How My Faith Informs My Work

There are 7 UU principals that we as a faith tradition embrace. You can find them here.

They are important parts of my being that I take with me to work every day.

I am an AmeriCorps Volunteer In Service To America (VISTA). The VISTA mission is to build community and fight poverty. It was started in 1964 as the domestic equivalent to the Peace Corps. I am not paid, I receive a living stipend. I am not a citizen of Dubuque, I do not pay taxes. I am stationed as a soldier against poverty in Dubuque, Iowa because it is where I thought my skills and experience would benefit people the most.

I took this position because I am often thoughtful of our fourth principal, “a free and responsible search for meaning.” Sometimes I think I find it, like I currently do with this quote.

"The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and is not ethnically innocent. [It is not independent of geography.] The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order." Gustavo Gutierrez in, "The Power of the Poor in History"

I fight this war because of the first and second principles. Every person has inherent worth and dignity. The existence of poverty often ignores that fact. Our second principle is offended by poverty. Poverty is an injustice, inequity, and lacks compassion in human relations.

My position was created to “encourage and facilitate collaboration, and communication” between organizations with a goal of working to end poverty and create opportunity. Faithfulness demands me to use, and encourage other to use “the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process.”

My duty is systems change. It is a slow and often painful process for those in it. I cannot go about changing a system without first a reverence and “respect for the interdependent web of all existence.” But respect is not a call for inaction; it is my call to make the world a better place.

In this position, I swore to “support and defend the Constitution of the US against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without mental reservation or purpose of evasion; And that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter." My duty is to fight poverty. If it were not for my faith, I could not have made this oath. We share “the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all,” and some days, that is all I need to get back to work.