As minister from the UU congregation closest to Standing Rock, I have important news. In a sea of injustice, it is very good news.

Since the Water Protector camps went up in 2016, the movement at Standing Rock has been hailed as world-changing, showing us what prayerful resistance to contemporary forms of colonialism, like the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), can look like – and how crucial it is to maintain our commitment to the water and to one another, even as DAPL ultimately got pushed through Indigenous treaty lands. And even today, Indigenous-led resistance continues from Standing Rock to organizing to Stop the Bayou Bridge Pipeline and beyond

Before the Water Protector camps at Standing Rock were forcibly evacuated last year, UUs showed up – you showed up – with your bodies, resources, and prayers. As UUs, whether we came to camp or participated from home, we knew what solidarity looked like.

Overwhelmingly, we were welcomed as relatives – and experienced as relatives.

I brought a lot of people in my heart with me when I and more than 70 people of faith went to #FloodtheDesert to put water out where people who are migrating need it and in solidarity with No More Deaths humanitarian aid workers facing criminal charges. I brought my father’s family who crossed the Mekong and then the Pacific Ocean as part of their migration journey. I brought the names of so many fighting deportation, keeping hope alive in detention, of Black, Muslim, indigenous, and undocumented organizers who are facing down charges and trials and prison time because the state is targeting them for their justice work. 

Organizers are calling for all current charges against humanitarian-aid workers to be dropped and for land managers in the west desert to ensure that civil humanitarian response is allowed on public land without fear of harassment or prosecution. Please sign on to the call to #dropthecharges and assert that people arriving at our border deserve to be met with #waternotwalls.

During World War II, Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, wrote illegal visas for Jewish families fleeing Lithuania. He did not follow the rules about who should get a visa and who should not. He followed his moral compass. He wrote them for anyone who asked. He issued 10-day visas for transit through Japan in clear violation of his orders. He decided he had the power - even though he could have assumed he had none. I have the seal to stamp the visas; I have my signature. He wrote visa after visa. 

I learned about Sugihara the same day I learned some children who have been separated from their parents at the border are being drugged to keep them listless and sleeping. The guardians  who have been reunited with their children find their children are not the same—they are changed from the trauma they’ve experienced. 

Just like Sugihara, we must all ask what our conscience requires of us in this time when the most inhumane abuse is being carried out against the most vulnerable by the government.

When asked what the most important commandment is, Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and ...Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” 

Nyctinasty: some thoughts for my own community of faith folks with some privilege

The plants on my porch seem like they close up at night. Get a little smaller, shrunken, like they can tuck themselves in under their own covers. The internet says it’s real and called nyctinasty. The theories are abundant for why - to conserve sweet smells, keep from freezing, protect the pollen inside. Every morning they open up again. They shake it out, get up the gumption and begin.

We’re doing some things that afraid people do: withdrawing, hunkering down, narrowing our horizons. I see some of us on Facebook and in my inbox, around my kitchen table and at the work check-in call. We are taking a social media sabbath, getting off the news, taking a break, going on vacation, plotting an escape, retirement, a different job, a different country.  

And some of us have every reason to be afraid for our literal, actual, human lives. Others of us have every reason to be afraid for the lives of the values that we hold dear. Locate your fear. Reality check it. Don’t be cavalier with surveillance, targeting and threats of fascism. But, if you have more privilege, be on guard for the fear that seduces you into inaction, cowardice and complicity. That guides you away from boldness, vision and risk. Tricks you into thinking your survival is at risk and only your survival matters. When really, your survival, physically, may not be at risk. Consider it. Consider the buffers of money saved in USD even if it’s not a lot. Consider all you could sell. Consider what may be blue passport and visas. Consider the people you could call if it really came to that who also have those things.

A week ago, many hundreds gathered in San Diego answering Mijente’s call to take grounded and strategic action against family separation, criminalization and further the demand to #AbolishICE. Led by children and babies, a beautiful 2 mile march moved through the streets of San Diego from the historic Chicano Park to the federal buildings. Check out some images from the day here. At the same time, a series of actions were planned to disrupt business as usual while amplifying the urgent message to Free our Families and Stop Operation Streamline.

