There is a long, proud history of street culture in New Orleans. In particular, there is a “network of grassroots, working class African American organizations called Mardi Gras Indians.”*  I started learning about all of this a couple of weeks ago when I bought a book about the history of New Orleans, which starts back in 1965 when Hurricane Betsy devastated the city and continuing through Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The book, Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans, covers the lives of nine people who lived through those years, each with a unique and unexpected perspective. One character, Tootie, is the man who changed the Mardi Gras Indian culture from one of street fighting to one of pageantry and pride, sewing incredibly elaborate beaded and feathered costumes that were so intricate and lovely that no one would want to destroy it with fist fighting — thus the only way to “fight” back was to create an even more elaborate costume of your own the next year. The designs were kept secret all year, only to be dramatically revealed when it was time to parade through the streets on Fat Tuesday.

Another man in the book, Ronald Lewis, grew up in the Lower 9th Ward (which I wrote about yesterday). The book describes his childhood in the wake of Betsy, and moves on to his young adult life, then his married life. It touches on his advocacy for the black community when he worked on the streetcar rail lines, standing up for fair wages and intimidating his white bosses with a flashy gold grille of teeth. He, too, became ultimately involved with the Mardi Gras Indian street culture, creating those elaborate beaded costumes for his son.

But I didn’t learn that last part by reading the book. I’ve only gotten as far as 1983.

In yesterday’s entry, I talked about how our group volunteered to help the Lower Ninth Ward Village by going out into the neighborhood and talking to folks, asking them to come to the candidate forum and advocate on their own behalf so that their elected officials would finally get around to allocating money to rebuild their homes. My partner and I chatted with a group of men on the corner, one of whom had previously served on the New Orleans police force starting in 1975.

Well, that conversation went on for about half an hour. My partner and I looked at the time and figured we could probably finish the block if we didn’t dawdle too much. The next house on the street we’d been assigned was abandoned and rotting. The one after that was surrounded by a chain link fence with a padlock; while there appeared to be repairs in progress, no one seemed to be home. So we moved on to the next door.

It was a little cottage house, neatly maintained with a nice paving stone walkway up to the clean front door. The driveway led to some sort of elaborate shed in the back yard with a raised wooden boardwalk wrapping around it.

We rang the bell, but we heard nothing. Just as we were about to go, the door gently swung open, and a kindly face peered out at us with a patient smile.

After explaining to this gentleman why we were standing on his front porch, we asked if he was aware of the situation in the Lower 9th Ward. “Oh, yes,” he assured us, laughing at some personal joke, “I’ve had my finger on the pulse of the city for quite some time now. My whole back yard is a museum dedicated to the history of New Orleans, you know. Did you see it on your way to my door? Why don’t you come on back, and I’ll let you take a look.”

I agreed with enthusiasm, and we ventured off his front porch to head around the side of the house to the back. The boardwalk connected his back porch to the elaborate shed — which, we could now see, had signs advertising it as the “House of Dance and Feathers.” Not sure what I’d just dragged us into, my partner and I waited as this soft-spoken man unlocked the door and turned on the lights.

We entered a long, narrow room covered in feathers — hanging on the walls, fluttering from the ceiling. There were photographs and statues, neatly piled books and sparkling masks, more things than we could possibly examine in the few minutes we had remaining before we had to meet back up with the rest of our group.

My eye was drawn to the photograph up at the top of this entry — an African American man dancing in an elaborate Native American outfit. I asked our host about how such a thing had started, and he said, “Well, if you want the real answer, I wrote the book on it.” He picked up a large book, its cover dominated by colorful beaded stitching depicting a Native American face in profile. The title explained how the museum had gotten its name — The House of Dance and Feathers. “I even sent President Obama a copy when it got published. See this right here? This is the letter he sent me, thanking me for the book.”

As I glanced the book and the letter, I commented offhandedly that I’d only just learned about the Mardi Gras Indians when I started reading Nine Lives, and did he by chance know about that book?

“Know about that book?” he exclaimed. “Of course I know about that book! I’m Ronald Lewis!” He pointed at the book he had authored. My startled gaze followed his finger, and sure enough, there was his byline, plain as day.

Ronald Lewis. He was a character in the book I was reading, and here I was standing in his backyard museum because I’d rung his doorbell because the volunteer group I was traveling with had handed me a map marked with an X and told me to go talk to the people who lived there.

I reacted like a total fangirl.

I felt my eyes widen, and I sputtered for words, pointing at him, pointing at his book, shaking his hand, asking if I could buy the book he’d written, and would he be so kind as to autograph it for me?

He laughed, and I laughed, and he asked my name and signed his book for me. I took a few more pictures, but sadly it was time for us to rejoin the rest of our group. He gave us his business cards, mentioning that he opens his museum to groups and is happy to talk about whatever New Orleans history folks want to hear about. I promised to spread the word, and if I ever get to lead a group to New Orleans, you can bet we’re going to be making a stop at a little backyard museum in the Lower 9th Ward.

It’s days like this when I really love my life. What a day!

