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One Piece of a Deeply Sacred Whole

One Piece of a Deeply Sacred Whole

When we say, "Save the rainforest," we don’t mean that we cease to honor the mighty cedars or the reaching pines. We mean that one particular piece of a deeply sacred whole is more at risk than others, and that this risk, this threat, is worthy of our very bravest actions. So it is with black...

N Nancy McDonald Ladd
Human Beauty and Resilience

Human Beauty and Resilience

I do not believe the acts of oppressors are my people’s shame.

I Imani Perry
The Deep Well of Black Lives

The Deep Well of Black Lives

On August 25, 1619, the ship the White Lion arrived at Point Comfort, now known as Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, Virginia. The ship contained enslaved Africans. This is the first recorded arrival of Africans in America....

K Kristen L. Harper
On White Supremacy Culture and Why I Use These Words

On White Supremacy Culture and Why I Use These Words

A common "issue" in anti-racism work is the use of the term culture of white supremacy or white supremacy culture, which many people view as charged, controversial, or even deeply offensive. Sometimes there are even challenges/dismissals from people in positions of power/authority about it....

C Carolina Krawarik-Graham
A Prayer for White People

A Prayer for White People

Sheltered in our homes, Or going to work, at risk, For week after week after week, We’re edgy, tired, a little raw. We are tender, vulnerable, Open. A little more open than usual. Those of us who are white, Who, before, might have been distracted Who, before, might have been too busy Who, before,...

E Ellen Quaadgras
Black Lives Matter More than a Slogan

Black Lives Matter More than a Slogan

The statement Black Lives Matter might be hard to hear because it floats. It is a bit of hyperbole. There is no counter point, no balancing narrative. This is something our culture is not accustomed to. We are used to having a good guy and a bad guy, a protagonist and an antagonist. We’ve seen...

N Nathan Ryan
You Are Not a Problem

You Are Not a Problem

Black men are not a species. They, you, belong to humanity.

I Imani Perry
Every Place Is a Battleground

Every Place Is a Battleground

I was born nine years after four little girls were killed in Birmingham, Alabama, and two other boys later the same day.

I Imani Perry
The Weight of Privilege

The Weight of Privilege

The person who enjoys privilege always knows less about the person who lives under the weight of that privilege than the people who are actually under it.

T Ta-Nehisi Coates
Our Principles as a House of Love

Our Principles as a House of Love

Maybe if we add an 8th Principle, we will get closer to the BeLOVEd Community we dream about.

K Karen G. Johnston
Decolonizing My Desire

Decolonizing My Desire

Since I was a kid, I have had a penchant and passion for my touch on my body. This was sometimes shameful, sometimes wonderful, and deeply private from fairly early on, as I received messages from family and neighbors that it wasn’t “right.” It has only been as an adult, as i have witnessed...

A Adrienne Maree Brown
The Unseen Skeleton

The Unseen Skeleton

We in the developed world are like homeowners who inherited a house on a piece of land that is beautiful on the outside, but whose soil is unstable loam and rock, heaving and contracting over generations, cracks patched but the deeper ruptures waved away for decades, centuries even....

I Isabel Wilkerson
Embodied Learning

Embodied Learning

This reflection was part of Side With Love Sunday 2021.

J Julica Hermann de la Fuente
Do You Believe in Justice and Equality?

Do You Believe in Justice and Equality?

To see how we fight still after entire lifetimes of struggle—and then to tell us to be more polite is just plain cruel.

I Ijeoma Oluo
The Insidiousness of White Supremacy

The Insidiousness of White Supremacy

White supremacy illuminates the exceptional instead of blaming the system.

C Clint Smith
White Fear of Black Freedom

White Fear of Black Freedom

There’s never been a time in the United States history when black rebellions did not spark existential fear among white people.

M Michelle Alexander and Leslie Alexander
Holy Discomfort and Holy Disruption

Holy Discomfort and Holy Disruption

Discomfort /in the name of holy wholeness / Bring all of ourselves / in the name of holy, of wholeness

K Kiakiali Bordner
Embodied, Connected Pleasure

Embodied, Connected Pleasure

Pleasure is one of the ways we know when we are free.

A Adrienne Maree Brown
Blessed, When the World Has Fallen Apart

Blessed, When the World Has Fallen Apart

May we be our descendants’ bravest heroes, keepers of the flame.

V Vanessa Titang
Assume Goodwill

Assume Goodwill

I cannot assume anything when you welcome me into your spaces with suspicion and fear.

K Kristen L. Harper
Wake Up!

Wake Up!

Let us wake up. Not just from the Sunday morning exhaustion, from the wish for a few more drowsy minutes in bed. Let us wake up to this world we live in: to its beauty and wonder, and also to its tragedy and pain. We must wake up to this reality: that not all in our world have what we do, however...

C Christian Schmidt
The Bruise That Never Heals

The Bruise That Never Heals

Bruises are a part of roller derby — a celebrated part. It’s not uncommon for players to take pictures of their biggest, most colorful shaped bruises: bruises that go deep into your tissue, and come out in amazing blues, purples, and blacks that eventually fade to greens, browns and yellows. A...

D Dawn Skjei Cooley
The privileges of a racist system

The privileges of a racist system

"The thing that's really slick about whiteness, if you will, is that most of the benefits can be obtained without ever doing anything personally......

j john a. powell
The Invisibility of Whiteness

The Invisibility of Whiteness

The invisibility of whiteness means that one doesn't have to notice that one is white. So there are people, and then there are black people. There are people and there are Latino people. And people—just people, just folks—turn out to be white, but we don't notice it. White people have the luxury...

j john a. powell
To All Get Free Together

To All Get Free Together

To become an anti-racist faith community, the key question for a white/white majority community is not “How do we get people of color to join our faith community?” It is, instead, “How can we make a prolonged, spiritually-rooted, engaged commitment to uprooting white supremacy within our...