We give thanks for the vision and leadership of Mijente, Movement for Black Lives organizations and San Diego local organizers who made the action possible. We also had nearly 100 Unitarian Universalists register to be present in San Diego and had many more than that participate, attend or support.

Thank you to everyone who sang, made art, blessed, prayed, talked to media, handed out water, locked down federal building where our people are in cages, interrupted immigration court and looked love into the eyes of undocumented folks being charged, dropped a visionary banner, made phone calls, amplified, fundraised, gave your congregational resources, bought snacks, offered vans and home hospitality, explained abolition for the first or thousandth time, loved on each other. Shout out to the San Diego area UU congregations, UU Justice Ministry of California, BLUU, UURISE, the Pacific Western Region, and the UUA Board of Trustees for all of your support.

We are in a time of expansive attacks requiring vigilant and growing resistance—a time when we are each called to take a side.

Last Tuesday, a young Black boy, Antwon Rose, was murdered by East Pittsburgh police, and despite recent developments, we know there is no guarantee for justice when police murder young Black and brown people.

Yesterday, The Supreme Court sided with Trump’s white supremacist agenda as it upheld the Muslim Ban.

And over the weekend, UUA General Assembly (GA) delegates overwhelmingly approved an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) to “End Family Separation and Detention of Asylum Seekers and Abolish ICE.” Just three years prior, GA delegates approved an AIW expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement and calling for the abolition of prisons.

Hi again from Kansas City! Today we witnessed our faith’s ability to vision a freer future as our General Assembly heard a proposed Action of Immediate Witness on ending family separation and abolishing ICE.

“...Unitarian Universalists are called urgently to prophetic witness and concrete action that would stop the incarceration and separation of asylum seekers and to call for the abolition of ICE. We are called to do this work in relationship with immigrant-led organizers, and to support and amplify their goals and their voices, through monetary donations and by showing up.” (draft text as of June 23, 2018)

Abolishing ICE is a visionary demand. And we are required to match that vision with our commitment and risk. Mijente is offering that vision and sounding the call to direct action on July 2nd in San Diego to confront and address the immediate crisis of the criminalization of Black and Brown communities. Black liberation organizers, LGBTQ organizers and faith leaders are answering the call. We remember General Assembly 2012 in Phoenix and our long haul commitment to dismantle the systems that harm all of us who migrate. Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen reflects, “I am going to San Diego because my citizenship and father’s access to a refugee visa are privileges to leverage and wield for the dignity of our communities and the freedom of our future.” We called to respond today with the skills, power, courage and urgency of our commitment. 

We just touched down in Kansas City, where we will gather with thousands of other Unitarian Universalists for this years’ General Assembly under the theme All Are Called. At the same time, the threats against those of us who are immigrants, People of Color, Trans and queer, poor continue to grow in violence and scope. As people of faith and justice, we answer to a higher law of love and justice than the failed laws of this land that are harming our communities. 

Earlier this week, national Latinx base-building movement organization, Mijente, issued an immediate call to action to #ShutdownSessions #AbolishICE and #FreeOurFuture. View it here, read the transcript of it below and answer the call directly at: bit.ly/actionready.

This year we are so excited to be working with Black Lives of UU leadership to bring General Assembly 2018 attendees a Public Witness that is dynamic, creative and rooted in longer-term relationships and work. Whether you’re in Kansas City, at home or on the road, there are meaningful ways for you to plug into this work - both before, during and after General Assembly. Review Jailed for Being Poor: How the Money Bail System Criminalizes Poverty webinar and check out these resources on the movement to #EndMoneyBail. The opportunities for Public Witness this year offer a clear link between criminalization, community protection and beyond. To build with Black-led organizing locally creating solutions towards maternal health, community safety, and liberation. We look forward to you joining us in person and through these online opportunities.