With love in her heart for herself, her worth, her dignity, and her path, blessed by her ancestors, and with hope for all those yet to come, a young girl knocked on a door.

I’m with a group of clergy from all over the country, gathered in southern Arizona. We are here to ground and grow our prophetic ministries through a 18 month professional development program of the UU Ministers Association along with Side with Love.

At this moment, we’re at a congregation here in the borderlands witnessing to the stories of three of their leaders. Sarah is telling us about first time she heard a knock on her door from someone seeking her support. Outside was a 13 year old girl, alone, with bloody feet, with love in her heart. Sarah was new to southern Arizona and did not know what to do. She gave the girl water and called border patrol. Sarah told us the feeling of holding someone’s future in her hands. Of being able to shape fate.

She promised herself she would find another way for the next time. She made it her goal to meet the people she would need to know, to learn what she needed to learn so that next time there was a knock in her door she could make a very different set of choices. Choices toward freedom. Toward love. Now when there is a knock at the door of her home or the congregation she is part of, she knows what to do. She knows who can provide medical care and how to gather the clean socks and her husband’s spare pants and how to quickly ready the room near her house that folks can stay there as they need to. She is clear about the risks she takes and the ones she does not. She says she is a working person and there are some risks that are not her role right now. But she knows who does take those risks and how to call them. She told us she knows she has close friends who don’t agree with her, who would be shocked by what she does.

How well did you love?

That’s the question that Sarah believes she’ll be asked when she meets her creator, when her time with this world falls away.

It’s grown dark since our group left Nogales, Arizona and the stars are bright in the sky, competing for attention with the surveillance lights of the wall. Sarah tells us she does not have the answers but knows that if she is going to err, she wants to err on the side of love.

We sing and pray and sing some more. One of our facilitators Rev. Rhetta Morgan has written a song for this evening of witness and storytelling. She leads us in singing “I see you and the healing work you do as the doorway to all hearts. May we be the reflection that you see. Pure love. Rebellious love. Fierce love. Humble love. Pure Love.”

This is the love that those who knock on Sarah’s door bring. Love for family, for self, for dignity. Love for children and elders and land. Love that persists past the violence of the state. Love that is steadfast, honoring of the preciousness of life in the face of great harm. Love that shapes our own fate. Many of us there that night hold the stories of ourselves or our ancestors who knocked on stranger’s doors hoping that the door might be answered by someone with love in their heart.

This Valentine’s Day may we who are fighting for survival connect to the love of our ancestors and ourselves.

May we who answer the knock on the door be love.

May we learn what we need to learn.

May we build the relationships we need to build.

May we witness to each other and the healing work we do.

If we err, may we err on the side of love.

It is that time of the year when we strengthen our resolve to adhere to our new year commitments and turn inwardly to focus on our contribution to the struggle for justice. Many of us will gather in congregations or at functions and listen to the poignant words from the slain Black Southern Baptist Preacher Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. III who led a movement that has been distilled to the tagline of achieving        “. . .a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls” with little homage to the bravery of the numerous nameless people who bent the arc toward justice by risking their reputations, sacrificing comfortability and determining that justice was worth their lives. 

History has fed us a story that our movements are led and sustained by a charismatic male figure, but when we scratch the surface, we understand that movements are made by people and power is conceded by the strategic action of the collective. 

Ke Atlas/Unsplash

As Side with Love embraces our 10th year of harnessing love’s power to stop oppression, we want to pause to say thank you to each of you who have been on this journey with us. We are on the side of the rabble rousers and truth-tellers that history sometimes ignore. We are a part of the legacy of sheroes and heroes, that may never get the spotlight but is the backbone of our liberation. We are inspired by the deeds and creativity of our kindred who movement identity and we speak their names: Ella Baker, Dorothy Height, Dorothy Cotton, Bayard Rustin, Pauli Murray, Clyde Warrior, Yuri Kochiyama, Gloria Anzaldúa, Cesar Chavez and many more. 

On our 10th year of resistance, Side with Love will be reflecting and learning about our impact and discern what this current political, social and economic moment is requiring of us. We will be sharing content from our previous years of 30 Days of Love instead of launching new content. There are many ways we will invite you to #sidewithlove throughout this year as we continue to construct a World where we each can live with dignity. 

