Everything we do is faith formation
How we work, who we love, when we eat, what we read, these all form us as spiritual people. Everyday I try to remember that as I practice being a Unitarian Universalist minister and leading a church.
And as I consider my (very crooked) path to the ministry, I realize that everything I did up to now was faith formation. Some of it was profoundly helpful. Some of it was an absolute waste of time. And some of it only revealed itself to be useful long after the experience. My past is prologue to my ministry, and it makes me a well-rounded minister.
I made Unitarian Universalism my home. My hope is to help other folks find their way home in this tradition, so that they in turn can be a light in the darkness, helping to make a more just and caring world.
social justice and spirituality
In this picture I’m participating in a rally in Buffalo, NY supporting immigrants and immigration. I love that the man walking next to me is an Episcopalian minister and behind us, in his Franciscan habit, is a Catholic Friar. Both of those folks are friends and part of a network of progressive clergy in Buffalo, NY. Interfaith work is tricky, but there’s great value and power in collaboration.
I’ve co-led a day-long training for people of faith with Showing Up for Racial Justice and also co-led a worship service for folks in the Buffalo organizing community called Prayers for Activists.
Spirituality and working for justice are completely intertwined, and I’m most comfortable when they are integrated
spiritual caregiving
This is me speaking at the graduation for my second unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (or chaplain training).
I completed four units of CPE overall between 2104 and 2018, working at the VA, a cardiac unit, hospice, the emergency room and the intensive care unit.
I had the benefit of excellent supervision and peers and because of that thorough training, I consider pastoral care one of my core ministries
“In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading presence of the holy, my heart whispers: Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve, that in good times or in tempests I may not forget that to which my heart is committed. Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.”
— Howard Thurman
