Grateful to bring you our next installment in our bi-weekly messages with a prayer, an ancestor and a song speaking to our spirits. We hope these resources may offer what we need in order to be courageously, steadily, humbly, on the side of love. One ancestor to lean on, one prayer for our messy lives, and one song to strengthen and soothe.
ANCESTOR
“Spirit of Truth and Love within our living hearts, we pledge our faithfulness to all who toil that we may eat our bread. We rejoice in human power to shape the stuff of earth into things of usefulness and beauty. May our hands and minds add their portion to the common treasure of a world more fair. We would find our place among the workers of humanity, proud of honest labor done, and rest deserved, and wages earned.” - To All Who Toil, Rev. Stephen Fritchman
Rev. Stephen Fritchman (1902-1981) was a Unitarian minister, author and youth worker. Initially trained as a Methodist minister, Fritchman became a Unitarian minister in 1930 and went on to work for the American Unitarian Association, including as youth director, as well as editor of the AUA journal, the Christian Register, what we now know to be UUWorld. Fritchman found both support and resistance within his role, was forced to testify before The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and would eventually be forced to resign due to his support of Soviet policies and public affiliation with communist organizations including the Popular Front. Fritchman went on to become a minister in Los Angeles - where the justice work of his congregation would be monitored by the FBI for periods - and remain involved in immigrant and racial justice work, resistance to state-sponsored surveillance and a number of political parties. Read more about Rev. Fritchman here.