Ministerial Record

Retiring from ministry after 24 years serving as lead minister in Albany, New York, hasn’t been easy. I can’t be involved in the congregation as they go through their interim process and the first year or two of a new minister’s settlement. We live just six miles away so running into congregational members is a common experience. I’m being very careful about my involvement in the community that might overlap with strong Albany UU involvement. This has been hard because my natural tendency is to move into leadership positions and start making things happen.

While I am more financially secure than many of my ministerial colleagues, I still could use a little more retirement funds. Working for a few more years will allow me to defer taking Social Security till I am 70 years old. My father is now 93 and my grandfather lived till his 90’s so I’m anticipating I’ll be around for a while and need some more resources.

The most important reason I’ve entered the search process is the shortage of interims. When I retired last year, my congregation didn’t get an interim minister. This was also true of about 16 or so other congregations. There continues to be a shortage of ministers available and willing to do interims. I feel a responsibility while I’m still in good health with energy to serve for at least the next two to three years.

My final reason to do interims is how much I love serving congregations in a ministerial role. I’m good at it and expect I can be very helpful to congregations as they move through the transition process.

These are the primary reasons I’ve entered the search process.

What are you looking for?

With my experience successfully serving both a small and mid-sized congregation, and my strong administrative skills, I believe I could successfully serve any size congregation. My preference would be midsize or larger where my skillset could be best used.

I don’t have a preference for the theological orientation of the congregation knowing I can serve well in both a theist and humanist setting. My preference would be for a congregation that embraces a wide theological framework that is unafraid to explore and grow their appreciation for the theological diversity within today’s Unitarian Universalism.

While it is pleasant to serve a congregation that is not experiencing a conflict, I also welcome the opportunity to assist a congregation to work through them. Resolving institutional issues that strengthens the congregation and its identity and mission can be inspirational work.

Wherever I serve, I will be looking for ways to help congregational members integrate head, heart and body. Our UU congregations are uniquely positioned to serve a younger generation and their spiritual and emotional needs. Critical to our future as a religious movement is adapting how we live and celebrate our values with the changes in how people live their lives today and tomorrow.

Toward that end, I believe our members will need to look within and pay attention to their inner life. This has two levels. One is the willingness for individuals to engage in systematic inner exploration to know themselves from the inside. The other level is the willingness to reflect on and modify the our institutions to support that process. What are the systems used to organize people and encourage them to find their voice and collaborate with others for the common good? Do they work? Can they be improved?

Awards and Publications

The significant awards I’ve received happened after performing a public Same Sex Marriage ceremony in the spring of 2004. This act was recognized with these awards:

The Jim Perry Progressive Leadership Award by Capital District Citizen Action, September 23, 2004
Certificate of Appreciation by the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, October 20, 2004
The Linkages Award by Capital District Gay & Lesbian Community Council, Inc., October 27, 2004
Joseph Powers Religious Award by the Labor and Religion Coalition, 2008

I’ve gotten other awards for my service to ARISE and within my UUMA Chapters

I do have a book I put together with the help of Wayne Robinson. To learn more about it follow this link to Buddhist Voices in Unitarian Universalism.

Personal and Family Situation

My wife of 33 years, Philomena Moriarty, is a highly respected Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the states of New York and Florida with over 40 years of experience. She has a special ‘R’ number in New York that allows her to bill insurance companies. Philomena currently works part time in private practice with a specialty in EMDR for Trauma. She would not be moving with me so I would want situation that could facilitate my returning home a couple of times a month.

We have one son, Andrew, 31, who works part-time and lives at home. Like many of his age cohort, he lives much of his life online. Andrew has Asperger’s Syndrome which involves some learning disabilities that have delayed his interest in living on his own. Fortunately he is very high functioning and we see him maturing with each year.

Currently, we all have good health – may it continue!

Non-Professional Interests

I enjoy gadgets, video, photography, and audio. I’ve done a lot of videography for different organizations, documenting their activities including the UU Buddhist Fellowship, the UUA General Assembly during the 1990’s, and UU minister’s Association events. I took video on a trip to Ireland for my wife’s parents who couldn’t go in 2002. When I’m on vacation, I love to take photographs then work with them with photo editing software.

And I like non-technical things too. Hiking and biking. We have a bike trail near our home on which I enjoy long rides and walks. I also enjoy cross-country skiing – a way to make living in snow country more enjoyable.

My wife and I are big fans of theater. We’ve been regulars at our local repertory theater and like to spend a weekend in New York City in August for the Fringe Theater Festival.

We also enjoy travel. My wife’s retirement travel bucket list has included a trip to Europe, New Zealand and Australia and the western United States as well as trips to Florida, Panama and Costa Rica to warm up in January. We are just as content to stay home. Ministry has given me opportunities to travel that I’ve enjoyed. My problem with travel today is having a restricted diet – but that doesn’t stop me.

I like all kinds of music, striving to expand my appreciation.

Background and development

(responding to this question: From your late teens forward, describe your higher education, the three or four most important events in your life experience, the context in which you felt called to ministry, and your professional development, continuing education, and work history; include every ministry (include dates by month/year) and what you bring from it and your other work to a new ministry)

High School

I’ll just briefly note one of the passions I developed in high school that continues to be an avocation. My high school, as part of the licensing of the first cable TV in our community, was given the opportunity to generate evening programming for a public access channel. The television studio that Newark High School, in Newark Delaware, assembled out of used black and white studio cameras, cassette video recorders and mixing equipment was called, WNHS. I produced, directed and starred in a show called Interface: Politics. A couple of students and I would interview local and national politicians, including the governor and our senators, for thirty minutes on the issues of the day. This early introduction to multimedia has continued to be a passion for me, though the time required to do it well often limits my activity. I’ve done a lot of video production for the UU Buddhist Fellowship, ARISE, and some for Sunday morning presentations.

University of Delaware

Following graduation, I decided to attend the University of Delaware in Newark. My father was a professor of Physical Chemistry there and my mother worked as a reference librarian and government documents specialist at their main library. This allowed me to attend tuition free. Since the campus was close by to 113 Dallas Avenue, where I grew up, I lived at home. I decided to major in Electrical Engineering because I was curious about how radios worked. I had assembled Heathkit radios as a teenager and enjoyed listening to shortwave radio.

During my first semester, I took a class in numerical methods that introduced me to running decks of punched cards and writing BASIC programs at a 300 BAUD terminal. I fell head over heals in love with computer programming which I found endlessly interesting. This set up a dilemma for me – should I stay in engineering or switch to computer science? The University of Delaware didn’t have a dual major. My software development skills were recognized at the university computing center (where I was spending all my free time) and got a part-time job writing code for them.