-lm

Ronald Lewis, with his book (which he autographed for me) and the framed letter signed by President Obama, thanking Mr. Lewis for sending him a copy.

Inside the museum, a wide assortment of street culture memorabilia covers every surface — even the ceiling.

*quote from The House of Dance and Feathers: A Museum by Ronald W. Lewis, published 2009 by Neighborhood Story Project, New Orleans, LA.

It is that time again, dear reader, when I begin to travel homeward. Of all my justice-related travels, this has been my shortest one so far — at only four days, I feel in some ways like I’ve just settled in and started to warm up to my subject matter; and in other ways, I’m ready to go home, hunker down to finish my degree, and find a church where I can put all this learning to good use!

This trip was also different from the others I’ve gone on because it wasn’t just a social justice immersion trip — it was also a training to teach people how to lead these sorts of trips themselves. There is no kind of learning as effective as the hands-on type, and so to learn how to lead immersion trips, we went on one ourselves. My companions for the past four days have been ministers, directors of religious education, and intrepid youth advisors, most of whom are currently in the process of planning a trip for their own church.

I was on the trip because I was hired by the Center for Public Ministry in Minneapolis to research different organizations that lead immersion trips, and to compile that information into a useful comparison of common “best practices,” resources, goals, outcomes, etc. This trip is the beginning of a project that will fill my time for months to come.

So as a way of exploring these ideas, we actually went out and did them. I already told you about our first day in the Lower 9th Ward. After that, we spent some time helping out at UNITY, an organization that helps the homeless population in New Orleans; one aspect of their work is assisting with the transition from homelessness to living in a house by providing some basic living necessities like dishes, bed linens, pillows, etc. We visited their warehouse and spent the day sorting and organizing all of the donations that have come in since the holidays.

In the picture above, you can see what the inside of the linen storage room looked like — untidy piles almost to the ceiling! Once we were done, everything was neatly folded and sorted so that future volunteers can easily find what they are looking for. It took six of us about five hours to get it all cleared up, but it made a huge difference for UNITY’s staff.

After that, we went back into the Lower 9th Ward (and past the street where I met Ronald Lewis!) to look out over Bayou Bienvenue. Only 50 years ago, it was a thriving and healthy swamp, full of life and green growing things, fed by fresh water, home to birds, fish, and alligators. Technically, those animals still live there. But this is what that green wilderness looks like today:

So our travels are not only about the people; we are also here to learn about the effects that people are having on the environment and the non-human creatures with whom we share this planet. Social justice and transformational change also include learning about our human responsibility toward the environment and the rest of the interdependent web of which we are but a part.

We also stopped at Saint Augustine Catholic Church in the neighborhood that invented jazz; it was a tall square building with white walls, surrounded by well-repaired homes. It is a historically significant church to the African American community that surrounds it — before emancipation, the free blacks pooled their money and bought pews for the slaves to sit in. But we stopped at a little alcove on the side of the building: a massive cross, rusted and on its side, manacles and chains hanging from it. This is the Tomb of the Unknown Slave, a remembrance of all those who were trapped in bondage and whose graves remain unmarked.

Immersion trips can get heavy. That’s something they all seem to have in common, no matter where you go. The people change, and the places change, but the work remains the same — open your eyes, open your heart until it cracks, and then learn to let the light shine in. In many ways, four days is plenty.

Finally, today we visited the Freret Neighborhood Center and went around putting fliers in people’s doors, letting them know about a neighborhood cleanup event that is coming up soon. It’s easy to feel like handing out little pieces of paper isn’t really all that helpful in the grand scheme of things, but what we did today could make the difference between twenty people cleaning a street and two hundred people cleaning the whole neighborhood. When a neighborhood binds together, they create a powerful force for security, trust, communication, and dream-building.

And with that, I will say farewell to New Orleans — until next time!

-lm

Dear reader,

I write to you on the eve of my departure — this time to Selma, Alabama.  I am volunteering for the next several days at the Unitarian Universalist Living Legacy event “Marching in the Arc of Justice,” commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King’s “March on Selma” in 1965 (also known as “Bloody Sunday”).  The four-day conference will culminate with us joining Sunday’s march over the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge.

It has been a while since you last heard from me, dear reader, and I’m realizing my online circles have expanded since then.  If you are new to following along on my travels, welcome.  I treat my justice trips as pilgrimages — journeys of the spirit and the heart, not just the body and mind.  This blog was started in 2010 as a way for my family to follow along on my first solo justice trip to Phoenix.  Since then, many more of you have joined me on my travels.  Please treat this as a welcoming space, where comments are seen as “letters from home” while I’m away, and where we are all held to a standard of loving respect in what we choose to write.

Usually, I give a longer notice of my departure date, often sharing pre-trip reflections before the traveling begins.  This time, I have been struggling with the question of whether to blog on this trip at all, which is why you haven’t heard from me before this.  Somehow, this time feels riskier.  I am not an expert on issues of racism; I am not a historian with my mind full of timelines and textbook (or firsthand) knowledge of the Civil Rights Era.

