Latest / The Starfish Storytellers / Episode 8: Social Impact Storytelling with Rev.’s Annie Gonzalez & Megan Lynes

Transcript

Episode 8: Social Impact Storytelling with Rev.’s Annie Gonzalez & Megan Lynes · The Starfish Storytellers

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Starfish Storytellers, the podcast that makes a difference one story
• 0:04
  at a time by bringing storytelling to life.
• 0:14
  This is Annie.
• 0:16
  So back in 2017, I was working for our denominations national office, the Unitarian Universalist
• 0:24
  Association, which has its headquarters here in Boston.
• 0:28
  That's what brought me out to the Boston area.
• 0:32
  And of course, at that time, there were a lot of people who were very concerned about
• 0:36
  Donald Trump being our new president and how we could show up for people who were being
• 0:41
  impacted by his policies, particularly immigrants.
• 0:45
  And I had been interested in immigration justice for quite some time and had been working a
• 0:50
  bit with Mo'fumiantu Cosecha, which is a national group that has a local chapter.
• 0:54
  They were one of the many groups behind the driver's license, but we finally got past
• 0:59
  here in Massachusetts more recently.
• 1:03
  But there was a leader at our Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Network, who I knew, who, and
• 1:13
  that's a statewide network where we work mostly on legislative organizing.
• 1:19
  And she got looped into this group that was doing accompaniment in Framingham.
• 1:24
  And she was really inspired by how people would go with immigrant members of their communities
• 1:31
  to their immigration court hearings as a way to show support and solidarity.
• 1:35
  And she was like, we should do this.
• 1:38
  And she got really excited about mobilizing an interfaith network in Boston to do that.
• 1:42
  And so I was interested in this too.
• 1:44
  And I thought this is a great fit with I'm a minister, I'm interested in this.
• 1:48
  But the work I was doing professionally at the time was around young adults.
• 1:52
  And it was nationally focused.
• 1:55
  It was like all of our congregations all over the country helping them do better ministry
• 1:59
  with young adults and college students and stuff.
• 2:01
  So I was like, this is cool.
• 2:04
  So I went to the meeting and we started preparing to do this work.
• 2:09
  But there was this really important question, which was, who is going to want us to come
• 2:15
  with them to court?
• 2:16
  Who knows us?
• 2:17
  Who trusts us?
• 2:18
  And it became really apparent that a lot of the faith communities that had sent representatives
• 2:23
  to this meeting didn't have direct relationships with undocumented individuals, lived in very
• 2:29
  segregated parts of our city and our greater Boston area.
• 2:36
  And so it was sort of this, it was like we were going to build this whole thing to do
• 2:40
  this thing we wanted to do.
• 2:42
  We had the resources, but where were the people?
• 2:44
  Obviously the people are there, but we didn't know the people.
• 2:48
  So nevertheless, the woman who was in charge of mass action at the time, she was like,
• 2:54
  no, we're going to find, we're going to figure it out.
• 2:56
  She had a can do attitude.
• 2:58
  In the meantime, I had gotten to know this labor organizer who worked for jobs with justice
• 3:03
  through my other organizing work outside of my paid work.
• 3:09
  And one night I was meeting with her and kind of casually, and she was like, hey, you're
• 3:13
  a pastor, right?
• 3:14
  And I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm a minister.
• 3:15
  And she was like, well, I just found out because her friend who was a janitor at MIT had been
• 3:24
  detained by immigration.
• 3:26
  And he had a lot of support because he had a union he was part of.
• 3:28
  He had a church he was part of.
• 3:30
  He was, you know, a lot of organizers had his back.
• 3:34
  And he was at that time being detained at the Suffolk County jail in Boston because
• 3:39
  they had a contract with ICE with immigrations.
• 3:42
  And so she was like, I found out from my friend.
• 3:45
  He said that pastors can go into the jail a lot more easily than regular people.
• 3:50
  And he also said, there's a lot of guys in here who need support.
• 3:54
  He's like, I have support.
• 3:55
  I've got all these people who have my back.
• 3:57
  A lot of guys in here don't have that.
• 3:59
  And she's like, can you, so we want to like send you in there to like find the people
• 4:03
  who need the support.
• 4:04
  And I was like, and she's like, we want to support them.
• 4:06
  And I was like, I can do you one better.
• 4:07
  Like, I also have this whole network of people who want to help and they don't have anybody
• 4:12
  to help.
• 4:13
  So I went in and there wasn't any way to like prearrange it.
• 4:17
  Like, it's very hard to communicate with people who are in jail.
• 4:19
  So I just show up and request a meeting with this man and he has no idea who I am or why
• 4:24
  I'm there.
• 4:25
  And I'm like, hi, I'm your friend's friend and I'm a random minister.
• 4:30
  Do you know some people who need some support?
• 4:32
  And he was like, yeah.
• 4:34
  So he just gave me their names and they're, yeah, I think just their names.
• 4:38
  And I wrote them down.
• 4:39
  And then I came back and then I passed the other name to a friend of mine who's also
• 4:44
  a UU minister and also speaks some Spanish and they were Spanish speaking individuals.
• 4:51
  And I went in and so this time I'm meeting this random Spanish speaking man who has like
• 4:54
  no idea I exist or why I'm requesting a meeting.
• 4:57
  He thought I was going to be a lawyer.
• 4:58
  He was very disappointed that I was just a pastor with mediocre Spanish.
• 5:04
  And I hadn't used my Spanish much in a long time, but we managed, I managed to get across
• 5:08
  like I know some people who want to help you and other people who are currently being detained.
• 5:17
  And so, you know, I got a little bit of basic information from him.
• 5:20
  I had no idea what I was like, what I needed to be asking, what was important.
• 5:26
  There's this number that's called the alien registration number or the A number.
• 5:31
  And that's like the most important number because with that you can like look up what
• 5:35
  a court hearing is.
• 5:36
  You can find out a lot more information.
• 5:37
  Like you need the A number for everything.
• 5:39
  And I took his A number down wrong.
• 5:40
  Like I got a digit wrong.
• 5:41
  It wasn't even the right number of numbers.
• 5:45
  And which I know all of that now, but I had no idea.
• 5:47
  I just was like on this mission to like find the people who were being organized inside
• 5:54
  by this awesome guy inside and connect them with the people who are trying to support
• 5:58
  outside but didn't have the connection.
• 6:00
  So we were able to then get him a lawyer based on, you know, pooling some resources from
• 6:07
  this crew and started accompanying him to his court hearings.
• 6:09
  And my friend went in and visited another man, got accompaniment for him for his court
• 6:14
  hearings.
• 6:15
  And pretty soon we started building this network that consisted mostly of people who were inside
• 6:21
  immigration detention, organizing inside, trying to help each other.
• 6:24
  Because there's like incredible mutual aid going on inside.
• 6:28
  A lot of language help for folks who don't have English, a lot of just like passing and
• 6:33
  sharing resources.
• 6:34
  So, you know, pretty soon my cell phone number was like in everybody's hands.
• 6:39
  And then there was this crew of different faith communities.
• 6:42
  It was a lot of Unitarian Universalists, a lot of Jewish folks from different Jewish
• 6:46
  communities and a few Christian communities too.
• 6:50
  And we ended up like building this network that now, you know, it's called the Boston
• 6:56
  Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network.
• 6:58
  It's got like a whole, we started a whole 501c3 to have our bond fund.
• 7:03
  So we have a fund that can pay for bonds to get people out of immigration jail.
• 7:08
  And we've bonded out a lot, I should know the stats, I don't, but we've bonded out a
• 7:12
  huge number of people.
• 7:14
  And we support folks who are fighting deportation or currently detained.
• 7:20
  And we've done a wide range of things from host people in homes.
• 7:24
  One person accompanied someone at the birth of their child, like was at the birth because
• 7:29
  their spouse was still being detained.
• 7:32
  And there's a million beautiful stories I could tell, but it all started just because
• 7:35
  I happened to randomly know people.
• 7:39
  And then because the people were ready when the need came.
• 7:42
  And I think it's a really important lesson.
• 7:44
  And like, you don't always know when the need's going to come, but if you're ready, then you
• 7:48
  can do what you're being called to do.
• 7:51
  You can do what your values call you to.
• 7:53
  If you're not ready when that relationship strikes, then it's a lot harder.
• 7:57
  So that's my story.
• 8:08
  Hi this is Megan.
• 8:10
  And I'm going to tell you about the difference it's made to me to be a part of building the
• 8:16
  Junior Youth Group at the First Parish in Bedford.
• 8:20
  We like to think of First Parish as a spiritual hub with a civic circumference.
• 8:25
  And this affects all of the way we lead our parish life.
• 8:32
  On Wednesdays in Bedford, there's a half day.
