What would you say if I said. . . .

God is a Black woman.

I've been having this thought for quite a while and the more there is talk about intersectionality, the more the idea keeps coming up.

God is a Black woman.

If you believe in a personified God. And I'm not saying that I do, but how does that theology strike you?

While you are envisioning that, let me tell you something about my development of personal theology.  It's really a bunch of nots.

God is not white; God is not black
God is not a man; God is not male; God has no gender; 
God does not have a long white beard or long white hair.
God  is ageless.
God does not have sex; God creates
God is energy, quite possibly energy that has never been created and can never be destroyed.
God is in me and God is in you.
God has no eyes:
God has no cares; God is apathetic, indifferent, 
God is everything and nothing
God is the energy of life that sustains me and wakes me regardless of how I feel, think, or act.
God could be Love
Love is an energy that sustains life;
Love is
God is
Maybe God & Love are one
life sustaining energy..
go, go , go 
where you grow
because that is where God is; that is where love is
perhaps before we are mishappen that is all there is


Pray

In 1989 Kimberlee Crenshaw, legal scholar coined the term or the theory intersectionality.  I was in graduate school at UT in 1993 and no one had even mentioned this term to me.  It would have been helpful since all I wrote about was race,sex/gender, and class issues. Every time I wrote a paper it was all race, sex/gender, class this, race, sex/gender, class that.  I quoted Patricia Hill Collins discussing Black feminist thought and bell hooks and so many more.  I had also read Merlin Stone, When God was a woman, Karl Marx, Fredrich Engels, black Afrocentric thinkers like Cheik Anta Diop,  Ivan Van Sertima- They Came before Columbus. . .


 I read and I wrote pages and pages and pages and I never heard the word

intersectionality.

I don't think anyone I studied with knew this word either.  And they were either fascinated by the intersection of what I was writing or repelled... depending on who they were, their experiences, their social and political agendas.....

Either way, all the writing and reading was far less practical than having skills that would allow me to fix my car.  I bought a 1989 Pontiac Lemans in 1993.  I lived near Ottawa park and my car was either getting its window smashed or the brakes weren't working or it wouldn't start. 

My father had taught me about the carburator and how to lift off the filter, flip the cap of the carburator so I could get air in it when I had flooded the engine.  Of course, when I did that, the old guy in one of the apartments, would yell out the window, hey dere, you know what you are doing?

Sigh!!!

And so this is when and where I entered life-practical...on my own...

God is a black woman

After I graduated the University of Toledo, I chose not to follow my intuition and go the route to Divinity school . . .even though the bread crumbs of ideas I was picking up from articles were leading me to black women scholars working out womanist theologies.

Instead, I had decided to embody something I read in the Paula Giddings book When and Where I Enter. a history book about American Black women...  Anna Julia Cooper was the person who said that. . . with a black woman the whole world enters with me.

I thought about the Black women I read about... the organizers  like Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Jo Ann Robinson.  I thought about the educators like Septima Clark, Mary McLeod Bethune. . I thought about the club women . . . like Mary Church Terrell and the anti-lynching journalist, Ida B. Wells.  I wanted to live like them. . to stand for something meaningful ... to work for something meaningful.

Something meaningful, at a time, looked like working three or four different jobs- library...community development & community organizing---fabric store- adjunct teaching.

A little frustrated and perhaps wandering for a cause, it was not long before that I started attending the church on Collingwood. I was usually in a pew crying- hoping no one noticed. I saw my mom cry a lot in church, so I thought that was normal.  It was a normal reaction to parental divorce, alienation, disconnection and financial woes.

I took the class, called building your own theology at First Unitarian Church of Toledo in the basement of the building on Collingwood.  And I don't remember what I said, but I do remember feeling whatever God is... God was more than anything human beings could describe...

I think that it is conventional for people to see "God" as some reflection of the first powerful beings in their life.... you know parents.  That's not everybody, though.

So what kind of power would a Black woman as God have? And would the whole of humanity really enter with Her?

It's a little sentimental and hopeful. Power is power. Anyone could use power beyond the scope of what sustains life.  While it could seem that with a black woman, the whole of humanity enters, I think that words really get in the way. 

I mean, geesh, people made these stupid boundaries in the first place, Ain't I a human . . . (that's a little joke related to Sojourner Truth...you're gonna have to look that one up for yourself.)

