Harvard Divinity Graduate Israel Buffardi Finds Calling in Unitarian Universalist Community

Israel Buffardi, who received a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School in 2019, came to Unitarian Universalism after a long and winding path, according to a Harvard Gazette profile.

The Rhode Island native was raised Catholic and felt an early draw to spirituality and ritual. At age 14 he decided he wanted to become a priest, but that plan changed when he realized he was queer. He said coming out raised many questions about his faith, including the acceptance and inclusion of LGBTQ people. “I felt like I had a deep calling within myself, but it suddenly became inaccessible to me because of who I was and what was important to me,” he said. During this struggle he took the first name Israel, a figure in the Old Testament who represents “the one who wrestled with God.”

Buffardi attended culinary school at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., where he worked on food justice, taught children how to garden, and hosted dinner parties for foreign exchange students with his roommate. “There was something really joyful about it,” he recalled. “I was creating community right in front of my eyes.”

He was still searching for a religion to connect with when he returned to a Unitarian Universalist (UU) church, and, in his words, “it clicked instantly.” The profile describes Unitarian Universalism as characterized by a shared search for spiritual growth rather than by adherence to specific religious texts or sets of rules. He first pursued a UU education at Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago through distance learning. He later became interested in attending a school that was not exclusively UU, and came to Harvard.

During the spring semester, Buffardi interned at the North Parish in North Andover, a UU congregation. There he lights candles for parishioners’ joys and sorrows during Sunday morning service. The flaming chalice is the symbol of Unitarian Universalism. As part of his senior capstone class, “Innovation in Ministry,” he worked as a ministerial intern at the North Parish with the goal of developing a ministry project to implement there by building empathy with those being served.

Buffardi also worked on the Divinity School garden and led some worship services and rituals. The garden’s yield is donated for a community dinner that feeds people experiencing homelessness or food insecurity, allowing him to combine his interests in service and food, a practice of hospitality (Matthew 25:35). He praised Harvard’s student body, saying, “It’s rare for a divinity school to have such a diverse group of people,” and adding that it allows for “building community with all different types of people and finding connections with each other and the values in their lives.”

The North Parish also holds a Sacred Supper outside the church beside the North Parish Gardens. Buffardi hosts the gathering, in which about 70 parishioners light candles marking the table space as a time and place of Sabbath. “A calling doesn’t just have to look like being in a church or a synagogue,” he said. “Ministry gives structure to that calling.”

Later, Buffardi assisted student tour attendees Cat Patten and Teddy Rayhill as they lit a chalice in the Emerson Room in Divinity Hall.

Source: Read the original report