The VUU talks with Peter Montgomery about religion and politics, the global impact of the religious right, the religiosity behind fascism, and the countering power of the arts and beauty. Peter is a writer who has studied religious conservatives for close to two decades. In this past presidential campaign, he attended the GOP Convention and a number of Trump rallies. Visit https://youtu.be/5DRn2XN2BH4 for resources mentioned in this episode.

The VUU talks with Peter Montgomery about religion and politics, the global impact of the religious right, the religiosity behind fascism, and the countering power of the arts and beauty. Peter is a writer who has studied religious conservatives for close to two decades. In this past presidential campaign, he attended the GOP Convention and a number of Trump rallies.

Peter is a well-regarded writer/thinker and a source for national media. Follow his work:

• Right Wing Watch
• Religious Dispatches
• Twitter and Facebook

Peter finds inspiration and hope in this quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (referenced at the end of the show):

A [person] should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of [their] life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 12, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072940/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu166.mp3

Our guest is Katia Hansen, President/CEO of UURISE. We talk about congregational support for immigration justice including providing sanctuary, the importance of becoming a coalition partner, immigration services her organization provides, and general concerns going into the new Trump administration. Visit https://youtu.be/uYOHvya4gdE for resources mentioned in this episode.

Our guest is Katia Hansen, President/CEO of UURISE. We talk about congregational support for immigration justice including providing sanctuary, the importance of becoming a coalition partner, immigration services her organization provides, and general concerns going into the new Trump administration.

Resources mentioned in today’s episode:

• UURISE (UU Refugee and Immigrant Services and Education)
• UUA’s New Sanctuary Movement page
• BorderLinks trip to US/Mexico border
• United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the nation
• Puente Movement, a grassroots migrant justice organization based in Phoenix, Arizona
• National Day Laborer Organizing Network

Upcoming webinars:

• UUSC’s Sanctuary and Solidarity webinar (for clergy only) on Tuesday, January 17, 3:00-4:15 PM (ET) – Register
• UUSC’s Sanctuary and Solidarity webinar (open to all) on Sunday, January 22, 3:30-4:45pm (ET) – Contact Paul Langston-Daley
• UUCSJ/UURISE: Faithful Discernment: Is Your Congregation Called to Offer Sanctuary? on Monday, January 30, 7:00-9:00 pm (ET)
• UUCSJ/UURISE: The Path Toward Sanctuary: A Practical Guide on Monday, February 27 7:00-9:00 pm (ET)

The VUU is hosted by Meg Riley, Joanna Fontaine Crawford, Aisha Hauser, Hank Peirce, Michael Tino and Alicia Forde, with production support provided by Terri Burnor. Tom Shade joined the hosting crew this week. The VUU streams live on Thursdays at 11 am ET. This episode aired on January 5, 2017.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211108072917/https://www.questformeaning.org/podcasts/vuu/latest/vuu165.mp3

Sometimes we must change to get the life we want to have.

The Daily Compass is a ministry of the Church of the Larger Fellowship crafted by Rev. Michael Tino of the Lead Ministry Team.It offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Short reflections and prompts related to monthly themes are posted every day at dailycompass.org. The following is a selection Daily Compass offerings from recent months.

BALANCE

Vital to the balance of a stone arch is the keystone, the wedge-shaped stone against which the two sides of the arch push in equal measure. In architecture, this is a vital and important role; in life, this is not a healthy situation in which to find ourselves.

When have you experienced balance brought about by things pushing you in opposite directions? How did you interrupt this?

SPIRIT

Carolyn McDade described the night she wrote the hymn Spirit of Life to Kimberly French of UU World: “When I got to Pat’s house, I told her, ‘I feel like a piece of dried cardboard that has lain in the attic for years. Just open wide the door, and I’ll be dust.’ I was tired, not with my community but with the world. She just sat with me, and I loved her for sitting with me.” Writing the song was the prayer that refilled her spirit.

What words or prayers refill your spirit when you feel like you’re about to fall apart?

COVENANT

The power of covenant derives in part from the fact that all parties to it must agree, and that agreement must be renewed and renegotiated constantly. Healthy relationships require mutual consent; that includes spiritual relationships as well as intimate ones.

How do you seek consent from others in meaningful ways?

GRACE

Sometimes grace comes through sheer will, through persisting despite the odds against us. Sometimes grace comes from hanging on, from inching ourselves forward until we are somewhere better.

What do you need the strength to persist through today?

UNION

The union of two people or two entities requires negotiation. The best negotiations don’t get mired in positions, but instead focus on needs and values. Each party must be able to articulate their values and state their needs; each party must be able to say how they will help meet the needs of the other. Sometimes, sacrifices are made. Sometimes, synergy is developed.

How can you make your needs and values known to others today in generative ways?

EMBODIMENT

You share 55% of the DNA in your genes with a banana tree, 80% with a cow,  98.5% with a chimpanzee, and 99.99% with every other human being on the planet. One ten-thousandth of the DNA in our genes is responsible for all of the differences we see in humanity. For the hundreds of rainbow shades that skin, eyes and hair come in. For the differences that make it so hard to find organs to transplant. For every shape and size that humans come in.

Notice your connection to other living beings today. Feel your relation to them. They are your kin.