Intersectionality means that the systems of oppression have differing results or effects on different people.  It is like a grid that is pressed down on a person and the way the grid squeezes you in it is particular to  the grids boundaries.  Those boundaries on race, sexuality, gender, class, phenotypes like skin color, hair texture, and on and on.

If  people are to truly be free of the boundaries, people must envision creation that looks bigger and way more interconnected. 

God is not white; God is not black
God is not a man; God is not male; God has no gender; 
God does not have a long white beard or long white hair.
God  is ageless.
God does not have sex; God creates
God is energy, quite possibly energy that has never been created and can never be destroyed.
God is in me and God is in you.
God has no eyes:
God has no cares; God is apathetic, indifferent, 
God is everything and nothing
God is the energy of life that sustains me and wakes me regardless of how I feel, think, or act.
God could be Love
Love is an energy that sustains life;
Love is
God is
Maybe God & Love are one
life sustaining energy... and
no
thing
at 
all.

Perfection. . . . .

I am not perfect.

Is anybody?  Some might say,  Oh yeah, well, you know, Jesus."

But there is this thing about studying to be a Commissioned-Lay Minister.. and that is that it keeps me mindful of what I say and how I do things.  So everyone and everything is keeping me on my toes.  It's not like walking on eggshells, but a subtle reminder that there is this way that I want to be in the world.

And still, I am not perfect.  I probably won't be perfect when I complete the program.  Perfection.

It is illusive, probably because it is an illusion.

Yet, my ego wants to be good.. . wants to have all the answers; wants to look flawless and never wants to be sick. . ever.  So I will refrain from apologizing for missing Sunday, Dec 3rd on Becoming.  I think that the sermon will keep until I can say all I really want to say.  I have a lot I want to say about power.  This concept haunts me day and night.  I will get back to that, later though.

I used to think that to be a moral, ethical, or spiritual leader or healer(?) that the person talking to me had to be perfect.  I find that funny, now.

The best lessons and stories teaching about how to be a moral, ethical, or spiritual person come from mistakes and sticking with the ideal goal or imperfect relationship. . . and dare I say also, figuring out how to make it work.

I still like to fix stuff.  And, Wow, do I have stories about fixing stuff..electric thermostat's, heat shields under cars, loose door knobs... If it's broke, it can't get worse, I say, so I tear the thing a part and put it back together. That is an engineering mind, I guess.  It does make a mess and sometimes it could be worse than when I started. Somehow, that never stops me.

People however never like being fixed.  What's wrong with people?

Exactly!  That's the thing.

People are a whole lot of everything from generations past to their current environment.  People are microcosms of the universe in addition to the multi-generational experiences of the folks who came before them. And new people are coming through all the time.

And new people being born into an imperfect world come with stuff.  They are not blank slates as once was thought.  Given particular circumstances, the older folks might just see some behavior in the new ones  that are similar to the ones they knew.  When my brother was born, my grandmother would say, he looks around here like he's been here before. And I was said to be an old soul.

And the old ones look with hope for the future in these new people.  We are always hoping for miracles.  I think we forget that we are the miracle, too.

No need to get out the tools to fix people.  We just gotta hang in there with each other...build some relationships, care, love.

We are the star stuff and the hope of a way that lives and breathes in the present moment. All of the stardust and generations of folks coming into the uniqueness that is the only you that has ever been. And so, here we are.

And how sweet is that. . .

What do you need?

I have a strong need for purpose.   This is a need that every human being has.  And it is on the inventory list of needs for non-violent communication.  Without purpose, I feel frustrated, angry, sad, and a lack of belonging.

Every human being also has a need for self-efficacy.  This desire for self -efficacy manifests in the ability to create something.  What fuels my desire for projects that I undertake is leading a life that is purposeful.

I guess, some folks don't think about their purpose in life until there are major shifts or uncomfortable changes that put you into the bargaining stages of grief. That is a reality for a lot of people. And I am no different.  I read something about a mental exercise that could assist in defining your purpose in life by imagining your funeral.

Imagine the folks who are alive when you are dead.
What truth about you would be in their words?
Would you have lived in a way such that people could openly celebrate your life?

The saddest thing that I ever heard was a funeral of a woman where few people showed up.  Those folks instead talked about how they felt about this woman outside of the funeral.  Even still, there are people who are so disconnected that they are buried by the department of parks and recreation. I wonder what is said about those people.