Go West Young Man!

In the fall of my junior year, I’d taken too many classes and was also working way too hard at the computer center. In a moment of sudden recognition, I realized it was time for me to leave home, go out into the world, and, in the lingo of the day, “find myself.” I dropped my classes, arranged a leave of absence, bought a two week rail pass not knowing where it might take me, and boarded a train going west. Having worked as an electronic technician for Hewlett Packard during the last three summers, I imagined I could get a job with them on the West Coast, maybe near their headquarters in Palo Alto, California. That is where I got off the train and, in a month, found a job with them troubleshooting computer circuit boards at Data Systems Division in Cupertino.

A year working as an electronic technician convinced me I’d need to return to school if I wanted to become an engineer. So I took classes at a nearby community college and then applied to UC Berkeley to enter their electrical engineering and computer science program. I told them I wanted to be “an existential engineer” having recently been inspired by a book with that phrase in the title. Being accepted as a transfer student to this top flight engineering school was a life changing experience for me.

University of California, Berkeley

The transition back to the classroom after being away for two years was challenging. Not only had I forgotten some basic calculus like how to integrate 1/x, I was now competing against some of the smartest people in the world. I was also having problems with my knee.

A week after getting that job at Data Systems Division, I’d been hit by a car while riding my moped. The accident had badly broken my leg, so much so that a plate had to be installed to hold it together. Thankfully the leg had healed well enough for the plate to be removed right before returning to school. Since I’d given up my car to save money, I was walking everywhere and finding this painful. So I visited the campus health center to see a physical therapist. That led to a referral to an orthopedic doctor who took an x-ray to see what was going on. He put the x-ray on the light box and announced I had a non-union – the leg was still broken. A dark line ran through the middle of an ugly mass of bone my body was furiously constructing to stabilize the injury. As the blood rushed out of my head, I almost passed out in shock. Rather than a bone marrow transplant, I opted to try wearing a leg brace for a year to see if it would heal all by itself. Thankfully, it did heal completely, though today I have a little residual arthritis in my ankle (of course much better than having it amputated – a possible outcome of the injury).

I tell this story because the uncertainty of whether my leg would heal and the difficulty of returning to school created a significant amount of emotional stress in my life that may have helped set up the life transforming experience that began to move me toward ministry.

The “Religious Chess Experience”

A young woman in one of my engineering classes (rather unusual in those days) invited me to meet her at the downtown YMCA to play chess. I had played on the chess team in high school and am an average strength player (USCF rating ~1400 at the time). I hadn’t played much since then. The weekly matches at the YMCA brought high rated players together to compete. I showed up and she didn’t. I was matched against a much stronger player whom I fully expected to beat me soundly. So I relaxed, let go, played pawn to queen four, and hoped I might learn something in my defeat.

The subjective experience of playing this game was like none I had ever played before or since. It felt effortless. The moves appeared in my mind as if I were being directed by a disembodied chess master. I won the game effortlessly. My opponent and I analyzed the game and found it well played. The religious opening for me came as I left the YMCA and descended the stairs to the street. I felt a strong sense of being given a lesson somewhere in this experience about being loved unconditionally and loving unconditionally. It was a lesson not just for me but for others as well.

I shared what happened with my roommate that night and he didn’t get it. He thought I was just on some kind of ego trip. I’d won many games of chess but never like this one. I could barely sleep for the next several days I was so full of energy and excitement. I shared my experience with the leader of our UU Student Assocation, the Rev. Brendan Hadash, who was studying at Starr King School for the Ministry. He smiled and said, “Sam, you’ve just had a religious experience!” Though it took another five years to grow and mature, this experience became the seed of my call to ministry.

Engineer by Day, Seeker, Nights and Weekends

Though now I had a new interest in things religious, I was in the middle of finishing my degree which I did with honors. My original vision when I had returned to school was to get an engineering job with Hewlett Packard. Before graduating, I interviewed up and down the west coast and had several good offers. I decided to stay in the East Bay in Berkeley and work for a small microcomputer company called Northstar Computers. Staying with this fast growing company allowed me to turn inward and develop my growing interest in religion and mystical experience feasting on the smorgasbord of religious options in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Shortly after my “religious chess experience,” I was invited to attend a psychic healing circle. Twenty or so participants sat in a circle and used vocalized tones and visual imagery to send healing energy to person in the center. Here I reconnected with the feeling of my initial religious experience. That led me three years later to decide to study psychic healing for nine months. While skeptical about the metaphysics, the feeling of doing energy healing work was very emotionally satisfying – much more satisfying, I was finding, than designing, programming, and testing computer systems.

During the psychic healing training, I first encountered the Dances of Universal Peace (then called Sufi Dancing) and the American Sufi Ruhaniat International community organized by Murshid Samuel Lewis. Doing “zikr,” chanting the name of Allah over and over again in the Mendicino redwoods with a jazz orchestra introduced me to the joys of devotional spiritual practice. The same psychic healing assistant teacher who pointed me toward Sufism suggested I try Buddhist meditation as taught by James Baraz at his house in Oakland. I took an introductory class and immediately fell in love with the practice of mindfulness (Vipassana) meditation as taught in the Theravadan tradition of Buddhism. I’ve maintained a daily practice of meditation ever since that first class. It has and continues to shape my growth and development.

First Unitarian Church of Oakland

I could easily have become immersed in Buddhism or Sufism or psychic healing at that time. Having grown up a Unitarian Universalist and now a young adult, I wasn’t finding much sustenance for my growing inner life within the Unitarian Universalism of the early 1980’s. That changed when my partner Cheryl and I attended the First Unitarian Church of Oakland and I met the brash young minister, the Rev. Rob Eller Isaacs, who was striving to turn around this failing yet architecturally magnificent downtown church in an area of urban decay. He was talking about the importance of spiritual practice and the development of one’s inner life. That clicked with where I was going so we joined.

I heard the Rev. Jeremy Taylor speak there one Sunday. Cheryl and I signed up for the dream class he taught and enjoyed it. We developed a relationship with Jeremy and started doing dreamwork with a group that met at his home in Marin. Like the emotional experience I had doing psychic healing, I found the group work very stimulating and rewarding.

