As Unitarian Universalists, we don’t believe in a hell where people spend eternity after death. But I do believe that hells exist on earth in the here and now: in the rising tides of island nations facing climate emergency, in the prison cells of Rikers Island, and in the cascade of suffering in drug addiction. I believe it is our duty to fight to destroy these hells and work to create heaven in its stead. This is the work of social justice. Whether joyfully defending poll workers during the critical ballot counts of Philadelphia in November of 2020, organizing a “die-in” at my corporate office in support of Black Lives Matter in 2014, or participating in civil disobedience with the Poor People’s Campaign in 2018, I have found spiritual nourishment in the work of public protest.

I am a strategic leader and thinker when it comes to organizing. In my work with POWER Interfaith, I have learned the importance of centering the voices most impacted and how to build power across very diverse constituencies. I’ve encountered the challenges and the life-giving hope that comes with organizing within congregations but I have learned from my training and on-the-ground experience that faith based communities offer a unique and critical voice in the work of speaking truth to power and building a new world transformed by our care.

I have also been committed to the work of private witness in various scenarios. Supporting homeless queer teens at a shelter in New York City, working at family planning clinic in rural Ohio, and helping prisoners fill out Pell Grants to support their college education are just some of the ways in which I've participated in social justice on the smaller scale.