• 8:35
  And so there's a whole bunch of young people who roam around our small town wondering,
• 8:40
  is the library fun and cool?
• 8:42
  Or can I go to the one little Ted's, what's it called?
• 8:48
  Place across the street.
• 8:49
  Cairns.
• 8:50
  Cairns.
• 8:51
  Pizza.
• 8:52
  There's not too much to do.
• 8:53
  You can go to Starbucks, but you're kind of looking for something to do.
• 8:57
  Junior Youth Group became a place to gather with friends and with very supportive mentors.
• 9:04
  And where the fun was, but there was also a chance to be a part of something meaningful.
• 9:10
  So there's always an opening ritual, such as like someone brings a poem that's meaningful
• 9:15
  to them and they share it.
• 9:17
  And light a little chalice and have a few words that calls us to something greater than
• 9:21
  ourself.
• 9:23
  And then there's all sorts of fun things, whether it's just group games that do team
• 9:27
  building where there's a joys and sorrows where you share something on your mind and
• 9:30
  heart.
• 9:31
  But some of the things I like the most would happen every year and people would look forward
• 9:37
  to them, such as supporting the Lowell Transitional Living Center where people needed socks and
• 9:44
  clothes and hats and things for warm weather.
• 9:47
  So the young people would raise some money.
• 9:50
  They would put up a Christmas tree, cut out stars, write, you know, hats, shoes, something
• 9:56
  like that on the star and make it look nice.
• 9:59
  Put it in our common room and people would bring home the stars, bring back something
• 10:03
  to give or a little bit of money.
• 10:06
  And then on a particular day, we'd walk in the cold all the way down to Marshall's and
• 10:10
  shop and then give it all away.
• 10:12
  And it was just this feeling of, I can't always make an enormous difference, but I can make
• 10:19
  this difference.
• 10:20
  And starting from a young age where you think, I'm part of a group that cares, that we build
• 10:25
  each other up to care for the whole better.
• 10:28
  We want to leave no one out.
• 10:31
  And this sort of was the culture that built up in the youth group over time, all the years
• 10:35
  that I was a part of it.
• 10:36
  And I know I think any who now leads it has had the same experience that, you know, time
• 10:43
  and again, young people experienced hard things in their lives, like around school shootings
• 10:50
  and the anxiety and the fear around, is my school safe?
• 10:54
  I remember coming back to my office and finding that a group of, it was actually slightly
• 10:59
  younger young people, but these were all the fourth and fifth graders that soon were to
• 11:04
  be in junior youth group, were, they had, I saw the screen, I was outside my office
• 11:11
  and I saw the screen pop out of my office window and a foot emerged from inside.
• 11:16
  And I realized, you know, I ran inside, what, you know, go back, get back, what are you
• 11:19
  doing?
• 11:20
  You can't, it's too far to jump, what are you doing?
• 11:21
  You know, it turns out they were acting out, what do you do if there's a shooter?
• 11:28
  And they were pretending they had gathered and they were hiding under the desk and they
• 11:33
  were trying to escape from the room by holding onto each other's arms to make a rope out
• 11:37
  the window.
• 11:38
  And this is a real fear for them that the world is not safe and it meant so much to
• 11:45
  me that they ran to the place they knew was safe.
• 11:49
  You know, churches try to be a place of healing and inspiration, whether the sanctuary is
• 11:56
  a place, the physical sanctuary, the room is a place people come to, to think through
• 12:02
  the hard things and the big things in their life, or they come and they meet their one
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  person who's going to give them a hug that week where they sing something familiar or
• 12:10
  maybe they hear words of inspiration.
• 12:13
  But we're all desperate for community, I think.
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  We all went through the pandemic and are just struggling to figure out what's important,
• 12:23
  where can I find community, where can I be part of building a better world and not do
• 12:29
  it in isolation and not do it just on your phone in your own little room.
• 12:34
  Yeah.
• 12:35
  The young people really inspire me.
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  They're so creative in the ways that they combat isolation.
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  They want to be with each other.
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  They want to lean on each other and be there for each other.
• 13:08
  Hello.
• 13:09
  My name is Liana Henry and welcome to the Starfish Storytellers.
• 13:11
  I'm the CEO of the Black Dog Group, a MarCom and project management firm headquartered
• 13:17
  on the East Coast of the US in quaint colonial Bedford, Massachusetts.