CREATIVITY

Where will you pause to touch the Earth? Where will you marvel at the hints that lie scattered around you in the grass? Where will you discard what you previously thought was true, and try on a new belief for size? Where will you stop for directions, for advice, for a conversation with another, for a relationship, for a moment of grace brought to you by the mind of a child?

What does it mean to you to persist through difficult times on your journey?

I love the phrase “praying with our feet.” It often comes to mind for me in protests at the Texas Capitol, when I wait in line to vote, and perhaps most especially every Friday, when I lead my Zumba class, where we pray with our arms, our hips, our everything.

“What is your intention for this hour?” I ask folks Zooming in from around the world. “What are you dancing for today?”

On a recent morning, the answers included, “my 18-year wedding anniversary!” “another job interview,” and “seeing my grandkids again for the first time in COVID.” A woman in College Station, Texas, showed us her wrapped wrist and asked for healing prayers after surgery. A dancer in Canada requested the song “Best Friend” by Saweetie and shared sadness about a friend in hospice care.

We took deep breaths and held each other across the miles. Then we danced — for joy, hope, and grief. For the chance to move together as one, even in a time of isolation.

Happiness ain’t something you sit back and you wait for
Feels so good to dance again”
—Selena Gomez, “Dance Again

Since finding dance nine years ago, it has become my joy practice and a form of embodied prayer. I choose music and choreography to reflect Unitarian Universalist principles like interconnectedness, equity, and acceptance. Moving to the music of Lizzo, Kesha, and Gente de Zona, I am praying to the Spirit of Life — to summon the energy for another day of pandemic parenting, to feel in my hips and heart that I am enough. We are all enough.

Uruguayan journalist and novelist Eduardo Galeano wrote, “The church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

As UUs, I hope we can bring church and science into the body’s celebration (and do our best to ignore advertising altogether).

Lately, my own body and spirit have been telling me to slow down. I am feeling the impact of pandemic trauma, plus the natural effects of aging (and a decade of jumping up and down to Pitbull songs).

Thankfully, Zumba can be medium-impact or low, on your feet or in a chair or swimming pool. Sometimes just listening to the playlist is enough. When I forego a high-impact jump in favor of a grounded shimmy to protect my back, I am not failing my class — whose members range in age from elementary school to their 80s — but honoring the sacredness of all bodies.

Similarly, when my brain is tired and I forget a move, I try not to apologize (as I have been conditioned to do for the most human of mistakes). Even though I feel embarrassed on the inside, I throw my head back and laugh, improvising through the moments Richard Simmons used to call “accidental solos.” I remember that we are called to let go of perfectionism — a piece of dismantling white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions. I remind myself that we need these moments, to dance through discomfort and even embrace mistakes, having faith we will learn from them.

I remember the wise words of Cynthia Winton-Henry in her book, Dance – The Sacred Art: “As much as you might want a ‘perfect’ spot in which to dance, it is really the other way around: You make the space around you holy when you dance.”

What does prayer look/feel/sound like to you?

ROBERT
CLF Member, incarcerated in MA

Little things, big things, anything; people pray for them. From the mundane, like to perhaps hit the lottery, to the serious, like for someone’s life. (Though perhaps, for some, winning the lottery isn’t mundane at all, but a serious need.)

It all cycles around to prayer. A want, a need, a desire, leading to hoping, wishing, possibly even begging, some greater power to hear you, to help you.

Do I pray? Probably not enough. I attend services, I meditate, I take part in my faith, and take it seriously. But praying? In here, it can be hard to do.

There’s a mentality that pervades all here: avoid weakness, lest you be preyed upon. To pray, is, in a way, a surrendering yourself to another, to ask for help to do something.

Is that weakness? No, but in here, it can be viewed as such. So that energy hangs in the air, sapping you, putting you on edge.

But when I pray, it, in its way, helps and hurts. That surrendering lifts a weight off of you, it can be an emotional release, a reset of one’s self, an acknowledgment that you can’t do it all on your own, and that everything will, in its time, be okay.

So pray. Not for me (though admittedly I wouldn’t mind), but for you. For your world, big, little, whatever size it is. May it help you.

That is my prayer.

KEVIN
CLF member, incarcerated in VA

We all should know that though the look of prayer could be one on their knees with hands held upright, fingers straight up, palms together, prayer can look many different ways. For me it is often sitting down anywhere — on the ground, in a chair, at a desk or table, with my hands held together. Of course it might be alone, or it could be with someone who needs a prayer more than me, as I say a prayer for them. I pray anywhere, anytime, needed or not, as a way to think about what the situation needs.

If I see a death happened in the news,  I say a prayer for the family for strength, a prayer for the deceased. A flood — I say a prayer for support, goods, rescue. A fire — the same and more, to have shelter along with healing. A nice day with no huge troubles — a prayer of thanks and gratitude, with a prayer for more of these days.

The sound of prayer: it could be noisy, mildly busy with the hum of every day life all around, or it could be complete silence, a prayer said or thought.

The feel: if nervous, anxious, or feeling the weight of the world on one’s shoulders, then a prayer feels like relief. A great feeling of no burdens.

I’ll end with a prayer of thanks and acknowledgment, for the gift of all that prayer is for me.