Dear Ones,

How are you doing?  It seems like we’re being pushed a little more every day, and every day we need a little more to keep going on.  At least, that’s how I’m feeling.  My recent trip to Minneapolis sent me back with lessons about what our administration will do to the people they’ve identified as “other” (in this moment, that means Black and Brown people, Native people, and all who would defend them).  It also sent me back with lessons about neighboring and witnessing and interrupting.

The call for faith leaders to go to Minneapolis explicitly compared it to the 1965 call to Selma.  And I see many parallels to that time: the dehumanization of the people being targeted and their allies, the violence introduced and perpetuated by those doing the targeting, the fear they’re trying to use to impose control and compliance, the deaths of white people galvanizing the general public, and the message that these things will happen in other cities.  The response of people in Minneapolis also has many parallels to the organizing by Civil Rights activists; as my friend and colleague Jim wrote in an opinion piece for the Boston Globe, “As in past movements, the organized resistance here in Minnesota has been careful, calibrated, and celebratory.”

Yes, celebratory!  As we prepare for this to happen in Madison, one of the things it’s important to focus on is taking care of ourselves, each other, and our neighbors.  Minneapolis neighbors are doing this by creating networks of protection – and through sharing things like meals, hugs, and singing.  These are all things that people do in community, and our Soul Matters materials about this month’s theme, embodying resilience, connects resilience to community: “We survive our wounds and weaknesses by having the strength to tell others about it.  We find the courage to make our way through the dark only when we sense we are not alone.  Internal and individual grit only gets us so far; empathy, assurance and love from others gets us the rest of the way.  Boil it all down and you get this: There really is no such thing as a resilient person; there are only resilient relationships from which resilient people arise.”  Resilience arises within us and between us, and those two ways support each other in a beautiful cycle.

So let’s practice embodying resilience together, in potlucks and discussions and worship and song and protests and all the ways we show up in community.  Part of the reason we gather as a faith community is to hold each other through the hard times and the work that they call for – to create resilience within and between us.  And your minister has a role in this – I’m here to accompany you through whatever all this brings up for you.  Please do reach out to me if it would be helpful for you to talk – or do something celebratory or fun together!

In faith and love, Karen