As we head into the end of 2018 -- for some of us, holiday and feasting and loved ones; and for others of us, work and loneliness and doubt; and for many of us, some of both -- we are sending love for the justice work we do every day and who we each are.

We’ll be sending out a look back and forward to celebrate and reflect and vision in early 2019. For now, we want to share some of the books and songs that have been getting us through - new things that blew our hearts and minds wide open and old ones that still shake us up in the best way.

What We’ve Been Reading (in no particular order):

• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

• The Leavers by Lisa Ko

• Joyful Militancy by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery

• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

• American Marriage by Tayari Jones

• Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward

• The Line Becomes the River by Francisco Cantú

• Unapologetic A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers

• When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Asha Bandele and Patrisse Cullors

• They Best They Could Do by Thi Bui

• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Electric Arches by Eve Ewing

• The Book of Curses by the Asian American Literary Review

• No More Heroes: Grassroots Challenges to the Savior Mentality by Jordan Flaherty

• Parables of the Talents by Octavia Butler

• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live by Brene Brown

• Black Theology and Black Power by Rev. Dr. James Cone

• Emergent Strategy Adrienne Maree Brown

What We’ve Been Listening To: Spotify Playlist

We offer each of you love and hope in your moments of grief and fear and on the journey yet to come. Our call to Side with Love is a holistic call to side with each other yesterday, today and the days to come as we become the Love we seek in this World!

We got this, with love,

Everette Thompson and Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen

P.S. Are you coming to Creating Change? We’d love connect with you there - let us know at love@uua.org!

Side With Love Campaign Senior Strategist Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen penned this piece over the weekend.

Instructions for when your government betrays you (again):

Remember that governments betray.

And many have gone before us who know how this goes.

Listen to them.

Remember that we can’t heal white supremacy or white Christian nationalism today or tomorrow.

But we can touch some healing, some justice, every day, every moment.

Raise money for a bond or a bail. Go with someone to court. Tell the truth about your family and how they migrated or were forced to or did not.

Remember that we answer to the laws of love and justice.

We work for our ancestors and our children’s children. There is no higher accountability.

Remember that everyone who found their power and freed themselves or their kindred also faced powerlessness, despair, overwhelm, teargas (or their century's version of it).

Remember that everyone who has ever defected from fascism or resigned from state violence or put their body on the line for family or opened their home has doubted, wrestled, given up, tried again and found a way to love through it.

Here are five ways to act

Join a call tonight at 8:00 PM EST to hear from folks on the border and to discern how to live our values now.

In this time, more than ever, we need visionary, humble, spirit-led teammates and leaders in the work. 

We are so so glad to welcome Everette R. H. Thompson as Campaign Manager for Side with Love.

Everette and Elijah

Everette brings over 15 years of experience in community organizing, organizational development and movement building. He is a Southerner by birth and choice and has dedicated his career to strengthening organizational infrastructure in the South. He currently serves as a consultant specializing in intersectional movement strategy, faith organizing and grassroots leadership development. Everette has a wide array of experiences serving different types and forms of organizations. Most notably, Everette was the National Justice and Equity Coordinator for 350.org, an international climate change

organization, where he was charged with supporting the staff to integrate intentional justice and equity frameworks within the fabric of all operations and National Field Director for the Rights Working Group a national coalition of over 300 community-based groups and policy organizations dedicated to ending racial and bias profiling across the country.

His life’s work started during his time abolishing the death penalty in the South as the Regional Director of Amnesty International USA’s Southern Regional Office, based in Atlanta, GA and covered a region comprised of eleven states in the Southeastern U.S also known as the “death belt.” As Regional Director, Everette provided the overall strategic vision to meet AIUSA’s campaign goals in the South, traveled extensively throughout the South building strategic partnerships and coalitions and served as the lead spokesperson for AIUSA South. He is a Co-Trainer  with Black Organizers for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD) and lead organizer with the Interfaith Organizing Initiative a project of Center for Race, Religion and Economic Democracy His greatest joy is his sun/son Elijah whom he is most pleased! 

