First Parish Dorchester's Mother's Day Walk for Peace 2020
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attending the Indianapolis Women's March with my family in 2016
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building homes on a
UU College of Social Justice trip in Haiti in 2011
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"Elizabeth's dedication to the justice work of the UU faith has inspired many to recognize and claim their power."
-Iris Chalk, youth member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie, Luminary Leader and Worship Coordinator for GA Youth 2019-2020
“Elka is a gifted minister who brings a heart for pastoral care along with an always-deepening intersectional analysis. She is a connective, authentic leader. She often surprises me with her ability to name racism and oppression directly while coming from a place of deep compassion and humility. Elka has a deep commitment to our faith and an aspiration for us to live into our promise. I feel profoundly fortunate to have worked with her and learned from her in white anti-racist spaces.”
-Rachel Rott, Leadership Collective of Allies for Racial Equity
"Elizabeth has a true and infectious fire in the belly for social justice. She came into the All Souls Indy congregation in a newly formed, part time position and quickly built a solid foundation from which we can grow our Beloved Community work. She is also an articulate, engaging, and charming minister."
-Glennda McGann, Membership Coordinator, All Souls Unitarian Church, Indianapolis
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On the left, you will find my appearance on the Church of the Larger Fellowship VUU, representing the Leadership Collective of Allies for Racial Equity. I have served in leadership of ARE since 2011. Uprooting the white supremacy in me, in my faith and in our world is life affirming and vital work.
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social justice and prophetic ministry
Our work in our congregations is about building the beloved community among a small band of humans on this earth, which is a small effort towards building the beloved community in the larger world. This is the essential reason we are here: to make the world better, more just, more peaceful. It is our calling as people of faith to create a world where everyone has what they need and all people know their own worth. This is central to my call to ministry and permeates all of my work.
The Jewish notion of Tikkun Olum has long spoken deeply to me. The world is broken into little sparks of the divine all around and it is our job to collect them in order to repair the world. This can be done through acts of service, through systemic change and advocacy and through simple kindness and love shown to another human. In this way, I see that all work we do in congregations can be seen as justice work. Pastoral care repairs our souls and opens our hearts to be able to be more compassionate with the people around us. Justice work is best when it is born of joy and gratitude, of love for our human family and of desire for our own healing and collective liberation.
As a young queer person, I became deeply engaged in LGBTQ advocacy work. I served as the Women's Meeting Faciliator and Vice President of the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth in high school. When my parents divorced during my second year of college, my mother partnered with a woman. They married many years later when the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down. When I married Seth, I gained another gay set of parents. All this is to say that creating a world where our queer siblings never again fear discrimination or violence is deeply personal to me. I am married to a cisgendered man so I have a lot of hetero privilege even as I am not heterosexual myself, so I feel a sense of responsibility to use that to create change.
I am also deeply committed to smashing the patriarchy and creating a world where women have full agency over their bodies and their lives. I yearn for a country where women's ideas and contributions are valued at the same level as men's. I work to end rape culture, to call out toxic masculinity and to empower women to take up the space they need in the world. As someone who can easily share countless #metoo stories, this work is an essential part of my own journey. I am inspired by the female spirit to presevere, to be creative in how we resist and heal, and to use our pain as fuel for the work of justice and change.
My call to anti-racist, anti-oppressive justice work is as deep as my call to ministry. I believe strongly in Martin Luther King’s concept of the network of mutuality that asserts that there can be no justice for any if it is not for all of humanity. Francis Ellen Watkins Harper said "We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity and society cannot trample on the weakest and the feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul." This is a profound call to action. It is the work of each of us to create a most just and loving place for all of us. It is not charity, it is the work my our own healing and wholeness. Until all humans are free some the racism that weaves throughout our society, I am not free.
My mother has often noted that I have always had a strong sense of justice and fairness. In my household, we were taught the importance of every person, particularly in regards to queer and developmentally disabled people. My mother’s youngest brother was born with Down syndrome and their family made the then radical choice of raising him themselves when the doctors recommended he be sent to a home to live his thought to be short life. My uncle James, who is now in his fifties, and my godfathers, who were among many gay role models in my childhood, were very important figures to me as a child. When I began to see the ways in which people from these groups were treated outside of my family, it surprised and hurt me. Our ability to openly discuss these realities as a family was impressive.
Coming of age within our faith when I did has instilled in me a deep responsibility to be the best ally possible and to work in solidarity with communities of color. I have actively sought out opportunities to learn and teach anti-racism theories and have cross-cultural experiences. In my eight years of service as a leader of Allies for Racial Equity, I have developed a deep, nuanced and grounded identity as a white ally. I have learned and grown along with the organization and along with our larger faith.