I am a person of faith who believes that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice — but only if we come together and put our hands on it, lifting up the possibilities that come with open minds and loving hearts.  This is why I continue to say yes to opportunities like this one; the world will only change for the better if we show up to the party, connect with one another, and dream big.

It’s just that this time, it feels like a really big party. I mean, President Obama is going to be there.

Additionally, my voice is not necessarily the appropriately representative one this time around.  (See: white privilege)  Living in Minnesota, I’ve been particularly aware of the conversations happening around #BlackLivesMatter, particularly as events have unfolded around the recent mass protest at the Mall of America.  On matters of racial justice, I feel it is important to put my white self in the back seat and let the very capable leaders of color steer the conversation.

And yet, writing to you, dear reader, has become an intrinsic aspect of these journeys for me.  I hesitate to write, all too aware of my whiteness and my lack of expertise.  From past experience, I’m also aware of how quickly blog entries like this one can result in unexpected reactions.  But I also feel that to stay silent would be a betrayal of the commitment I’ve held with you for the past five years.  It is a commitment that has both challenged and sustained me.

Wise friends suggested alternatives for me to consider — journaling privately, blogging after I get back, sharing my reflections in a post-trip worship service.  These are good suggestions.  I may very well do all of them.

But — I also have to do this.

So please bear with me, dear ones, as I navigate these waters.  I will write as I am able, offering stories and reflections in the moment so you can join me on this spiritual journey.  I will share knowledge as I learn it, as I always do.  But please know that this time, it is a more tender and vulnerable journey.

And now it’s time to pack my bags.  Off we go!

With love,

-lm

from “The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society” – Concept & design by Maia Duerr; illustration by Carrie Bergman

I write to you now from Birmingham, Alabama.  Far from the frigid snows of Minnesota, my first breath of Southern air made me think I’d landed at the aquarium rather than the airport — humid and warm!  Temps were in the seventies, the sun was shining mightily, and even the trees and shrubs were covered in the beginnings of pink and yellow blossoms.

But before my northern friends get too upset with me for boasting of the nice weather, I’ll add that as I write tonight, a cold rain is beating on my bedroom window — local schools are cancelled tomorrow for fear of ice as the temperature plummets.  I also saw on Facebook that some of my colleagues around the country have had their flights cancelled and won’t be able to make it to the conference at all.  So I’m feeling lucky that I made it here without a hassle.

During my layover in the Chicago-Midway airport, I began to hear a different sort of music in the voices of other passengers awaiting the boarding time — swapping stories , rambling from one tale to the next, these black Southern women weren’t afraid to take time, first visiting this memory, then that one, making sure the actors in these tales had a chance to be seen and known.

I half-listened as I balanced playing cards on my leg, determined to win my game of solitaire before I had to board my flight.  Their voices became a comforting patchwork held together with occasional Bless-her-hearts.

One woman said, with pride evident in her voice, “You know, the President is going to be there.”

Then a white Northern voice broke into the gently drawled conversation behind me: “Are you all going to Selma?”

The ladies paused at the question, which to me felt intrusive and presumptuous.  But it would seem nothing could shake their dignity, and one gracefully responded:

“I am, yes.  I marched in ’65, and I’m going back this weekend.”

“Were you part of SNCC?” the Northerner asked.

After another tiny pause, the gentle voice answered, “No.  But one time Freedom Fighters stayed at our home.  And my brothers carried the banner in other Jubilees.”

“Selma sure is a small town to have so many people visiting.”

“Yes, about 20,000 people live there.”

As the flight began boarding, the stilted conversation broke up.  I made my way onto the plane and found a seat.  As matters turned out, my seatmates were Unitarian Universalists from Oregon!

Bob and Peg were lovely companions for our flight to Birmingham.  At Peg’s insistence, Bob had come for the march in 1965, and he heard Dr. King’s speech in Montgomery when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  He shared memories with me of how tense the South was during his last visit — how he’d been turned away from buying a Coke by a white shopkeeper because he was one of the marchers; how the national guard had pulled out suddenly after the march, and the risk of violence escalated immensely; how he’d had to have an escort when going to and from the church where he was being housed.  He remembered receiving the news of the murder of Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb, and a few days later the murder of Unitarian Universalist lay leader Viola Liuzzo.  It was a different time then, Bob assured me.

We parted with glad wishes, and I found my wonderful new colleague Monica, who is my local guide during my trip.  She and her daughter brought me to my homestay, where we all shared a delicious Southern meal of barbeque.  My hosts are lovely, and I have been treated to great conversation and warm hospitality.

I look forward to writing more soon!  I send wishes for safe travels to all who are still making their way here — and hoping for roads that are clear and ice-free.

-lm

Imagine yourself in a crowded sanctuary — not just crowded, packed.  Every pew filled, hip to hip, the balcony overflowing, the walls lined with those hardy souls who are willing to stand.  Even the front surrounding the pulpit is full of people — choir members, ensemble singers, accompanists, directors, esteemed speakers, even a couple men in suits who look like they might be bodyguards.  There are so many people that even the band is hidden amongst bodies, the drum set obscured, the guitarist just one among many.  Then add the television crews, the photographers, the journalists, gathered like a flock of birds at the far back near the doors.  The room is bursting with energy and anticipation.