• 13:21
  I'm your host and passionate about storytelling and I'm actually on a mission to raise up
• 13:25
  the next generation of storytellers.
• 13:27
  We named ourselves the Starfish Storytellers after the Starfish Story.
• 13:31
  The moral of the Starfish Story is based on the power of one.
• 13:35
  No matter how big the challenge, each action we take makes a difference and has an impact.
• 13:39
  One step, one starfish and one story at a time.
• 13:43
  Every episode we welcome a new storyteller who will share their story meant to inspire
• 13:47
  and connect with you.
• 13:48
  Then we'll break it down and offer tips for any listeners who are ready to tell their
• 13:52
  own stories.
• 13:53
  So thanks for tuning in.
• 13:55
  Now let's get started.
• 13:57
  Today's episode is about social impact storytelling where stories can sow hope, inspire and make
• 14:03
  change happen.
• 14:04
  And with me today are two well-known faces and names in Bedford, Massachusetts.
• 14:09
  I want to welcome Reverend Annie Gonzalez, the Acting Senior Minister and Minister of
• 14:14
  Faith Development and Reverend Megan Lines, the parish minister of the First Parish in
• 14:20
  Bedford at the Unitarian Universalist Church.
• 14:23
  I'm really excited that you're both here so welcome to the show.
• 14:26
  Thank you.
• 14:27
  Thank you for having us.
• 14:28
  Great to be here.
• 14:29
  So you told us a couple of amazing stories that were very, very moving but I didn't know
• 14:36
  if you wanted to maybe introduce yourselves maybe in a little bit more depth.
• 14:40
  So I don't know who wants to start?
• 14:43
  Sure.
• 14:45
  So I'm Annie and I grew up in central Illinois.
• 14:49
  I grew up Unitarian Universalist and I knew I wanted to be a UU minister since I was like
• 14:56
  in high school.
• 14:58
  When I looked back at my pre-SAT test I saw that I had circled clergy for what's your
• 15:02
  like hope for career.
• 15:06
  So I went to seminary out of college and became a UU minister and a job at our headquarters
• 15:12
  brought me out to Boston from where I was at the time which was in California.
• 15:20
  And after a few years there I actually it was when I learned that Megan was leaving
• 15:25
  her position.
• 15:26
  Megan has returned to us briefly but she was at First Parish Bedford for nine years as
• 15:30
  the second minister, the parish minister.
• 15:33
  And I learned that she was leaving this position and I got so excited because this congregation
• 15:38
  has a great reputation in our denomination.
• 15:41
  John Gibbons, our minister emeritus was someone I had worked with before a little bit and
• 15:47
  had a lot of admiration for.
• 15:49
  And the congregation was doing really exciting things like suing the town over their solar
• 15:55
  panels like harboring someone in sanctuary for her immigration status and so I was like
• 16:02
  I want to go.
• 16:04
  So I was so happy to land that job and be able to start working in Bedford.
• 16:09
  But I live in Malden, Massachusetts.
• 16:12
  I have a almost eight year old kiddo who I share custody with.
• 16:16
  She's with me half the time and I also live with three other adults and they're two babies
• 16:22
  that they have between the three adults and one dog so we keep it lively over there in
• 16:28
  Malden.
• 16:31
  And I'm Megan Lyons and I, like Annie said, served as the parish minister for nine years
• 16:37
  and left in 2017 to basically to have my kid.
• 16:42
  And I'm a single mom by choice and I knew I wanted to pour my heart into trying to be
• 16:46
  able to have him.
• 16:48
  And what I dreamed of came to be and he's now four and I needed another way to pay my
• 16:58
  rent and this crazy thing happened where our interim minister left after half of her two
• 17:05
  year term.
• 17:07
  And so I came back and it's just been this wonderful open hearted reunion of being with
• 17:15
  people that I know and I love and being there for this past year part time has just been
• 17:21
  such a gift and being with Annie and watching Annie's leadership is inspiring to me too.
• 17:25
  I grew up in and around Boston and grew up UU, being in the choir and being part of the
• 17:35
  Our Whole Lives program as a young adult, as a young ninth grader, which is a comprehensive
• 17:40
  sexuality education program so it just affirms what it is to be a human being.
• 17:46
  It was a really shaping experience and it kept me around thinking this faith says it's
• 17:53
  great to be you.
• 17:54
  There's nothing bad or wrong or broken about you.
• 17:58
  You're lovely.
• 17:59
  You're human.
