Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you well. On April 13, Wednesday (7.00 – 8.30 p.m. EST) we will have the great pleasure to hear from two eminent UU Ministers who will share their personal experience of Islam and Muslims. Since January 2022, we have invited a number of UU Ministers to talk to us about Islam from various points-of-view including historical, theological and spiritual.  In our April 13 zoom meeting we will hear two UU Ministers from very different backgrounds speak of Islam and Muslims from a personal or experiential viewpoint.

Our first Distinguished Guest Speaker will be REV. KRISTEN PSAKI, affiliated community minister with the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder in Colorado. She received her Masters of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in NYC (2014) with a focus in Psychology and Religion and a concentration in Depth Theology, a Jungian-rooted approach to unlocking the mysteries of psyche and soul, an approach which informs her life and work as a minister and a psychedelic guide. She also holds advanced training in Mindfulness-Based Psychedelic Therapy through the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness.  She identifies as a white, cis-gendered, queer and temporarily able-bodied woman who grew up with class privilege. Raised Catholic, she joined an evangelical Christian community as a teenager before seeking the guidance of Buddhism and the practice of Yoga as a young adult. She currently finds connection and truth through the earth-based practices of her ancestors. Trained as an end-of-life and crisis chaplain, she also specializes in Psychedelic Therapy through Death, Dying, Grief and Loss.

Due to a very full schedule, Rev. Psaki was unable to be with us in person today. However, she pre-recorded a 20-minute overview of “Listening with Islam,” a sermon she delivered on February 21, 2016 in Boulder, Colorado. In her narrative, Rev. Psaki talks about her visit to a Muslim mosque for the first time and being struck by the warm welcome of the Muslim women worshippers who invited her to pray with them. For her the moment of transformation came when she heard the Adhan, or Call to Prayer which precedes the five daily prayers. Its beautiful music awakened her soul to the centrality of Jamal or Beauty in Islam. Rev. Psaki sees in Jamal the primordial, universal experience which links all peoples and religions.

Following Rev. Psaki’s recording, Dr. Joe Brennan and Dr. Riffat Hassan will have a brief discussion on its tone and contents. All interested attendees are welcome to join in the discussion.

Our second Distinguished Guest Speaker will be REV. DR. LUCY HITCHCOCK, a leading activist for economic and environmental justice.  She serves on the Board and leads a Green New Deal task force for Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community. Her special concern is to mobilize UUs to change their own, as well as to lobby to change their local and federal government’s practices that contribute to rising temperatures and disasters.  She served thirty years of extension, new congregation, and settled ministry in Fargo and Bismarck, North Dakota, Washington County, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, Miami, Florida, and the Extension Department of the UUA in Boston.

Rev. Dr. Hitchcock was married from 2000 to 2011 to Ibrahima Seck, a Muslim.  She lived for 1-2 months at a time on their farm in Djogo and with his family in Thiès, Senegal, a predominantly Islamic nation in West Africa.  They met at the WTO in Seattle in 1999 which Ibrahima, who trains small farmers in organic agriculture, attended as the representative of a West African NGO. She was then serving a new, multicultural congregation in Seattle. They share a commitment to global sustainable agriculture and remain good friends.

Rev. Dr. Hitchcock’s thought-provoking sermon entitled “Daring to Comprehend the Attraction of Islam,” delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Miami on October 10, 2004, is attached. She will be interviewed for about 30 minutes by Dr. Riffat Hassan and will respond to questions about her sermon, her experience of being married to an African Muslim and spending time each year with her husband and his family in Senegal. She will also answer questions about her participation in Islamic devotions with her husband and her perspective on how Islam is practiced in Senegal.

Please read the two attached sermons prior to the meeting on April 13, and save the date for our exciting double program. The zoom link for the program is given below.

Topic: Rev. Psaki & Rev. Dr. Lucy Hitchcock -Dennis Neyman’s Zoom Meeting

Time: Apr 13, 2022 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88510056241