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Biography
Biography
I came to ministry by a winding path through various religions/denominations, careers, and family experiences. While each of those experiences made the journey toward ministry a bit longer, I cannot think of a single experience that I would wish not to have had.
My early family experiences included being born and raised in Wilmington, Delaware. My parents live in the same house in which I grew up. I have two brothers (one older and one twin). We all grew up attending Catholic school and church. My father is Chinese American, born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai’i. His parents were the first generation born outside of China, a fact that made them both very entrenched in Chinese culture and also very eager to encourage their children to be more Americanized so that they might have more opportunities in life. My mother was born in Philadelphia and is of mixed European descent with our English roots in the United States dating back to the 17th Century. She holds a deep sense of "home" in Delaware, with generations of ancestors who consistently occupied a 30-mile radius around Wilmington. Closeness with my family is important and I am grateful for the support and love of my parents, brothers, and extended family.
As a high school student, I had no interest in going to college. However, my parents stubbornly insisted that I go. I spent a year at the University of Delaware realizing that I was more interested in going to dance classes outside the university than I was going to my regular college courses. I decided to major in performance and transferred to a school that would accommodate my interest. I graduated from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania where I had the luxury of a combined Related Arts major that allowed me to study dance, theatre, and music. It was a time of intense creativity and work and, for the first time in my life, I was thriving academically. I was encouraged to attend graduate school and found a program at San Francisco State University where I could continue my mixed-media performance art style. This program admits artists who have already honed their craft and gives them tools for creating art for social change. The focus of the coursework is focused on cultural/ethnic/women’s studies, art criticism, and social activism. Living in San Francisco and reading (for the first time) authors like Michel Foucault, Mary Daly, and bell hooks, I began to see the world very differently. I also began the important journey toward healing my own childhood experiences of sexism and racism.
It was during this heightened awareness that I left my high-paying corporate job and shifted to non-profit work. I worked for a homeless agency south of San Francisco for six years and continued to make art, read current discourses in cultural/ethnic/women’s studies, and attend conferences and performances. During this time I also began a search for a spiritual home—a search that acquainted me with a variety of faith groups and experiences until I eventually ended up in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and felt my call to seminary.
Early in my seminary education, I realized that I was not a good theological fit for the PC (USA). I shifted for a time to the United Church of Christ, but I soon realized that even the most liberal of Christian denominations were not liberal enough for my faith and theology. Theologically, I was already unitarian and universalist although I did not know it. I felt drawn to hospice chaplaincy and completed a seminary internship as a hospice chaplain. I then went on to complete a full year of CPE in a hospital setting in Delaware. During that chaplaincy I had a liberal Quaker supervisor who, in my search for a religious home said, "you are Unitarian Universalist--you need to go figure that out!" The next Sunday I attended First Unitarian Church of Wilmington, Delaware and discovered that he was right. My passion for social justice and the inspiration I experience from different world religions made me feel at home there.
Shortly after finishing the chaplaincy training, I moved to Texas. In 2009/2010 I served as Ministerial Intern at Community UU Church in Plano. From 2010 through 2018 I had the tremendous honor of serving as as Minister at Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Denton, Texas. I feel very fortunate to have loved and to have been loved by such a compassionate, curious, and open congregation. I am very proud of our work together those eight years.
Although I am more devoted now to ministry than to the arts, I continue to consider the arts a big part of who I am. I sing and play violin, ukulele, and mountain dulcimer. I also like to draw, paint and glue things together. I love going for walks and finding things to photograph (lots of flowers, rivers, and trees lately). I use my creative process to ground spiritually and often find that the images I make or the words I write reveal truths that seem to come from a deeper spiritual place than I can access otherwise. The creative process is, for me, a spiritual discipline which is important for me to maintain in order to feel whole.
My emotional, spiritual and physical well-being is also dependent on keeping active and taking care of myself. I do yoga and swim, bike, run, and hike. I compete in road races and triathlons. I spend a lot of time in Wilmington's parks, walking or running the trails.
I eat a plant-based diet, for environmental reasons and health reasons. I love to cook and and, whenever I have time, I am trying out new recipes.
In May 2014 I married Erik Goodlett, the love of my life. Although born and raised mostly in Texas, Erik loves the northeast and was happy to make the move in summer 2018 to leave Denton and settle in Wilmington, Delaware. We have two formerly feral cats (Happy and Ravioli). In 2020 Erik's mother and my father came to live with us so that we could provide care to them during very precarious health conditions. I resigned from full-time ministry to be a full-time caregiver.
When we are not care giving, we share many common interests including hiking, watching movies, exploring bookstores, and remodeling homes.
FUN FACT #1: I was one of eight community leaders selected to compete in the United Way of Denton County's inaugural "Dancing with the Stars" event in 2013. Each community leader ("star") was paired with a dance major from Texas Woman's University and taught how to waltz and swing in preparation for this dinner and dancing event. My costume was designed and made by a member of the Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. My dance partner and I did not win, but we had a blast!
FUN FACT #2: Erik and I were selected by Denton's recycling initiative to be a featured household for their annual calendar. They came to highlight ways our kitchen is efficient for the month of "January" (I like to say that we are "Mr. and Mrs. January"). Truth is we went out to eat for dinner that night (we'd spent all day cleaning the kitchen--we weren't about to mess it up!).
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