Everette Thompson (far left) with members of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative and Ohio Unitarian Universalists

Everette will begin with us on December 3rd so you’ll start to hear from him then! We’re so grateful for his depth of organizing experience, humor and endurance, and commitment to spirit. He was most recently in Ohio with many of our Unitarian Universalist folks leading powerful interfaith organizing in support of Issue 1 against mass incarceration and for addiction treatment. Welcome Everette and may all of our colleagues in the work, whoever they may be, also be blessed with the clarity, courage, and commitment for the work now and ahead. 

With gratitude and onward,
Elizabeth and Everette

P.S. Did you miss the post-election spiritual nourishment gathering? Tune in here to hear words of wisdom from Unitarian Universalists on the ground living their values and our President and blessings for the way forward. 

From the novel The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel:

“But the thing about loyalty,” he says, “is that it always has a cost. I’m here with you in your home eating this nice fish we bought together, but I can’t look at it without thinking of the money we spent on it, knowing that this is money that would have fed my family for one week. I can’t eat a meal without thinking of the food I’ve taken out of my children’s mouths. I can’t spend a dollar without calculating the pesos it would have put in my mother’s hands...I can’t start a new life when my life is still back there. I didn’t want to leave. Everybody thinkings everybody wants to leave - but who would want to leave their home, their family, everything they love? We leave because we have to….This is what family does. What love does. It chains us together.”

We talk about fighting for one another as family. About how for some of us transgender identity or the migrant caravan are "issues" or "news." For others of us it is the violent erasure or racist war on our family.

After the violent shootings in Pittsburgh and Kentucky, Maurice Mitchell and Dania Rajendra wrote “Solidarity is the idea that we don’t have to be the same to want the best for one another, that we can keep each other safe, we can share what we have, that we can find our way to consensus about how best to be in community together, better known as “democracy.” And that we will fight for it and for one another.”

Last Monday, a few of us in Boston interrupted hate with love. Rev. Darrell Hamilton, Rev. Natalie Malter, Rev. Will Green and transgender activist Mateo Cox entered a room of White Christian Nationalists where Jeff Sessions was speaking on religious liberty. Mateo unfurled a trans flag that read, “Not Erased.” Rev. Darrell and Rev. Will prayed Matthew 25 “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,” and Rev. Natalie documented it all. Rev. Will called on Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General under whose leadership the Department of Justice has attacked immigrants, transgender folks, Black activists, voting rights and more, to repent, to care for those in need, to remember that “when you do not care for others, you are wounding the body of Christ.” 

What we do to each other, we do to spirit, god and the divine. 

What we do to each other, we do to ourselves. 

When we refuse to protect each other, we refuse universalism, we refuse love, we refuse our own dignity.

White supremacy and white Christian nationalism have said that there is a crisis at our border. 

We have no crisis at our border. Actually, families are migrating as so many families always have. Actually, people are being denied their legal right to seek asylum and safety. Actually, people are being taught to fear, to wound their kindred and, in the end, themselves.

We have no crisis at our border. 

But we do have a crisis of our borders. 

The crisis is believing there is a border between who is human and worthy of dignity and who is not. 

The crisis is believing that we who are trans, we who are immigrants, we who are Black, we who are indigenous, we who are disabled, we who are survivors, we who are Muslim, we who are Jewish are on the wrong side of that border. 

The crisis is that many of us are letting this border between who is beloved, and who is not, rule us in the form of laws, culture, practices and policies.

The crisis is that some don't understand that what we fail to do for others, we fail to do for ourselves and our divine. 

The crisis is whether we think we can survive if our sibling does not.

Hold your loved ones close. Celebrate all those who are fighting like hell for liberation and solidarity. Sing, cook, feast, rest, vote, organize, and build. As Charlene Carruthers writes, "Know that transforming society will take organized people and organized resources to sustain any given policy victory that is won before or after election day. Know that if the candidate we support wins, they will only be as strong as the organizational forces who are resourced, ready and committed to consistently showing up after election day. And finally, know that if we are not ready to win, then we must do all that we can to get ready."

We are in a crisis and we know the way out. Day by day, year by year, love will free us all. 

