AISHA HAUSER, MSW, CRE-ML Lead Ministry Team, Church of the Larger Fellowship
I have always had a strong personality and for much of my professional life, I took that to mean that I can be a “good leader.” In time and with many experiences of leadership throughout my life and in different contexts, I have come to realize that leadership is not about telling people “what to do” or “asserting authority.” Rather, true leadership is about modeling and collaboration.
When in a position of leadership, that person is more visible to more people and what the leader does and says is under more scrutiny than others in any given system.
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran minister who has gained notoriety over the years for her progressive social views, while also being a devoted Christian and follower of the bible.
A few years ago, I attended a lecture she gave promoting one of her books and she began by talking about authenticity in leadership and how there is a lack of authentic leaders in the U.S. Bolz-Weber is almost six feet tall and has many visible tattoos. She is bold and unapologetic in how she asserts the teachings of Jesus, centering care for the under-resourced, underrepresented and targeted.
She told us that it is useless to try and
hide some part of yourself when you are a faith leader, “Whatever you think you are hiding, people already know.” She was alluding to the fact that as a leader, you are always modeling and being true to yourself and others is the way to be a leader that people can and will trust.
It is hard to be both authentic and bold. In the age of social media, where people with any platform are scrutinized more than ever, it can be scary to show vulnerability and authenticity.
Even in the face of this, I assert it is important to model what it means to be true to the values and ideals you hold dear.
As a Unitarian Universalist, I have taken to heart the ways I can model what it means to center liberation, love and community care. I try to model what it means to move through the messiness of being human. I often share through my sermons and on the podcast The VUU, the ways I grapple with uncertainty, injustice and how to respond to the enormity of the ills in the world.
I almost never have any “answers,” what I do offer is what I think about and why. I offer the ways my UU faith informs how I imperfectly navigate the world. Perhaps the most important thing I do is show up
Authentic Leadership, cont. on page 5
“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.”
charles dickens
in this issue
AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP
Aisha Hauser
SERVICE & LEADERSHIP
Multiple authors
LEADERS
Frances Koziar
A FAREWELL MESSAGE FROM BETH
Beth Murray
THE CLF HAS A PODCAST!
SERVICE & LEADERSHIP
How do you relate to service and leadership? What service and leadership has been meaningful in your life?
STEVE CLF member, incarcerated in IN
Ever since I can remember, I’ve always had this energy about myself, where people around me kind of look forward or towards the next move I’m going to make. The only problem was that I was making the wrong moves. I was leading people down a wrong path that only ends in destruction and chaos. I had a great gift from a higher power, but I was not aware of it. I was walking blind with a great gift and without really knowing the power of it. It took catching a 70 year sentence and a lot of reflecting to even realize that I had that type of energy of leadership. With time and reflection on my life came a lot of understanding. Seeing what
I was doing wrong and finding out that a lot of the things I was taught had no real truth to them.
It has only been a few years since I’ve woken up from walking blind, but now I see. I see really well and understand now that service comes from good leadership. Good leadership, as I see it now, is teaching the right thing, a moral sense of right and wrong. It’s showing others why something is wrong or right.
If you are truly living by the 8 UU principles, I would like for you to know that they have power to them. One of those powers comes from leadership and service, and wherever you are, maybe there are people that are always looking and learning
from each other. If you are staying true to the UU way, there will always be someone that can learn or gain knowledge from you. We are all leaders in our own way. We all learn from each other, just make sure that you are teaching what’s right and not abusing your power.
Today I’m thankful to have woken up and will keep sharing the knowledge that I’ve gained so far in this lifetime. Everyday I learn something new and try to pass it along to the people around me, turning it to a topic of conversation. The 7th UU principle, “respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part,” tells us to depend on each other, because at the end of the day, all we have is each other. ¢
PHOTO BY JACQUELINE O’GARA ON UNSPLASH
GARY
CLF member, incarcerated in SC
Part of the Jaycee Creed reads that “service to humanity is the best work of life.” It isn’t often that prison inmates are afforded the opportunity to pay it forward, be of service to others, think and act beyond the confines of razor-wire and cell blocks. Yet, character development is precisely the object at the MacDougall Correctional Institution in the low country of South Caroline.
The CBU, or Character Building Unit, is an unusual environment for a prison. Inmates sign a “social contract” upon entering the program, committing to living the change they want in life daily while acting to have a positive influence on others who reside around them.
Accountability, responsibility, and respect are hallmarks as inmates raise funds for St. Judes Research Hospital, caring for stray and feral cats, conducting information sessions for aspiring criminal justice students in local high schools, all while CBU inmates work to develop leadership skills as part of a comprehensive leadership training and relapse prevention to re-enter society as productive citizens.