It’s the anniversary memorial service for the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement, fifty years after our honored friends were killed by the very violence they were protesting.  We are gathered at the historic Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma, a blend of faiths and faces, packed together and singing for all we’re worth.

There — filling the fourth row — is the entire extended family of Rev. James (Jim) Reeb.  And over there, gathered in a clump up front, is the family of Jimmie Lee Jackson.  And there — that’s the family of Viola Liuzzo.  Up there, behind the pulpit — that’s MLK’s daughter.

Some of us knew these names when they were etched on our hearts in 1965.  Others of us read them in history books, the names standing out in stark bold font.  And some learned the names only recently, sitting in the audience of a movie theater as the drama unfolded on screen.

But those names are real tonight.  The families of the martyrs are here.

Led by a musical ensemble of Civil Rights veterans — the Freedom Singers — we eulogize the dead in a haunting melody, singing and weeping and swaying in our seats, with words that go something like this:

Have you seen dear Jimmie?
He was doing the work at my side.
The good always die too young.
So have you seen my friend?
I looked around, and he was gone.

We sing verses for James Reeb, and for Viola Liuzzo, and for Malcom X and Martin Luther King, and for others who died violently during peaceful protest.

How do we mourn those deaths?  We celebrate their lives.  And we are reminded, as we rub shoulders and breathe together and clap and sway and weep, that while we, as a country, were galvanized in 1965 by those acts of horror and brutality, the success of our movement today rests on the shoulders of those who lived on.

Dr. Bernice A. King — a brilliant, fiery speaker, and the daughter of MLK — reminds us of that, there in that crowded sanctuary.   We have to look back, she tells us, if we ever hope to move forward.  We have to look back to remember the stories, to learn from the people, to harness our courage.  And then, together, we can march in the arc of justice to build the promised land.

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor whose impassioned preaching inspired President Obama when he was in Chicago doing his grassroots organizing, takes the pulpit next.  Look at our history, he says.  Through all of it, black bodies matter, and sometimes black deaths matter, but black lives?  Black lives have never mattered.  And that’s what we have to stand up and change today.  Black lives matter — because yes, all lives matter — and that’s all that matters!

The crowd cheers and applauds our speakers, calling out encouragement in true Baptist style.  Our evening is running late, with so many spirit-filled messengers here to speak with us tonight, but the crowd is still expectant, the pews still packed, the walls still lined with people.

Rev. Dr. William Barber — leader of the Moral Monday movement, who sent out his own calls to come to Raleigh, North Carolina for a Mass Moral March — ascends the pulpit.

He’s an imposing presence, and a full-bodied, powerful preacher.  He commands us to listen to the blood of the martyrs, because it will speak to us.  We live in a time now when the Voting Rights Act from 1965 has been gutted.  We get complacent, but we can’t be satisfied with crumbs when we used to have the whole loaf — the very blood of the martyrs cries out against it!

It’s late, and we’ve been worshipping together for three hours into the night, but we sing once again, and we hold hands, and we pray, and we bolster ourselves with one another’s presence before we had out again into the cold night.

The warmth of our blended community is what sustains us, and the vision of that promised land is what calls us forward into action.

What is the blood of the martyrs calling us to do?

What is it calling you to do?

What is your vision?  What can we can do together as we march in the arc of justice toward that freedom land — as beloved companions, as people whose lives matter, as humble equals in the struggle?

So may it be, friends, and amen.

-lm

[Note: Photos are having difficulty loading; I hope to add them later as an edit.]

So much has been happening over the past two days, I hardly know how to make sense of it for you, dear reader!  Volunteering here at the Living Legacy Project’s event in Birmingham (which can be live streamed here) has been a joy and a privilege, and with so much going on, it has also been a rigorous schedule to keep.

We started bright and early on Thursday morning, setting up the bookstall and registering new guests.  On the way into town with Monica, my local guide and volunteer-boss, a local columnist came on the radio, saying, “In Alabama, we have a long and illustrious history of defending our rights…often at the expense of the rights of others.”  In this particular case, John Archibald was alluding to the recent judicial altercations over same-sex marriage, but his words ring true across issues.

After lunch, we all piled into two big buses and headed for Selma, which is nearly 90 miles away.

Now, I was anticipating warm weather here in Alabama — at least, warmer than Minnesota!  However, as we hurried out the door, we had to brace ourselves against snow and sleet, which is a highly unusual weather pattern for this area.  Just the day before, I’d been admiring the blooming trees and sunny skies.  On this leg of the journey, however, the skies were flat and grey.

