Bio: Kat Liu

Namaste.  I am the U.S-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, growing up with Chinese Buddhism and folk traditions inside the home and Christianity and civic religion outside, including five years in a conservative Lutheran school.  I began adulthood as a neurobiologist, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at SUNY Stony Brook. It was at Stony Brook where I first stepped foot in a UU congregation, and where I first encountered the field of Religious Studies (altho those two events are not related).  After realizing that I preferred chasing uncertain answers to big questions over certain answers to smaller questions, I moved to DC to pursue Religious Studies at Georgetown. There I discovered All Souls Church, Unitarian and that's when I truly "found religion," becoming a committed UU. Unitarian Universalism is a religious tradtion where my Buddhist and Christian influences and the rational inquiry of science can co-exist side by side with other traditions, and where we commit to work together towards a more just, more multicultural soceity, towards Beloved Community.

In the years since my "conversion" into UUism, it's become apparent to me that UUism doesn't always live up to our high aspirations.  The cultural diversity that we speak so fondly of is not necessarily lived in the reality of our congregations.  Moreover, in large part due to our being dominated by converts such as myself, we UUs have difficulty defining who we are and what we're aboout.  This website is an attempt to address those issues in a constructive way.

Influences and Interests
socially-engaged Buddhism, liberation theology, process theology, Taoism, interfaith dialogue, multiculturalism, environmental justice, art and activism, community gardening, resisting colonialism and capitalism

Roles
Curator, wizdUUm.net
Board Member, UU Ministry for Earth
2013 Fahs Collaborative Fellow for Cross-Cultural Spiritual Practices