Statistically, few inmates ever had or sought opportunities for service to others or leadership roles in society. The CBU seeks to change this dynamic and bring to the prison that Jaycee Creed that service to humanity is the best work of life. ¢
CLF member, incarcerated in CA
I want to be king of the world so I can fix everything and enhance the quality of life for all humanity. I do not believe service and leadership are separable. Any good leader is first a servant of the people. So anyone who desires personal power and cares about personal gain can not be a good leader.
I have led some Buddhist study groups and I have spent a lot of time not telling people what to believe, but asking the curious and interested seekers to just consider some things. I do not believe in control or even personal choices — I do not believe
in the existence of an individual. So my approach is not to give options for people to choose from. I expect each person will follow their own mind and I just watch, listen, and see where they are at. This way I know how to respond and it is never out of anger or the need to be right. Nor do I blame anyone for anything, how can I?
I have been incarcerated for 25+ years and I spent more of my youth in the system. The various kinds of service and leadership that have been most valuable to me in that time are the great leaders like Socretes, Jesus, Buddha, Ghani, Martin Luther King, Jr., and even Malcolm X. They led selflessly, a path I someday wish to walk. ¢
MIKE
PHOTO BY AARON BURDEN ON UNSPLASH
Leaders
FRANCES KOZIAR CLF member
Some / of the greatest gifts come from those / giving what they never received; leaders working / to create the welcome / they still have never felt; role models / wading against the river’s / flow, choosing to become the person they so desperately / wish they could see, as they lie awake through the ache / of a long night. So
many leaders fight alone, community lynchpins / who have never had a safe community, and ironically that connects us: we fight to do each other’s work, we keep going / in order to gift to each other what we so desperately want / for ourselves, selflove, self / apology,
and love / for those we have seen suffer unjustly / all pushing / us onward, despite how hope / can come and go / like the push and pull / of the tides.
May we breathe together / across our distances; seek to find / the course that will bring us back together / someday, as the sun / shimmers on a quiet / horizon, and we realize that while one kind of giving can destroy you, another is the lifeblood of love, another is the answer / to the questions that need answering, found in the early morning melodies of the wind, found in that celestial yearning / that each of us carries within.
PHOTO BY AINĀRS CEKULS ON UNSPLASH
Authentic Leadership, cont. from page 1
authentically and with a heart full of love, grace and a determination to do what I can to bring about liberation in all I do. ¢
Twenty Years Ago: A Farewell Message from Beth
BETH MURRAY
Prison Ministry Administrator, Church of the Larger Fellowship
Twenty years ago (January 2005), I was hired to work for the Church of the Larger Fellowship. I grew up UU, and I am involved in a local brick-and-mortar congregation, but I knew nothing about the CLF. One of my first tasks was to clean up and organize the supply closet. Back in 2005, I was a part-time CLF employee, working with congregations that wanted more UU resources. The CLF offered religious education, a library, and worship materials for a subscription fee. I managed the CLF library, group subscriptions to resources, and I processed new freeworld memberships. In addition, I managed the sale of jewelry. Yes, the CLF offered pendants, lapel pins, and notecards; and we sold a lot of merchandise to congregations wanting to give their volunteers a special gift.
In the spring of 2005, I started helping our 50 members experiencing incarceration by forwarding pen pal mail. At that time, the Worthy Now Prison Ministry did not yet exist, and not all of our 50 members had pen pals. So, it was an easy task.
The idea of offering correspondence courses and reading packets did not start until Chaplain Patty Franz was hired to be the Director of Prison Ministry. Although I did very little for our incarcerated members at that time, I was impressed with the resources Chaplain Pat made available and stunned by the growth of our prison ministry. Patty Franz grew this important ministry to nearly 400 members. It was clear that the CLF needed to increase the CLF staff to accommodate this growing ministry.
Between 2015 and 2020, under the direction of the Rev. Mandy Goheen and then the Rev. Rodney Lemery, our incarcerated membership reached over 1,000 members and the name
“Worthy Now Prison Ministry” started to be used. I was asked to do more for the Prison Ministry by printing and mailing classes and reading packets in addition to forwarding pen pal mail. I also started writing letters to our members behind bars, and getting letter responses that were engaging, heart-felt, angry, depressing, and shocking.
More and more of our staff conversations discussed how we could bring the feeling of church and UU spirituality into the prison systems. How could our members experiencing incarceration feel like they are part of a UU congregation and worthy of respect and dignity, regardless of their past, by using our words. We wanted the depth of our care and love to reach our members.
