Date/Time
Date(s) - 06/11/2026
8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Categories
GA Blue Ribbon Essentials
As we approach GA, we’ll discuss the proposed AIW and the UUJEC on-demand workshops:
Action of Immediate Witness
- Defend Against the Assault on Environmental Protections: Public Lands Rules and the Endangerment Finding
On-Demand Workshops
- Mutual Aid: Love, Equity, and Transformation
- American Revolution: Work in Progress.
- Beyond Capitalism, Toward Liberation: A Faithful Case for Ecosocialism
Our Guest Speakers
Deb Cruz is the cherished President of JUUstice Washington, the UU state action network for the State of Washington. In this capacity, she works with UU individuals, congregations and organizations, other faith-based organizations, NGO allies and partners on a wide variety of justice issues, locally, statewide, regionally, nationally and
internationally. Her particular passion is where matters of the Earth intersect with Indigenous perspectives and has more than 50 years engaging with Tribes and Nations across the country.
She applied to the Commission on Social Witness to bring forward during this year’s GA an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) that was created in response to requests from Indigenous members and allies to call upon UU assistance in addressing the potentially disastrous impacts of the current administration’s environmental policies toward public lands and waters. In particular, the rescission of the Roadless and Public Lands rules, the rescission of the
Endangerment finding and the executive order increasing massive logging projects. She’ll be speaking to the adverse impact on land, air and Tribal trust obligations and sacred sites.
Rev. Bob Murphy, UUJEC’s beloved Advisory Board Member and our community minister in Florida, graduated from Harvard University’s Divinity School and the Boston University School of Public Health. In 2011, Sierra Club gave him a national award recognizing his 40-year ministry working with community and religious organizing in defense of human rights and environmental protection. Bob is also active in health equity, disability rights, food justice, and emergency services work.
He will briefly discuss UUJEC’s two GA workshop/video offerings including American Revolution: Work in Progress, as well as Mutual Aid, Love, Equity, and Transformation. The first is an effort to meet the moment. The 250th anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence will be celebrated on this year’s Fourth of July. Liberal congregations supported the American Revolution during the 1770s and some congregations continue to fight in support of liberation.
Regarding Mutual Aid, Rev. Murphy reminds us that mutual aid arrangements are voluntary, participatory, and egalitarian means of producing and sharing goods and services. He and others ask: “What’s happening?” “What’s needed?”
Rev. Gregory Stevens (they/he), our newest UUJEC board member, is a former Baptist preacher, long-time labor organizer, and interfaith community activist who now sells his labor power to California interfaith Power & Light as the Northern California Director. They are the founding organizer of the Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network and an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco.
Gregory grew up in Tampa/St.Petersburg Florida, where their love for crawling critters, furry felines, and old oak trees solidified into political and social activism for planetary healing. They have a BA in Religion and Gender Studies from the University of South Florida, a MDiv from Claremont School of Theology, and a MA in Anthropology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. In their free time they enjoy overstuffed used bookstores, the smell and feel of giant Redwood Trees, watching documentaries about ancient cultures, and all things Unitarian Universalist.
Hosted by UUJEC CoChair Terry Lowman, who retired recently from a long career in business, justice was always a passion. Married to Mark Kassis as soon as same sex marriage was legal in Iowa, he and Mark parented four children, two from Terry’s marriage to a Cuban woman and two adopted from Peru. They owned three restaurants, which were often venues for charity fund-raising and liberal political events. Terry was born into UCC, lost god and found UU in 1989. Terry has volunteered in a number of UU related causes, from AMOS, local congregationally-based community organizing, starting Iowa’s UU state advocacy network (IUUWAN), a member of the UU Funding Program’s Social Responsibility grant panel, and in the summer of 2014 joining UUJEC as cochair.