As the child of feminist activists who gave me The Autobiography of Malcolm X in high school and raised me in a UU church, it was almost a given that I would grow up to be passionate about social justice. Social justice is the beating heart of my ministry and how I live my life.

I embraced anti-racism work after attending a white identity caucus at the UUA General Assembly. Since that fateful moment when I finally awoke to what it means to be white, racial justice has been a driving passion. I work intersectionally, seeing the interconnections between racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism, etc. I engage with Immigrant Justice and Black Lives Matter, among other justice issues, even as my primary focus shifted to ecological/climate justice.

Concern for the environment was not new for me, but my passion for climate justice truly awoke after witnessing the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and confronting the stark evidence of racism and classism left exposed in its wake. I realized it was an early warning of our possible future.

We are living in a world dangerously out of balance, as evidenced by climate change, resource depletion, gross economic inequality, and loss of biodiversity.I aspire to be a healer of the brokenness in the world, both at the systemic and personal/relational levels. For me, that work happens in two interrelated roles of ministry, the prophetic and the pastoral.

I resonate strongly with Theologian Walter Brueggemann when he opines, “the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.”[1] My ministry is to offer up alternatives to “business as usual” and uphold the vision of a life sustaining society, one that honors our interconnectedness and is filled with more justice, more beauty, more peace, and more love than we have today.

Our religious communities can and should be the models of the future we want to create. My call to ministry is about transforming our communities into places of healing, vision and hope. This is where the prophetic meets the pastoral. During my internship, I started a Resilience Circle, led transformative workshops based on Joanna Macy’s “Work That Reconnects,” articulated a vision of a just transition, and helped design and prepare the soil for a permaculture food forest. This experience was part of my inspiration for the essay in the collection Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, and the Environment, the UUA Common Read in 2018-19.

Prior to being called to Emerson, I was deeply engaged in both local food justice work and national level UU climate justice work. This included serving on the steering committees for the UU Environmental Justice Collaboratory, Serving as the Environmental Justice Liaison Allies for Racial Equity and Young Adults for Climate Justice.

During my time at Emerson, I launched an Environmental Justice Ministry (EJM) team. This vibrant group has engaged in dozens of protests and rallies, letter-writing campaigns, educational events, and more, in partnership with groups like GreenFaith, Greenpeace, Food and Water Action, and the Sunrise Project. The EJM also collaborated with local tree planting efforts to expand shade cover to mitigate against extreme heat in neighborhoods near our church. 

I also transformed a neglected part of our campus into a community garden. Each week, volunteers harvest produce and herbs from our garden to share with congregants after the service. Our gardening group is currently in the process of landscaping our campus with California Natives.

I’ve also been deeply engaged with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), serving on their Resource Council, and supporting labor actions for hotel workers, teachers, healthcare workers, and lobbying efforts at the state and local level. I’ve been active with the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Solidarity Network since its inception in 2017, which brings together people of diverse faith for environmental, justice and solidarity work. I was also honored to be one of 5 faith leaders invited to speak out against gun violence before some 30,000 people at the March for Our Lives in LA in 2018.

[1] (Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, p. 3)