Dear Members and Friends,
This week Director of Social Justice, Dana Buhl, offers a reflection:
Last weekend, I completed the Jubilee 3 weekend anti-racism workshop, along with nine other congregants from First Unitarian Church. I’m both tired and inspired at the late hour. I was touched by the integrity, vulnerability and courageous leadership of our three facilitators, Paula Cole Jones, Lutricia Callair and Leon Spencer, all African American UUs with a deep love of our faith community, respect for each other, and brilliance in creating space for each person to dig deeply, vulnerably, honestly into the painful truths of white supremacy culture and racism.
The abiding feeling I have right now is hope in our faith community. The weekend nourished my lifelong dedication to dismantling white supremacy with the evidence that we have a growing movement to sustain the work and each other . . . in community.
This piece/prayer by Alicia Forde is published in To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience edited by William G. Sinkford (Reverend Bill), speaks directly to the hope, inspiration and aspiration that move me now. May it speak to you as well.
When We Pause to Remember . . .
When we pause to remember who we are:
companions on this grand experiment called life,
when we take a moment to shed the ways we have
been carefully taught:
to lead from fear . . . to punish the poor . . . to persecute
those who don’t look like we do . . . to deny rights to those who love . . .
to believe that we are separate . . . that some people are superior to others . . .
When we take a moment to shed all of that and hear our stories
hear and see each other into existence, into community,
when we take a moment to embrace . . . to practice a different way of being . . .
When we answer the call of love,
then we are living into the promise
of building the world we dream about.
It is beautiful to dream . . . to cast a vision . . . to stretch our
minds into the future and imagine what may be if we were to
build a new way of being — not some day
but beginning again today
beginning again every day that we have breath
taking courage with these hands and hearts
to make real the dream of a more equitable world . . .
to journey together . . . seeking to be transformed,
even as we transform.
Becoming explorers and learners in this world around us,
humbled by what we do not yet know,
fulfilling the promise of healing a fragmented world,
laboring not just in hope . . . but also in Love.
In this spirit, we commit.
In this spirit, we gather.
In this spirit, we pray.