• 18:01
  And so being part of a faith that says you are in the world to change the world.
• 18:10
  You're born to manifest the glory that's within you.
• 18:13
  That's been a part of me figuring out how to live my faith.
• 18:17
  I became a chaplain at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and I did that for a number
• 18:23
  of years and I found that my calling was elsewhere.
• 18:26
  I kept fainting on the job.
• 18:28
  It was terrible.
• 18:30
  I'd get really scared of what was happening and so much blood or a domestic violence situation
• 18:38
  that would scare me and I'd faint and it was terrible for the people who were experiencing
• 18:43
  a chaplain who'd come to be with them and then I'd say, excuse me, I've got to step
• 18:47
  out.
• 18:48
  And I wanted to do that job very much but my physical self couldn't mind over matter
• 18:54
  it anymore.
• 18:55
  So I decided I wanted to be in a little bit different set up that I could not be afraid
• 19:00
  in that particular way.
• 19:02
  And I loved my ministry in Bedford just knowing that it's coming to an end in a few weeks
• 19:08
  here.
• 19:09
  It makes me sad but it's been a wonderful chapter and I miss it already.
• 19:15
  So I'm understanding that you were here just for a year or whatever?
• 19:19
  Yeah I did nine years and then I did a five year break and then I've just been back this
• 19:23
  one year.
• 19:24
  And you're leaving?
• 19:25
  Yes, it's ending.
• 19:28
  Yeah, we've hired, we've called actually.
• 19:33
  We say we call a minister when we vote on their coming and we called a new senior minister.
• 19:40
  So Reverend Jamie Hinson Rieger is going to start in August and I will go back to exclusively
• 19:46
  being the minister of faith development and then yeah we'll lose Megan which is the saddest
• 19:50
  but she'll still be around.
• 19:52
  I'll be the minister at First Parish in Waltham.
• 19:56
  Oh good, oh nice.
• 19:58
  I'm looking forward to it.
• 19:59
  I don't know them at all and you know my heart's in Bedford so it's hard to say goodbye.
• 20:06
  Yep, a new chapter, new adventure though, new opportunities for change.
• 20:13
  So today's show is about social impact storytelling and you know when the point of the podcast
• 20:25
  is to talk about storytelling and different types of storytelling and that's why we have
• 20:29
  such a varied types of guests because we tell all kinds of stories and we do believe in
• 20:35
  storytelling can make a difference.
• 20:39
  Social impact storytelling raises awareness of issues in your community and around the
• 20:42
  world and these impact stories put a face or a name on your organization, maybe bring
• 20:48
  your mission to life and provide a glimpse into the lives or the individuals of the community
• 20:53
  and these stories are going to connect with our emotions and sometimes inspire people
• 20:58
  to take an action which is really the goal.
• 21:00
  I noticed on the website it was talking about welcoming folks of every sort of religious
• 21:04
  background with agnostics, humanists, pagans, theists, atheists, Jews, Christians, Muslims
• 21:09
  and Buddhists united around worship activism and connecting the world and nature and the
• 21:15
  human society.
• 21:16
  So that's a really casting a really wide net.
• 21:19
  It's a wide net.
• 21:20
  It's a wide net.
• 21:21
  Yeah, for sure.
• 21:24
  So you talked about the different communities that you support.
• 21:29
  I know that we are advocates and activists for the LGBTQ community and I know that you
• 21:35
  are too and we drive by, we live really close by to the church so we drive by the church
• 21:40
  all the time so we always see the yellow and blue lights that are on supporting Ukraine.
• 21:45
  Can you share some stories about any programs that you have in place to help these different
• 21:51
  populations and have you seen any change in these areas?
• 21:56
  Yeah, I mean, you know, nationally, because I was just at this conference, it's really
• 22:03
  on my mind, you know, nationally we are doing some really important work.
• 22:09
  Right now we're helping, you know, trans folks who don't feel safe in their home states anymore
• 22:13
  or people who have trans children who don't feel safe anymore in their states because
• 22:18
  they're being criminalized to move to safer states and I think that's really important
• 22:24
  and it's new because unfortunately, while transphobia is not new, this particular form
• 22:29
  of backlash that's coming with all these laws that are criminalizing things like drag shows,
• 22:34
  things like getting your kids healthcare that's gender affirming, you know, that's really
• 22:39
  causing people to be rightly very scared and want to relocate and a lot of our congregations
• 22:44
  that are in those red states, that are in those states with those laws are really fighting
• 22:50
  for people's lives and they're like the one safe haven and they're under a lot of threat
• 22:55
  and it makes me feel so lucky to be in a much safer state, not to say we don't have problems
• 23:02
  and it also makes me want to figure out how do we use our resources to support some of
• 23:07
  those congregations that are on the front lines of those fights because it's scary out
• 23:14
  there.