Recognizing the Call to Ministry

About this time, Northstar Computers was having to lay people off, not able to compete with the new IBM PC’s. I started looking for another job and interviewed with Hewlett Packard in Santa Rosa, Cheryl’s hometown. They offered me a job as a test engineer – my dream job I’d wanted since before entering UC Berkeley. Yet I hesitated in saying yes. Something was holding me back and I didn’t know what.

At the same time, still participating in dream analysis with Jeremy, during a particularly intense dreamwork session, one group member broke through an inner barrier and had an important life changing insight. Driving home late that night with a song in my heart, high above the ground on a freeway merge ramp looking down on Berkeley, I had a sudden realization. I couldn’t accept the job with Hewlett Packard because I didn’t want to leave the East Bay. I wanted to explore a new direction in my life. I wanted to attend Starr King School for the Ministry. I didn’t know if parish ministry would be the new direction for me or not. I just knew without doubt seminary was the next step in my life. Thankfully I was accepted and began classes in the fall of 1986.

I loved everything about seminary from the start. I’d saved enough money to not work for a year. It was my internship with the Rev. Richard S. Gilbert at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester that convinced me parish ministry was for me. Every aspect of the internship experience appealed to me. This is also where I met my wife, Philomena Moriarty, a member of the UU congregation in Williamsville, New York. The late Rev. Carl Thichener, minister of her congregation, arranged our first meeting. After I finished seminary, I moved in with her in Buffalo and we were married three months later. I delayed settlement while we got to know each other and Philomena gave birth to our son Andrew William. I chose to be ordained to the ministry after Andrew’s birth by the Niagara Falls congregation. I worked with this congregation on a consulting basis while earning money writing software for an old coworker with his own company. Niagara Falls had helped me get my feet on the ground by allowing me to conduct services there once a month.

First Settlement: Port Charlotte, Florida

I settled in Port Charlotte on a lark. I got into the settlement process a bit late at the beginning of 1993. Most congregations had already lined up their pre-candidates. The little Fellowship in Port Charlotte had a precandidate slot open however. I wasn’t very interested in moving to Florida but I thought I’d go and check it out. At worst it would be a practice trip for the next search season. My old coworker was running out of money to pay me for developing software so I thought I’d better jump at any opportunity.

The day I was to fly down to Florida, a foot and a half of snow fell, closing the airport just before my plane was to leave. The search committee urged me to come anyway on the next available flight. I did and preached my sermon just for them in Port Charlotte. They interviewed me and immediately offered me the position as they had no other candidates to consider. After talking it over with Philomena who loved the idea of escaping cold Buffalo for warmth, I said yes. Having grown up in a small UU fellowship, I figured I could handle the politics of this kind of congregation. This would be a good place to start my ministry, I decided. And it was.

I was this congregation’s first full-time settled minister. A small congregation, it had saved up enough money to finance its own ministerial extension program. Most members of this congregation are retired with just a few families with children who joined after I began my ministry. The congregation had no children or RE program when I arrived. By the time I left we had several families and a functioning RE program. The congregation expanded its building to provide space for the programming. When I’d left, the membership had grown just enough to almost afford full time ministry. But the hurdles were high to cross and some in the congregation resisted growth as they wanted to keep things as they were. Still, Port Charlotte was a great place for me to get my feet on the ground in ministry and help this congregation move toward becoming a full service congregation. The demographics here were difficult for growth but the congregation was very supportive and appreciative of my ministry.

Moving to Albany, New York

A budget short fall and money anxiety in the congregation convinced me in the spring of 1998 convinced me I’d better start looking for another position. I’d given the congregation five good years and showed them the value of having a full-time minister. In the late summer and early fall, I exchanged packets with a number of congregations. While two congregations open in Florida and one in California attracted me, one looked particularly interesting in Albany. Albany looked good to me partly because of the geography. It was equidistant from my parents in Delaware and Philomena’s parents in Buffalo, both now retired and suffering health problems. My Aunt Lois, the older sister of my mother who died in 1990, lived about half an hour away. So I precandidated with them in the fall, ahead of the normal season – early this time. I really liked the search committee members I met and what I learned about Albany from them. They decided to call me in December, scheduling my candidating week at the end of January.

Highlights From Albany UU

The first order of business for me when I arrived in Albany was to build trust. The previous settled minister had been asked to resign after several years of conflict. I did that by bringing in a couple retired from management consulting I’d worked with successfully in Florida helping support my Port Charlotte congregation after I announced my resignation to come to Albany. The “start-up” weekend workshop we designed together effectively helped begin my settlement in Albany. I was attentive to the ongoing need for trust building throughout my ministry in Albany. I’m pleased to say we had a strong collaborative working relationship.

The project that dominated congregational attention almost immediately after that start-up weekend was a building expansion project put on the shelf during the troubles with the previous minister. The congregation had been dissatisfied with its facility at least since the 1960’s RE building expansion project was complete. When I arrived the congregation was doing two services on Sunday with a crowded coffee hour in between them. Larger RE classrooms were needed and more restrooms, especially one upstairs for the little kids.

After many plans and proposals were debated and displayed, after acquiring three houses to be demolished so we could build on the land, after going through three different architects, we finally found the right one and began designing in earnest. We selected Paul Mack & Associates to do our capital campaign and raised $1.4 million (spread over 5 years). We selected a construction firm then calculated the building costs. We came up hundreds of thousands of dollars short. In the face of putting the project on the shelf again, a couple stepped forward to challenge the congregation. They pledged an additional $300,000 if another $100,000 could be raised to complete all the extra features we wanted in the design that were being eliminated to save money. We raised the challenge money in a week. The completion of this expansion, one of architectural vision and beauty, has been a great source of satisfaction and pride for the congregation since it opened in the fall of 2007. I feel deeply honored to have played a supporting role in this accomplishment.

While the congregation was getting ready to build, I took a sabbatical. My sabbatical for the first six months of 2006 renewed my ministry and brought new ideas back to my congregation getting ready for changes that would come after the building expansion. I decided to visit four congregations that experienced significant growth spurt with a long serving minister. I wanted to look for insights and ideas I could bring back home. I’d attended a presentation in Ithaca by Pat Emery about the Golden, Colorado congregation so I put them first on my list. I’d also heard good things about Appleton, Wisconsin and Milwaukee. I rounded out my list with Annapolis, Maryland. These helped me recognize the importance of a membership coordinator and the assistance a pastoral care associates program can offer. We’ve implemented both and they made a big difference.

About the time I returned from my sabbatical, our cluster of four ministers and Presidents started meeting in earnest once a month for mutual support. The “Capital Region UU’s of New York” (now known as Hudson Mohawk UU Cluster with the inclusion of the Catskills UU congregation) grew into a dynamic group that did joint advertising, presents a yearly joint service, and initiated an ultimately unsuccessful development of a new congregation. I’ve been an important leader in this group.

