Thank You, Meg Riley!
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It was sometime in the 1980s. We were at a UU Religious Educators retreat northeast of Minneapolis and I remember my roommate saying from the other twin bed in our room, “Ginger, I think I should let you know I am a lesbian.” My response was, “Oh, I just thought you were a graduate student.”
Well, that graduate student, the Meg Riley we all know today, has become a student of American 20th & 21st century culture beyond all expectations, and a religious educator extraordinaire.
At that early RE retreat Meg Riley was creating programs to help young people feel like they belonged and that they had worth. Her entire ministry has focused on that—helping people of all ages and from all circumstances of life feel like they belong and have worth.
I remember when she invited me to lead a workshop at GA on supporting youth advisors. It was my first GA and she thought I had something to offer. Today she doesn’t so much create programs as she embodies them, as she nurtures others in their innovative creativity. She pulls people into the midst of the fray and holds them up and has their back. The song “Lean on Me” comes to mind.
When she became the Director of the UUA Youth Office she identified young leaders, took a chance on them and supported their development. Many of them shine today in our congregations and in our movement. And from her role at the Washington Office, look what “Standing on the Side of Love/Side with Love” did for the voice and identity of Unitarian Universalism—of understanding who we are and the impact we can create in the world.
As an outstanding student of our culture, Meg has challenged us and sounded the alarm again and again. She was an early prophet studying and warning about the dangers of the radical religious right and alerting us to the rise of white supremacy. She was early at calling out our role in the white supremacy culture. With love and compassion, she has consistently been willing to make us uncomfortable and to call us to task when we seemed oblivious or wanting to ignore hurt, pain, injustice and evil. Meg is present in the world as it is.
This enables her to listen, comfort and share the pain and longing with many of us when we lose heart. Many have called her a “ministers’ minister.” I think it is fair to say hundreds of disillusioned ministers, religious educators, administrators, youth and congregants have called and emailed Meg to be heard and to be understood. Another song, “You’ve Got a Friend,” comes to mind.
All of the above is why Meg has been such an outstanding leader of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. It is Meg’s being and wisdom that has enabled the growth of our prison ministry, of our support for our military chaplains, of creating a home for innovative learning fellows and a sanctuary for those longing for Unitarian Universalism but not yet able to find it in their immediate environment.
It has been a gift to have Meg Riley as the senior minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship. We will do all in our power to continue the strength, purpose and heart that Meg has given us. She has been our prophet, our teacher, our minister, and yes, our friend. Thank you, Meg. And may the world continue to be blessed by your wisdom, your strength, your empathy and your love.
Rev. Luke obtained her Masters of Divinity degree in 2001 from Meadville Lombard Theological School, where she received the Roberta Nelson Award for Excellence in Religious Education. She was ordained the following year by River Road Unitarian Church.She is a past member of the Unitarian Universalist Panel on Theological Education, chair of the Church of the Larger Fellowship Board, a past member of the Unitarian Universalist Associations President’s Council and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Retired Ministers and Partners board.She received the Unitarian Universalist Skinner Sermon Award in 2000 to the preacher of the sermon best expressing Unitarian Universalism’s social principles that year.In 2013 she received the Meadville Lombard Theological School Alumni/ae Service Award for her exemplary service to the school.In 2015 she received the 44th Annual Unitarian Universalist Angus H. MacLean Award for Excellence in Religious Education.Her article “The Children’s Fire is the Community Fire” was published in Essex Conversations 2001.Her article “Love as the Ethical Basis” was published in Humanist Voices in Unitarian Universalism and the UU World Spring 2017. Her passions for children, youth and families, spiritual growth, pastoral care and social justice have been at the heart of her ministry.
- Thank You, Meg Riley! - July 1, 2020