We drove for about an hour and a half, down winding highways and hilly two-lane roads.  As we went deeper into the countryside, we watched grassy fields roll by, broken up by dilapidated buildings alternated with stately brick homes and the occasional field of abandoned vehicles, rusting away in the weeds.  The forests were just starting to bud, dusted with that haze of vibrant green.  Strangely, there didn’t seem to be any people out and about — perhaps it was the drizzly cold that kept them inside, but it lent the grey scenery a haunted, abandoned feeling as our bus rolled along.

Gordon Gibson came on the microphone at one point:  “Think for a moment — I don’t know if it was this exact stretch of road, but it was one just like it, back when they were driving Jim Reeb to Birmingham’s hospital after he was beaten into unconsciousness in Selma that night.  It was roads like these they were navigating in the dark, terrified, desperately trying to save his life.”  After a pause, he added, “They couldn’t, of course.  With his injuries being what they were, nobody could have.”

The bus settled into an uneasy, mindful silence as we stared out the windows at pecan trees and lonely yards.  We seemed so far from the bustle of urban life, and as we went deeper into the hills and gullies, I could feel the norms and expectations of city living just falling away.  We were in the Deep South, indeed.

Then we rumbled into Selma — which appeared to be physically unchanged since 1965.

Half the buildings were unoccupied and falling apart, windows broken or boarded or just plain empty.  There were no tourist attractions, no thematic restaurants, no big museums.  We saw people (at last), but we were told a good number of those on the sidewalks were preemptive visitors anticipating the Jubilee March this weekend.  Here and there, a portable toilet had been stationed (which was good news, since we had been warned there wouldn’t be any).

We piled out near a cafe — the one James Reeb had eaten at with his friends right before being attacked.  On that spot, in the middle of the sidewalk, a bronze plaque had been erected to memorialize his death.

And ten feet away was the surviving family of Rev. Reeb, over a dozen people who had flown in from all over the country for this anniversary recognition of their father’s (or grandfather’s) death.  Standing with them were Rev. Clark Olsen and Rev. Orloff Miller, who had been there during the attack.  They were surrounded by media.  When the media cloud cleared, the family came over and greeted us so graciously, as we all huddled in the cold wind under a sheltering tent.

We piled back into the bus and saw a few more local sights, including a stop at Brown Chapel, where the pastor unexpectedly showed up and invited us in for an impromptu singalong, where we clapped in a joyful but utterly uncoordinated way, our voices echoing and blending together under that huge domed ceiling.

Dinner was delicious, a true Southern meal at the local Wallace Community College — named, of course, after the Alabama governor who had caused Bloody Sunday to become a day of violence by directing troops to stop the march after they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  Like many aspects of race here in the South, the contrasts are juxtaposed starkly, overlapping in close proximity, strangely integrated in their distinct separation.  Some members of our group pondered whether the college had been named after the former state governor before or after he repented, just prior to his death, of his role in escalating the violence the Civil Rights Movement.

And then we headed over to the Tabernacle Baptist Church, for a powerful Mass Meeting and Memorial Service for the fallen martyrs James Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson, and Viola Liuzzo, among others.  You can read about that experience in my previous post, Memorial of the Martyrs.

By the time the service let out on Thursday night, it was late.  We shivered and huddled our way back into our bus seats for the long drive back to the hotel in Birmingham.  Pulling up at quarter past midnight, we all fumbled our way through the still-unfamiliar hallways to our half-remembered rooms — some of us meeting our roommates for the first time right before crawling into bed.

There was a lot to dream about that night.

More soon!

-lm

[Note: Due to technological difficulties, photos will be added later.]

With whom are you in relationship?

This question lies at the heart of every successful justice movement, and the work cannot be done effectively or sustainably without an answer.

And, because of that relationship, what does love call you to do?

It’s not enough to reason your way to action, or to argue your way, and you can’t even believe your way to action.  You can only act for justice from a place of love.  And your actions will have more power if you are able to articulate that, because it connects your humanity to that of the people with whom you are striving for justice.

On Friday, our speakers have all emphasized this point in their work with us.

Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison-Reed started us off on Friday morning by talking about   racial justice in the UUA.  He pointed out that during the Civil Rights Era, when Dr. King put out the call for people of faith to come march in Selma, some ministers decided to go — and other ministers were sent by the board of their congregations, who pooled their money and bought plane tickets so their minister would represent them in the important struggle.

What do you do when someone asks you to go?  You go.

Rev. Morrison-Reed asked us: With whom are you in relationship — so they know they can call on you?  And what of your relationship to yourself?

When someone is asked, “Why did you go?”, it’s not about being careful or rational.  It’s all about feelings.  When the answer comes, people will say, “I went because I was compelled to go.”

And when we go, we don’t act for others — we act with them.  But we do it for ourselves, because we dream of living in a more just and loving world.

Morrison-Reed continued: Placing the cause first will always lead you astray, because it places right belief before right relationship.

“When my life ends,” he concluded, emotion trembling in his voice, “I want to know I poured it out for the values I hold dear, and for the people I love.  Because it’s all about being in love.  That’s what compels us to do anything to protect our beloved community.”

