#top
updates at the end
As of 2026 February 15,
I have received no response from the
Cluster to my emails of 2025 December 11
responding to the Cluster report of December10
which may be best read before reading my replies.
PRIVATE FOR PRAIRIE SAGE CLUSTER
     Find most recent correspondence at the top,
     with Oct 20 at the bottom of the four emails.
     A NOTE in blue follows the email chain below;
it outlines three examples for my UUMA resignation.

PREFACE

Historically the Prairie Sage Cluster of UU ministers has included persons without UUMA membership, including at least one person not even a minister. If the Prairie Sage Cluster now decided to restrict its membership only to those with UUMA membership, I would have been sorry to lose the connection, but I would have respected the group's institutional decision, as the early emails from me in the chain below indicate. I never campaigned to remain in the group -- and placed group comfort above my own loyal participation of some 50 years. From outside the group, I would have continued to honor each member of the group.

Instead, the Prairie Sage Cluster of UU ministers, as indicated in the December 10 email to me, has indefinitely postponed a decision, while seeming to pass judgment on me on the way to recision. The punishment of cancellation was handed down without an opportunity for me to be even aware of some untruths generated about the situation. Some might call the process rigged or think of the Star Chamber.
    
Rather than an institutional determination, the Cluster turned to personal disparagement. This was unseemly and unnecessary to redefine the group's institutional membership.

This wild adventure in personal destruction ignores facts and misrepresents me and my views. It has denied me a vehicle to address slanderous insinuations before they were issued. It has besmirched my character and undermined the trust necessary for a covenanted relationship.

The Cluster violated collegial trust and simple human decency. Expressed to me by third party, not directly, was the fear I could not be trusted, perhaps by those who may not even know me. An unblemished half-century of collegiality is dismissed with ignorance and prejudice.

With sorrow, now it is I who cannot trust the Cluster.

With shaken hopes for the liberal ministry,
With best wishes which endure,
Vern Barnet


#Dec11x

appalled
On 2025-12-11 12:06 PM, Vern Barnet wrote:

Hi Shari --

Just to add a little to the record of why I was so surprised about the issue appearing when it had been settled, here is an earlier email in red, below, from Jill. I have bolded the relevant part. I believe this decision was made three years ago, right after I left the UUMA.  I want to honor your concern in your letter where you write,  "The group recognized that the best time to have had conversation about your particular reasons for resigning your UUMA membership -- which I understand is Gadfly-related -- would have been when that happened." Again, it did happen then. Procedures based on assumptions, and not research and facts, are obviously not trustworthy.NOTE

You also write on behalf of the group, "There isn't a lot of energy to expend on it now in conversation with you." I never asked to have the cluster discuss the Gadfly drama. As I said earlier today, I am not interested in relitigating any of the reasons I had for resigning from the UUMA. I regard that irrelevant as to whether I practice collegiality. I am being drawn into a dispute I never invited.

Your note also includes, "But it is troubling to many of us that a colleague would leave the UUMA as a protest -- specifically against the UUMA's censure of a member who refused  to come to the table of relationship, while repeatedly denigrating UUs from marginalized groups." I never presented my resignation as based on such a construction or specificity. As a man open about my love for another man -- I wrote a book about it! -- I know about marginalization. 

In reviewing again what has happened with the consideration of my participation in the cluster, I am appalled by the process that has been used, with assumptions and misrepresentations. I do recognize and appreciate the care with which you wrote me, as you sought to represent the cluster's concerns. 

The question of trust is now reversed or mirrored. Could members of the cluster trust me : could I now trust members of the cluster?

I remain offering best wishes for you, your ministry, and for the flourishing of all in the cluster, especially as it seeks to understand the meaning of covenanted collegiality.