The assistance of the UUA to launch our CRUUNY media campaign in the fall of 2009 and the training of membership committees to receive the new people who would come from the campaign greatly increased all our awareness of the importance of being in the public eye. A great opportunity that came my way at that time was to blog for our local newspaper, the Times Union. This regularly got me mentioned in the print edition and links to my writing from the online edition, raising the profile of Unitarian Universalism in the Capital Region.

ARISE: A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment

An important dimension of my ministry in Albany has been advocacy in the community. Almost immediately, as I looked around for a way to focus my community involvement after arriving, I discovered a Gamaliel Foundation congregation based community organizing project getting off the ground in the Capital Region called ARISE (A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment). Many liberal ministers in the region were involved so I started attending meetings. What really excited me was attending the Gamaliel Foundation weeklong training in March of 2001. Training in a multiracial and cultural class with community activists of every economic background opened my eyes and stimulated my imagination. A week after returning from that training, I was asked to become President. I said yes.

Leading ARISE was some of the most challenging and rewarding community work I have done. There was significant conflict in the organization that I negotiated as we moved toward our first public meeting in the fall of 2001 of almost a 1000 people. While I served as the organization’s President, it was a vital and exciting, growing organization. But weaknesses in our organizer and our organizing strategy and institutional design began to undermine the organization soon after I stepped down.

I learned some excellent organizing skills that I use regularly in my ministry. One of the most important skills I use is doing “one-on-one” meetings with new members to assess the drives (in organizing lingo “self-interest”) people bring into our congregation. Once I understand why people have come to Albany UU, what kind of growth opportunities they are looking for, and how they want to serve others, I can help guide them to satisfying involvement in our congregation and the larger community.

Another galvanizing moment in my ministry was doing two same sex marriages March 27, 2004. This was the time wedding fever broke out across the country including in New Paltz, New York, where two UU ministers, Kay Greenleaf and Dawn Sangrey, were cited for doing same sex marriages. After being interviewed by the news media on a Sunday morning, and hearing that they couldn’t find anyone in the congregation to speak against it, I decided this was a moment for me to step forward in support of Kay and Dawn and do some marriages too. The first couple I approached with the idea was two lesbian members of our congregation and the second couple was good friends of our congregational members. The Saturday marriage became front page Sunday news above the fold, getting great publicity for Unitarian Universalism’s support of marriage equality. On the downside, I got a little hate mail. Unfortunately, my actions undermined my relationship with the African American Missionary Baptist clergy in ARISE.

Today, many of us are quite happy that all New Yorkers now have the right to marry.

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to supervise five interns. The first internship was funded through a special grant created through the partnership to two New York State foundations, the New York State Convention of Universalists and the St. Lawrence Foundation. The second happened through the request of Chris Antal, a transfer candidate working toward military chaplaincy. The next three interns, Eileen Casey Campbell, Dan Miyake, and Jacob King, served successfully in the last six years of my ministry. All these internships gave me the rich experience of sharing the creative process of ministry with mature, perceptive colleagues who brought much innovation and vitality to our congregation and my ministry.

The last thing I’ll mention is my ongoing commitment to sharing my passion for Buddhist meditation. When we stopped doing two services, I started doing a Buddhist meditation service from 9:00am till 9:45am on Sunday morning. We begin with a 10 minute reading, then sit for 20 minutes. At the end of the sitting period, we have 10 minutes of time for discussion of the reading or questions and comments about meditation practice. We conclude with a guided loving kindness meditation. Several times a year, we have a Friday evening and Saturday meditation session. During this session, I teach the basics of mindfulness meditation.

Professional Development

White Supremacy Culture / Black Lives Matter trainings since 2015 including Mosiac Conference in San Diego
UUMA Asilomar Conference, Preaching Seminar with Dr. Kay Northcutt, 2011
Worship that Works Seminar, Rochester, NY, 2008
Nonviolent Communication Training (week long), Albany, NY, Summer, 2008
UU Leadership Training Institute, 2007, 2008, 2010
Festival of Homiletics Preaching Seminar, Atlanta, Georgia, May, 2006
Berkshire Ministers Yearly Study Retreat 2004-2008
UUA Public Ministry Seminar with the fabulous Fred H. Garcia, 2003
UUA Midsized Church Conferences, 2001, 2003, 2005
Gamaliel community organizing week long training 2001 (& advanced trainings)
Leadership Workshop, with Rev. Buehrens, Miller and Provost, 1998
UUMA Convocations/institutes, 1995, 2002, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2022
Mentees: the Rev. Deane Perkins, serving in Glens Falls, New York, 2002-2006
Interns: the Rev. Rebecca Gunn 2004-5 & the Rev. Chris Antal 2009-10, Eileen Casey Campbell 2017-18, Dan Miyake 2019-20, Jacob King 2022-23
CPE: Delaware State Psychiatric Hospital 1988
CPE (extended): Bon Secours St. Joseph’s Hospital, Port Charlotte, FL with their supervising chaplain Jim Hoff. 96-97
Internship: First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York supervised by the Rev. Richard S. Gilbert
Mentors: the late Rev. William Burnside Miller & the late Rev. Josiah Bartlet both while serving in Fort Myers, FL
Volunteer telephone counselor for Crisis Services, Buffalo, NY 90-91
Mindfulness Buddhist meditation retreats (7-10 days) 85-present

Employment History

From	To	Position / Occupation
7/23	present	retired
8/99	7/23	Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, New York
9/93	8/99	Minster, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Charlotte County, Florida
3/90	8/93	System Software Development, MetaSphere, Los Altos, CA (working out of my home in Buffalo, NY).
9/88	9/89	Intern, Summer Minister, First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY
10/87	6/88	Test Engineer, Dual Systems, Berkeley, CA
1/81	9/86	Test Engineer, Software Development Group Leader, Managerfor North Star Computers, San Leandro, CA
6/80	9/80	Intern, Hewlett Packard, Roseville, CA
11/77	9/79	Electronic Technician for Hewlett Packard Cupertino, CA
6/75,76,77	9/75, 76, 77	Summer Hire, Hewlett Packard, Avondale, PA

Denominational and community activities:

Describe with dates active membership in and significant volunteer service to local congregations, the UUA and its districts, and civic, political, social service, and interfaith organizations and programs:

One may surmise from a cursory inspection of what follows that I like to go to meetings. Throughout my ministry I have served national and district level UUA and UUMA posts and held positions of responsibility in the local community. First follows a description of the organizations in which I have participated and currently participate. Next follows details of the offices I have held and dates.