• 23:15
  But I don't know if you want to talk about what we do do at our congregation.
• 23:20
  Well, so I think a number of years ago, the Social Responsibility Council, which is our
• 23:27
  body of folks, elected seven folks who help raise funds and clarify how to use our vision
• 23:41
  and mission in service of doing good for the world, social responsibility polled people
• 23:50
  because of your time at church.
• 23:54
  What organizations do you care about?
• 23:55
  Are you passionate about?
• 23:56
  Do you do because like through church work and there were over 60 of them.
• 24:02
  So the church was able to put up these solar panels and it was a sort of a groundbreaking
• 24:12
  situation because the Bedford's Historical Commission, for very good reasons, wanted
• 24:20
  to take care of and preserve the beauty of one of the first three buildings in town to
• 24:26
  have a town become a town back in the early 1700s.
• 24:30
  You had to have a church, a meeting house, and a school.
• 24:33
  So just to sort of without care stick up solar panels on one of the oldest buildings in town,
• 24:40
  got them worried, understandably.
• 24:43
  But through, well, a lawsuit ultimately, but also through communicating about why this
• 24:50
  would make not only be able to have solar panels for First Parish, but make a statement
• 24:56
  that if you can do something, you should do something and many other local organizations
• 25:02
  said, you know, I guess it is possible to do an updated for the contemporary time thing.
• 25:09
  The panels are also very non-visible.
• 25:13
  They're not affronting to the eye, but even if one saw them, then someone might say, wow,
• 25:19
  this ancient building also supports change.
• 25:24
  We live in a world that's just collapsing around us because of climate change.
• 25:29
  And to do nothing is selfish, foolish, and without foresight for all the generations
• 25:38
  to come.
• 25:39
  So I would say First Parish cares enormously about climate justice work.
• 25:43
  I would also say immigration has been a very important part of just an awareness that the
• 25:54
  world we're a part of.
• 25:56
  Do we need borders in the ways that treat some people as criminals and separate them
• 26:04
  from their families?
• 26:05
  And we were able to have a guest in our church for three years.
• 26:12
  Her name's Maria and what a delightful human she is.
• 26:18
  To have her live there was an inspiration to really anyone who met her personally, but
• 26:26
  also because she was there.
• 26:29
  All sorts of people could raise awareness of how ridiculous a lot of our systems are
• 26:37
  that penalize and harm and terrorize folks who just want to live with their families
• 26:47
  in the states.
• 26:48
  I really...
• 26:49
  All right, so those two are some.
• 26:51
  We've had people lie down in pipelines.
• 26:55
  We've got the idea of renaming Faneuil Hall because it was named after a slave trader.
• 27:05
  So there's our minister emeritus, John Gibbons, is working to organize to help support a name
• 27:13
  change.
• 27:16
  I remember being part of a group of, I'll say women, it was all women.
• 27:25
  I think it was all women who are artists or who love and value the arts.
• 27:32
  About 10, about 14 or so years ago, they wanted to bring alive the traditions of art within
• 27:42
  our congregational life.
• 27:44
  So we had a series of events like during the sermon, somebody painted a live picture of
• 27:53
  a scene that she felt inspired to paint while listening to the sermon and it swapped artists
• 27:59
  during that.
• 28:01
  Then we had evening painting classes for anyone who thought, I don't know what I'm doing,
• 28:05
  this is not me, but I kind of want to try.
• 28:08
  And they came and painted.
• 28:09
  And so it started small, just little bubbles of people wanting to be involved with bringing
• 28:14
  the arts out into the community.
• 28:16
  And from there, all of these women created a gallery.
• 28:22
  I stopped even really going to any meetings because they really had the wind in their
• 28:28
  sails.
• 28:29
  They didn't need some stamp of approval from a staff member.
• 28:32
  There was just a yes to so much of First Parish life, but in particular at that time, this
• 28:39
  energy of creating a gallery.
• 28:41
  The gallery has been a place where young people had their art shown, people who were from
• 28:48
  an oppressed group had their statement about what it's like to be themselves understood
• 28:55
  more deeply.