Vern

NOTE:
     Perhaps I could have been more specific by "this decision." The decision some years ago, after I resigned UUMA membership some months [I now think it was a year later] after the 2019 Gadfly Papers incident was whether I continued to commit to the UUMA Guidelines, the covenant, and collegiality. I was not asked about Gadfly, to the best of my recollection. 
     If now the question is, Where I stand on the Gadfly situation, and at the same time, I am told that  "There isn't a lot of energy to expend on it now in conversation with you," then there is little chance for dialogue. It is like saying, "We need to know what side you are on, but we don't want to give you a chance to explain it." Of course, I am not interested, as I say, in relitigating the drama.
     It seems, then, that the criterion I am being examined on is not whether I honor the covenant, but whether I have the right opinion about a conflict which some people find relevant to marginalized communities. This interpretation is new to me and is not what I thought the conflict was about. But I did not attend that General Assembly, and after studying both sides and deciding I wanted to be involved with neither side, I have not followed the situation.
     I am so sorry that now the oasis from denominational turmoil l that I thought was the local collegial cluster has now been so infected by the Gadfly drama that I receive communication that my colleages here are troubled that I "would leave the UUMA as a protest -- specifically against the UUMA's censure of a member who refused to come to the table of relationship, while repeatedly denigrating UUs from marginalized groups" -- when I never indicated why I departed the UUMA, much less specified what my departure was about, or why I decline to rejoin the national UUMA.
On 2025-10-20 5:09 PM, Jill Jarvis wrote:
Hi Vern,

Would you have time tomorrow for a zoom/phone call with me?

I wanted to let you know about an issue that's come up with our cluster group. Essentially there's a problem with the fact that a few of our members aren't UUMA members.  Too much to go over in an email so I offered to reach out to you so we might try to sort this out.  (Yes, we thought we'd already sorted this out a couple of years ago, but...it's complicated.)
If you're available tomorrow, I'm free basically all day and could set up a zoom call if you want. Or maybe phone is better? Or another day if necessary.

Anyway please let me know, I'd love to go over this with you and find a solution.

Thanks
Jill

#Dec11
Re: Resignation from participating in the Prairie Sage UUMA Cluster
On 2025-12-11 8:52 AM, Vern Barnet wrote:

Hi Shari --

I appreciate your generous and thoughtful presentation of the questions and factors involved in the UUMA cluster discussion Wednesday. I especially appreciate knowing about the concern that "If someone is choosing not to belong to the UUMA because they do not want to be in a covenantal, accountable relationship with colleagues -- well that gives one pause." 

And I might add: More than pause; like stop. 

My decision to withdraw from UUMA membership, on the contrary, was prompted by several incidents, beginning in 2011, which seemed to me to violate the Guidelines and covenant. The Gadfly drama, seen in such radically different ways, was only the latest. I do not want to relitigate any of those violations as I perceive them, but I do understand that new cluster members who were not part of the decision to continue to include me immediately after my resignation several years ago (as referenced in my Nov 20 email, quoted below) might be unsettled. We did have that conversation at that time, which is why I was surprised it needed revisiting this fall, until I considered the number of new folks in the cluster at one of the very few meetings I was unable to join, though I sent a brief check-in by email. I certainly did not resign from the UUMA because I "did not want to be in a covenantal, accountable relationship with colleagues." I am perplexed that such an absurd idea might have entered into the conversation. 

The decision in 2022 (as best I can date it, in September or October) [update: I now think it may have been 2020] was that any UU minister committed to the Guidelines and collegial covenant was a member. Pro forma, I was asked. I affirmed my practice and commitment at that time. Settled.

Through my career I have strongly supported and, I believe, faithfully exemplified the UUMA covenant. So even if UUMA membership becomes a new requirement of the cluster excluding me, I will continue to uphold the standards and wish colleagues well. That's who I am. 

(I was surprised to see the implication that the Guidelines require cluster members to be "UUMA members (or associate members) in good standing." I don't find that in the Guidelines. Actually, III.A.4. encourages all UUMA members to attend cluster meetings, but does not exclude non-UUMA ministers, and III.A.4.a specifically welcomes "other retired ministers." It may be worth clarifying or tightening what is meant, but I don't see a current stated requirement for clusters to exclude any who are not UUMA members or UUMA associate members. Of course it is possible I am not seeing something in the Guidelines text, in which case I am simply wrong.)

(I imagine you and others are aware that there are quite different versions of the Gadfly controversy. I listened to both sides carefully. I understand the perspective that the Gadfly author "refused to come to the table of relationship," but I am not convinced that that perspective is not defeasible by context and frustratingly complex wrinkles about which I remain largely agnostic. I found dishonor on both sides. I have no desire to ask others to change their minds. I myself do not think whatever my opinion might be about this is relevant as to whether I can continue to be a trusted colleague, but I understand that what I see as a conflation, others could see as a test, and I think the comfort of everyone in the cluster must take precedence over my personal viewpoint.)

