Written by: United Theological Seminary October 2, 2020

What Do You See?: A 2020 Online Art Gallery from the United Community

What do you see? What do you hope for your community? For United? The world? What images, words, gestures, sounds might capture your prayers and petitions? Where are you already finding beauty? These are some of the questions that the artworks below respond to. They include glimpses of natural beauty, invoke community and connection, create moments of rest and restoration; they bless the work that still needs to be done. With the world and our country and communities in tumult, wrestling with multiple pandemics, natural disasters, and social injustices, the need for hope and prophetic vision is greater than ever. At United we believe that the arts are uniquely powerful and transformative in visioning a better world and bringing it to be.

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A Haiku
RJ Teo

Beauty as mercy
beauty as mercy, the mercy of beauty

sings in me, weeps in me
draws all the dark shapes
round whole
into a bowl of night
touched with the moon’s quiet light
mercy, at the deepest curve
of the bowl of the night, mercy

Missa Gaia / Earth Mass
Agnus Dei Miserere nobis
the sound of the seal for our sister
homing call
she is mercy to us

this afternoon snow falling
in streams of light
down the rock face of the glen, mercy
water springing from so deep
running over oak leaves resting there, mercy

where the lost and the hungry
shelter from the storm
a young girl plays a tin flute
a lithe boy dances in the rain
all the children gather in close to be fed, mercy

at the deepest curve
of the bowl of the night, mercy
-Patricia Brown

stillnesslife

Stillness. . .Life!
Meredith Webb

“Self” Portraits in the Chthulucene
I.
My skin petrifies
grates
into salt
the red palm
the yellow arm

None of it can be taken for granted
while much of it is taken

in every field
there are faces we want to ignore
as if they do not weight the air
with their smiles and frowns

they carry us
but they are not selfless
they care for us

because of a bond built in our dna
when some primate, long ago,
who had greater intention than I can muster
unified with a stranger––

because someone long before I was an egg
fed his intestines
to the congress
threaded her viscera
through a loom,

I am
because while someone ended
another lived
and savored the taste

II.
I posit,
I reach
I let my hands empty
their particles, like pigeons
waiting for their points to sink
to dig

letting myself into a storm
so that every raindrop
sweatdrop
every hair
can lead to a chain, you hold
in your hands

wherever you are
kept by whatever anima loves you enough
to capture you

and it’s okay to be held
because every seizure
is an attempt at the many mawed and ever tendrilled
an attempt to hold
in a child’s net
a thousand hurricanes
laughing

III.
Honeycomb, haze
amber
swells and indents
it takes all our faculties (which of course were never really “ours”)
to stay on any sort of track
any sort of path to matter

matter in place
matter with thought and direction
and a perspective.

Where are my hands in relation to my elbows, my shoulders? Is geography
how I measure my relations?
Am I a landscape
A forest
A wilderness without mumbo jumbo, Christian implication
but earlier, ancienter
a swarm
a thing that is many things
at the threshold of unraveling

so even when I feel my limbs
disintegrating
I feel my spine coalescing with hundreds of hills popping through webs
wetted by a gold quality of light
which is not the entirety of what light is
just as my “self” is not the entirety of what I am.
-Max Yeshaye Brumberg-Kraus

Orthopraxy of James 20200423

The Orthopraxy of James
Brian Weis

Materials: comic book and magazine pages on Egyptian papyrus

Statement: I began with a central person in anguish. This is from the cover of a Harbinger comic. The individual is wearing a hoodie, which could be symbolic of the homeless, the mentally ill, shooting victims (such as Trayvon Martin), etc. Messages of despair and need surround this central figure. Some messages are the figure’s own; others are from people nearby, for the figure is telepathic and cannot keep out the thoughts of others. This figure is surrounded by acts of love, healing, compassion, protection, art, etc. Acts on behalf of family, friends, and even the “other.” This shows the community alive, at work. Doing work from their hearts, works alive with their faith. Note also that these acts have started to cover the individual’s despairing thoughts. Might the positive work one day erase or replace the negative? We can strive for that very goal. And that is my HOPE.

Note: This artwork also accompanied my New Testament exegesis for RT1201 during United’s Spring 2020 semester.

Dawning on US
Tanya Sadagopan

Artist statement: This acrylic piece represents our hope bursting on the scene of dark and gloomy days. The America of our xenophobic racist past is laid to waste on the ground before us. The sun will rise over our horizons as we move forward. The BLM flag of justice is now our guide.

Sunflower 20200831

“Sunflower“
Brian Weis

Medium: Digital photography

Statement: I love sunrises, sunsets, sunbeams, and lens flares. So, when I recently noticed how the evening sun was beaming over my backyard fence, I knew I had found an opportunity to combine several of my sunny loves. I selected the best of my photos, cropped it down to a 1:1 ratio, and carefully adjusted the resultant image until it approached my flowery vision. Flowers are symbols of hope in new life. The Sun gives me hope for a new day. I guess this image, then, is pretty much hope squared.