Our faith has as its first principle, the inherent worth and dignity of  every person.  So, maybe imagining what people say about you or anyone after death is a question that puts the emphasis in a place that lacks resonance for you.

No one is perfect and people will talk.  The song I've sung the most- by Son House- says "Don't you mind about people grinnin' in your face."

So what do you need? or maybe another way to ask the question is how do you want to be?

Be 

Love

This however requires.....................................

ED

As in  a little education about how to be  Beloved Community.  We can get there. We just need to ask ourselves what we need and do the work to get those needs met. And get those needs met in a win-win way.  We area all walking this way....U U.  And just as a matter of principle, whatever U do to the web has an effect on U too.

Prayer, Contemplation, Meditation, a Moment of Silence

When I was a kid, I was taught to pray before I went to bed and before I ate my food. My mother or father told me what to say and I repeated what they said.  It was a regular ritual.

Yet, as I grew older, the sacred rituals became less about G*O*D.  The sacred ritual of prayer gave way to  more profane rituals.

One regular ritual, I enjoyed was the daily after school break.

After a long day of learning, I would reunite with my brother.  At home, we would playfully fight over who could lay on the couch, while we watched cartoons on television.  We would laugh and giggle as we pushed each other off the couch.

Snacks were usually involved too. I loved those little raspberry flavored coconut cakes.  And we had some pop or soda or whatever cold, sweet drink was in the refrigerator.

 We pushed and shoved each other, all the while laughing, until we both would fall asleep on the couch.  About 30 minutes later, each of us would be doing home work in our respective bedrooms.

It was a daily habit, a ritual to end the school day and begin the evening of studying.

Years later in grad school, I had lots of profane rituals. The main one was this:

• Get up.
• Take a shower.
• Drive to classes.
• Write.
• Read.
• Study
• Talk to advisor
• Go interview Black women in scattered sites public housing in Lucas County for Master's thesis project
• Eat something
• Drive home
• Go to bed
• Repeat

There was a lot more going on in my life, but the education rituals continued.  And then one morning, I recall opening my eyes and saying,

Oh , great.  I'm awake.

This kind of sarcasm about the fact that I was living and breathing seemed. . . . not quite right.  That's what I thought a moment later.  And it was this feeling of dread for the same profane ritual that inspired my redirection toward something that would be a little more sacred and less cynical.

I got back into  martial arts. I was one of three women in the group for a long time. Every meeting began with meditation. I made friends and they were my core group of people. We had pizza parties and watched martial arts films.  I learned a lot about negotiating conflict using your physical assets and weaknesses. I wish I could say that I meditated on my own after class.  I didn't.

I started to incorporate more sewing and knitting into my daily life. And as a younger person, I had really gotten into the flow of creating my own clothes or crocheting blankets. I had been doing some kind of needlework since I was really young.  I taught myself to knit as a teen.... I had quit marching band and regularly making music. . . I needed something that would center me and provide a sense of self-efficacy.   But, I was not sure then if  regularly sewing and knitting was a sacred ritual.

What I can say is that I was trying to create more meaning in my life.  I was trying to find something that centered me.  I wanted to find the answers to a lot of events that were happening in my life at the time . . . like  becoming an adult, the dissolution of regular nuclear family activities as my parents divorced, and of course the after school break ritual was long gone.

Things change. Life events cause change. People decide to take actions that seem to turn everything we know upside down.  I think I read that the Buddha said that life is suffering. From further reading, I understood this to mean that attachment causes suffering.   Then I decided, don't get too attached. Change is  the only constant.

 I like to be proactive about things, you know?  Well...

Rituals mark endings and beginnings. They provide meaning during times that are highly stressful and the world seems to be going topsy-turvy. They are repetitive, they can involve many people or just one. They can include food and drink. They can be petitions for goodwill or blessings. Rituals could assist in addressing conflict.  They provide a sense of self-efficacy when the world seems so big.

So, being proactive, I got really organized about my rituals. Some are seasonal craft-making rituals that bring a lot of meaning to my life and renew friendships.

However,  in the midst of my regular rituals, sewing,  wire jewelry-making and knitting, I found that I still was feeling quite off center.

I was in the midst of change....again!   

I said some words. 

It was not a prayer.