Our workshop speakers throughout the day echoed these ideas in their stories, but the power of relationship was never more evident than when we held a brief ceremony to honor the families of the Civil Rights martyrs — the surviving family members of Jimmie Lee Jackson, Rev. James Reeb, and Viola Liuzzo.  We invited these families to the stage and presented them with a token of our love, the audience standing to recognize the tragedy of their loss, and to celebrate the way justice was made possible because of the sacrifice their loved ones made.

And amidst the clapping, these people, who have lived with the aftermath of these murders for fifty years now, approached the microphone and spoke gentle, heartfelt words:

“Thank you…thank you for not forgetting by brother…my sister…my husband…my grandfather.  Thank you for bringing us here and showing us that the Unitarian Universalists still remember my loved one, whom I still miss every day.  Thank you to the congregations who, year after year, sent money to our mother to help her pay the bills when she was struggling.  Thank you for remembering her name, his name, so that when I walked into a UU church and said I was her daughter, his daughter, everyone knew what I meant, and I knew you were keeping them alive in your hearts.  When you remember him, I feel like I’m held in my father’s arms.  When you remember her, I feel like I’m walking in my mother’s light.”

That is what it means to love your way into relationship.  That is how justice is born — because of the choices we make, every day, to keep reaching out, to keep holding each other close.

There is no other way.

That evening, the Rev. Dr. C.T. Vivian, one of Dr. King’s closest friends and whose preaching and ministry is held in high esteem by both Dr. King and President Barack Obama, also emphasized the importance of love in his keynote talk.

He told us that there are three important concepts in religion — justice, truth, and love.  You can’t talk about these things with your words without living these values in your heart.

“You think you can fool God?” Dr. Vivian challenged us.  “The central value is love.  And how can you call yourself Christian [or religious] if you don’t embrace that?  You have to ask yourself — if you don’t love the people you’re working with, then are you really in this at all?”

He continued, “Until we are ready to love people — and I’m talking about people as a whole human race — then we’re just playing games with ourselves.  You’ve got to act like you believe what you’re saying.  Until you show people that you love them — nobody will follow, no one will come back.  Love has to be at the center of every revival.  It can’t just be about fighting back — it’s got to be about love.

“We can change the world, if people know that somebody loves them — because that’s what makes the difference.  That’s the group people will want to be with.”

And so that’s the question: Do you love?

If you do, make sure you proclaim it for all the world to hear.  Get the message out that your heart is breaking with the love you feel, and that you will not rest until those you love can rest with you.  Make it known that you will put your body on the line to protect the bodies of the people you love.

And always — always — keep expanding that circle to love more people, to invite them in.

And listen for the people who are saying, I love you, too.

That’s the way the community becomes truly beloved.

-lm

(I am told that both of these keynote talks, by Mark Morrison-Reed and by C.T. Vivian, will be made available for viewing at the Living Legacy Project website.)

I met a woman here in Selma — a fine, strong, intelligent woman.  She’s savvy, and involved in racial justice, and politically conscious.  She’s a motivated, connected activist, and she’s in it for the long haul.

She’s also NOT a Unitarian Universalist.

She’d never heard of us before she was invited to this conference about Selma, this commemorative event that we dared to call “Marching in the Arc of Justice.”  Upon receiving the invitation, she thought she’d look up exactly who these Unitarian Universalists are.

She looked up the brand new UUA website.

And she looked up her local UU congregation’s website.

That’s all she knew about us before traveling to Alabama.

I found myself holding my breath as she told me this story.  What did she glean about us from these two websites?  I know a lot of effort has been put into rolling out the new uua.org, and apparently she found it useful in locating her closest congregation.

But when she went to that local website — what did it tell her?

Was it your church’s website?  I’ve seen some websites that are beautiful articulations of our faith, and others where I can dig for an hour without figuring out much of anything beyond last month’s “presentation” titles.

I relaxed a little when she told me, with enthusiasm, that she’s looking forward to visiting her local church.  Whatever she saw online, it encouraged her not only to agree to attend this conference, but also to commit to visiting that church when she comes back.

But then the next words she said, though meant to be celebratory, made my anxiety jump again:

“I think I’ve found my people at last!” she said.

Now, you would think that such a statement would delight me — and to an extent, it did.  I’m thrilled to hear our faith tradition’s message is getting out into the world, reaching a new audience, spreading new hope, breathing new life.  That part is wonderful.

And then I imagined all the wide and varied UU congregations this woman might walk into.  I imagined her coming home from this incredible conference — her heart overflowing with powerful messages from some of the best black preachers in the country, and her spirit singing from the experience of marching in a giant mass of humanity across the Edmund Pettus Bridge — and I imagined how she might feel, what visions might be dancing in her head when she arrives home, and, with great anticipation, walks through the doors of that congregation.

And I wanted to ask, dear reader — how will she be received, if the congregation she walks into is yours?

You already know she’s a woman.  Would it make a difference if I told you she was twenty — or seventy?  Are you assuming she’s white?  Or black?  Or Native?  Or Latina?  Or Asian?  Does it matter to you if her parents were immigrants?  Or if her grandparents could remember slavery?  Or if she grew up as a Daughter of the American Revolution?