Sabbath
Melissa Miller

Artist statement: As summer Of 2020 wore on, the effects of the pandemic weighed heavily on my heart. Working harder than ever to transform ministry with young children into something that provided familiarity and support within the boundaries of safe social distance, I found myself exhausted at the end of the day. I turned to art making as a way to heal.

This piece, called “Sabbath”, is a needle felted painting. The continuous stabbing motion used to push wool fibers into a pre-felted background material alleviated stress, while the creative process allowed me momentary escapes from daily burdens.

I believe in the need for Sabbath; rest. It allows us time to seek respite from our own doubt and despair. Accessing the part of our creative self that beings us joy helps us find love for ourself. If we cannot find that which we love and treasure about our own spiritual and creative gifts, how can we have anything to draw upon to share with others? Nourishing our creativity provides us with hope and strength for our journey.

This piece is a metaphor for my time of sabbath. The cabin is my quiet place. My shelter from the world. Nestled in the embrace of nature. Watched over by a trinity of sheep. Carried through each week on the winds of life. Filling my life’s garden with outrageously colorful joy. My hope for the United community is that we may all find ways to experience the restoration and rejuvenation we need to minister to those around us.

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Untitled
Micah J. Murray

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Untitled
Rev. Joy Bailey, Class of 1981

stephanie1

Blessing Objects
Stephani Pescitelli

To view all three objects, Visit the Slideshow.

Artist statement: When I think about imagining a new world right now, I think about the paradox of dreaming for change while still being in the fear, sadness, and anger of the rupturing that leads to change. When I think about crisis and change, I think about–and long for–blessings.

Blessings are for threshold moments. We bless when we are in between worlds, states, or experiences, or as a rite of passage: morning prayers, before we sleep, when we sneeze, leave on a journey, end a relationship, start a new relationship, or return home. Blessings are a way to relate to this change: shelters, containers, and portals for our bodies to make meaning from the passing of time within and beyond us…

Blessings are a mediation between the material world and mystery, and an attending to this in-between-ness and the in-between spaces in our lives. Blessings are at once for keeping as whole and coming home and for breaking us open and sending us off to something new. And the materiality and nature of blessings holds this paradox, too.

When I think about blessings in this way, I think about skin; how skin lets in and keeps out, protects our ever-moving liquidy soft insides and also helps us reach out and connect to the ever-moving outside landscape. I also think about cell walls of plants and other creatures: selectively permeable barriers, thin, flexible, discerning, allowing for both protection and growth.

I’m curious about how the strongest, most impactful blessings–biological and otherwise–are also delicate and responsive.

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October 9, 2026

Alums Homecoming News Releases

Rev. Dr. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell (’06) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is excited to announce that Rev. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell, PhD—who earned his MA in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United in 2006—has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Alum. An accomplished preacher, teacher, and published author, Dr. Tredwell has championed biblical narratives that affirm the divinity of all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, class, gender, or sexuality. Adopted at age four, Lee was raised in the Baptist faith and felt called to ministry as a child. Even so, after earning a degree in Political Science and Sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, he spent the first ten years of his professional life as a grain trader for Cargill. After connecting with Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway, Lee found United, and his call was reignited. He remembers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Pressler (Professor Emerita of Biblical Interpretation, 1990–2020) and Dean Richard Weis* with great affection. Both teachers, he observes, “taught us to wrestle with the biblical text until it opened up and spoke.” They also introduced Lee to Black and post-colonial hermeneutics, and Rev. Dr. Weis led him to passages in Jeremiah 38 (Hebrew Bible) that sparked his interest in learning more about a Black character named Ebed-Melech. Lee also cites the influence of Rev. Dr. Christine Smith’s (Professor Emerita of Preaching 1992–2013) preaching courses on his life. In Colorado, at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Lee completed a joint PhD program with a concentration in Religion and Social Change in 2017. Ronald Smith, a former United student who nominated Lee for this award, notes, “Dr. Tredwell has demonstrated that he is an innovator and compassionate leader who has served both inside the academy as a professor of African American Preaching at Iliff School of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, and in the larger community; he has served as [a] pastor, civil rights and human rights activist, and [a] chief executive officer in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas.” Lee’s new book—Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach—was published in June 2025. As the description reads, “For all who believe God-Yahweh is angry, mad, disgusted, and against LGBTQIA+ folx, regrettably, you been had, misled, took, hood-winked and bamboozled! Black, Queer and Blessed, through lived experience and the excavation of the subjugated biblical narrative of Ebed-Melech, demolishes society’s antiquated mores.” The book is part memoir and part theological reflection on the Ebed-Melech revelation. In addition to his roles as teacher, preacher, and author, Lee has specifically worked to promote adoption of Black children from foster care and create affordable housing. These days, he serves as the pastor of Theology and Community Engagement at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. As Ronald Smith asserts, “Dr. Tredwell is the embodiment and an exemplar of United Theological Seminary’s mission, vision, and values.” * of blessed memory About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.

