I have noticed the widespread use of the term Unitarian or UU as the preferred abbreviations of our 10-syllable name of Unitarian Universalism. With either shortening, Universalist goes unnamed. The joyful, activist, open-minded, welcoming religious choice of Universalism by the Working, Artisan and Agrarian classes gets short shrift. Within our own religious movement how much is fully understood and appreciated about our second U? Today’s homily is given in hopes that this OTHER sibling gets to shine as well as it deserves.

Darlene Pagano (she/her) has been with the emerging congregation, Live Oak UU Fellowship in Alameda for 16 years since its founding. As your Fellowship knows, this means that everything about us is done by US. A compulsive volunteer (and not interested in recovering) she has held multiple positions in the congregation including being one of the earliest Worship Leaders. Actually, just about every position at one time or another. Except singing in the quite beloved Choir, and that’s only because she can’t stay in the same key from one measure to the next.
In addition to having Live Oak Fellowship as an anchor for her fundamentally Religious Naturalist spirituality, Darlene has long oriented her life around Radical Feminism and came to Oakland in 1975 to live at the heart of what she believed to be the Progressive political center of the country. While that wasn’t EXACTLY true, Oakland has been the organizing heart of her life ever since. Since retiring, she immediately became involved with KPFA, going through their Apprenticeship program and became a producer, joined the local station board as a staff representative and now sits on the National Board of the Pacifica (Radio) Foundation.

We meet in person at 1924 Cedar Street and on Zoom for Worship Services on Sundays at 10:30 AM. If you’d like to attend via Zoom, please email worshiponline@bfuu.org for the meeting ID and link. You can also stream the service live and catch the replay on BFUU’s Youtube channel.