In our increasingly multicultural world, it is essential that we continue the work of anti-racism, anti-oppression and social justice. We must forgive ourselves for our mistakes, while continuing to learn from them. We must continue to offer transformative and life affirming opportunities for people to grapple with the complexities of their identities within the matrix of oppressions. We must look at all aspects of our church lives through this lens. My dynamic and complex analysis of anti-racism, anti-oppression and social justice informs every aspect of my ministry.
As our faith tradition has moved more deeply into the work of dismantling white supremacy, I have answered the call to this work. I led White Supremacy Teach-In's in two congregations. I led another congregation in a conversation about embodying our anti-racism and a discernment process about whether to adopt the Eighth Principle. I have learned a lot about how to reach people at various points on their personal journey with privilege and accountability so that they can move towards deeper solidarity with communities of color. I believe that our collective liberation is central to who we are as a faith. I find such joy in helping people to continue to awaken to the ways in which privilege, power and oppression work within them and the world.
The Jewish notion of Tikkun Olum has long spoken deeply to me. The world is broken into little sparks of the divine all around and it is our job to collect them in order to repair the world. This can be done through acts of service, through systemic change and advocacy and through simple kindness and love shown to another human. In this way, I see that all work we do in congregations can be seen as justice work. Pastoral care repairs our souls and opens our hearts to be able to be more compassionate with the people around us. Justice work is best when it is born of joy and gratitude, of love for our human family and of desire for our own healing and collective liberation.
As a young queer person, I became deeply engaged in LGBTQ advocacy work. I served as the Women's Meeting Faciliator and Vice President of the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ Youth in high school. When my parents divorced during my second year of college, my mother partnered with a woman. They married many years later when the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down. When I married Seth, I gained another gay set of parents. All this is to say that creating a world where our queer siblings never again fear discrimination or violence is deeply personal to me. I am married to a cisgendered man so I have a lot of hetero privilege even as I am not heterosexual myself, so I feel a sense of responsibility to use that to create change.
I am also deeply committed to smashing the patriarchy and creating a world where women have full agency over their bodies and their lives. I yearn for a country where women's ideas and contributions are valued at the same level as men's. I work to end rape culture, to call out toxic masculinity and to empower women to take up the space they need in the world. As someone who can easily share countless #metoo stories, this work is an essential part of my own journey. I am inspired by the female spirit to presevere, to be creative in how we resist and heal, and to use our pain as fuel for the work of justice and change.
My call to anti-racist, anti-oppressive justice work is as deep as my call to ministry. I believe strongly in Martin Luther King’s concept of the network of mutuality that asserts that there can be no justice for any if it is not for all of humanity. Francis Ellen Watkins Harper said "We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity and society cannot trample on the weakest and the feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul." This is a profound call to action. It is the work of each of us to create a most just and loving place for all of us. It is not charity, it is the work my our own healing and wholeness. Until all humans are free some the racism that weaves throughout our society, I am not free.
My mother has often noted that I have always had a strong sense of justice and fairness. In my household, we were taught the importance of every person, particularly in regards to queer and developmentally disabled people. My mother’s youngest brother was born with Down syndrome and their family made the then radical choice of raising him themselves when the doctors recommended he be sent to a home to live his thought to be short life. My uncle James, who is now in his fifties, and my godfathers, who were among many gay role models in my childhood, were very important figures to me as a child. When I began to see the ways in which people from these groups were treated outside of my family, it surprised and hurt me. Our ability to openly discuss these realities as a family was impressive.
Coming of age within our faith when I did has instilled in me a deep responsibility to be the best ally possible and to work in solidarity with communities of color. I have actively sought out opportunities to learn and teach anti-racism theories and have cross-cultural experiences. In my eight years of service as a leader of Allies for Racial Equity, I have developed a deep, nuanced and grounded identity as a white ally. I have learned and grown along with the organization and along with our larger faith.
In our increasingly multicultural world, it is essential that we continue the work of anti-racism, anti-oppression and social justice. We must forgive ourselves for our mistakes, while continuing to learn from them. We must continue to offer transformative and life affirming opportunities for people to grapple with the complexities of their identities within the matrix of oppressions. We must look at all aspects of our church lives through this lens. My dynamic and complex analysis of anti-racism, anti-oppression and social justice informs every aspect of my ministry.
As our faith tradition has moved more deeply into the work of dismantling white supremacy, I have answered the call to this work. I led White Supremacy Teach-In's in two congregations. I led another congregation in a conversation about embodying our anti-racism and a discernment process about whether to adopt the Eighth Principle. I have learned a lot about how to reach people at various points on their personal journey with privilege and accountability so that they can move towards deeper solidarity with communities of color. I believe that our collective liberation is central to who we are as a faith. I find such joy in helping people to continue to awaken to the ways in which privilege, power and oppression work within them and the world.