Lena K. Gardner (’15) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

[caption id="attachment_11955" align="alignnone" width="1920"] photo by Bethany Birnie[/caption] United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is thrilled to announce that Lena K. Gardner—who graduated with an MA in Justice and Peace Studies in 2015—has been selected as one of our three 2026 Distinguished Alums. A highly respected social justice activist and community leader, Lena is the co-founder and executive director of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a nonprofit founded in 2015 that creates life-giving and life-saving opportunities for spiritual community and Black-centered organizing. According to Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel (’13), Lena has “been a force in the Twin Cities’ religiously rooted justice ecosystem for the last 15 years.” Dr. Voelkel, Lena’s nominator, traces Lena’s justice-organizing acumen back to 2011, when she served on the Faith Organizing Roundtable—a body that coordinated religious communities’ opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. Lena went on to champion marriage equality in the 2012–2013 legislative session. After a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black teen, in 2014, Lena played a key role in transforming the Faith Organizing Roundtable into the Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing or MARCH. “In that same period,” Voelkel notes, “Lena was a core team organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and served on its steering committee.” Lena was deeply involved, quoted in many national and local articles, and interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio after former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020. In April 2021, after a Brooklyn Center police officer killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, Lena co-wrote an article in the Sahan Journal demanding that Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecute the case, and that the Hennepin County attorney be removed. More recently, Lena embarked on another ambitious project. In May 2024, through the BLUU Cooperative Housing Initiative, she co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing complex for single parents in North Minneapolis. In a MinnPost article about the groundbreaking, Lena explained, “It’s really about trying to give back to one of the communities that made me…. We really see providing stable housing in a cooperative framework as one of the many paths to collective liberation and Black liberation. Ultimately, it’s about self-determination.” When Operation Metro Surge arrived in the Twin Cities in late 2025, Lena took action again. As Voelkel observes, she “returned to the MARCH steering committee…. When MARCH organized a clergy call (in five days) to which 700 clergy came, the ability to create and host such an amazing event owes part of its success to Lena’s relationships with communications specialists, graphic designers, and organizers.” Lena was also a driving force behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors (NHN), a mutual aid group she and Anna Stamborski founded in late 2025 to connect vulnerable ICE-targeted families with congregational networks whose members could provide shopping and transportation services. Through all of Lena’s indefatigable contributions to working for justice, Voelkel asserts, she “has focused on Black excellence, Black power, Black spiritual wholeness, Black beauty, and how non-Black folks can act in solidarity and followership of Black folks, particularly Black queer women. She has done so skillfully through building relationships across differences in ways that facilitate and deepen genuine relationships.”

Cori Berg (’98) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is elated to announce that Cori Berg (’98)—advocate, artist, and educator—is a 2026 Distinguished Alum. Cori earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Theology and the Arts in 1998, and for more than 27 years, she has integrated creativity, art, and spirituality into her field. Cori arrived at United in the 1990s, having majored in theater and minored in studio art during her undergraduate studies. “I knew I had an artistic voice,” she recalls, “but it didn’t make sense in any of the traditional contexts.” After seeing an advertisement for United’s Theology and the Arts program, Cori drove from Dallas to the Twin Cities to visit as a prospective student. A campus art exhibit by Merle Janis was all she needed to see—“this school had something I needed: strength, boldness, vulnerability.” For Cori, “life is liturgy.” She credits United with introducing her to “the freedom in a progressive faith.” At United, Cori learned to expand her creativity, which became a launching pad for a vibrant career. “United gave me a safe, nurturing space to explore, dream, and execute big things,” she writes. “I’ve continued that through the rest of my career as an artist, an educator, an administrator, and a speaker.” Art is central to Cori’s work and features prominently in her curriculum development for children. Her art was featured in the 2012 opening parade for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, TX, a project that involved “seniors, children, and adults in all aspects” from a local Methodist community program. Ministry with Children and Spirituality, courses taught by Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely (Professor Emerita, 1991–2015), were particularly formative for Cori’s future in education. “I remember she taught us to get on the floor and view the church nursery from a baby’s point of view,” Cori reflects. “I use this today over and over as I teach early childhood educators…. She introduced the idea of seeing oneself not as a separate body, mind, or spirit, but when one part of my being is suffering, to use the other parts to help lift that part.” More recently, Cori has been an active community member at Dallas Meditation Center, where she is known for her moving dharma talks that weave Buddhist themes into contemporary storytelling. In public schools and congregational settings, Cori has applied what she learned as a United student to the field of early childhood education, for which—nominator Rev. Jim Peck (’99) points out—she has become “one of the nation’s leading advocates.” When facing challenges in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cori leveraged her ingenuity and creative vision to support educators with online training resources. As a teacher and an administrator in spaces where lack of institutional funding and support are commonplace, Jim observes, “she uses her [United] education to work for justice and equity,” to “nurture relationships in the early childhood settings where she has served, with an expertise in working in settings in crisis to encourage recovery, healing, and new paths for serving the future.” In May 2026, Cori completed her MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at American College of Education, where she immediately enrolled to begin her EdD in Early Childhood Education. She serves as an executive director at the University of Kansas (KU) and anticipates returning to Dallas to live near her family at the end of the year while awaiting her next opportunity. We are delighted to celebrate Cori and her decades of faithful, innovative leadership in the field of early childhood education and art. About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.