UUA Board of Trustees – I was elected to serve as UUA Trustee in a competitive election in 2021. I serve as Financial Secretary for the UUA and chair the Values and Resources Working Group (aka Finance Committe)

Open UUA Committee – This obscure UUA committee monitors the transparency of the governance of the UUA striving to make sure all the important business the UUA Board and its committees does happens in the sunshine of public view. I am a UUA pointed member of the committee.

Hudson Mohawk UU Cluster – First named “The Capital Region Unitarian Universalists of New York,” the Cluster is comprised of the Ministers and Presidents of the four UU congregations that make up the Capital Region. In the past, they met once a month for mutual support looking for ways to work together. Since 2009 to 2023, they presented a joint service and participated in a joint advertising campaign on a local public radio station for about 10 years. They are cooperated to attempt the start of a new congregation. Our former St. Lawrence District Executive Tom Chulak hailed the Cluster as a model for others to follow. http://www.capitalregionuu.org/. Sadly enthusiasm for the Cluster has decreased during the COVID years.

Still Forest Pool – This informal group came together to support the growth and development of mindfulness meditation in the Capital Region. We organized a workshop and put up a web site for the group. It never took off and folded this past year, replaced later with Organizing Mindfulness. It also had a great beginning bringing meditation teachers like Sharon Salzberg to Albany UU but eventually ran out of steam.

Interfaith Impact – A unique state wide interfaith legislative advocacy ministry that has a non-profit educational arm (501c3) and a parallel advocacy arm (501c4). Predominantly Unitarian Universalist, it also has Reform Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, UCC, and Presbyterian institutional members. The group has one employee who advocates on our issues at the Capital.

New York Unitarian Universalists Justice – Interfaith Impact was out of alignment with the UUA’s Statewide Advocacy Networks due to its interfaith nature (even though the membership was over 90% UU). This limited its ability to work on nationwide UU campaigns. NYUUJ superceded Interfaith Impact and is in the process of building power. I was instrumental in this transition along with a devoted member of the Albany UU congregation.

West Hill Ministerial Fellowship – A loosely organized interfaith and multiracial clergy group that meets monthly to hear presentations from community leaders, and to support and advocate for the residents in the West Hill neighborhood. We advocate with the mayor’s office, organize public safety appreciation picnics, Thanksgiving services, summer programs, a yearly street festival, neighborhood prayer walks and other community support activities. This group leans more to direct service than advocacy. Sadly it folded about 10 years ago.

UUMA St. Lawrence & Florida Chapters – I have been active in my local Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association Chapters where I have served, serving as President of each one.

UUMA CENTER Committee – This UUMA committee for Continuing Education, Networking, Training, Enrichment and Resources (CENTER) developed programming at the national level for our ministers and their chapters. We also organized a day long training session each year centered on a major guest speaker before General Assembly.

ARISE – A Regional Initiative Supporting Empowerment was a community organizing project just getting started when I arrived in Albany. I was elected to be its first full fledged President as we moved toward having our first public meeting of around 1000 people. Almost 40 religious organizations came together to select issues that they would work on together across four, then three counties.

UU Buddhist Fellowship – The Fellowship brings together Buddhists attracted to Unitarian Universalism and Unitarian Universalists attracted to Buddhism from/to just about every different Buddhist tradition. The group formed briefly in the 1980s, then reformed in its current configuration in the 1990’s. While the UUA had Independent Affiliates, the UUBF offered workshops every year at General Assembly. We’ve published a quarterly newsletter since the mid 1990’s, sponsored an online email discussion list, and hosted Convocations every two years after our first in 2005. The web site is: http://www.uubf.org/

UUA Electronic Communication Committee – This UUA committee was created by the UUA Board to explore ways the UUA could take advantage of the new advances in electronic communication. In those days, most UUA staff didn’t even have email addresses. This committee initiated the first uua.org web site and the first email discussion lists. Radical stuff for those days.

PCD Leadership School – The Pacific Central District Leadership School

IARF – International Association for Religious Freedom

Denominational and Community Activities

Good Offices Representative, UU Ministers Association Iroquois Chapter, 2010+
Appointed member, Open UUA committee of the UUA Board, 2007-present
Participant, Capital Region UU’s of New York (CRUUNY), 2006-present
Participant, West Hill Ministerial Fellowship, 1999-present
Board member, Still Forest Pool, (supporting mindfulness training) 2006-2010
Board member, Interfaith Impact of New York State (advocacy), 2006-present
President, UU Ministers Association Iroquois Chapter, upstate NY ministers (05-10)
Appointed member, UUMA Continental Continuing Education Committee (01-05)
Chair, ARISE Clergy Caucus (03-05)
President, ARISE, Capital District community organizing effort (01-03)
President, Florida District UUMA chapter (97-99)
President, UU Buddhist Fellowship, (00-06), Secretary, (06-present)
Editor, UU Buddhist Fellowship Journal, UU Sangha (97-00)
President, Florida District Southwest Cluster (98-99)
Chair, UUA Electronic Communications Committee (94-98)
Secretary, Florida District Board (96-98)
‘Database designer’ for UUMA Convocation 95
Sang tenor in Charlotte Choral 93-95, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir (85-87), and the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, GA choir, UUMA GA choir.
Active in AIDS/HIV Pastor Care Committee for Charlotte County (93-96)
Chaired and assisted in putting on the 91 and 92 Western New York Cluster meetings. Assisted in organizing the Western New York Social Concerns Committee.
Internship activities: outreach to Rochester, NY Deaf community; organized 24 hour AIDS vigil (89)
Student, assistant, and dean of PCD Leadership School, (85-87)
On staff for the IARF conference in 1987 at Stanford, CA
Led Unitarian Universalist Student Association, U.C. Berkeley (80-81)

Congregational Involvement

Dates	Congregation
61-73	Unitarian Fellowship of Newark, Delaware – This is the congregation I grew up in.
73-77	(not active during high school and first years of college)
77-79	Palo Alto Unitarian Church California – member, 77-79, First U.U. church I joined as an adult, right after moving to California.
79-81	Unitarian Universalist Student Association, Berkeley, CA participant and leader of this student group hosted by Starr King School for the Ministry in their building
79-83	First Unitarian Church of Berkeley of Kensington, CA, visitor
83-89	First Unitarian Church of Oakland, CA, member, 83-88
88-89	First Unitarian Church of Rochester, NY, intern
90-93	Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst, Williamsville, NY, member
90-93	First Unitarian Universalist Church of Niagara, Niagara Falls, NY, regular pulpit supply and some consulting ministry
93-99	Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Charlotte County as their minister
99-2023	First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany as their minister
2024	attending: UU Meeting of South Berkshire

Ministerial Development

What are your current developmental needs, and how might a congregation assist you in addressing them?

