The UURMaPA spring conference features two odysseys, one with Phyllis Morales and one with Scotty McLennan. The conference begins Monday, April 21 and the odysseys are scheduled on the first day and the last day (Wednesday, April 23).
Phyllis calls her odyssey, “The U-Haul Chronicles: An Illustrated Odyssey.” Married to the Rev. Peter Morales for 58 years, her odyssey recounts in photographs, 79 years, 2 children, 4 careers, 28 moves through 4 countries and 7 states. Fasten your seatbelt! She began her odyssey as a special education teacher, then moved into journalism and desktop publishing. She taught herself Spanish in her 40s and founded a scholarship program for Mayan youth in Guatemala. Her connection to Guatemala is strong, as she sheltered a Guatemalan family for 10 years. She is a leader in Community Search and Rescue.
Scotty McLennan wonders how to age gracefully in a way that might be helpful to all of us as retired UU ministers and partners. He was raised on Chicago’s north shore as a conservative Presbyterian Republican, but rebelled as a teenager and became a liberal UU Democrat. He graduated from Harvard divinity and law schools to become an inner-city minister-at-law for 10 years with the UU Urban Ministry in Boston. He turned to academia, where he spent 30 years as the university chaplain at Tufts and Stanford. He now teaches ethics part-time at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He married Ellen 44 years ago and has two children and three grandchildren. He loves traveling, spending time in California’s wine country, and asking existential questions like “Why are we here?” He wonders how a conservative Protestant Republican from the Midwest became Garry Trudeau’s “Rev. Scot Sloan” in Doonesbury – “the fighting young priest who can talk to the young.”
“Called to Connect in the Midst of Change” is our theme and presenting it is Karen Hering, author of the book, Trusting Change: Finding Our Way through Personal and Global Transformation. If you wish to purchase Karen Hering’s book, Trusting Change, you will enjoy a discount when using the code HERING at inSpirit, uuabookstore.org when you buy the book.
Registration for the conference is now open. Follow this link to register: uurmapa.churchcenter.com/registrations/events/2752248 Or follow the news for the conference link on our home page. Tuition is $45.00, a bargain these days. Financial aid is available and you can apply for that by sending a message to treasurer@uurmapa.org If this is your first UURMaPA conference, use code FIRSTTIMER when you register and we’ll waive the fee.
This conference will be mediated through Zoom, but two in-person pods will be organized, in Wilmington DE and in Kingston MA. If you wish to attend either of these pods, you can indicate that when you register. More news about pods will be forthcoming.
For more information about these features of the conference, please make sure your contact information is updated at our website and watch for email from us. Our FaceBook page will also be updated with conference news.