About RevCyn

RevCyn is the blog of the Rev. Dr. Cynthia Landrum, minister of the Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty, in Clarklake, Michigan.  Cindy grew up in Pleasant Ridge, Michigan, and grew up UU, attending the Birmingham Unitarian Church in Bloomfield Hills.  She received her B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Michigan, and her M.A. in English from the University of Georgia, where her thesis was titled, Narratives in the AIDS Service Community.  She attended Meadville Lombard Theological School for her D.Min., where her doctoral thesis was on The Future of Unitarian Universalist Feminism: Interviews with Third-Wave Women Ministers.  Cindy held student ministries in Marquette and Houghton, MI, an internship in Milwaukee, WI, and summer ministries in Rockford, IL and Rochester, NY.  Cindy served briefly in Houston, TX, and was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in 2002 by the Unitarian Universalist Society of Gardner, Massachusetts, where she served before becoming coming to UUCEL in August of 2004.  Cindy lives in the Jackson, Michigan, area along with her husband, Peter Morrison; their daughter; and two cats.

Cindy's ministry is grounded in her experience of being raised Unitarian Universalist and seeing the power that Unitarian Universalism has to affect lives and change the world.  She is passionate about religious education, social justice, and diversity, particularly the diverse theologies found in our faith.  As a humanist raised by UU Christians, and having explored and incorporated aspects of feminist theology and Paganism into her life, she believes in weaving together these faiths and others to create a church where we "live our religion" through worship, social mission, and religious education. 

Popular posts from this blog

The UUA has announced a new campaign against hate crimes, "Standing on the Side of Love." Hate crimes are definitely something we've had enough of in the last year: July 27, 2008: Jim David Adkisson enters the Tennessee Valley UU Church and kills two people and wounds more. He says in his manifesto , "This was a hate crime: I hate the damn left-wing liberals." May 31, 2009: Scott Roeder enters a Lutheran Church and kills Dr. George Tiller. He is quoted as saying on a blog, "Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp." June 10, 2009: James Wenneker von Brunn enters the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and kills a guard. Von Brunn ran an anti-Semitic website and had connections to hate groups. What is striking about these three, in comparison to all the other horrible hate crimes that happen, is that they all took place in places that should be places of peace, where we hono
Read more

Garrison Keillor Is no "Companion" for Unitarian Universalists

Many Unitarian Universalists, myself included, are regular NPR listeners.  And among them, many listen regularly to Garrison Keillor's " A Prairie Home Companion ."  It's on weekly at about the time I leave church, so I have listened to it many times.  Garrison Keillor makes a regular practice of poking fun at Unitarian Universalists on his show.  I've often had church members come and tell me he mentioned us again, often with delight, because we're so rarely mentioned in the media.  One example of a Unitarian Universalist joke attributed to Garrison Keillor is: "A sign at the Unitarian church said: Bible study at 7:00. Bring your Bible and a pair of scissors."  So, yes, some of the joke are funny, some point out our foibles and idiosyncrasies.  But lately I've been turning off NPR whenever "A Prairie Home Companion" comes on.  Listening to him talk about us over the years it's becoming more and more evident that he isn't laugh
Read more

Triggers

Image
Photo by  Quentin Kemmel  on  Unsplash I'm realizing that although I have at least two degrees of separation from any mass shooting, these school shootings and other mass shootings are still something of a trigger for me. It's at least in part related to the 2013 shooting deaths of Chris Keith and Isaac Miller . Chris Keith was a former member of my church. She and her son Isaac were killed in an act of domestic violence, by her estranged husband. Like the killer in the recent school shooting, Chris's killer was a known threat. These are the things I know about her killer: He had been abusive of Chris for some time. Chris minimized the abuse when talking to me, saying it was the first time, when it wasn't, but she wasn't ready to leave. What I didn't know, but found out after her death was that authorities had been called all the way back in 2003, before I met her. In the news it was revealed that Chris had taken out a personal protection order agai
Read more