Because of the centrality of the sermon in our Sunday morning services, I’ve made a strong commitment to excellent preaching. As a discipline, this requires a lifetime of training and development to excel. I like to attend preaching seminars and trainings and would want time to attend these kind of events for ongoing development of this craft. I also find working with other ministers in a support group for this purpose very helpful and would be looking for those kinds of opportunities in the region I serve.

One of the feedback tools I’ve begun using in Albany is getting direct sermon feedback from a Sunday service response group of trained listeners. I don’t want them so much to analyze my arguments or agree or disagree with my points. What I’m looking for is feedback in the effectiveness of the presentation, moment by moment, so I can learn how to optimize my presentation skills and content. I want them to tell me when I stimulated and grabbed their attention, when they felt excited and inspired, when they reacted negatively to something and, if possible, when they became bored or their attention wandered. This will be unique for each listener, but general trends can be observed when the group shares a similar observation. The feedback I’m looking for is to get into the heads of the listener to see if the message I’m trying to communicate is being received and if the content, and rhetorical devices and methods I’m using are serving my goals. Each congregation has its own style of listening that I need to learn. I’ll be wanted to set up such a group in the congregation I serve.

The oracle’s command to know thyself is critical for a minister. Sermons arise out of, as Emerson put it in his famous 1838 divinity school address, “life passed through the fire of thought.” The hotness of that fire is developed through spiritual practice. A part of my commitment to mindfulness meditation practice requires regular meditation retreats one or two times a year.

The along with the clarity that comes with practice, I also need the mental stimulation of study. The internet has changed this somewhat, but access to a university library is critical for scholarly informed sermons. Currently, I’m fortunate to be able to pay a modest sum for borrowing privileges at the University of Albany libraries. I would need similar access in the community I’d serve to a nearby university library.

Valuable as feeding the mind, so must the heart be tended. I find both counseling and spiritual direction very fruitful in dealing with the emotional and spiritual struggles that come up in ministry. The highly relational way I do shared ministry means I need to deal with, resolve and move past the emotional issues that occasionally come up when working closely with a wide variety of people. I’m committed to excellent physical, emotional and spiritual health for myself and for the congregation I serve.

Describe a mistake you have made in the past, and how you have addressed it:

Supervision of staff has been a challenge in the Albany office, partly due to the governance structure of our congregation. Our bylaws name the President as supervisor of the staff with the option to delegate this responsibility to the minister. This was a defensive revision of the bylaws in reaction to the former minister who was deemed a difficult supervisor.

A recent chair of our Personnel Committee decided that the staff had grown too large for the committee to manage. The committee had responsibility for writing the evaluations and dealing with any personnel issues that arose – a bit of a triangle with me to say the least. At the same time, I was working with an executive coach. So I suggested to the Committee that I take a much more active role supervising the staff.

A problem arose when “Sally,” the administrator, accustomed to being in charge of the office, resisted my attempt to move into a more active supervision role with her. This created conflict between us. I took the conflict to the Personnel Committee who mostly supported me … except for “David,” a very powerful and influential member who objected to how I was doing my supervision. Now I was in a pickle. I had tried to change my supervisory role with my staff and the result of that change was conflict with an important congregational leader as well as a staff member.

The strategy I used first to address the situation was to listen very carefully to David’s criticisms. We met for a couple of hours as he explained his analysis and his observations of my mistakes. I carefully listened to him, reflecting back what I heard till I understood him and he felt understood. That didn’t mean I agreed with him but did see some errors in my approach and learned from his perspective. At the Personnel Committee’s request, the administrator and I had a cooling off period to allow the dust to settle. I also did a power analysis and realized that neither the Personnel Committee nor the Board were ready to grant me the authority to deal effectively with the problems I had identified in my supervision of Sally. So I respected their authority and backed off, not wanting to pick a fight I’d likely lose and could undermine confidence in my ministry.

A solution to the situation came up during my annual review. I suggested to our President that, as per the bylaws, he take supervision of Sally for a year or two so he had direct experience of the concerns I was having with this employee. He agreed, though I retained some of the day to day supervision but not setting her goals or writing her review. The change worked wonders for Sally and my relationship which began improving immediately.

The other change I made which helped a great deal was to institute a biweekly full time staff meeting (there are four of us). We designed the format of the meeting to meet the needs of all the staff members. One of the problems I was having was getting people to follow through on their commitments. In our staff meeting, commitments are not made to me as the supervisor, they are made to the staff team. This has made a world of difference by making getting things done accountable to the group. Now, people do follow through – including me!

We also worked together to define a staff covenant to define how we would work together. This was also an important boundary to define with each other that has also improved our relationships with each other and diminished non-supportive conversation, judgmental attitudes and gossip.

So right now we have a very effective staff working well together. I had to let go of being in charge by designing an accountability system that worked for everyone.

Ministerial Roles and Functions

How would you wish to function with lay leadership? Comment on your leadership style:

Having served in a congregation with very strong lay leadership, I’ve learned how to keep my ego in check and subordinate it to the higher purpose of the congregation. Again and again, I appreciate how effective collaborative leadership can be in my current settlement and wish to find other congregations I can work with in this way. In a Unitarian Universalist context, where leaders are loath to give too much power to the minister, I know how to work effectively and get the job done.

For collaborative leadership to work, a congregation needs to take their purpose very seriously, organizing their time, talent and treasure to advance that purpose. The grounds, bricks and mortar component belongs to the congregation. The art on the walls belongs to the congregation. The work of naming the identity and purpose of the congregation belongs to the congregation. The minister should have final authority over how that identity is expressed in worship in close collaboration with the congregation. The rest is up for negotiation. Some congregations desire more leadership in other areas of the congregation and some less.

I work best as a facilitative leader who helps organize the thinking, the design and the energy to get things done. In times of disagreement and conflict, I want to hear and understand both sides. Often if representatives from both sides are willing to engage in a properly structured, respectful dialogue, solutions spontaneously appear out of the dialogue that may not have been noticed before. Outside the prophetic imperative of confronting malfeasance, ministers are most effective by using persuasive power. Rather than delegated democratic power, ministers lead through the power of their arguments and ideas.