From the novel The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel:

“But the thing about loyalty,” he says, “is that it always has a cost. I’m here with you in your home eating this nice fish we bought together, but I can’t look at it without thinking of the money we spent on it, knowing that this is money that would have fed my family for one week. I can’t eat a meal without thinking of the food I’ve taken out of my children’s mouths. I can’t spend a dollar without calculating the pesos it would have put in my mother’s hands...I can’t start a new life when my life is still back there. I didn’t want to leave. Everybody thinkings everybody wants to leave - but who would want to leave their home, their family, everything they love? We leave because we have to….This is what family does. What love does. It chains us together.”

We talk about fighting for one another as family. About how for some of us transgender identity or the migrant caravan are "issues" or "news." For others of us it is the violent erasure or racist war on our family.

After the violent shootings in Pittsburgh and Kentucky, Maurice Mitchell and Dania Rajendra wrote “Solidarity is the idea that we don’t have to be the same to want the best for one another, that we can keep each other safe, we can share what we have, that we can find our way to consensus about how best to be in community together, better known as “democracy.” And that we will fight for it and for one another.”

Last Monday, a few of us in Boston interrupted hate with love. Rev. Darrell Hamilton, Rev. Natalie Malter, Rev. Will Green and transgender activist Mateo Cox entered a room of White Christian Nationalists where Jeff Sessions was speaking on religious liberty. Mateo unfurled a trans flag that read, “Not Erased.” Rev. Darrell and Rev. Will prayed Matthew 25 “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,” and Rev. Natalie documented it all. Rev. Will called on Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General under whose leadership the Department of Justice has attacked immigrants, transgender folks, Black activists, voting rights and more, to repent, to care for those in need, to remember that “when you do not care for others, you are wounding the body of Christ.” 

What we do to each other, we do to spirit, god and the divine. 

What we do to each other, we do to ourselves. 

When we refuse to protect each other, we refuse universalism, we refuse love, we refuse our own dignity.

White supremacy and white Christian nationalism have said that there is a crisis at our border. 

We have no crisis at our border. Actually, families are migrating as so many families always have. Actually, people are being denied their legal right to seek asylum and safety. Actually, people are being taught to fear, to wound their kindred and, in the end, themselves.

We have no crisis at our border. 

But we do have a crisis of our borders. 

The crisis is believing there is a border between who is human and worthy of dignity and who is not. 

The crisis is believing that we who are trans, we who are immigrants, we who are Black, we who are indigenous, we who are disabled, we who are survivors, we who are Muslim, we who are Jewish are on the wrong side of that border. 

The crisis is that many of us are letting this border between who is beloved, and who is not, rule us in the form of laws, culture, practices and policies.

The crisis is that some don't understand that what we fail to do for others, we fail to do for ourselves and our divine. 

The crisis is whether we think we can survive if our sibling does not.

Hold your loved ones close. Celebrate all those who are fighting like hell for liberation and solidarity. Sing, cook, feast, rest, vote, organize, and build. As Charlene Carruthers writes, "Know that transforming society will take organized people and organized resources to sustain any given policy victory that is won before or after election day. Know that if the candidate we support wins, they will only be as strong as the organizational forces who are resourced, ready and committed to consistently showing up after election day. And finally, know that if we are not ready to win, then we must do all that we can to get ready."

We are in a crisis and we know the way out. Day by day, year by year, love will free us all. 

P.S.

Join us. For this midterm election, the UUA supported local organizing for key ballot questions in states such as Florida, Ohio, and Massachusetts.

Join UUA president, Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, and other UU ministers and organizers, for a post-election conversation to discuss how our faith showed up for the midterms, what we learned from our work, and how we were nurtured by sacred organizing.

Come together for a sacred space to unwind and unpack this election cycle.

I am beyond outraged at what we have watched transpire in the Kavanaugh hearings. A man who has multiple allegations of assault should not be able to occupy the highest court in our country, especially not without even an investigation.

Tomorrow I am traveling to bear witness in Washington. Will you add your name to this growing list of Unitarian Universalists who oppose the nomination and believe the women? I want to take all of us who are for justice with me tomorrow and share your reasons why.

