As a Unitarian Universalist and as a minister I have often been proud of our denomination’s leadership, (however imperfect), on social justice issues. It is perhaps the first reason I remained a UU when I went through my questioning teen years.

Now, as a community minister I find most of my collegial support and work taking place in an interfaith context. In so many ways this has been an awesome experience; there are fabulous people doing great work in every tradition. But it makes me appreciate even more when UUs show up and suddenly I am no longer among the few and sometimes even among the many!

In the past decade or so we UU’s have been strengthening our presence in the public square. Our gold shirts are known; people expect us. And when it comes to justice, particularly environmental justice, we need more people of faith to show up. No single faith group can do what needs to be done alone; we need everyone!

In this spirit, I want to extend an invitation to UU faith leaders (and I don’t mean just clergy), to please consider joining the GreenFaith Fellowship Program for 2022. It’s an opportunity to learn skills and bring people together to build the local, interfaith power we need for environmental justice and resilience. An added bonus is that you will get to meet people from all over the world of every faith and ethnicity rising for Environmental Justice. Together we are becoming the powerful faith coalition that is willing to work and act together, locally, nationally and globally, to support one another in our efforts to demand change and mitigate the climate crisis with compassion and equity.

I know so many of us care about the threats facing us and future generations. I met some of you at the recent Stop Line 3 effort in MN. I know many of you are leading the way in your congregations. If you know someone you would like to refer to this program, or if you are interested in joining yourself, please reach out to me at amy@greenfaith.org.

Personally, I would so enjoy getting to engage some more UUs with GreenFaith, but most importantly, we need the movement to grow big enough to win on our demands, and hold each other with love through the changes that lie ahead.

In faith and solidarity,
Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise