Dearest Friends,
As summer fast approaches, I find myself becoming more and more anxious to meet all of you and to start building the foundations of our shared ministry this coming year!
My name is Elias Poore (you can call me Eli or Elias- either is fine!) and I use they/them or xe/xem pronouns. I am beyond excited to be joining you as your Intern Minister for the 2024-2025 Church year. I’m writing to you now from my family’s home in Texas, where I am spending some precious time with my grandmother before going to serve as the Well Being Coordinator at a UU Youth Camp in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, after which I’ll be joining you all in Southern Oregon on August 15th.
For the last twelve years or so, I have lived in Corpus Christi/North Padre Island on the Gulf Coast of Texas. I share a home there with my partner Angela and our blended family. Most of our kids are college-age, with the exception of one who is a freshman in high school. I am a graduate of Starr King School for the Ministry, where I completed my M.Div and Master of Arts in Religious Leadership for Social Change. I’m currently in the final project/dissertation phase of a doctoral program (D.Min) at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, with a focus that includes Street and Urban Ministries, and Harm Reduction, Carceral Systems, and Faith Communities. I’m most interested in the ways that authentic connection, creativity, and community can counter oppressive systems and create relationships based on mutuality and reciprocity, particularly with those on the margins of the margins- unhoused people, individuals who are currently/formerly incarcerated, sex workers, and others, but especially those who hold other identities which add to the complexity of oppression, such as being 2SLGBTQIA/BIPOC/poor/unhoused.
As far as my own identities and experiences, these are deeply connected to my call to create a more just and loving world. I hold a number of complex identities myself, including being queer, trans/nonbinary, disabled, neurodivergent, formerly unhoused, formerly incarcerated, from a working class background, and a person in recovery. These identities and experiences have shaped both my call to ministry and my desire to work for a more just world in very specific ways. Seeing the ways that various forms of trauma (from personal or interpersonal to systemic and institutional) impacts individuals and perpetuates and supports oppressive systems has led me to engage in work that draws people together in community, believing that the creation of authentic connection and relationships is a basic unit of social change.
Theologically, I consider myself a “multireligious UU”; I am a member of a Sufi order, am a practicing Buddhist; my first chosen faith was Paganism which still informs my practices and theology, and I’m enthralled with mystic Christianity and Judaism, and Hindu Cosmology, as well as Yogic practices. I grew up in a family influenced by Southern Baptist theology, and as a young queer/trans person, while I hungered for religious community, I did not find it in those places. I did find it in a local pagan group, and I also found community after becoming involved in the local punk scene, attracted to both the radical politics and DIY community ethos. Around the same time, I began attending the local UU church, a smalll fellowship in Amarillo, Texas, then only consisting of about 50 or 60 members. I spent Saturday nights at punk shows, and Sunday mornings as the accompanist playing “Blue Boat Home” and “Morning has Broken” and other UU standards. I felt held there, and it was the first place that I experienced being able to be fully myself in religious community. When I went looking for such community later on in life, I knew exactly where to go, and later became an active member of the UU Church of Corpus Christi, which remains my home congregation.
Early on in my professional life, I worked primarily with non-profits; after my incarceration, my job prospects were limited, but I made the best of it, and ultimately worked in the for-profit business world, primarily in training/development and HR, then ultimately as the Director of Operations for a Hospitality group until I was laid off right before going to seminary. Since then, I’ve been involved in community development work through a nonprofit I co-founded with a friend and mentor back in 2018. I’ve also led local Harm Reduction initiatives, and served as the Community Ministry Intern for an ongoing project with the unsheltered community that centers on the voices, choices, and gifts of unsheltered community members, utilizing a process called “asset based community development” (or “ABCD” for short) which focused on the assets and gifts of communities rather than their deficits and seeks to mobilize those to increase agency and create change. I currently serve on the leadership board for TrUUst, a group for trans UU religious professionals, and am on the national leadership board for Faith in Harm Reduction, which is a collective of faith-based organizations and faith leaders seeking to engage with Harm Reduction principles and practices through a theological framework. I’m a member of the UU Cultivators Collaborative, which is a cohort group of lay leaders and religious professionals from underserved groups who are “spiritual innovators” working on projects that advance UU values of love and justice in the world.
Some personal things that I enjoy that I hope to bring to the community are a deep love of the creative arts- I’m a poet, artist, and multi-instrumentalist musician. I also love cooking, and especially sharing new recipes with friends and family. I’m also a hopeless bibliophile, and have a small typewriter collection that I hope to grow. I’m a movie and music nerd, and enjoy all genres of both. I’m also an avid soccer fan (Go Thorns!) and enjoyed attending the Portland Thorns games when I lived close by the stadium. I love the outdoors, spending time in green space, and collecting interesting people, books, natural objects, art, and experiences.
Ultimately, I believe we can encounter the Divine in places where it would seem to be most absent, and that communities and individuals who have experienced the most harm from oppressive systems have particular gifts and insights that come from such experiences and offer keys to how we all might live differently, more alive to the real and deep ways we are inherently connected to one another. I see my calling as one of being a tender, mender, and cultivator of such connections, and look forward to building these with all of you!
With much anticipation and much love,
Eli Poore, Intern Minister 2024-2025