• 28:58
  Finally we had a group of people who want to show a Ukrainian artist.
• 29:04
  And it will cost a bunch of money potentially to have, to ensure and protect the art because
• 29:12
  it's a very famous Ukrainian artist.
• 29:14
  And we imagine we might have the risk of somebody coming in to take it.
• 29:18
  We hope that that would never be the case, but it's going to be beautiful art.
• 29:21
  And we just approved having this show.
• 29:27
  So all of these shows have gone on for 10 years now.
• 29:29
  I could say more of them, but anytime somebody wants to see a beautiful art show, we just
• 29:36
  go upstairs to the gallery and it's really an inspiration.
• 29:42
  Just since you explicitly asked about LGBTQ stuff, I wanted to circle back on that if
• 29:47
  that's okay.
• 29:48
  Yeah, yeah.
• 29:49
  So we, I can briefly mention this program called OWL, Our Whole Lives, which is a comprehensive
• 29:55
  sexuality curriculum that we have curriculums that go from like kindergartners who are just
• 30:02
  learning about like, what is a body?
• 30:04
  What is a family?
• 30:05
  Like how do I keep my body safe and private for me, the parts that are supposed to be
• 30:09
  private for me and all of that, to elders who are dealing with like changing bodies
• 30:13
  and how do I be a sexual person in my last chapter of life?
• 30:17
  But our kind of our flagship program of that program is the seventh through ninth grade
• 30:23
  curriculum.
• 30:24
  And we did just run that with like 16 kids who signed up and a lot of them are kids whose
• 30:30
  families are very involved in our congregation, but not all of them.
• 30:33
  Some of them come from out from the community to be part of this program and it is a very
• 30:38
  gender affirming program.
• 30:41
  It's affirming of people of all genders, transgender identity, all sexualities, and it's something
• 30:48
  we try to keep really up to date.
• 30:50
  And so I think that's a really important piece of education we offer, not only to our own
• 30:54
  youth but to other youth.
• 30:56
  And the other thing that I think is so crucial in this area is our youth groups.
• 31:01
  Megan mentioned how beautiful our youth groups are and they're like one of my favorite things
• 31:05
  about working at First Parish.
• 31:07
  I love our youth groups.
• 31:09
  And we have out trans kids in our youth groups and we've really tried to create a safe space.
• 31:15
  And I know, I think it's really important because like our middle school youth group
• 31:19
  has been really boy dominated this year and it's like so sweet to me to see these little
• 31:25
  12 year old boys trying to sort of posture and be like, hey bro, yeah, you're gonna do
• 31:28
  that bro.
• 31:29
  But like all this sort of like traditionally masculine posturing and they're like still
• 31:34
  so sweet, so kind.
• 31:35
  When someone says, you know, oh my pronouns are he and they, they don't bat an eye.
• 31:39
  When somebody seems like there's same sex crushes or whatever, they're totally supportive.
• 31:45
  And that I don't think is happening necessarily in the school at large from what I hear.
• 31:50
  And I think it's really important that we create a space where people can feel safe
• 31:54
  and be kind and loving and create the types of masculinity that we want to be seeing in
• 31:59
  our world and the types of just people of all genders that we want to be seeing.
• 32:03
  No, very, very important.
• 32:06
  And we know that there isn't always a safe space for LGBTQ youth.
• 32:17
  And it's important to be able to tell the story that that's out there and that's available.
• 32:24
  And here's, you are welcome here and it's a safe space for you.
• 32:28
  So I really do appreciate you sharing that.
• 32:34
  We're starting to run out of time, but I did want to just ask real quick about, you know,
• 32:40
  you talked about the solar panels.
• 32:47
  You are a green sanctuary congregation.
• 32:51
  That's due to the environmental ministries that you're doing or the social justice work
• 32:58
  that you're doing.
• 33:00
  What other things are you doing with that side of the church?
• 33:05
  We have a really active environmental justice committee.
• 33:09
  They're like these really dedicated organizers.
• 33:12
  A lot of them are involved in like Mothers Out Front as well.
• 33:16
  And they really push us as a congregation to live these values like with urgency.
• 33:24
  And you know, it's so hard right now with climate change.
• 33:27
  We obviously can tell it's happening.
• 33:29
  It's terrifying.
• 33:30
  A lot of us, I mean, I'm scared and there's so much urgency.
• 33:34
  And then to figure out what are the right strategic responses to the urgency is really
• 33:40
  hard.