One area needs special mention – social action. Many times ministers are out in the community as a lone voice representing the congregation’s values. As much as possible, social action is far more effective when advocacy by the minister happens with strong visible support of the members and friends (today wearing their Side With Love shirts).

How would you wish to function with (paid) church staff?

What I find most important in working with any employee is having clarity of responsibility and accountability. In healthy staffing systems, staff, minister and Board are all accountable to the purpose for which the congregation gathers together. This requires an ongoing translation of that purpose into action that staff and lay leadership support.

I’m flexible with different configurations of staff. I find delegation and distributed authority are extremely important, especially the larger a staff group grows. And, if the Board delegates to the minister the implementation responsibility for fulfilling the congregation’s purpose and ends, then appropriate supervisory authority of staff is required to achieve those goals. I’m aware that any authority I’d have will need to be earned as well as be conferred.

Developing an effective, appreciated, supported staff group is critical to the smooth functioning of any congregation. With a background in managing profit and non-profit staffs, I believe I bring skills from both to bear in making me an effective staff leader.

How would you wish to function as part of a ministry team?

I work best in a collaborative team situation. This is what I have set up in my current settlement. I treat my Director of Religious Education as a valued partner in the ministry of the congregation. She may not be an ordained minister, but our close partnership is vital to the well-being of the whole. I derive much satisfaction from our partnership and seeing our ability to do much more together than we would have done separately. I also actively share my knowledge of dealing with people and institutional challenges so she can learn to get better and better at the political dimensions of her job. I foster the shared reality we are in it together.

This was especially true in the last year of my ministry with our Sunday Service Production Team. Our new Music Director, the RE Director, our Intern and I met to discuss and plan our Sunday services, collaborating on bringing all the parts into a whole. The quality of our services were so much better for this joint effort.

Critical for successful ministry teams and staff relations is having a right relations covenant that both defines boundaries and expectations. Positive working relationships with staff and within ministry teams are critical to the success and growth of any organization. Important as covenants are however, most important is maintaining healthy, creative and close relationships regularly tended to clear out misunderstandings, anxiety, stress and conflict. Healthy relationships feed and inspire coworkers to achieve their best work.

How would you wish to function in the communities beyond the local congregation?

A minister can be a symbolic voice for Unitarian Universalism and their congregation in the community to advocate for our values in the public square. It is rare to have a public speaker as effective as the minister to speak those values in the halls of public power and the news media. I was the one trained in speaking effectively to the press to get our congregation’s name in the paper and message in front of the community. This public role to speak for the congregation is clearly a ministerial function that I enjoy and fulfilled in both my ministerial settlements.

At times in my Albany UU ministry I spent more time in the community than I did in the congregation. As I reflect back on that choice, I now know it was a mistake. At the time, I sacrificed parts of my congregational responsibilities that cost us members. The minister needs to be available, especially for pastoral care, when members are in need. And the reality of pastor care in UU congregations is members will not let the minister know of their needs. The minister needs to initiate those pastoral contacts and keep checking in. I learned and after ten years realized I had to change my priorities spending less time out in the community.

Still, there are important activities in the community that need a minister’s attention. In Albany, we had a monthly UU minister gathering followed by lunch. In these gatherings, we offer each other ideas and suggestions to deal with problems that come up in our congregations as well as offer emotional support. I also attended a local urban interfaith, multi-racial clergy monthly meeting. This meeting helped me stay connected to the issues in our congregation’s neighborhood and the ways we can make a difference for the disadvantaged in that troubled neighborhood. Both the interfaith and the UU clergy gatherings are ways I can bring a congregation in contact with needs in the local and the UU community for mutual support.

Another important way to get involved congregation based community organizing. Done well, community organizing can be a tremendously powerful tool to confront institutional injustice and oppression. I liked the empowerment dimension of community organizing as well, giving the participants (both advantaged and disadvantaged) a life transforming path to power. My experience with community organizing (both good and bad) in Albany has given me a clearer vision of its potential and how to realize it. Community organizing can be a powerful anti-racism, anti-oppression tool to connect our members with those of other races, classes, and faiths working toward common ends. The personal relationships that develop through this kind of organizing brought the inner transformation that our whole society needs for a healthy multiculturalism.

What has been your experience in leading organizational change in multicultural settings?

As mentioned above, I was involved in ARISE, a congregation based community organizing project in the Capital Region of New York, serving as its President for two years. Our organization was multireligious, multicultural, and multiracial. The trainings I received with the Gamaliel Foundation were extremely useful in my work in the community and in my congregation.

I discovered just how hard this work is, particularly the empowerment piece, working with disadvantaged people who have internalized oppression. I also encountered my own privilege and assumptions of authority and power that interfered with being an empowering leader. The path through the challenges of this kind of leadership for me has been developing healthy relationships with the other community leaders and honest encounters around our differences.

Those encounters, often in very stressful situations, have been some of the most productive growth experiences for me. When we honestly deal directly with our assumptions, prejudices, attachments and resistance, self-awareness grows and the freedom to think and act more broadly evolves.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been a transformative area of engagement for our congregation that has connected us to the community through workshops and community study and actions around policing issues.

So I have great excitement and interest in encountering change in multicultural and multiracial settings. I sense this is one source of growth and development that could be labeled an authentic Unitarian Universalist spiritual practice!

Ministerial Skills and Current Special Interests

Special Skills	Special Interests
4 = gifted and expert	4 = urgently moved to focus
3 = accomplished	3 = wish to give energy
2 = competent	2 = will give adequate attention
1 = little experience	1 = prefer to ignore

Area of Specialty	Skills	Interests
Administration	3	3
Adult religious education	2	3
Children’s religious education	2	2
Committee work	3	2
Community building	3	3
Denominational activities	3	3
Facilitation	4	3
Stewardship	3	4
Home visitation	3	2
Hospital calling	3	2
Leadership development	3	3
Membership growth	3	3
Music and liturgical arts	2	2
Personal counseling	3	2
Preaching	3	4
Scholarship	3	3
Social action	4	3
Spiritual guidance	3	4
Staff relations	3	3
Worship	3	3
Youth work	2	2
Mindfulness Meditation	4	3

What is your approach to the religious education of children, youth, and adults?

Like most liberals, I favor personal experience as one of the best ways to learn. I’m enthusiastic about mindfulness meditation for this reason. I sit down, watch my breath, and witness for myself in my own experience the profound truths the Buddha taught. I love seeing the light go on as someone discovers a truth for themselves. This is core Unitarian Universalism – I want to find the truth directly through my personal experience, not mediated by another (human or deity).

