Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort > Rev. Nan White > My Journey to Unitarian Universalism by Rev. White

Rev. Nan White | My Journey to Unitarian Universalism by Rev. White

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Some Photos from Religious Education

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Beaufort is a loving community. We support each other in our search for spiritual, emotional, and intellectual growth.

We embrace the seven Principles and Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and speak about them confidently to the broader community so they may know who we are and what we hold true. We are led by the Rev. Nan L. White. Our services are varied in content, form and leadership. We welcome everyone.

With the exception of summer Sundays, we provide religious education for all children during the worship hour and invite members and visitors to stay for coffee, cookies, and conversation after the service.

How to Find Us:

We meet at the Wardle YMCA, 1801 Richmond Avenue, Port Royal, South Carolina most Sundays at 10:00 am. The YMCA is located in Port Royal, one block south of Ribaut Road (Hwy 802). If approaching from the town of Beaufort, follow Ribaut Road southbound for .7 mile beyond the traffic signal at the left turn to the McTeer Bridge to Lady's Island. Richmond Avenue will be on the left, opposite Friendly's Restaurant. If approaching from the south on Hwy 802, Richmond Avenue is the next right turn after Paris Avenue, the main access road to the town of Port Royal.

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Plain Text November Newsletter is included below

About Laura Towne

Laura Matilda Towne was born in 1825 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. While supported by her parents, she was well educated as a homeopath. Alongside her family, Towne was member of the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia where her social conscience was stirred by the anti-slavery sermons of William Henry Furness calling for abolition.

In 1861 the Union Navy captured Port Royal Sound, surprising the cotton growers of the Sea Islands and causing them to leave not only their plantations but also their slaves.

Although now freed slaves they were far from being prepared to begin a free life.

This set the stage for Laura Matilda Towne’s life work.

The Port Royal Experiment, where Northern teachers, superintendents, and missionaries from various churches were called to the sea islands to help the former slaves create free lives, Towne was one of the first to respond to the call.

In 1862 Laura Towne met Ellen Murray when she spoke to a large Quaker Colony in Rhode Island where Ellen Murray resided, as a compassionate and personally interested teacher. Soon thereafter, Laura Town, at the age of 36, came to St. Helena Island

followed by Ellen Murray who became her life long companion. Confronting them were nearly insurmountable obstacles: resentful Union troops, an inhospitable climate, threatening insects, and devastating epidemics. Nevertheless, a multi-talented woman, Towne described the work as “noble:. Her homeopathic efforts were heroic. She and Murray began holding classes where teaching became their major activity. The first class was held at The Oaks and because of the shear numbers of students they soon were held at Brick Baptist Church until the Commission of Philadelphia offered a new school house that was shipped in sections in 1864.

Laura Towne named the school- Penn-in honor of William Penn and the Pennsylvania’s Freedman’s Aid Society who funded the school’s first years. Later her family and other prominent Unitarians and abolitionists of other faiths supported the school. Penn became the only school in South Carolina to provide secondary education to freed men and women, and eventually teacher training was offered.

It was also unique in that Towne and Murray’s friend and co-founder Charlotte Forten,

a free woman from the north, became an important African American teacher, as racial distinctions did not impede Towne and Murray’s work or pleasure. They regularly welcomed African American teachers into their home.

Laura Towne became a bridge between the government and the people of the islands,

often as an advocate for their needs and wages. She opposed speculators’ attempts

to buy lands that had become delinquent through nonpayment of taxes, eventually making it possible for people to own the land they had worked on all their lives.

Towne was a quiet revolutionary who broke social barriers; attacked the assigned social place of African Americans by breaking entrenched patterns of subservience, and enabling black people to develop independence, responsibility and leadership.

Laura Towne died of influenza in 1901 at the age of 75. Several hundred of her sea island neighbors followed the simple mule cart that carried her body to the Port Royal ferry,

singing the spirituals she had so loved. She is buried in Philadelphia.

Ellen Murray died of yellow fever in 1908 at the Oaks Plantation where they both

had lived. The people of St. Helena Island erected a monument in Ellen Murray’s honor in 1908. Later Laura Towne’s brother placed a stone water trough for horses, across the street, with the inscription:

“In memory of Laura M. Towne 1825-1901 She devoted thirty-eight years of her life to the colored people of St. Helena Island and employed her means in their education and care”

And here a memorial for her in Brick Baptist Church cemetery,

inscribed “Erected by the people of St. Helena, S.C. in memory of Laura M. Towne

entered into joy in 1901 their beloved and venerated teacher, friend, helper and Physician for 40 years. ‘Let light perpetual shine on her’”

Laura Towne didn’t have time to right an autobiography but she kept a journal for a number of years and wrote to her family in the north, so that the record of her work

has neither been forgotten or lost, but stands as a lesson of self-devotion to a noble cause.

