Building a Human Rights Legacy with UUSC
Retired from distinguished careers in ministry and physics, Rev. Catharine Harris and Dick Harris share a passion for history, travel, the outdoors, social justice, and the human rights work of UUSC.
Having found her calling in Unitarian Universalist ministry, Catharine served as the first full-time minister at Boulder Valley UU Congregation in Colorado, where she is now Minister Emeritus. She also was the first UU minister ever to serve a congregation in Wyoming, where on numerous occasions she spoke on the state capitol steps about progressive justice issues.
Dick is retired from an accomplished career as a physicist and manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and has been recognized for sustained service to the applied superconductivity community. Given his background, Dick was consistently pleased that Catharine’s sermons included metaphors and analogies that were not only emotionally resonant but also scientifically sound.
In addition to their accomplished careers, world travels, and raising their daughter Julia, Catharine and Dick have always made time to give back to their community and beyond. One of the many ways they have made a difference is through their more than three decades of support for UUSC, which they first learned about through a UUSC trip to Guatemala. Catharine remembers meeting with UUSC’s Guatemalan partners that were supporting Maya communities and demanding accountability for the genocide orchestrated by the dictator Rios Montt. “It was a transformational trip,” she recalls.
As well as having firsthand experience with UUSC partners in Guatemala, Catharine has a theological reason for her support of UUSC. She explains, “I imagine religious and spiritual development as growing larger and larger circles of care. We naturally begin focusing on developing ourselves emotionally and spiritually in a small circle....As we grow, many people grow their circle of care to our world and our Earth. Our compassion grows for others worldwide. UUSC provides us with a way to express our compassion by helping our world and Earth.”
Catharine and Dick’s support of UUSC includes sharing updates and action opportunities with their congregation, contributing as Keepers of the Flame monthly supporters, and naming UUSC in their long-term legacy plans. “We dream of a more beautiful world of human dignity and rights,” they explain. “The need is great. We hope that what we give after we die will help create the kind of world we dream of. The more resources UUSC has, the more people they can help.”
Given their meaningful careers, volunteering, activism on issues ranging from affordable housing to immigration justice, and more, UUSC is honored to be one of the many ways that Catharine and Dick are expanding circles of care and contributing to a better future for all of us.