• 33:41
  We just had a really challenging debate at our general assembly where some young adults
• 33:46
  brought a very intense divestment resolution that would have taken a really big impact
• 33:52
  on the financial well-being of our association.
• 33:56
  We brought it with so much passion and with very real lived experiences of being on the
• 34:00
  front lines of protests against Line 3 in Minnesota and being abused by the police and
• 34:06
  the police being bankrolled by Enbridge and knowing that we have some holdings in Enbridge.
• 34:10
  My church is sending cops to hurt me basically.
• 34:14
  And it was so heartbreaking.
• 34:15
  We didn't pass the resolution because it was so intense in its outcome on the financial
• 34:22
  well-being of our association.
• 34:24
  And we had a similar, much smaller, much more chill type of debate within our own congregation
• 34:31
  about divesting our little endowment.
• 34:32
  I mean, it's not little compared to most churches.
• 34:35
  We have a very large endowment compared to most of our congregations.
• 34:38
  Many have no endowment whatsoever.
• 34:40
  But compared to real money, it's like, okay, this is not that big of a deal, right?
• 34:45
  But deciding like, okay, are we going to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies?
• 34:49
  Are we going to divest from every fossil fuel holding period forever?
• 34:53
  What is the right thing to do?
• 34:54
  It's so hard because there's no clear answers.
• 34:57
  And so I'm so grateful to our Environmental Justice Committee because they push us and
• 35:02
  they say like, we can do more and we can do more and we can do more.
• 35:05
  And that's how we keep growing.
• 35:07
  And we keep doing more because as we know, like this is an emergency and we need to be
• 35:11
  responding as best we can within the wild constraints of global capitalism.
• 35:17
  A couple years ago, we had Bill McKibben come and speak.
• 35:22
  And I remember a moment at the end of his talk where he said, if you have finished your
• 35:29
  career and you're retired, you don't have anything to lose by doing something where
• 35:36
  you get arrested.
• 35:38
  And a quite elder person from our congregation lay down in a pipeline and said, go ahead,
• 35:46
  arrest me.
• 35:47
  Let's make this a front page thing where you're arresting someone who's 80 something years
• 35:50
  old.
• 35:51
  You can put it on.
• 35:52
  I don't need a resume.
• 35:53
  I'm not trying to prove to the next employer that I'm a fine upstanding citizen.
• 35:59
  In fact, this is our vision of a fine upstanding citizen, somebody who says, this isn't right.
• 36:06
  A very small group of people are getting extremely wealthy while the people at the bottom are
• 36:12
  struggling and our environment is paying the cost of this.
• 36:17
  So people think motivated by inspirational speakers, by people who sit there and do the
• 36:24
  research and put it out on our announcement list and those of us who read it and try to
• 36:29
  have those conversations in small gatherings of people to think, it does take a small group
• 36:35
  of committed citizens to change the world.
• 36:39
  That's the difference that has ever been made.
• 36:40
  That's Margaret Mead.
• 36:41
  But we can make a difference.
• 36:47
  And our environmental justice group says, you don't have to like everything that we
• 36:57
  tell you, but we're going to keep trying to present the facts and the information so that
• 37:03
  we don't have our eyes glaze over and so that we try to do the one next right thing.
• 37:10
  One step at a time.
• 37:12
  Yeah.
• 37:13
  Well, that's all the time we have for today.
• 37:15
  I could sit here and talk about this all day.
• 37:20
  But I want to thank you both for being here and for sharing your stories and sharing the
• 37:24
  stories of social justice and change and the needs that are out there for our young people,
• 37:31
  for them to feel safe and all the things that the UU is doing to create that safe space.
• 37:38
  And we're hoping people will hear this podcast and the word will get out and you'll have
• 37:44
  more people coming to your doors saying, Hey, we heard about you and we want to learn more.
• 37:49
  So thank you very, very much for your candor and just being honest.
• 37:55
  Thank you for having me.
• 37:56
  Yeah.
• 37:57
  Thank you so much.
• 37:58
  This was a delight.
• 37:59
  Thank you.
• 38:00
  And to our listeners, whether you hear us locally from the BTV studios in Bedford, Massachusetts
• 38:05
  or across the globe on such podcast channels as Spotify, Apple podcasts or Amazon prime,
• 38:11
  thanks for listening.
• 38:13
  We hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see you next time.
• 38:16
  Happy storytelling.