Her Unitarian understanding of the importance of social justice brought her here and

living out her faith and the love for the people is what that kept her here

until her dying days.

October 8, 2004

My Journey to Unitarian Universalism

By Reverend Nan White

“We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” Those were the first words Marge Jarvis spoke to describe the Unitarian Universalist Church. She had approached me after a yoga class at the YMCA to ask if I would be interested in helping to start a Unitarian Universalist fellowship in Beaufort. Having just left the Presbyterian denomination where I had been raised, educated and ordained, I was intrigued.

I immediately went home to explore the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) website. I was drawn to the Seven Principles that begin with belief in the “inherent worth and dignity of every person” and end with “Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part.”

I had struggled with Presbyterian theology in a number of ways. The Presbyterian Church had moved further to the right and took a stand that if you live a homosexual lifestyle you may not serve in an ordained capacity as a minister or an elder. My understanding of Christianity is that we are all endowed with inherent worth and dignity.

What I have found in the Unitarian Universalist theology is the understanding that it is okay to struggle, in fact, it’s encouraged. You question and search to find what you understand to be truth.

The first year 30 people met at The Shed in Port Royal. We began a journey together to learn more about what it means to create a Unitarian Universalist fellowship. We shared with each other our religious beliefs and created small, brief worship experiences.

Betty Chamlee, a representative of the Unitarian Univeralist Church of Savannah, led courses for new members and worship. When I contacted the national association about transferring my ordination, the Unitarian Church in Statesboro, GA invited me to be their once-a-month minister. The decision to base my first seven sermons on the Seven Principles led me to a deeper understanding of Unitarian Universalism. The more I read and studied, the more it made sense to me and resonated with my theology and who I was as a human being.

In 2001 the Unitarian Fellowship of Hilton Head—founded in 1977, and now the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Lowcountry—called me to be their consultant minister. After 31 years the Hilton Head fellowship opened an office with an administrative assistant. They completed a capital campaign, purchased land in Bluffton and built a church. They are realizing their vision and dreams.

In 2002 Beaufort called me as their minister for ten hours a week to provide pastoral care, prepare worship services and sermons. I started working with EvenSong and Journey Toward Wholeness, lay-led discussion groups.

Once I made the commitment to change denominations I immersed myself in study and preparation to meet the requirements of the Association’s committees. The process of becoming a Unitarian Universalist minister is based on competency in 16 areas from theology, church history, church polity, social justice and religious education to professional development. I was asked to demonstrate ability to articulate my spiritual and religious growth in written and oral presentations drawn from seminary and college courses, and life experiences over my half century of church work in the Presbyterian Church.

It’s been a thought-provoking experience to reflect on how important the Presbyterian Church has been to me over the years: how I was raised as a small child, in high school, in summer camp and going to seminary, walking through my ordination and ordaining me. The Presbyterian minister shapes worship services by the lectionaries, passages of scripture that rotate every three years. In contrast Unitarian Universalist ministers have what is known as a free pulpit and are able to draw from many sources, described as the “Living Tradition.”

In October 2004 I began half-time ministry with the Beaufort Fellowship. Bernie Wright, executive director of Penn Center, invited us to have our office at Penn Center, bringing our historic relationship full circle. Laura M. Towne, a founder of Penn School, was a Unitarian. We moved into our office at the Lathers building on the Penn Center campus and are developing an enriching partnership to address human rights, civil rights and social justice issues with this internationally renowned institution.

My goal is to see the Beaufort and Hilton Head fellowships grow both in numbers and in relationship with each other and the broader community. We want to reach out and make our presence known, particularly for those who seek a liberal religious institution. As a society we are entrenched in an individualistic mode that has been good for many things, but that has started to become detrimental to the future of this society.

As Unitarians we affirm and promote the Seventh Principle of being an interdependent web. As part of that web—related to each other and all nature and the whole universe—we have a responsibility to come together as a community and begin to create a beloved community for social justice.

In our affluent society, especially in Beaufort County, it’s easy to forget that many of our neighbors in this county and in this state and in this nation are hungry, living in poverty and under many kinds of oppression. We must step out as a community and speak for those who can’t speak for themselves. For the many who share these beliefs and want to affirm and promote them in their lifestyles as individuals, Unitarian Universalism is a compelling religion.