About Our Minister, Rev. Penny Rather

(Parts of this article, written by Sarah Perrine, were printed in the Laramie Boomerang September 17th.)

The Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Laramie (UUFL) is pleased to
announce that Rev. Penny Rather, of Boulder, Colorado, has accepted the position of permanent part-time minister. She will lead her first service onSunday, September 18, at 10:30 a.m. The UUFL is located at 1402 Gibbon.

Throughout the spring of 2005, Rev. Rather served the Fellowship as its temporary part-time minister. During those four months of service, she says, “I had the opportunity to become familiar with the needs of the Fellowship, meet members of the community and discover Laramie itself. I knew early on that this was where I wanted to serve and was delighted when the Fellowship invited me to return on a permanent basis.“

Rather, who was born in Hong Kong, spent most of her childhood in Rochester, New York, before attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison to earn a degree in Correctional Administration. Married to an electrical engineer and the mother of two, she spent nearly 10 years as a stay-at-home mom, an active volunteer in her children’s classrooms, the Girl Scouts and other organizations in Boulder. Then, as she says with a smile, “I decided for a number of reasons, none completely clear to me still, to go back to college and become an electrical engineer.” After graduating from the University of Colorado in Boulder with a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, she worked for 14 years in satellite communications and as a designer of computer peripherals.

During this time she discovered Unitarian-Universalism. As her lay leadership in the movement grew, her earlier leanings toward the helping professions were awakened and she began to consider a calling to professional ministry. She also began to explore Buddhism at the Thai temple in Denver. “Given my early roots in Hong Kong, where I was cared for by an amma, it’s not surprising, that I felt a strong connection to eastern religions, but my studies at the temple also taught me that Unitarian-Universalism and Buddhism are extremely compatible, “ she explains. “For example, both acknowledge teachings from many sources and both believe in the worth and dignity of every individual.”

Following additional studies at Buddhist-inspired Naropa University in Boulder, theology classes at Denver’s lliff School of Theology and UU seminaries, Rather earned the first Buddhist Master of Divinity (M.Div) from Naropa in 2002. Two years later she was ordained as a Unitarian Minister. Today she holds Preliminary Fellowships in both Parish and Community Ministry, teaches at Naropa University and is completing her training to be a meditation instructor there this fall.

“Some people wonder why I self-identify as a Buddhist-Unitarian,” she acknowledges, “but Unitarianism is different from most other religions in that we are unified not by a creed but by covenant – a commitment to walk together in our search for truth and meaning. That same intent is found in the teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Native Americans and the humanists who helped shaped the movement we now call Unitarian-Universalism.
“I believe strongly that my job as a minister is to help the people I serve discover and develop their personal, individual gifts to the world—their own lay ministry, so to speak. As we have seen so many times, religious diversity is often the cause of conflict in both personal and global relationships. But I believe that it can also be a source of richness in our lives and I am really looking forward to sharing the experiences of my personal spiritual journey with my parishioners and other religious liberals here in Laramie.”