I have looked for a moral or faithful voice to bring but first and foremost I am speaking with a woman's voice. This makes me so angry.

In partnership with the United Church of Christ, we are proud to offer Our Whole Lives (OWL), a comprehensive, lifespan sexuality education curricula for use in both secular settings and faith communities.

Like too many, I know what it is like to be blamed for your own harassment, to name it and have men do nothing but turn around and use it against us.

I know I am not alone in my outrage. I'm proud that our churches are places where young people learn healthy sexuality, learn consent, and learn the opposite of the abuse Kavanaugh is accused of and is so cavalierly dismissing. I'm heartened by the letter UU Women's Federation signed on to.

And I believe we have to do more.

I do not believe a man should be able to lie his way to the Supreme Court or that we can let the GOP codify that sexual assault doesn't matter with his nomination. Please sign here if you agree.

This confirmation is not a done deal; there are still nails we can put in this coffin. I am fighting my own moments of powerlessness to remind myself that we can stop this.

I will be strengthened tomorrow if those in the DC area can join the silent march as UU's together and if I know that UU's all around the country are calling their Senators, visiting offices, and doing what we must to be on the side of love, to believe women, to stop this lie from becoming the law of the land.

Our faith positions us uniquely in this moment to bear witness, to take action, and to speak out against what should not be and for what we are taught and what we embrace as our core values.

I believe Christine and the other survivors coming forward.

Please sign if you do too and call your Senators to tell them as well.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, UUA President

Good evening dear ones. Below please see an urgent call for solidarity at Standing Rock for tomorrow, Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 2:00pm. We know it is last minute but share this immediate request from the UU Fellowship and Church of Bismarck-Mandan in conjunction with their work at Standing Rock. See a message from Jack Gaede, Minnesota UU Social Justice Alliance (MUUSJA) Ministerial Intern for Justice & Religious Leadership. If you cannot get to Standing Rock tomorrow, please follow along with the UU Fellowship and Church of Bismarck-Mandan on Facebook for their latest updates and how to support their ongoing ministry, including through the current Ministry-in-Residence Program. eloved friends, let me just start by saying that it is such a privilege to be able to serve in my role as the MUUSJA intern this year. It has been a joy, and I am learning so much. There is an urgent call that needs our heeding, but before I even get to the call, I want to take a moment to remind us why we do what we do.

Good evening dear ones. Below please see an urgent call for solidarity at Standing Rock for tomorrow, Wednesday, February 22, 2017 at 2:00pm. We know it is last minute but share this immediate request from the UU Fellowship and Church of Bismarck-Mandan in conjunction with their work at Standing Rock. See a message from Jack Gaede, Minnesota UU Social Justice Alliance (MUUSJA) Ministerial Intern for Justice & Religious Leadership. If you cannot get to Standing Rock tomorrow, please follow along with the UU Fellowship and Church of Bismarck-Mandan on Facebook for their latest updates and how to support their ongoing ministry, including through the current Ministry-in-Residence Program.

Beloved friends, let me just start by saying that it is such a privilege to be able to serve in my role as the MUUSJA intern this year. It has been a joy, and I am learning so much. There is an urgent call that needs our heeding, but before I even get to the call, I want to take a moment to remind us why we do what we do.

We do not show up for justice only when the results that we want are attainable. We do not show up for justice only when the process is convenient, safe, and easy. We do not show up for justice only for the sake of those who are most affected. We show up for justice because an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The women of Standing Rock have released an urgent call for fellow water protectors and any other people of good faith to show up in solidarity tomorrow at Standing Rock at 2pm. Our friends and comrades from the UU Church of Bismarck-Mandan are showing up, and they have sent out an urgent request that we join them. This fight has been a long one, and this is just the most recent battle.

There are many injustices happening all around us, and there are many people in powerful positions trying to enact and legislate unjust policies right now. It is understandable if you feel overwhelmed and at a loss when trying to decide your next step. However, if you are free tomorrow, this is an incredibly actionable and concrete step that you can take, and it is very needed.

Just recently, a minister pointed me to some powerful words by Wendell Berry that are a great reminder to all of us who decide to take part in protests, rallies, marches, and other direct actions for justice. Berry writes: "Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal…Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence."