When this woman walks through the doors of her local UU congregation, brimming with this fierce hope that, after years of believing she was alone, she’s finally — finally — found her true home, a faith where the flame of justice burns brightly, how will her fierceness be received?

Will you try to tame her?  Will you ask her to conform to your way of doing things?  Perhaps you’ll invite her, on her first visit, to join your Social Justice Committee, which meets on the third Wednesday of every month.  Or, heaven forbid, I hope you don’t ask her to start a Social Justice Committee.

You see, I don’t want us to disappoint her, and I don’t want us to use her up.  She understands that relationships take time to build — I think she’ll give us some time to get to know her, and for her to get to know us.  And she certainly understands that the work of justice doesn’t happen overnight.

But I hope that this congregation — whoever you are — can embrace her (and her history, and her passion, and her ideas, and her deep longings).  I hope, when she arrives unannounced at your door, that you have already begun the work, that you have a group building racial justice among your people.

I hope that, whoever she is, you warmly invite her in, that you sit with her in worship, that you introduce her to your friends at coffee hour, and that you make sure she knows you’ll be keeping an eye out for her next Sunday morning.  I hope you go out of your way to make sure she’s encouraged to attend social functions, to build relationships.

In short, do everything in your power to make her fall in love with your congregation.

Offer her a feast to feed her spirit.

Shine your light so she can grow her soul.

Then you’ll be in the right place to serve the world by jumping into the work of racial justice together.

So I invite you to wonder, dear reader — is she coming to you?

-lm

I am going to Standing Rock.

A call went out today, asking clergy of all faiths to come to the Standing Rock reservation outside of Bismarck, North Dakota to witness and join the water protectors, whose numbers have swelled with representatives from over 200 tribal nations from all over the globe in an unprecedented showing of Native solidarity.

I will be answering that call, flying to join them at the Camp of the Sacred Stone on November 2nd for a training, and then participating in a clergy action, under the guidance of the Standing Rock elders, on November 3rd.

I am coming because I was asked — by people with whom I am in relationship.

I am coming because that is what Love calls me to do — I am compelled by Love.

I am coming because I refuse to buy into the worldview that separates people into “us” and “them,” when in truth there is only “we.”  What do lines on a piece of paper mean, when clean water is essential to everything?  What do we need with more oil, when our communities are fracturing and our children’s inheritance is at risk?

As our great Civil Rights leader once said, in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:

“In a real sense all life is inter-related.  All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be…. This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

~ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So when I go, it is because I feel another’s suffering as my own — that is the nature of compassion.  Compassion, a form of love in action, is what moves us to alleviate another’s pain, because it is natural to act in a way that diminishes suffering.  By showing up to witness, to put my body on the line, to learn the stories and bring them back, to give voice to the voiceless — in all these ways, I can work to ease our collective suffering.

In a recent visit to our congregation, Rev. Dr. Mark Morrison Reed reminded us that social transformation and justice movements are built on relationship; we human beings, for all our flowery talk of doing something because it’s the right thing to do, are not actually compelled by conscience, but by being in relationship with people who are asking us to show up, which is to say that we are compelled by love — which is just another way of saying that change happens when our hearts are moved to compassion, when we must alleviate another’s suffering because it is our own.

It comes down to the question: Whose Are We?

To whom do we belong?  To whom are we bound in a mutual relationship?  To whom are we accountable, both today and in the future?

The answer to that question will dictate where you show up, which is another way of saying how you use your power.

And as you start teasing out your own answers, you will begin to realize that there’s a thread of relationship and meaning that weaves your entire life together.

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

~ William Stafford

I write to you, dear reader, from the air, somewhere over the Great Plains in a tiny plane. Below are stripes of green and gold fields, interrupted by folds in the land, twisting and untamable. I wonder if water is collecting there. 

Soon we will land in Bismarck.

It’s not my first time, traveling to a place that has earned a reputation for police brutality, to witness the militarization against unarmed civilians; it’s not my first time entering a war-zone-that’s-not-a-war-zone (even though photographic evidence would suggest otherwise), where people of the land are treated as less than human while mainstream media remains astonishingly silent and neutral. 

For all that I’ve done similar things before, the blind eye always catches me by surprise. I wish it were otherwise, but for an immense number of people in our country (or, more accurately, in our globalized world), their experience of being non-White in a White-dominant culture has led them to expect that they will be made consistently invisible and voiceless in our whitewashed world. (My privilege is showing again.)

How is it that we can divide ourselves from one another, and not realize how much we are suffering as a result? How long until we finally, collectively, figure out that there is no such thing as someone else’s pain — that the theology of interconnectedness and oneness of being is not just a poetic idea, but the reality of the universe?

The plane will be landing soon. Pausing for turbulence. 

~*~

My alarm went off at 4:30am, and I stumbled through the darkness to dress for the North Dakota weather (low 60s with the sun, below freezing at night), in spite of the relative (and unseasonal) warmth of Elgin, Illinois in early November. I had packed and showered before bed; my clothes were all laid out; the cat was fed. All I needed to do was make it to the driveway with my backpack, preferably with matching shoes on my feet. 

