith, Unitarians were selected as the faith to try and really share the denominational learnings. Because we thought revelation was unsealed. People looked at us and said, You guys can make changes that many of us can't make, in the same way with where a lot of our policies and practices and and ministerial perspectives are? And we say yes to that. In the first few years, the UU leaders said yes. Not Mel Hoover, some people give me credit for something that people can refuse did. And we were doing a good job with that. But I think, but we then decided that our UU individuals and took over we decided that we didn't want the Christians and other folks to teaching us. And I'm gonna say this, candidly, that time was a lot of the ministers who said that we were not going to listen to other folks, you know, better and we're gonna do it.

Paula Cole Jones  36:49  
I think it's also important to, to see that at that period, the Organize Oh, one I want to say DRUUMM was critical at that point, too. And I

Rev. Mel Hoover  37:04  
And why Paula, and tell us why

Paula Cole Jones  37:07  
DRUUMM was critical because it created a space for at that time, the term we used was people of color, lay and, and religious professionals to be in community together, which we need it because there were many people who were in congregations where there were not many people of color. So we were in community together, we were learning from people who had experienced as a layperson, right, we were learning from people who understood the system and knew the history and the process. And, and I, one of the things I saw with DRUUMM, was DRUUMM was designing programs and opportunities that the association was not providing. And then we get to a certain point where that program might be passed on to the association. I was always looked at that as a great gift. Right? But DRUUMM was critical to that moment. And that's where I found a sense of community where real intimate connections could be made. And that learning and we were we could all be vulnerable together instead of vulnerable in a system that may or may not support you. It just it was it was crucial. And DRUUMM was a part of the formal accountability structure for the UUA Board. Yeah, so there was a relationship and a partnership. And however it played out, I think it really did move the association forward.

One thing I would say when people ask me what's different now than before, the first thing that I say is there's much less resistance in our system now than there was for the first 15 years at least of my journey of working in this. We were working and and the resistance and the lack of the resistance and the indifference.

Rev. Mel Hoover  39:29  
I agree. It is I think what happened out of the 97 was a whole series of recommendations about how we needed to operate, including Minister we needed to train ministers differently. That we needed to have, how to do policies and practices differently. The thing I always remember is that two interesting points you said earlier and we go back to. 1968 when I was looking at thinking about coming into Unitarian Universalism, there were eight ministers of color and eight women of color. 1968. So think about where we were in 97. Hugely different, particularly for women. So So one of the things, who was in charge and who was shaping things radically shifted in this vein. The other thing is, when Rose and I first were asked to come in, in, we wouldn't come in to this faith as ministers, because you would have had to give up your relationship to your own faith to come in when they weren't hiring, when they weren't getting churches and people of color, weren't getting churches, that was kind of suicidal. So what I'm saying is, I want to talk about huge changes we've made, we put in processes, intentional efforts to get women and and men of people of color into pulpits. And not just any pulpit, but also into larger pulpits, this is over time. And so it's been a plan, a series of plans. And, and a lot of people have, the mentality of ministry now is different than it was before.

Right,

Paula Cole Jones  41:03  
What I hope people will appreciate is that there have been many people involved, a lot of organizing, a lot of educating, a lot of work at trying to implement to get us to this point. When I say 25 years is a long, long time, I really do feel that it took us what it took to get here. I think if more people were aware, it may not have taken us as long. But you know, that's when you can never prove that. But the more people who are aware and the more we share a collective vision of what it means to really build beloved community. You know, my hope is that we will continue and we will grow and we will become more inviting to people who may be looking for a liberal progressive community. And for those who are already here, that Unitarian Universalism will be a place that really nurtures our spirits and where we can all thrive. And our work is not done. We still have a long way to go to realize that but we have come a long, long way. And Unitarian Universalism is definitely worth the investment.

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