I will be driving a large vehicle from the Twin Cities tomorrow morning (departure planned for 6:30am—I will provide the coffee!), and I would love to fill it with fellow social justice activists who are willing and able to stand in solidarity tomorrow with our neighbors across the border. Just last night, during our Convening Call about Citizen Advocacy, we learned the phrase: "Reclaiming Neighborliness." This is our chance to put that skill into action!

Our neighbors to the west need our support tomorrow. Will you join me? If so, call or text me (651-703-3700).

In Solidarity,

Jack Gaede
MUUSJA Ministerial Intern for Justice & Religious Leadership

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Welcome to week four of Thirty Days of Love 2017. We hope you find these resources and reflections of use to the work you do from your congregation to your community and beyond. Click here for the downloadable companion worksheet on sustenance and movements. It provides both spiritual reminders as well as a number rituals and practices to sustain you and yours for the work ahead. These activities were first published in our Fortify The Movement Chapbook as part of last Fall’s #ReviveLove Tour. Once you’ve done that, consider checking out a video from our Organizing on the Side of Love online course on life cycles of movements you can find here. 

Welcome to week four of Thirty Days of Love 2017. We hope you find these resources and reflections of use to the work you do from your congregation to your community and beyond.

Click here for the downloadable companion worksheet on sustenance and movements. It provides both spiritual reminders as well as a number rituals and practices to sustain you and yours for the work ahead. These activities were first published in our Fortify The Movement Chapbook as part of last Fall’s #ReviveLove Tour. Once you’ve done that, consider checking out a video from our Organizing on the Side of Love online course on life cycles of movements you can find here. 

Since the last election, we know that hundreds of thousands of people who care about human rights, progressive values and social justice have proclaimed a commitment - both new and renewed - to rolling up their sleeves and working for justice. We know this from data, and I have also seen and heard it in my own life. Others of us feel weary because we feel that we were already living a very robust daily commitment to justice. Some of us might even feel a little bit grumpy like: "Where were all these people before?" Unitarian Universalists have worked hard to be faithful followers of leading social justice causes and movements. We have a legacy of making commitments to this kind of work, and like all commitments sometimes we do better than others. In this moment, I urge us to look at our engagement with a focus on deepening our commitment, reflecting on it, and figuring out how to bring a spirit of welcome to those new to social justice struggles. 

The word 'commitment' implies the a long-term dedication. Thus, we need to think about how commitments can be sustained. Whatever our commitment is, it can help to ask ourselves: Why this commitment? Am I going deep enough? Where is my ego in this commitment? Does my commitment serve anyone besides myself? If so, who and how? 

Similarly, if the commitment matters enough to make, it helps to figure out how to sustain it. We might have some ideas as we make a commitment about how it can be sustained. We might be totally wrong. Fifteen years ago, I committed my life to movement building. I thought that a daily spiritual practice would be the main way I sustained myself in that commitment. In truth, my daily practice has ebbed and flowed, sometimes I have honored it better than other times. My practice itself has changed in some ways over the years. But, in actuality, being of use to movements and individual leaders I love has been a huge sustaining factor. I had no idea how much mentoring and coaching other organizers would sustain and deepen my commitment. I had no idea how much transformative campaigns would 'fill up my commitment gas tank'. Sometimes we have to be open to different ways we can be sustained.

No matter how we keep our commitments, they are rarely sustained alone--most of us need comrades on the journey, not only in order to keep our commitments but to help us grow them when they have become too rigid and small. In these times, now more than ever, we must continue to grow the constellation of comrades willing, able and ready to resist, together. I'm grateful to be on this journey with you.