In all my preparations, I tried to be mindful of my destination — fluctuating temperatures, rough outdoor conditions, no running water (because the government turned it off to deter the ones protecting it), no grocery stores, no sidewalks. I’d have my rental car, but otherwise only what I could carry on my back — which had to include everything I’d need to sleep on a floor (either of a church or a tent). With a sleeping bag, travel pillow, and jacket, it didn’t leave room for much else. I’m wearing all the clothes I brought, aside from the clergy collar and stoles for public witness. I managed to fit in a toothbrush. In my daypack, I have goggles to protect against chemical weapons, ear plugs to protect against sonic weapons, and a scarf to cover my face and mouth (and wipe them off, if needed). I packed some TP, and a bag to carry it out in. Some dry hand soap. At the last minute, I threw in a handful of my daily vitamins and some electrolyte powder to mix with the water I’ll buy in Bismarck before driving down. 

I saw headlights moving slowly in the dark, winding their way up my long, rural gravel driveway. My ride was here, a couple minutes early. I went out to meet them, switching off the lights and trying not to let my overadventurous cat dart out between my legs. 

Turning to the car, I blinked in the darkness, sure that my eyes were tricking me.

The driver had come up to the door to meet me, solicitously inquiring how I was doing. As we walked to the car, I mentioned that the car was perhaps a bit larger than I had expected, with my one backpack of luggage.

“Oh,” said he, ” that’s because we have additional passengers.”

So it was, with some bemusement, that I climbed into a sleek black stretch limousine, which reached half the length of my yard, in the pre-dawn hours on a Wednesday morning, crawling awkwardly over the laps of the two passengers already occupying the forward-facing rear seat. Eventually I was successful in arranging myself on the sideways seat under the mood lighting, facing the carefully arranged mirrored bar. 

As the enormous snake of a car attempted to back its way out of my driveway, the other passengers, thinking to engage in small talk at 5am, asked where I was going. In turn, I asked the same of them, and found they were leaving for a vacation to Hawaii. 

Having thus exhausted the topic of location, then came the inevitable question: “So why North Dakota?”

I sent a plaintive prayer to the universe, wondering what I had done to warrant being outed as a clergy activist at such an hour, on so little sleep, and while the driver was doing his best not to run over my bergamot and ostrich ferns.

But this is why I’m doing this work, yes? To engage the story, to broaden its reach, and to stir the hearts of people distracted by life’s other minutiae.

And so I gently explained where I was going and why, and what had happened, and what I hoped to do. The couple asked good questions, and by the time we pulled into O’Hare, we were chatting easily in the limousine’s soft mood lighting, and their hearts were engaged, at least in that moment, with the people of Standing Rock. We parted congenially.

Then, as the huge fancy car pulled away, I discovered my flight had been cancelled. 

~*~

Ministry doesn’t always take the form you expect it to. Sometimes it’s telling hard stories gently in the back of a stretch limo. 

Sometimes it’s projecting good cheer and gratitude to the airline attendant whose hands are flying over the keyboard, pulling every string at her disposal to get you to Bismarck when every flight seems full and she can’t figure out why.
Sometimes ministry is ignoring the chatty man in the seat next to you on the flight to Denver as he details, in that early dawn hush, his life story for no reason, even though you’re not looking at him or asking him any questions. Sometimes it’s going a step further and closing your eyes, pretending to fall asleep, as he decides this is a good time for an unsolicited lesson in how runways work. It’s ministry, because it doesn’t involve duct tape. 

Sometimes ministry is the quiet voice of the woman on the other side of you, saying she’s glad you’re going to Standing Rock (a detail the chatty man uncovered before changing the topic to one where he was the expert). Sometimes it’s a heart to heart, ranging over many topics, that you realize you don’t want to end when the plane lands. 

Sometimes ministry is the flight attendant holding the door after the last call, as you bound down the steps from your delayed flight, sweaty but present, and just in the nick of time.

Amd sometimes ministry is your new seat mate, introducing herself as UUA staff in President Peter Morales’ entourage, letting the conversation fade in a companionable sort of way so that you can have a few minutes of not talking for the first time since that 5am limo ride in the darkness. 

It’s the cheerful guy at the car rental counter, introducing himself by name and offering a handshake over the counter as he gets your keys. 

It’s the bright North Dakota sunshine and cool breeze over the Great Plains. 

It’s the call of friendship and allyship, bringing us together because our hearts are interconnected; there’s no such thing as strangers. 

Ministry is what nurtures us into courage, nourishes us into strength, and sings between us across the miles.

~*~

And now I leave for the grocery store to stock up on water and food before heading to Cannon Ball, North Dakota!

More later, as connectivity allows. 

-lm

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072413/https://leapingloon.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/img_1007.jpg

So good to zoom in and see @SideofLove banner in this #NoDAPL clergy circle at #standingrock. With you in spirit!pic.twitter.com/lnRM71YHQE