About Our Minister
The minister of each Unitarian Universalist congregation is selected by its members, not appointed by an external authority. On October 28, 2007, we voted with joyful enthusiasm to call the Rev. Alison Cornish as our settled minister. Alison had served us since 2004 as a consulting minister; the change in relationship is represented by the signing of a covenant signifying mutuality in trust, accountability, and care. Alison serves our congregation on a part-time basis, sharing the leadership and responsibility for our congregation with the lay members.
Another congregational responsibility in the Unitarian Universalist tradition is the ordination of ministers. We were honored to ordain Alison in June, 2004, a few months before she became our consulting minister.
A life-long Unitarian Universalist, Alison came to the ministry quite gradually. Following her graduation from Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the University of York (UK), she worked for 20 years in architecture and historic preservation. She was equally comfortable wearing a hard hat on site or advocating for preservation in community council rooms. From 1993 to 1997, she was Director of the Bridge Hampton Historical Society. Local people remember well the focus and zest she brought to that position as well as to her work as Architectural Consultant for Southampton Town and the villages of Southampton and Sag Harbor.
Her past experience, as well as her education and training for the Unitarian Universalist ministry at Andover Newton Theological School, connects readily to ministry, to her ability to serve her congregation’s needs for community, caring, ritual, spiritual growth, and social justice. “When Alison talks about equity and compassion in human relations,” a UUCSF member once observed, “you know she’s speaking from her life, not just from theory or something she’s read.” And, as another congregant put it, “Alison may be only part-time, but she’s such a full-time human being you don’t really notice.”
In a deep sense, Alison’s ministry is a homecoming. She began attending UUCSF services in 1989, soon after leaving her native New England to live with her partner, artist Pat Moran in his cottage on Noyac Creek. The couple married in 1994.
As UUCSF’s Minister, I see my role to help build on the strong foundations this congregation has well laid for asking searching questions, supporting members and friends of all ages in building lives of spirit and faith, working for peace and justice in the larger world, and creating a caring and compassionate community that reaches beyond its own intimate circle. This congregation has provided a presence of witness and action in the community – which is so needed in these times of increasing societal stress and uncertainty. Our meetinghouse, our home base, provides us with so many more opportunities to reach out – to the larger community – and reach in – to our own spiritual lives.