That said, learning and experience may be heavily conditioned by what one already knows. I’m unlikely to make a new discovery in particle physics (through a personal experience mediated by scientific instruments) without a lot of training and preparation. Filling one’s head with information, science, formulas, systems of thinking, music, art, philosophy, with the width and breath of human knowledge, provide the conditions for both creativity, insight and discovery. Experiencing the Truth of oneness and interconnection of all existence, knowing directly the universal Love that pervades existence, isn’t the end of the religious journey, but just the beginning.

So I see religious education as having two main purposes. The first is preparing the path to having a direct personal experience of this oneness of all existence and the universal Love that is integral to that experience. This oneness-Love dimension of existence is as much a natural law as gravity and electromagnetism. All major world religions affirm it through their individual lenses. Unfortunately it is not yet as common among us as those other laws as it requires an evolution of consciousness.

Currently the best way to cultivate this experience of oneness and universal Love is through practicing inherited spiritual practices from other religious traditions. My hope is to participate in evolving a set of unique Unitarian Universalist spiritual practices that effectively lead to this truth. One of my goals in search is to find a congregation who would like to partner with me in this creative enterprise.

The second goal of religious education is to expand our connections to appreciate the truth found beyond our personal experience. Part of that education is to learn about and appreciate those in our Unitarian and Universalist traditions who have walked this path of inner awakening. Part of that education is to study the great religious teachers, saints and sages who have also prepared the way for us and left behind guidance about this path of inner awakening. Part of that education discovers non-European inherited wisdom and practice that may provide tools for our own growth and development as well as expand our appreciation for them.

So the goal of religious education, to my mind, is to learn how to plant and tend the seed of awakening, bringing it to full flower. The Unitarian Universalist approach to what comes next is different from most other religions. Rather than taking the seeds from that flower and trying to propagate a monoculture of the same flowers everywhere, we go across the street to appreciate the flower another person is growing and affirm it, perhaps offering cultivation suggestions that worked for us. We appreciate that there are many kinds of flowers in the world – and they all come from the same ground of being, the soil, the water, the sun we all share.

The ultimate goal of religious education is to turn everyone into a teacher. The world is hungry for awakening and we need many, many more self-actualized beings to share what they know without needing to indoctrinate others with their path.

Here is a list of a few of the classes I’ve designed and presented over my ministry in Albany:

Buddhist meditation class – the basics of Buddhist philosophy and practice
Introduction to the philosophy of Ken Wilber
An exploration of Karen Armstrong’s book History of God
Grappling with the Denial of Death (using Ernest Becker’s writing)
A Credo writing class (using the UU Leadership School as a model)
Voluntary Simplicity class (NW Earth Institute’s program)
New Humanism class (using the book of the same name by John Brockman)
Lenten Bible Study class (various formats during Lent to go deeper with Christianity)
Nonviolent Communication practice group, Beauty of Needs class (working Marshall Rosenberg’s ideas)
Racial Healing Class developed using The Racial Healing Handbook by Annaliese Singh

What do you see as the role of music and the arts in the life of a congregation?

I tend to follow the lead of others in the area of art and music. These are not areas I have a lot of expertise and skill. I do not play a musical instrument (though would like to do so). I do read music and have sung in choirs. I have a strong tenor voice that I’ve trained over the years to lead singing. Right now I pick the hymns that we sing Sunday morning but would be happy to share that responsibility with a music director.

I would delight in working collaboratively selecting music and art that enhance the message of a service. While I’m not an expert in art or music, I do know the message I’ll be delivering. I deeply appreciate the importance of everything around a sermon to support it.

The visual arts deserve a special mention here. Too often the opportunity for visual expression is missed in our word and music centered services. Multimedia, using tastefully projected images and video, offer an excellent way to enhance the worship experience, especially for those who prefer to take in inspiration visually (including many of our young people).

What involvement do you desire in the stewardship of a congregation, most particularly its financial affairs?

As soon as I get our monthly financial report here in Albany, I pour over each line of the four pages of spreadsheets, examining every number carefully. I see it as one of my responsibilities to keep an independent eye on the finances of the congregation to make sure there are no irregularities. I’m very comfortable with the common accounting practices used in religious organizations.

I also know that any innovative programming the congregation wishes to do usually requires funds. Inspiring generosity is central to my ministry as I see it as a core spiritual practice for everyone in the congregation. Generosity transforms lives and empowers the greatness of a congregation.

Why generosity is so important is its role in deepening the commitment of the members of the congregation. From the day a member joins, they need to be on a path of deepening commitment with the goal that they will become a pillar of the congregation. That can’t happen without a continuing growth in giving. Member satisfaction closely correlates with how much they give, not how much they receive.

I’m ready, willing and enthusiastic to support congregational fund raising!

Theological orientation

What is your dominant theology, and how do you deal with other Unitarian Universalist theologies with which you may not be in sympathy?

The theological orientation that most clearly identifies me would be scientific humanist Theravadin Buddhist influenced by Sufism, Reform Judaism, and esoteric Christianity. The path that I find the best for most Unitarian Universalists is experience and value centered rather than belief centered. I do not see attachment to beliefs (as the Buddha observed) as a wise religious path. The values to which I have a high commitment are evidence and experience based, not revealed truth. I adhere diligently to the five precepts the Buddha taught, not to kill, steal, lie, engage in sexual misconduct nor to use intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. I do so not because they are some commandment of the Buddha. I do so because they empirically work to bring social harmony and to sustain a clarity of mind.

Of all the different theologies I encounter in Unitarian Universalist congregations, fundamentalist atheism is probably the hardest for me to deal with. There is a closed mindedness about this perspective that sometimes pushes my buttons. As I grew up a secular atheist in a Unitarian Universalist congregation and my father holds this view, I’m intimately familiar with this perspective. I’d still be one without the personal experiences that I’ve had that have pointed me in a different direction and without the encounters with human beings who manifest an awareness greater than my own.

Growing up and living in the post-modern era, I’m deeply aware of the limits of my perceptions and thinking. I could be wrong in my language of oneness-Love and the fundamentalist atheists could be right. So I listen carefully and I speak what I’m persuaded, convinced and thus believe is true. My greatest faith is that in honest and open dialogue we will grow into greater awareness, understanding and appreciation of each other.

Additional information

The best way to get to know me better is to visit my web site:

trumbore.org or my search packet

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