And yet, I found myself feeling like I needed a moment of silence. . . . real prayer.  The kind of prayer that says, please, help. Someone, anyone. . .Universe, God, Jesus, Krishna, Allah, Buddha, Science, TINA TURNER!!!

I mean What What Tina Turner do right now?

WHOA!!!!!!!

What cognitive dissonance! I mean, except for going back and examining Tina Turner's life for help, what sense did any of this make?

But, I am human and as much information as there is about the human condition, there are still circumstances that mystify. I have an ability to look forward with hope. And I can think through possibilities and probabilities about what could happen. And still I need a regular ritual to get my brain out of the emotional hijack.

Surrender......

Just a moment of silence, just a moment to breathe, just a moment to contemplate, just a moment of prayer.

In solitude, I found myself thinking about making prayer beads or beads of contemplation, or meditation. My mother taught me to pray and my father taught me to never surrender. Perhaps, a humanist ritual is the space between.

See this article from Scientific American on rituals.

WOW!

 Yes, I did  just begin this blog with WOW!

What a faith community we are! Filling up back packs! Standing on the Side of Love! Going to marches!

WOW!
And it is good.

I have a lot of really deep thoughts and I have no idea how to put them in to words.   Words seem to be less than enough. So sometimes singing must do.

What I am thinking most is what will be the next calling. . .

When I started this blog, I was feeling low and weary. Now, I am energized because I see that we are among friends. And it is life -sustaining to be among friends who will hold each up or listen.  I find that I have so much more listening to do.

SHHHH!!!!

Just listen.  Listen beyond what its said to what was left unsaid.

WATCH!

 Watch and observe what is done and what is left undone.

And then I just sit and feel. . . breathe. . . get in touch with my deepest feelings.

What is the need?

So many people want to be heard.  So many people want a place to belong. So many people are upset by what they learned at such a young age. . . so upset by what they were conditioned to believe and  have feelings of discontent.

Sociologists may call it alienation. There are big structural shifts that have been occurring for so long and some folks feel left out, behind, angry they can't participate, angry that they need to participate.  When did the rules change?

And yet, that explanation only describes parts of the need?

Listening. . .
It is so important to listen.  Sheila Shuh was the theme speaker at the Ohio Meadville Summer Institute in Oberlin. She spoke about non-violent communication.   A style of communication that was developed in the 1960's by Marshal Rosenberg.  I recommend that you buy the book and include it in your spiritual practice.

It is important to reflect in our relationships that we can all get our needs met.  Conflict can be win-win.  This was said by Lewis Coser- Sociology 101.

My point is that if we can listen to ourselves as well as our fellow beings, we can find a way to get all of our needs met without leaving anyone out.  It takes a lot of listening and suspending judgement and learning.

Really, I am still learning this. I first read about non-violent communication about 20 years ago.  And, I'm only as good at it as I have learned to recognize my own needs and find appropriate words to use.

Using non-violent communication, does not mean that the interaction looks as pastel as pink, yellow of green colors. However, non-violent communication can include refraining from calling people names or purposely saying things that put people at a disadvantage. It can include speaking about real-life observations, sharing true stories about experiences.


Sometimes, pain gets in the way of telling a story like Joe Friday of that cop show-Dragnet.  Joe Friday firmly stated, Just the facts, mamm. Just the facts. What if we could tell our stories that way?
The facts stay the same, but the way we view them. . . . WOW!

It takes lots of practice! So much practice.  We need to practice.

Holding Each Other Up

It seems that in times when we are really uncomfortable, because there has been some tragedy, death-defying and/or fatal incident, the best we can do is to hold each other up. It is true that in life the one constant is change.

We may want to feel the regular comforts of everything being the same and yet there is opportunity in the complexity of life.

"The young become the old, mysteries do unfold" in their own time or in the time that is necessary for human beings to develop understanding. Wisdom is gained and there are opportunities for us to sit at the knee of the wise and learn as long as we are open and curious. We also get an opportunity to assess and discern what really is important to us as we journey together.  So, some habits may fall by the roadside and then again we may pick up something new.

So, when we have depended on the constant that "rain comes from the clouds, sun lights up the skies," we do not expect to see pigs fly. So when we do see something coming toward us that knocks us off our center, what do we do?

Rally the troops! my mind shouts.

As humans, we can go into fight or flight mode.

Personally, I get angry. I do rally the troops.  The adrenaline gets me ready to run, to act.

