Fasting on the Side of Love

If we are to be strong in these difficult days, we need to do three things:  Deepen our spiritual practices, take concrete strategic actions, and stay united with beloved communities of resistance.  I’m inviting you to join me next week for a campaign which accomplishes all three of these tasks.

I’m joining the #Fast4Power from January 14th-January 20th and inviting the Standing on the Side of Love community to join me. This fast, initiated by the We Say Enough Campaign, is intended to fortify our spirits, strengthen our resolve, and prepare our minds, bodies and souls for the work ahead.  People of faith from many traditions and people of conscience will fast and gather together in a spirit of collective resistance and determination. Will you join us?

Each day will focus on a different phase of our transformative journey: BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, COMMUNITY, SOLIDARITY, VISION and POWER.  We will receive daily inspirational messages and join together for 15-minute video check-ins to guide us on our collective quest for strength, clarity and vision.   Standing on the Side of Love’s mission of harnessing love’s power to stop oppression, discrimination and violence has never been easy.  Now that racism, misogyny, ableism, transphobia, and many other forms of oppression are actively promoted by those in power in Congress and coming in to the White House, and in many of our state and local governments, we need our best selves and our strongest possible community more than ever.

So let’s prepare ourselves together, bonded in community.  Various traditions conduct spiritual or religious fasts in different ways.  You are being invited to fast in ways that are meaningful for you.  For some that means drinking only liquids from sun up to sun down.  For others, particularly people with physical limitations or concerns, the fast may be from watching the evening news or refraining from use of social media.  While we encourage people to engage in the fast for the entire week, we know that not everyone can do that. Fast with us for as many days as you can.  We do hope that everyone will join in on the last day of the fast on January 20th.

I will be consuming only liquids from sun up to sundown, but I know that the days are shorter here in my northern home than they are for many of you.  This is not a competitive project.  Each person will know for themselves what kind of fast will meaningfully connect you to your deepest self and to this community.  Please honor your own wisdom, envision a fast that will be transformative and fortifying for your journey, and join us!

You can sign up for the #Fast4Power here. You’ll receive more information, including about a national call this coming Wednesday, January 11th at 12:30 pm ET (9:30 am PT) to help you prepare for the fast. By fasting together, we feed our souls.

Faithfully,

The Reverend Meg Riley, is Senior Minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship Unitarian Universalist