I hate the fact that our movement has often been divided, and bitterly so. But I have learned  that sometimes folks feel lines must be drawn; and the fact that the cluster conversation about the covenant has gone on now for much of the church year, and as you report, is expected to continue, suggests that valuable collegial support time is being lost within the group as the discussion about me is prolonged, without any date for determination. While such a discussion can be in itself an important way of clarifying and renewing commitments and relationships, it is not lost on me that I am the occasion for this. 

I do not need to interpret your letter as an invitation for me to withdraw. Rather it is a helpful gauge for my own consideration. It seems, then, that the honorable thing for me to do is to remove myself as an impediment. A process which implies that I chose "not to belong to the UUMA because" I did not "want to be in a covenantal, accountable relationship with colleagues" seems to resemble witchcraft accusation more than the search for truth. That this suspicion arises not only after the question was put to rest, but also with the evidence of my attitude and commitment in my November email, last month, does not augur well for my future in the cluster. Projection happens in times of high anxiety and fear. 

Therefore I request that the group conclude any part of its discussion relating to me by noting that I hereby I resign (or if I am not technically presently a member,  relinquish any interest in) cluster membership. The comity of the group is too important to be the hostage of this one retired, but faithful, minister. My proposal for a "leave of absence" is now modified to resignation because of the absurd idea that I "did not want to be in a covenantal, accountable relationship with colleagues."

I am glad to have been part of the group for nearly fifty years and admire and respect colleagues and their ministries who have at various time moved through it. I never imagined my trust in the cluster's process would be shaken, but I have seen this failure in collegial covenant elsewhere, where presumption without evidence, interpretation without examination, leads to rupture, even in cases of the most impeccable integrity. I am not a theological conservative, but I do think Reinhold Niebuhr's insights about group dynamics may sometimes apply. In this situation, with the question raised month after month about me, it would be impossible for me, in however many days or years remain to me, to be trusted again within the group, though I am confident individuals who know me continue to prize my honor and collegiality.

For the cluster, even now outside the circle, I applaud its decision to pursue a "Covenant of Right Relationship," and I take some gratification in thinking my situation may have helped to spur such conversation.  This work will indeed support the UUMA
mission --

Calling forth courageous and transformative ministries,
empowered by love committed to collective liberation
… because we need one another.

-- and the time seems right for the cluster to explore what this means. 

Thank you for accepting what I presume was an assignment to write me about this after the meeting Wednesday. You were a good choice -- or volunteer! Among many reasons for this is that, to me, you are the face of my first Unitarianism, as you may recall, which began with the church you now serve; Bob Weston encouraged me into the ministry, inviting me even to live with him and Ruth as I attended what was then the University of Omaha. The reason I was interested in the church, however, was a radio broadcast about science given by his predecessor, Chuck Phillips; so I immediately was drawn to the plaque commemorating Newton Mann. I regret never meeting and thanking Chuck in person. Anyhow, I like to consider myself a "son of the church," especially because of the encouragement also from people like Marie Helms and Dr Merritt. Another reason for my fondness is that Dr Charles H. Lyttle, briefly pastor at Omaha, asked my wife and me to live in their home in Chicago after I graduated from Meadville and before I accepted my first call a few months later.

Coincidentally, today I had an email from another "son of the church," Tom Wintle, now also retired.  

Even without UUMA membership, I remain a colleague. If I can ever be of individual support or encouragement to any colleague, that I remain eager to do. I will continue to cherish friendships; and in public and private, as always, promote the wide liberal traditions of the world, with my own roots in Unitarianism; and even no longer as a member of the cluster, always honor the Professional Code of Conduct and the Covenant, as I have sought to do my entire career.

It is really important to know who you can trust.