Maybe you have heard or read about this part of the human condition?  When we are really, really uncomfortable to the point that our central nervous system has taken over. . . Our thinking brain is hijacked.

But, if I take a breath, maybe more, I start to make a plan; I start to think about what is best to do at the moment. I get quiet. I might look very angry.

At church, we have friends who are very close; and we have a caring committee. We have organized a plan to do the work of holding each other up.  It's a proactive organized group.

I  keep cards and stamps on hand to mail things to folks. I carry them with me in my binder. Still, I send emails or text messages. In this digital age, I kind of feel that cards in the mail are a minimum that I can do. And still, I miss the mark. I believe in prayer, though. So, I do take a moment and think kind healing thoughts.  I suppose that the stronger the relationship you have with a person, the more likely you are to put yourself right there with the person or do as they ask...which sometimes may be to visit at specific times or wait before visiting.

We do find a way, though.  We find a way or many different ways to hold each other up. Because as that song goes "everything must change. . .  because that's the way of time. No one and nothing goes unchanged."


Everything must Change- George Benson

I'm Gonna Lift My Sister Up

What does it mean to say revelation is not sealed?

Last month, I answered the call to participate in the reading of Martin Luther King's Breaking Silence speech. The public reading was held at Monroe United Methodist Church. Many local organizations participated in this reading. Many organizations across the nation, called by the National Council of Elders participated...including...Rev. Dr. William Barber.

This is a link to the MLK speech.

The significance of the speech is that as a Civil rights leader, King was compelled to speak out about the Vietnam War and the many ways the United States had acted inconsistently in dealing with foreign powers.

I was happy to do my part reading the section of King's Speech where he calls for a revolution in values.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. (Source: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm)

This part affirmed for me the reasons I seek a mature understanding of Unitarian Universalism. While King came to his conclusions from the Christian faith, I have come to this conclusion based on my direct experience in change making efforts in low-moderate income neighborhoods in Toledo, Ohio as well as that principle that states that we are- all beings interconnected. . . and that as Rev. Barber says, we need a fusion movement that unites people of faith with people of no faith, with LGBTQ people with women, with the poor....everybody.

Because we are a free faith, we have the freedom to accept and choose to ally with those folks whose rights are constantly in question. If UU's have a gospel, I would say that it is in the responsibility we have to take in information and take practical action about it. John Buehrens writes in A Chosen Faith, that we are responsible for shaping our destiny and capable of making it better (p. 158).

As a  liberal religion, revelation is not sealed.

This idea can be welcoming and freeing to people who fear being told that they must refrain from their own thinking in making moral decisions in the world. If you carry the burdens of being socialized in any orthodox religion and have felt a tightening grip on your heart when that right teaching has pounded your mind into a headache of cognitive dissonance, this UU good news is that we are open, free thinkers.

Trust your own thought. Trust your direct experience. And act on it.

David Bumbaugh in his  Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History says that in the early movement following Jesus... this movement later known as Christianity .....there was a shift from from an ethical movement to a creedal movement. This shift happened in 325 c.e. when the Council of Nicaea came down with the authoritative decision that answered two questions:

• Who was Jesus; and
• What should the movement believe about Jesus as it related to his human and or divine nature (Bumbaugh, p.8)

The answer was the doctrine of the trinity.

However, there were those who did not fully accept this doctrine of Trinity and the power of Rome.

If you can imagine this is at a time, when most people could not read.  It was in 1440 that the printing press was developed and thus forever initiated the change in our relationships with authorities as information in the form of books could be standardized and disseminated.

Still, there was resistance to ideas that were in contrast to authorities. In Spain, the prevailing position of Ferdinand and Isabella was One Nation, One Monarchy, One Faith.

This sounds familiar. . . .

The 1478  Spanish Inquisition marked a time period of prejudice and intolerance. Eight- hundred thousand  Muslims and Jews left Spain.

People were literally being killed for what they professed to believe.

Did you know that the word for the place of worship for those who practice Islam is derived from this time? The dread of Muslims in Spain were compared to the dread of mosquitos. Mosque. Mosque is a misnomer. The word is actually Masjid. I learned this at an FBI Hate Crimes meeting in Cleveland around the 2000’s, while I was working for a local civil rights agency.

So, just a reference point, in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. . . .to the New World.

