How do you Herd Cats? Feed them Brownies!
Rev. Harris Riordan’s Ministry at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton
By Judith Lavori Keiser
Harris Riordan’s ministry can be expressed in stories, both those she tells in her sermons and those she lived, especially during twenty-five years as minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton. As part of her retirement this June, she shared some of those stories with the UUFBR Legacy Group. They outline the evolution of our congregation and can guide us as we transition from being “Harris Riordan’s congregation” to being a strong congregation moving into the future as one.
The Road to UUFBR
The Reverend Ms. Harris Riordan (or just plain Harris, as she is almost universally known) grew up in The First Unitarian Church of Brooklyn. She earned her BA at the State University of New York/Purchase, and her Master of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She was ordained by All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City in 1982.
Before accepting the invitation to become UUFBR’s settled minister in 1997, Harris had served as the Religious Education Director and Associate Minister of the Community Unitarian Church in White Plains, New York and Associate Minister of the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn. She had also served as Interim Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Interim Associate Minister at All Souls Unitarian Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her background in psychology served her well in those congregations and roles, and were very useful once she came to UUFBR.
We needed all her skills and experience. The early years of our congregation were focused on the internal growth and organization of the group, which was established in 1960. At that time our religious denomination was struggling with inherited “God” language, and our founding members were combatting the reputation of Boca Raton as materialistic and privileged.
The world and the denomination had moved on since the 1960’s, but UUFBR had not kept pace. As Harris describes it, she was faced with a “collection of intelligent, interesting people from other places who had no idea how to be a congregation.” The founders’ intense humanism needed to mellow so people who believe in God would also feel welcome. The attempts to set ourselves apart from mainstream Boca churches needed to give way to playing a role in the community, filling a space that other religions could not, or would not. UU individualism needed to shift to allow a congregational identity to emerge.
It was the work of decades, but Harris never lost sight of those goals. Her skills enabled her to diplomatically raise questions and encourage discussion without offending. And now, a quarter-century later, she feels great satisfaction. The road had its bumps and twists, but today’s UUFBR is a family, with room for pagans, atheists, agnostics, and “deists,” and we are learning to value both the contemplative and the activist leanings that attract people to Unitarian Universalism.
The First (Potluck) Supper
During her first visit to Boca as a ministerial candidate, Harris showed up, on time and ready to help, for a potluck supper, only to find that with several congregational leaders there already, nothing had been done – not even setting up tables! So she rolled up her sleeves and got to work organizing and delegating, and the potluck soon came together. Harris saw this as a signal that the individuals of the Fellowship had not learned to act together. No-one was “setting the stage or creating the container” for joint efforts, whether potlucks or protests, parties or parades.
Another story illustrates how far we’ve come from that disorganized group of individuals.
From Parkland to Washington
After the 2018 shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, Harris led the congregation through processing our grief and rage in Sunday worship. But it was not enough, and she proudly remembers the small group of congregants who proposed and ran with an idea that would bring a Florida presence to the national stage. Despite grave reservations and restrictions imposed by the board, those passionate individuals produced a one-day music festival of donated performances by well-known musicians. That event raised $14,000 – in ONE day! The money enabled a group of underserved high schoolers from Palm Beach County to ride a rented bus all the way to Washington, DC, to participate in a historic national social justice movement.
The “God” Quota
Another story that shows the change in the congregation during Harris’ ministry concerns her Christmas service the first year of her ministry. Arriving in August, she had a few months to assimilate the severe “allergic reaction” that the Boca congregation had to any talk of “God.” But how can you do a Christmas service without mentioning Jesus, whom Christians believe is God’s son? Harris figured that was a safe opportunity to use the word – and people seemed to tolerate it well, complimenting her on her sermon. But not all did. One congregant, in the receiving line at the sanctuary door after the service concluded, advised, “That was a lovely service. Just be aware that you’ve used up your allotment of the ‘God’ word for the year.”
Newer members of the Fellowship may be surprised at this story. Like most UU congregations, we’ve come very far toward tolerance and acceptance of the deists among us. Programs like “Mystics and Metaphysics” and “Compline” attract a good number of attendees; one Director of Religious Education instituted a monthly communion service. Harris no longer reaches for the antihistamine, expecting automatic resistance to “religion.” Her quota of God-language has increased substantially.
But that change took sustained and patient work, that’s not finished. Although Harris is proud of our increased patience with language about God, she envisions a day when congregants no longer feel they need to whisper their prayers. She hopes that we will continue to soften the boundaries between humanism and deism, moving beyond mere tolerance to full appreciation of aspects of the sacred and the holy that include God.
What Do You Need?
During Harris’ ministry in Boca, the focus of the congregation has gradually turned from inwardly focused, to an awareness of our membership in a larger faith denomination. One example is our role as a teaching congregation.
UUFBR’s endowment fund supports a program that harmoniously balances inner spiritual work with faith in action. Harris is extremely proud of this program, which increases the pool of UU ministers by hiring ministerial interns for year-long work in parish ministry. This program, typically done only by much larger congregations, has graduated close to a dozen religious professionals who now minister in varied capacities.