With every good wish,
and, again, with gratitude for your helpful note,
Vern

With pleasure in friends, work for healthy community at every scale,
Respect for nature, transcendence through art, and faith in Eternity,
Gratefully,
Vern Barnet
CRES minister emeritus
 The Rev Vern Barnet, DMn 
 
#Dec10
Re: participating in the Prairie Sage UUMA Cluster
On 2025-12-10 2:54 PM, Rev. Shari Woodbury wrote:
Hi Vern -
Thanks for your patience with cluster conversations about participation in the group. We had another conversation about it today, after several I understand took place in the fall -- probably with a slightly different set of participants each time! Ah, the pace of church. 😂
The conversation led us to re-center the purpose of our group:  mutual peer support for the sometimes lonely and sometimes hard work of ministry, especially for those in active ministry. We come together in our cluster (as the UUMA motto has it) "because we need one another."
The outcome of today's conversation was that we decided to create a Covenant of Right Relationship for our cluster. Being in relationships of mutuality, care and accountability is central to our purpose as a cluster. A covenant helps to flesh out what promises we are making to one another, and reflects our commitment to staying in relationship, and seeking reconciliation when we make mistakes or inadvertently hurt one another (as humans inevitably do). We realized -- all the same relational skills we are learning-by-doing (and hopefully modeling and teaching!) in our ministry settings, belong in our cluster.
TBD in future conversation how the covenant will shape up. I expect we'll have further discussion as to whether membership in the UUMA is a part of our cluster covenant -- we did not reach a definitive answer today. There were mixed views on whether that should be a criterion of eligibility for participation in the group, though most of the active ministers present today (and some of the retired ones, too) expressed a strong commitment both to the institution of the UUMA , and to the relational ethos that membership in it signals.
If someone is choosing not to belong to the UUMA because they do not want to be in a covenantal, accountable relationship with colleagues -- well that gives one pause. After the meeting I found myself pulling up the full mission statement of the UUMA, which is:  
Calling forth courageous and transformative ministries,
empowered by love committed to collective liberation
… because we need one another.

If a colleague's reason for not belonging to the UUMA is merely financial, our hope is to help connect those people to resources at the UUMA (which has scholarships and regularly communicates that money should not be a barrier to membership).
Your situation is different. The group recognized that the best time to have had conversation about your particular reasons for resigning your UUMA membership -- which I understand is Gadfly-related -- would have been when that happened. There isn't a lot of energy to expend on it now in conversation with you. But it is troubling to many of us that a colleague would leave the UUMA as a protest -- specifically against the UUMA's censure of a member who refused to come to the table of relationship, while repeatedly denigrating UUs from marginalized groups. One of our number had all too close a seat to the Gadfly drama at its point of origin. Others have had to deal with these dynamics in their ministry settings. Many of us have marginalized identities ourselves (visible or otherwise).
I personally appreciate the generous attitude you expressed of not wanting to join in, if it would cause any cluster member to feel constrained in what they might share. It is clear that a number of people do feel that way. Not necessarily because of any personal relationship with you, but because we need to know that anyone participating in this circle of vulnerability and trust is committed to collective liberation, including our own. Your choice to cutoff from our larger collegial body does not engender trust.
What does this mean for your participation?  For now, we appreciate you continuing your leave of absence from the group while we work on our covenant, including any membership criteria. When we have one put together, one of us can reach out to let you know where it came out.
Faithfully -
Shari
Rev. Shari Woodbury, Minister   (she / her  about pronouns)
First Unitarian Church of Omaha

 
participating in the Prairie Sage UUMA Cluster
On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 9:03 AM Vern Barnet <vern@cres.org> wrote:
Dear Colleagues--

Since, I think, 2022 [I now think it may have been  2020], I have not been a member of the national UUMA. For the Prairie Sage group, it seemed mutually desirable to maintain collegiality. With newer members now, reconsideration is timely. Confidentiality is a key requirement, and I do not want even a single person hesitating to share anything because of my presence. I will respect and be content with whatever everyone decides. Collegiality is critically important: I do not want in any way to cause any uncertainty about our covenant of trust.

For November, I had thought I might join the Zoom meeting to answer any questions and then exit to encourage free discussion. While the quirks of the calendar may postpone this, I admire and appreciate Jill's efforts to move this question toward resolution. 

November would have been the third month for this topic, and now it is again postponed. I am concerned about this "unfinished business" distracting from other matters the group may need to discuss or individuals may want to share. So for the comity of the group, let me take a "leave of absence" as appropriate. If at some point everyone is comfortable with my participation, let me know. 