In 2020, the new CLF Leadership Team made a decision to have me work
Service & Leadership, continued on page 5
PHOTO BY NIC BERLIN ON UNSPLASH
full-time for the Worthy Now Prison Ministry. As I wrote letters to our incarcerated members, trying to comfort many for the inhumanity they experienced daily, I began to think over and over about my white privilege. Randy, incarcerated in Indiana, wrote the following words:
For most people waiting takes place in a doctor’s office, a teller’s line at the local bank, or in a drive-thru anticipating food. For others, maybe it’s waiting for your boyfriend to “pop the question” or for your child to come running out of school and greet you with a smile and a hug as the bell rings.
Whether it’s a few minutes or a few hours, waiting is normally over quickly and painlessly, and life goes on.
Unfortunately, for me waiting is my life. I wait every day, locked in a six-by-nine-foot cell 23 hours a day, for any sign of life from the outside world. I wake up and wait for breakfast to be shoved through my door. I wait to be hand-cuffed and taken out for my thirty minutes of recreation. I wait for lunch. I wait to be cuffed again and taken to the shower. I wait for the mail and hope for a message from the outside that I am not forgotten, and as the guard passes me by and leaves me empty handed, I wait for the feelings of hopelessness and despair to pass, so I can go to sleep and wake up to wait once again.
My service to Unitarian Universalism and the Worthy Now Prison Ministry is absolutely intact. While retired, I will still send donations, write holiday messages to our members experiencing incarceration, and be thinking about how your words, your phone calls, your actions have changed me.
What’s next for me? Here are a few things on my to-do list:
• I want to spend more time with family. I have a husband, two adult kids, and one grandson.
• Did you know that I’m a piano player? I’ll be spending more time on the bench. My daughter is an elementary school music teacher, and I have been enjoying playing for their winter and spring concerts!
• Going to the library
• Taking advantage of the amazing walking trails near my home
• I love to cook, but I feel like I rarely have time to look at new recipes. I’m trying to convince my husband to take a cooking class with me; although, that might be tough. He loves French fries and burgers, whereas I love veggies and cottage cheese!
I am thankful for the hundreds of volunteers and staff who have and will continue to be part of this important ministry. Thank you for allowing me to serve these last 20 years! ¢
Note: Beth will be in her position through January 2025, after which she will begin her retirement. We have hired Paul Spanagel to fill this position, and Beth has been training him to take over her role.
Beth’s Farewell, continued on page 5
We have a podcast now!
Our weekly worship services are now available on Apple Podcasts at this URL:
We know that only some of our members can access these services. We hope that you are able yet we also know that many facilities may not allow it. You may need to contact the chaplain at your facility. You may need to find it on a specific vendor. Please let us know how it’s going for you. We’re eager to know if you’re able to listen and how we can try to make it more accessible.
With the hope that, through this podcast, more of our members who are incarcerated or have limited internet access can experience our weekly worship services, we’d also love to include more of your words in upcoming services! Instead of a regular “For Your Reflection” section below, we’re asking for submission of chalice lighting words that can be used in worship. See below for more details.
SHARE YOUR GRATITUDE FOR BETH
To share your thoughts, tear off your answer and mail it back to us using the envelope included in the middle of this issue, or mail a separate piece of paper with your writing..
Our beloved long-time Prison Ministry administrator, Beth Murray, is retiring at the end of January. We will miss her so much, and want to share our gratitude for her many years of valuable ministry.
If you have words of gratitude or farewell blessings for Beth, please share them below, and we will share your words with her!
Angus MacLean
Church of the Larger Fellowship, UU
24 Farnsworth Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1409 USA NONPROFIT
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
BOSTON, MA
PERMIT NO. 55362
You can read back issues of Quest Monthly or get electronic versions of the text to share with friends (and much more) at questformeaning.org
Quest Monthly Editorial Team: Aisha Hauser, lead ministry team, Rose Gallogly, publications coordinator, Rev. JeKaren Bell, copyeditor
CLF Staff: Aisha Hauser, Christina Rivera, Michael Tino, lead ministry team; Jody Malloy, executive director; Beth Murray, prison ministry administrator; Rose Gallogly, publications coordinator; Cir L’Bert, Jr, prison ministry manager, David Pynchon, data services coordinator; Ashley Parent, communications specialist; Cameron Seymour-Hawkins, tech manager; Paul Spanagel, administrator
CLF Unitarian Universalist, 24 Farnsworth Street, Boston, MA 02210-1409 USA
Copyright 2024 Church of the Larger Fellowship. Generally, permission to reproduce items from Quest Monthly is granted, provided credit is given to the author and the CLF. ISSN 1070-244X