Onward,

Caitlin Breedlove
Campaign Director Standing on the Side of Love

Image from Creative Commons Wikimedia

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"Whitey on the Moon" is a great song that's often mentioned when talking about race in the '60s. But the verses could have been sung by a poor white cracker. The use of "Whitey" makes people assume the song is about race, but it's not about a middle-class black person's life. "Whitey" is just a personification of the rich as seen by a poor black in the city—if a white sang the same song, "Whitey on the Moon" is a great song that's often mentioned when talking about race in the '60s. But the verses could have been sung by a poor white cracker. The use of "Whitey" makes people assume the song is about race, but it's not about a middle-class black person's life. "Whitey" is just a personification of the rich as seen by a poor black in the city—if a white sang the same song,

  As dire as our political situation may be, as I heard a colleague say recently, it is vital to remember not only that we must pace ourselves for a marathon (not a sprint), but also that “this is a relay race.” We are in this struggle together, and we need to hand off the baton to [Read More...]   As dire as our political situation may be, as I heard a colleague say recently, it is vital to remember not only that we must pace ourselves for a marathon (not a sprint), but also that “this is a relay race.” We are in this struggle together, and we need to hand off the baton to [Read More...]

Welcome to week three of Thirty Days of Love 2017. We hope you find these resources and reflections of use to the work you do from your congregation to your community and beyond. Click here for the downloadable companion worksheet on transformation and movements. Once you’ve done that, consider checking out a video from our Organizing on the Side of Love online course on spirituality and sustainability you can find here. Lastly, in case you missed it check out the Thirty Days of Love 2017: All Ages Activity Calendar by Rev. Marisol Caballero. Last week we wrote a message about covenant, about how covenant is not easy. This week we are writing about transformation.  The simplest news about transformation seems self-explanatory, but it is the part that we often understand 'rationally' but cannot absorb. It is this: when we transform, we are not who we were before. We have to let go of who that person was, how we move in the world, how we respond to what we encounter. It is indeed an iterative, ongoing process.

Welcome to week three of Thirty Days of Love 2017. We hope you find these resources and reflections of use to the work you do from your congregation to your community and beyond.

Click here for the downloadable companion worksheet on transformation and movements. Once you’ve done that, consider checking out a video from our Organizing on the Side of Love online course on consciousness and intersectionality you can find here. Lastly, in case you missed it check out the Thirty Days of Love 2017: All Ages Activity Calendar by Rev. Marisol Caballero.

Last week we wrote a message about covenant, about how covenant is not easy. This week we are writing about transformation. 

The simplest news about transformation seems self-explanatory, but it is the part that we often understand 'rationally' but cannot absorb. It is this: when we transform, we are not who we were before. We have to let go of who that person was, how we move in the world, how we respond to what we encounter. It is indeed an iterative, ongoing process.

The political moment in this country is crying out for us to transform. Many of us feel we thought we knew what was being asked of us before Election Day 2016: we thought we had a sense of our role, our place. 

Many of us thought to ourselves before that day: "I go here or there. I do this. I work with my congregation. I protest. I organize. I give my time. I do good stuff in my neighborhood. I am a good parent. I am a good daughter, son, child, descendent. I do my part." In the aftermath, so many of us have had different reactions. But, very few of those thought (as we have watched and resisted massive erosion of the rights, dignity, and safety of Muslims, undocumented people, activists, LGBTQ communities): "I will stay the same now. I will do what I have done before. I will continue as I was." 

Many of us feel the urge to do more, resist more, build more, and act more. That does not always mean that we know how. Transformation requires our hearty participation, and also our letting go. In this moment, some of it starts with acknowledging that no one who shares our values really feels that they know what to do. I have said often in the past few weeks that all the people I respect the most are willing to admit that they do not have the perfect, one size fits all "answer" but they are also willing to grow into the leaders the moment calls for. 

When we transform, we let go of things we thought we would hold on to forever. We do things that we thought we never would. We are often uncomfortable. At times, we feel the transformation will never happen: times moves so slow. Other times, things change all at once. 

We are in a time when millions of people are seeking to be engaged in justice-loving social change work. Our congregations, our communities, and our organizations will need to transform in order to absorb and respond. We need to transform beyond egos, individuals, and our stuck ideas about thinking we have the corner on answers. What we do know for sure is that if we are focusing our energy on the future and reflecting on how this time will be looked back at in the future, most of us want to be able to tell our faith communities, our families, and our people that we were willing to transform to meet the moment. That we did not let the shape of who we had been before and what we had done keep us from transforming into who we need to be now.

In faith and solidarity,

Caitlin Breedlove

Campaign Director, Standing on the Side of Love

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