With Best Wishes for a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving,

And continuing cheers for our various ministries and personal lives,

Vern 

In this cruel, corrupt, erratic, vengeful age of official extortion and destruction,
Still, with pleasure in friends, work for healthy community at every scale,
Respect for nature, transcendence through art, and faith in Eternity,
Gratefully,
Vern Barnet
 


Re: Prairie Sage UUMA Cluster Gathering
On 2025-11-19 4:16 PM, Jill Jarvis wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

This is a good question and one I was planning to pose because there's a small complication.

At our September gathering we discussed the issue of our cluster's non-compliance with UUMA rules regarding membership. Those of you who were there might remember that the majority clearly wanted us to  be in compliance, i.e., all Prairie Sage cluster members should be UUMA members (or associate members) in good standing. This only affects Vern, [emphasis added] who's no longer a UUMA member. I volunteered to talk to him about this and he was very understanding, requesting to attend the October meeting to speak to this himself and hear us out. [Actually, I did not want to make a presentation -- that would feel like I was campaigning for something; I would just answer questions and then excuse myself. This is the same thinking I wrote about in my email to the group Nov 20. -Vern]
Well, as luck would have it, there were very few of us in attendance at the October meeting. Almost none of those who had previously expressed strong opinions about UUMA compliance attended, so it was not much help for Vern to be talking to us. [Actually, I do not remember discussing the issue; I made a brief check-in, and do not remember saying anything about the question. -Vern] Many of the colleagues who did attend in October had missed the September gathering and were not in fact at all in agreement with our cluster enforcing UUMA membership rules.

And so before I checked the calendar, I was planning to let you know about this and to suggest that we have as many colleagues as possible show up for our November gathering in order to make a final decision. Alas, it's the day before Thanksgiving so I will not be suggesting that!

Turns out the fourth Wednesday in December is Christmas Eve. Of course it is.

Shall we just wait till January then? Move up the December gathering? What do you think?

Jill

On 2025-10-21 5:30 PM, Vern Barnet wrote:

Jill,

Thank you for the "heads-up" but mainly for your care for me and desire for a solution that honors the needs of the situation.

I did check out associate UUMA membership. As I understand the requirements, it is open only to clergy from other denominations. I am just a layman in the Episcopal Church.

Apparently I am still a member of UU Retired Ministers and Partners Association. The UURMaPA Fall conference is now in session.

It was interesting reviewing some history together! let's see what the future holds. I do not want to inhibit the support ministers give each other by any uncertainty about my trustworthiness. This is such a stressful time for colleagues in the parish. I appreciate the need for places where colleagues can be open about both their ministries and personal challenges.

Again, thanks for helping me think about the Prairie Sage Cluster in advance of the meeting Wednesday.

With affection,
Vern  

Gratefully,
Vern Barnet
CRES minister emeritus
 The Rev Vern Barnet, DMn  
  

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 5:27 PM Vern Barnet <vern@cres.org> wrote:
Jill--

I'll be glad to visit with you, of course, about this though I doubt I have any particular wisdom in this area.

How about 1 pm Tuesday? Will you send me a link? Zoom is so good for me because I hear less well over the phone.

Thanks for initiating working toward a solution to whatever the difficulty may be.

I am planning to be at the Wednesday gathering.

Vern
  
On 2025-10-20 5:09 PM, Jill Jarvis wrote:
Hi Vern,

Would you have time tomorrow for a zoom/phone call with me?

I wanted to let you know about an issue that's come up with our cluster group. Essentially there's a problem with the fact that a few of our members aren't UUMA members.  Too much to go over in an email so I offered to reach out to you so we might try to sort this out.  (Yes, we thought we'd already sorted this out a couple of years ago, but...it's complicated.)

If you're available tomorrow, I'm free basically all day and could set up a zoom call if you want. Or maybe phone is better? Or another day if necessary.

Anyway please let me know, I'd love to go over this with you and find a solution.