In Harris’ own intern experience, she was not encouraged to take initiative, being expected to merely absorb the senior minister’s guidance. Her job was to do what the congregation needed – interns were “cheap labor.”
On the contrary, Harris has always allowed our interns’ own passions to drive the projects they’ve undertaken. She asks, “what do you need?” instead of saying “here’s what we need from you.” Interns learn Harris’ philosophy that “preaching is a conversation, not a performance.” Each intern practices sermons with a small group before delivering the sermons to the congregation. In addition, they work with religious education and pastoral care.
They are treated as ministers, not students, as our First Principle encourages, respected for their inherent worth and dignity. Whatever path our interns follow once they leave UUFBR, they are well prepared. And Harris praises our congregation for giving our interns “consistent care, concentration and commitment.”
Managing Polarities: “Both And”
Under Harris’ leadership, our congregation has expanded our focus from just emphasizing inward contemplation and spirituality, to also working for social justice. From our beginnings, she’s always nurtured the spiritual life of our congregation. Her sermons encourage us to become more mindful, to pay attention to our breath and our bodies, to connect with the calm within. She opens doors to diverse religious practices to connect us to many spiritual paths. Sometimes the message is, “don’t just do something – stand there!”
She also reminds us to make room for more than one way of being spiritual. Over time, we have also begun to emerge as a leader in the community. We occupy a unique niche among Palm Beach faith groups: we can act nimbly because we are not bogged down in bureaucracy or beholden to a mother church. That means we can respond quickly and without restrictions to social justice opportunities and challenges. At those times, Harris’ message is “you’ve got to move when the spirit says move.”
For example, as we became aware of climate change, UUFBR recognized that the public needed to have easy access to important information about this global crisis. We offered, free to the community, not just one, but four showings of “An Inconvenient Truth.” We also organized an EarthFest for three years running, combining panels and workshops with musical performances, vendors offering sustainable products, Scout badge projects, and test drives of the hottest new electric car, the Tesla.
More recently, when anti-Muslim sentiment led the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections to close the polling place at the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, UUFBR protested and lobbied to reverse the decision. Failing that, we publicly notified the SOE that we would not consider being a polling place if the ICBR was not given that opportunity.
Harris has encouraged us to expand our capacity to hold several possibly conflicting ideas simultaneously, and practice managing the polarities of preferred spiritual practices to serve both those who gravitate toward inner reflection and those whose faith expresses itself in action.
It Takes a Village
Soon after settling in at UUFBR, Harris adopted her daughter Margaret. Maggie may be Harris’ child, but as the preacher’s kid she belongs to UUFBR too. Harris tells many stories about the village that raised this child. For example, after one Fellowship event, Harris went looking for her small daughter, and found her in Osias Hall. Maggie, who always wanted to help even before she really could, was attempting to manage the vacuum, which was bigger than she was. One of the older men was not only keeping her company, he was actually teaching her how to vacuum. Harris was profoundly grateful for that example of the UU First Principle in action. Maggie was being seen, and nurtured, as a whole person, not just a child to be babysat.
Brownies
No story of Harris’ ministry would be complete without brownies. They have become part of Her “brand,” a shorthand for the caring and love she puts into everything she does. And it all started as a bribe. During her first year at UUFBR, Harris had to change the system to involve the congregation in the annual budget process. When she asked one member what it would take to get him to attend a meeting, the answer was “Chocolate!” Given the choice between cake or brownies, he chose brownies. And it’s been brownies ever since. Brownies on the P.E.A.C.E.; bus to rallies for the interfaith social justice initiative; brownies at every congregational meeting and special event; and brownies as a reward for stepping up to challenges. Gluten-free, vegan, black bean, or regular: brownies form a thread that runs through many years of UUFBR events.
Growing Up: Our Next Steps
During Harris’ first year at UUFBR, she mentioned the “bumpy road” to her dad. He reminded her that she grew up in a UU congregation founded in 1833, whereas UUFBR was founded in 1960! How could she expect such a young congregation to know what to do? Her wise UU father explained, “growing up is a long slow process.”
For twenty-five years, Harris has helped our congregation “practice being Unitarian Universalist.” Where does she see us in the future?
In the past we’ve relied on the “sparkplugs,” individuals with passion and energy, to get things going and move the community forward toward justice and compassion. Harris hopes we will cultivate the community perspective that let things take deeper root, so projects really belong to the UUFBR community instead of just to individuals.
She looks forward to us taking the next step to embrace all spiritual beliefs, including belief in God, and becoming not only tolerant but appreciative of everyone’s spiritual path.
Harris hopes that we remember that we have weathered severe storms, both internal conflicts and external hurricanes. We’ve developed guidelines that lead us “not to be nasty or insulting but fight, feel hurt, and try again, as in a family.” Even when people carry wounds from past conflicts, she is proud that they “come back to fight again for what they believe and learn how to do it by doing it.”
And Harris is proud of the spirit of pride and possibility that the congregation is showing during our re-emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The recent events surrounding the pandemic illustrate how far we have come over 25 years. We have developed a shared congregational identity and culture. Brownies aside, we now understand that “a community does more than eat together.” Harris has faith, based on her experience at UUFBR, that as we continue searching for truth and meaning together, we will “move forward til we find it.”