2022 Response to Berry Street Essay: The Reverend Doctor Natalie Fenimore

Berry Street Lecture, Response #4 2022
Rev. Dr. Natalie M. Fenimore
Lead Minister & Minister of Lifespan Religious Education
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Shelter Rock

Thank you Mykal, for asking if we are prepared to reflect on the questions you ask:
Do we know our lineage?
Do we Honor the Ancestors?
Do we Enter with Intention?
Do we Invest in Covenant?
Do we Live into Call?
Do we have clear Practices of Care, Comfort, and Accountability?
Do we Match our Culture to our Values?

These questions speak to me as a Unitarian Universalists religious educator and ordained minister. We often say that Religious Education is central to Unitarian Universalism. I believe that it is not central because RE is the 6th day of school but because it can be a commitment to faith engagement and deepening – more than something taught and learned but that is something practiced and lived. It is an invitation to an entire community to engage in answering the kinds of questions you have asked today.

More than being about learning, it might be said that Unitarian Universalist religious education is about “unlearning”. Our faith tradition and the institutions which uphold it were – like all traditions and institutions in the US born in White Supremacy Culture. Linked to the so-called norms of it. Religious Educators, Kenny Wiley, Christina Rivera, and Aisha Hauser, used the White Supremacy Teach-Ins to show a way forward – to engage our congregations and communities in common revelation – and into the true covenant spoken of in the Cambridge Platform: a covenant lived out, not simply professed – to be saints by calling.

Historically, Unitarians stood apart from the Second Great Awakening – many thinking it too emotional and egalitarian. This tendency and the racism and sexism often accompanying it – kept many Unitarians from seeing the deep theological reflection of Black people and other People of Color as equal to that of Whites. Was the experience of enslaved people in hush harbors less instructive and transformational than Thoreau in his cabin? And, again, White Unitarian Universalists mostly stayed away from interaction with Black theological thought during the Black Power Movement, pushing to the side the power of the Black Jesus or the story of Black Islamic thought. What happens now? Both Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU) and Diverse Revolutionary Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM) are places which are engaged in deep theological study and action – building the resources for the needed honoring of UU elders, the knowing of lineages, the road to true covenant. These are places of joy and lament, of song and movement – places of the soul, body AND also of deep intellectual curiosity and insight.

Much of Unitarian Universalist religious education is now committed to a narrative approach to faith development. We tell stories to ourselves and about ourselves to try to figure out who Unitarian Universalists have been, are, and will become. Narrative theology requires both diverse stories and a commitment to reflection on the complicated stories of complicated humans. We can find a grounding in this shared, communal complexity – leave no one out on the path to wholeness.

I am Minister of Lifespan Religious Education at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock – and I am also Lead Minister at that congregation. I became what may be the first Black Woman Lead Minister at a Large Unitarian Universalist Congregation – I was soon followed by the Rev. Jacqueline Brett, Senior Minister at Eno River. I say this to note the unlearning that has yet to happen – unlearning what leadership looks like in our Association.

Last week, a retiring ministerial colleague at Shelter Rock led a final worship service. I went to the pulpit, as Lead Minister, to say a farewell and appreciation on behalf of the ministers and the congregation. I gave flowers and appreciation.

Immediately after the service there was cake! And as I stood speaking with members of the congregation – I was approached by someone who asked me to get the air conditioning turned up. I said that I could not do that – they asked me “Why Not” and I said because I am the minister and I am speaking with someone right this minute. They should speak with someone else. What I thought but did not say is: why are you asking me?

Could it be because, after all the drama and soul-searching of the last few years, there are still more people who look like me in the Facilities Staff than in the ministry. Intentionally or not, this person did not go to the retiring minister, a White woman, who was leading the service, and ask about the air conditioning.

I also wanted to shout out loud, that everyone to have the utmost respect for the Facilities Staff and to stop making them responsible for the comfort of each individual person – ’cause that is not their job.

As Rev. Slack reminds us: Our UU theology is communal. We are called to be in dialog and to build ministry together. I want UU religious education to be about giving us the structure, commitment, practice, and grounding to make this – our shared ministry and faith.