Thanks
Jill
#Notes
NOTES

I was an active member of the UUMA for half a century. I held several positions several times, including Good Offices Person and President of a district cluster. I do not want to spark debate over whether I had good reasons to resign my national UUMA membership in 2020, I now think it was. In matters trivial and significant, experiences in the latter part of my ministy failed to exhibit the collegiality I expected. It seems my commitment to the principle of collegiality was stronger than the leaderhip exhibited.

Three examples.
1. Around 2011, a colleague was, in the view of her colleagues here, being wronged by the congregation she was serving. We contacted the UUMA about the situation. By chance, about that time, the UUMA Board was to meet in the area here. The UUMA failed to support our colleague and in the view of some of us, maybe all of us, violated the text of the Guidelines in dismissing our unanimous concern. Since we were able to sit in on that part of their meeting where this betrayal occurred, I have remain disturbed and perplexed, but I did not think of resigning.

2. The second example is trivial but telling, and concerned me particularly. I documented it at the time and it appears on my website at https://www.cres.org/programs2020.htm#UUMA50 -- underneath the chart. While I thought the matter trivial, it did seem to indicate a growing failure to honor diversity of thought within the denomination (which I also perceived at several points during the 2018 General Assembly held in Kansas City). I don't like having to choose between being remediated or canceled, especially in an area of my academic expertise as a scholar and seminary professor.

3. The third is The Gadfly Papers controversy, following the Morales resignation. I talked with colleagues on both sides of the Eklof disturbance and found fault in both places. I could not resign from a Gadfly organization
then as there was none, but I could resign from the UUMA, and did. 
     I did not find the UUMA to be faithful to its own principles and the Guidelines. The letter signed by some 500 UU ministers protesting the Eklof book so quickly, one day after it was released (how were so many copies suddenly available?) did not seem to me to be based on anything in the book fairly interpreted which I actually read months later. Both sides seemed unwilling to listen carefully to one another.
     I did not seek to engage the local ministerial cluster in a discussion of the Gadfly drama. One-on-one, I did ask one local minister for that person's perspective; I did not express my own view; I was simply seeking to understand the variety and intensity of perspectives. I saw no reason to inflict the local group with the controversy; and I am astonished that I, who have never brought it up in the group, should be the reason colleages have used it to discuss it and slander me behind my back. 
I am glad to be a part of UURMaPA and hope my schedule at some point permits me to be active in the group.

Until December, 2025, I was involved regularly with Kansas City area colleagues since 1975. Especially in my parish days, found it an important part of my ministerial and denominational health.

IF I HAVE MADE ANY ERROR IN DATING
OR ANY OTHER MATTER,
I WILL APPRECIATE CORRECTION.

BACK TO TOP OF PAGE
#updates
UPDATES

From responses I have received on January 20, it seems that the email Shari sent to me on December 10 was also sent to members of the Cluster without my knowledge. Had I realized that, I would have responded to the Cluster when I responded to Shari on December 11. I have retained Shari's email and there is no indication it was being sent to anyone else. This is not transparancy.

I thought it best to respond to Shari privately in case she might write back and say something like, "Golly, we did get our facts wrong and we certainly did not understand your reasons for leavng the UUMA. We should not have made such presumptions.  Apologies! We want to get this fixed."

Not only was I not given a chance to respond to the false accusations before her letter was distributed, I 
foolishly assumed it was best to wait a month before laying out the facts to everyone. I should have responded to everyone immediately, Now the damage has set it.

While I may not be able to sue on the basis of process, I can on the substance of defamation of character. After obtaining legal advice on the range of remedies available, all I want is an acknowledgment of error in process and substance and an apology. I do not want reinstatement.
__
 
I hope that some good comes of this. If this slander can be done to me -- with 50 years unblemished in the area -- on the basis of unexamined falsehoods, it can be done to anyone. No one in the group is safe if such a procedure is tolerated, accusations made behind one's back.

___

To those concerned about me: I'm fine! I've heard from several who feel the group's action was shameful. I have so many friends outside the UU circle here; and the ones in the circle who are important to me will remain so. I worry for the integrity of the group: if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone. Attending the meetings was a duty I happily fulfilled, though little of the conversation was relevant to my situation, as I wanted to support my younger colleagues as much as they wished. So one way of looking at this is being freed to do more significant stuff at my late stage of my life.

I'm really more sad for the group than for myself.