Read the full issue of this week’s newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal Sept. 12.

In this week’s issue, Rev. Jen Crow writes:

This community is always surprising me, always renewing my faith in the capacity of human beings to strive for the good, to open their hearts despite the sure pain it can bring right next to the joy, to take on the spiritual challenge of enacting their deepest values in their lives. 

Yesterday, I stepped into Room 200 of the State Office Building in St. Paul, ready to show my support for the end of life options bill that was finally getting a hearing in the legislature. The end of life options bill would allow a terminally ill person with less than six months to live to obtain a prescription from their doctor that would allow them to legally and peacefully end their own life. I’d been brought to that hearing room by Rev. Harlan Limpert, a long-time member of our congregation, who also leads the Interfaith Clergy for End of Life Options group. To put it simply, this group, and all of us gathered there in support of the bill yesterday, believe that each human being can and should make their own decisions about how to live and how to die. No one religious perspective should legislate reality for all of us. 

For those who live with terminal illness and really all of us, death is inevitable. With this bill, the degree of suffering each individual faces could be optional – with each terminally ill person deciding for themselves what makes life worth living, and what amount of pain makes life worth ending on their own terms.

When I stepped into Room 200, I expected to see a dozen or so members of our congregation there to support Harlan and this bill. What I saw instead floored me. There were at least three rows of us on one side of the room and by the time the hearing got started, members of First Universalist and other Unitarian Universalists from around the metro area had packed the room, standing in the back and filling in the seats in the overflow room. This issue mattered to many of us, and we were willing to show up and be counted, doing our best to make our voices heard and our values come alive in the world. 

This is who we are, and this is the work of the church. We may not all agree on exactly what laws should be enacted all the time. We do agree that each voice matters. We believe, together, that our faith is best known by our actions – or as our early founders said, Unitarian Universalists are known by our deeds, not our creeds. May we continue to surprise and inspire one another with our willingness to align our actions with our values, taking the risks that are right for each of us as we try to right this world. 

In gratitude,
Rev. Jen