If we examine the early history of 16th century free thinkers we claim as Unitarians and Universalists of Europe and then in America, plus studying the Unitarian Universalists in the 1960's, then you could become emboldened.  Emboldened, because  women and men paid with their lives in exchange for their religious ideas.

While in high school, I wrote a report about the Reformation. I recall using a typewriter to write about how in 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to Wittenberg and started the Reformation.  

That was 6 years after Michael Servetus was born.

As I have recently read in Unitarians Universalism: A Narrative History, Michael Servetus was very concerned about the doctrine of the trinity.   He later met another reformer in the movement, John Calvin. Calvin was not so interested in revising  doctrine so much as church politics.. . . polity.

This relationship reminded me of a relationship of a graduate student and a university professor.

Because it seems to me- and this is my interpretation- that Calvin felt like, hey let me take this kid under my wing . . maybe impress him with my thoughts.. . But Servetus was adamant about his anti-trinitarian position. . . In short. . very short,  Calvin sold Servetus  out to the church authorities and Servetus fled.  He was caught though and burned at the stake.

That’s the really short version of one person who spoke out.  There are more. . . Do you want a list? You know this, right?

I’m still reading this narrative of Unitarian Universalism, but I can tell you that later freethinkers fared as well as Servetus. Many of those free thinkers, anti-trinitarians,  were  jailed, left to die or just plain executed.

And you think we have issues with tolerating a change in the set-up in coffee hour? How would you like to be sold out to John Calvin, arrested  and burned at the stake just for forcing your point?

That’s trivial, I guess when I think of many in our faith who question is this a place where I too can belong? Is there room for me in this faith.

Emboldened. Emboldened by the fact that since the Spanish Inquisition, free thinkers, though having a poverty of societal support, still put forth their thoughts and arguments. So with this kind of legacy, how can you stay quiet?

We have UU Good News!  Why aren’t we shouting and praising. . . wait, what now? who?

Humanists have stated that science and economic changes have disrupted old beliefs (Buehren's, p.157). I surely abdicate a condition of filiopiety.

Filopiety- I like this word. Bell hooks used it in one of the books she wrote talking race, sex and class--intersectionality. What I mean by using that word is that I have no love for the old ways of doing them just because that’s the way it has always been done.

I don’t do church the way I was socialized to do church. In fact, I’m not sure I did that as a kid, now that I think about it.  I was trying to sit outside and commune with the breeze and the trees and divine the future by scavenging through a junk drawer and interpreting the items I found there. . . . But wait. . . That’s irrational, right?

And we UU’s are rational, right?Rational, logical, scientific, cold and unfeeling, dispassionate. . .  say what, now?

The culture of our association has been one where we don’t evangelize and we may refrain from making too many joyful noises during a sermon. . maybe a few giggles at own expense.

The origins of how we worship are  derived from the founding culture of Unitarian Universalism (Rolenz, p. 23)  I am mostly reserved in my spiritual practice, though, there have been times when I have wanted to get up and sing Praise Song  by Hall Walker of the Kent UU church or I’m Gonna Lift My Sister Up.  I also imagine myself being carried out by in a white straight jacket afterwards. . .  

My point is our faith allows us to merge new ideas with old ideas- letting go of that which encourages intolerance and opening ourselves to inquire. And Inquiry requires humility and curiosity and a willingness assume good intentions.

Humanists are saying that that revelation is not sealed.  It is okay and necessary to inquire, ask questions, make mistakes and empathize. So where is our revelation of me too?

Empathy.

I can see how that could be harmful. . I wouldn’t want something like that to happen to me. . wow, I can relate to that. . you know. . I’ve been a position where I have have been scapegoated.

Empathy.

Because, I know what it feels like to be thirsty, how can I not be Defending the right to water; how can I accept a Water Crisis any where.

Emapthy.

Because I have learned new information about the indignities that my fellow human beings have suffered for seeking a better life, so  I stand up and speak out for their rights, knowing that injustice there means it could affect me too.

Empathy.

Because I too need Fair pay  to care for myself as well as the Guest at my table.

Empathy.

Because my conscience will not allow me to stay quiet.

We must refrain from sinking into helplessness but rise to responsibility. I think this is an important part of telling people who we are and more important in terms of how we behave our way into communicating to the world the values of Unitarian Universalists. Unitarian Universalism is a cause for hope.