The first theological discussion I can remember was with my mother when I was around five or six years old. I was playing with a neighbor boy and his mother warned me about the devil. I was scared and when I got home, I told my mother what I had just learned about the devil. She said, with some exasperation, “Well, there’s no such thing.” I remember feeling profound relief. I feel lucky to have been born into a Unitarian Universalist family.
My parents met at a Unitarian campus group at Colorado State University. They later married and raised three daughters in Fort Collins, CO. I am the middle child. We were raised Unitarian Universalist—but we were not consistent church goers. In high school I began to take myself to church and was blessed to have the Rev. Roy Jones for a minister.
I graduated from college with a B.A. in English literature and an elementary teaching certificate. I worked summers at various National Park concessions–there was no money in it, but the friendships, hiking and backpacking were wonderful. After graduation, I taught school in two one-room schoolhouses in eastern Montana. My second year was at a public school on a Hutterite Colony. I left teaching to become a stay-at-home mother to two amazing boys. We lived off the grid in Alaska and later in a small town on the western slope of Colorado. For two years we homeschooled. I stayed home for 11 years with my children, which I wouldn’t trade for anything, but it does mean I will retire sometime in my nineties–maybe.
After my divorce, my children and I moved to Denver where I studied sign language interpreting. My work study job in the library became a permanent job and so I changed directions before finishing my studies. I worked in adult services and interlibrary loan in Westminster, CO. That job taught me a lot about serving the public—which is to say, serving everyone.
As my children grew and left home to pursue their own adventures, I became more and more involved in my home congregation in Denver. I was on a committee to reimagine how we did our justice work and I filled a three-year term on the board, serving at-large, as vice-president and then president. During my year as president, we became a sanctuary congregation.
From there, I discerned it was time to go to seminary. After three years, I graduated from Meadville Lombard Theological School. During that time, I had an internship with Denver’s LGBTQIA+ Center, and I did a two-year congregational internship in Corvallis, OR. Meadville Lombard believes that we act our way into new ways of thinking– a model that works well for me.
During seminary, I did a summer internship at the University of Colorado Hospital as a chaplain. I really loved the work and wanted to explore that further. So, upon graduation from seminary, I accepted a yearlong residency position at the same hospital. It was, hands-down, the best education in my life. I still love chaplaincy.
I am currently the two-year interim minister at the Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church in Hayward, CA. We are having a very productive time together as they discern their next steps. I find I love congregational ministry as much as I love chaplaincy.
Wherever I am, it is a privilege to journey with such beautiful people.
Elizabeth Sollie 