May We Envision a World of Community Care and Abundant Love
When I think about our 7th principle of Unitarian Universalism, the “interdependent web of existence of which we are a part,” I envision the way a small touch on one strand of a spider web makes the whole web shake.
Last month, with our partners at the American Friends Service Committee, we shook the web across the country with actions focused on corporate funders of Atlanta’s Cop City, like Bank of America and Home Depot. Thank you to those of you who wrote one of the over 7,000 letters to CEOs and showed up from Oakland to Atlanta! You can still sign the letter to CEOs urging them to stop funding increased militarization of police.
As we continue to organize against the Cop City being built in Atlanta, we know that other expensive and militarized police training facilities are proposed in 47 states from Maryland to California. This week, another proposed cop city was stalled after organizing led by Freedom Inc. succeeded in winning a city council vote in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. Together, we keep shaking our part of the web that is, indeed, interconnected.
Side With Love Congregational Justice Organizer Rev. Ranwa Hammamy outside the Emeryville Home Depot during the Stop Cop City! Corporate Week of Action.
Celebrate Good News!
Unitarian Universalist Joan Gregory has been one of many in the Salt Lake City area organizing for Victor’s release for the past 11 months. Victor is an Indigenous land defender who has spent much of his adult life caring for the water, for the land, and for his elders. On March 5, 2023, Victor was arrested at the South River Music Festival near the site in Atlanta of a proposed Cop City which is under construction and where hundreds of acres of forest have already been destroyed. Victor was unloading camping equipment from his truck with his dog inside when heavily armed police charged at him from the woods, violently assaulted him, and hauled him to jail. After spending 3 months incarcerated at DeKalb County Jail without bail set or being indicted, he was transferred to a remote ICE facility, where he spent 8 months. In September, he learned he was one of 61 people indicted in the highly repressive RICO case that’s attempting to criminalize any and all efforts to Stop Cop City. We join Victor’s home community in the Salt Lake City area in celebrating his release. For more information and an opportunity to show your support go to: http://tinyurl.com/VictorIsFree.
As Nicole Pressley wrote recently, “Our work to Stop Cop City dismantles the false ideal of safety. This false ideal is destroying forests, intensifying violence against communities of color, and silencing the electorate. As people of faith, we cannot affirm the worth and dignity of all while privileging the well-being of a chosen few. We are not fully human when we separate ourselves from the humanity of others.”
When one side of the web is hurting, it rattles the whole web of existence.
May we continue to honor these connections across the whole web of existence.
May we each do our part to stop the pain and injustice.
May we envision a world of community care and abundant love.
May we recommit ourselves to mutuality, abundance, and community.
In faith and persistence,
Rev. Cathy Rion Starr
Side With Love Leadership Development Specialist
Available Now - Skill Up: Community Safety & Security
Unitarian Universalists are called to grapple with the question, “what is safety?” Black liberation organizers say “We Keep Us Safe" as a way to proclaim that true safety comes from relationship, community, and structures of care and mutuality outside of state structures of violence and control. How do we build our political and theological commitment to keeping each other safe in the face of state and interpersonal violence?
In this Skill Up led by Nora Rasman and India Harris, we defined safety and security grounded in abolitionist practice, discussed our spiritual mandate towards building sanctuary, and concretely outlined what we can honestly offer to ourselves and each other.
Watch the recording and view resources from the webinar.
UU Stop Cop City Monthly Action Huddle
March 21 at 11am PT / 2pm ET (Please note the date change this month!)
Our huddle this month will focus on writing letters to those imprisoned for protesting Cop City in Atlanta. Writing letters to folks locked up is a ministry, a political act, and a great way to invite new folks into decriminalization work. As always, we’ll also review what’s happening and what you can do with Stop Cop City more broadly. Join us to get activated or to jump back in. This meeting usually happens on the second Thursday of the month at 11am PT / 12pm MT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET.
30 Days of Love - Bonus Days
In case you missed it, view our final gifts from our Bonus Days of 30 Days of Love! During the last days of 30 Days of Love, we explored the theme of “liberatory intersections.”
Safety. Re-Imagining. Possibility. Resilience. These themes have been the backbone of this year’s 30 Days of Love, with each offering extending to us the opportunity to hone our ability to pause, listen, and receive even as the world around us continues its frenetic hum. We hope that these weekly gifts from our siblings in faith have invited you to breathe deeply, feeling – even if just for a moment – a sense of connection with kindred spirits who share a soul-deep yearning for justice and wholeness.
At the most basic level, spiritual practice is spending regular, intentional time turning away from despair and fear and toward connection and commitment. At Side With Love, we believe that this kind of spiritual practice is what makes sustained organizing for justice possible: without making space in our lives to purposefully strengthen the musculature of imagination and hope, the soul of our movements atrophies and the dream of liberation becomes an empty fantasy.
Click here to read the full reflection by UUA Vice President for Programs & Ministry Rev. Ashley Horan.
Our final offerings: a blessing by Rev. Verdis LeVar Robinson, a musical blessing by Rev. Erin Walter, a Time for All Ages by CB Beal, a body practice by Rev. Maria Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa, and a prayer by Rev. Kim Wildszewski.