Rev. Miller, I invite you to begin repairing harm by taking the tiny step of joining me in calling on the board to reverse this reprehensible action. If you can't, I can't imagine a more resounding affirmation of the team's criticism. It is not possible to be fit to serve as a UU minister and also hold the belief that the church should police and punish the speech of congregants, especially when that speech is a critique of church leadership.

I am so disappointed that a faith that upholds democracy as one of its principles cannot weather dissent. That it has been using its institutional power to shut down dissemination and demonstrations of congregations' reasonable thoughts and feelings to an upsetting series of events. That it refuses to allow the repercussion of and response to those events to play out without rewriting rules and moving goal posts. 

So, you would like to deny me access to the church I once loved. Let it be so. I will look forward to it. I consider it an honor to be dismissed from an institution that betrayed my trust, slandered people I care about, and showed me its ugly underbelly with no sense of shame or serious desire for repair.

in September, I stood silently holding a sign reading “practice love even if we disagree.” As congregants walked past me, one man yelled a misogynist slur which I won’t repeat here, and others yelled at me “go away,” “get lost.” “We don’t want you.” This, directed at a fellow congregant who was peacefully advocating practicing love.

We’re not roadkill. We are your beloved community… I will speak and act in support of loving practice until this increasingly toxic place reforms itself and remembers what it means to actually practice love.

I will point out just 2 events that revealed a lot to me and influenced my decision to step back from First Unitarian Portland. I will maintain a smaller pledge, reduced by about 80%, because if any democratic petition prevails, I plan to vote.

Rev. Alison, at your Q&A in October, I was taken with your plan to move toward a staff feedback system with high accountability and high grace. Yet First U has no mechanism in place for feedback, and I’m not finding it to be a board goal/priority for 2024-26, despite the recent resignations.

I appreciate the difficulty of “practicing what you preach,” and I can forgive sporadic mistakes. However. I believe the volume of hypocrisy in this institution is tantamount to an alternative reality. You condemn specific behaviors, and paint yourself as a victim of those behaviors, while doing those exact behaviors yourself—and God help anyone who expects you to be accountable for it. You have constructed a comprehensive lie about who you are and how you lead this church.

What I’ve experienced feels less like leadership and more like an attempt to shield the institution from discomfort. I see a pattern of passivity, of hoping the problem will resolve itself, or worse, dismissing those who raise concerns as simply not understanding. But we know, from the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter banner we hung, that shirking responsibility only perpetuates the very systems we say we want to dismantle.

Rev. Alison, on 8/25, you told the congregation about “saying yes to the call of healing”… I’m confused. A young woman left your office crying because of how you handled her report of physical assault by one of your ushers, and you never followed up.

To me, “answering the call of healing” means that you care for everyone you serve, including the people who you don’t like. It means responding to criticism with curiosity, as an opportunity to understand the unmet needs of your staff or congregants. It means reckoning with the fact that staff are leaving this church and saying it’s because of your choices. It means saying you’re sorry, and skipping the excuses even though there’s someone else you could blame. It means putting your responsibilities ahead of your emotional reactions to a difficult job.

I attended a Listening Circle right after you used your platform to degrade your own congregants. I spoke of the aggression we’ve been subject to by some congregants - some yelling, some physical intimidation, pushing, or grabbing. I found myself wondering: How can we expect to have respectful disagreement among ourselves if our minister is escalating our conflict with inflammatory, defamatory language?

The more you treat the members of your own church with contempt, anger, or disapproval for raising concerns about the fair and equitable treatment of staff, the less we appear to be a community that embodies the principles preached within our church. And the more that you, our leaders, treat those of us organizing with dismissal and tell us that what is happening is “normal,” the more you appear to be focused on your own power and self protection versus actually caring for your own congregation that is currently heartbroken.

I will listen to your explanation on Sunday, but I cannot accept it as the full story, especially when you are so insistent that yours is the only trustworthy narrative. What are you so afraid of?