C Chris Crass
The Nod

The Nod

You’ve seen it. Two black men pass each other on the street. They nod. Subtle, sometimes imperceptible, but there is acknowledgement. “Do you know him?” “No . . . (yes) . . . no.” I learned this from my father and my grandfather and my other grandfather and my uncles and my great uncle and...

A Adam Lawrence Dyer
Healing

Healing

Don’t speak to me of “healing” racism, or “wounded souls” or the “painful hurt” until you are willing to feel the scars on my great-great-grandmother Laury’s back. Don’t speak to me of “values” or “justice” or “righting wrongs” until you are able to feel the heartache...

A Adam Lawrence Dyer
All of Us Need All of Us to Make It

All of Us Need All of Us to Make It

Say it with me, loud or soft: “All of us need all of us to make it.”

M Megan Foley and Julián Jamaica Soto
In Honor and Praise to Black Rage

In Honor and Praise to Black Rage

Deep in the shadow of night, down near the crossroads and cemetery gates, with bitter liquor and cigar smoke wafting, I greet you. Clad in white, upon the floor before shrines, following the names of the Ancestors being uttered, I greet you. You are the sacred and righteous rage of my people.

T Tyler Coles
White Supremacy and Beloved Community

White Supremacy and Beloved Community

Editor's note: This sermon was prepared for a white congregation, and thus speaks to those who identify as white, centering the dismantling of white supremacy from a white perspective....

A Amanda Udis-Kessler
Bearing Witness

Bearing Witness

America has not yet faced our history of slavery, nor the malicious colonization and oppression of the Indigenous peoples.

H Heide Cottam
Prayer for Weary Times

Prayer for Weary Times

Holy One, our hearts are weary; are tired; and are breaking. Our hearts are stretching as they are pulled and pushed, bruised and battered by all the suffering and brokenness and pain. Our ears are ringing—ringing with harsh words, with yelling, with gunfire that echoes in our streets and takes...

M Margaret Weis
Visitors in the Struggle for Racial Justice

Visitors in the Struggle for Racial Justice

No matter what tactics and methods racial justice activists use, the general response of society will be a collective head-shaking and tsk-tsk-ing — because what people are actually complaining about are not the specific tactics that are being used in the struggle for racial justice, but that the...

A Aisha Ansano
Black Women Worry More

Black Women Worry More

He phoned more than an hour ago to say he was on his way home. But I have yet to hear the scrape of the iron gate, the rattling keys, so I worry. Most married women fret about a tardy husband: black women like myself worry more....

R Rosemary Bray McNatt
To Practice Love Is to Disrupt the Status Quo

To Practice Love Is to Disrupt the Status Quo

"I believe firmly that to practice love is to disrupt the status quo which is masquerading as peace." —posted on Austin Channing Brown's Instagram, June 17, 2020...

A Austin Channing Brown
Prayer for St. Louis after Ferguson

Prayer for St. Louis after Ferguson

Spirit of Life that flows through our hearts like a never ending stream, On this blessed day we are filled with gratitude to find ourselves together once again in this sacred time and place, unified in our diversity by the hope and compassion in our hearts, as well as the sadness and...

K Krista Taves
We Are Not Done

We Are Not Done

Do not think we are finished— oh no we will never be finished never just done until the light of justice is lit behind every eye. Do not think we will be silent— no there will not be silence until the world has sung the names of the dead with full throats and still we will sing on. Do not think...

A Audette Fulbright Fulson
Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

At the beginning of this sermon, pictures of the five black people killed by police officers were projected for the congregation to see as each was named. At the end of the sermon, photo portraits of each were placed on chairs as candles were lit for them. This is Tamir Rice. Tamir Rice is twelve...

S Seth Carrier-Ladd
On Being Asked to Change "Black Lives Matter" to "All Lives Matter"

On Being Asked to Change "Black Lives Matter" to "All Lives Matter"

As a Unitarian Universalist minister, it is sometimes my role to answer correspondence that comes to our congregation from members of the community. Last night, I received this brief note in my inbox: Good Evening: I am very upset at the signage that is outside of your church stating that “Black...

D Daniel S. Schatz
Prayer for the Morning

Prayer for the Morning

Did you rise this morning, broken and hung over with weariness and pain and rage tattered from waving too long in a brutal wind? Get up, child. Pull your bones upright gather your skin and muscle into a patch of sun....

A Audette Fulbright Fulson
To the Death of Michael Brown: We Bear Witness

To the Death of Michael Brown: We Bear Witness

Turn and look at your neighbor. Not only can you probably see them. You can experience being in the same space with them today. If you were called as a court witness, you could speak to the truth that they exist. Today, we will bear witness to the death of Michael Brown....

J Julián Jamaica Soto
Prepare Him Room

Prepare Him Room

Reading From The Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 40:1-11) Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness...

R Robin Bartlett
A Prayer for Emanuel Church and the People of Charleston, A Prayer for us All

A Prayer for Emanuel Church and the People of Charleston, A Prayer for us All

Dear God of Sorrow and Love— Are there no places of safety from hate? Are there no sanctuaries from racism? Are there no walls fortified with love that can withstand violence? We pray this day for the nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston who were senselessly...

S Sarah Lammert
Charge to Engage

Charge to Engage

This charge was written to be led by several voices: one person says a line, and then all in attendance respond, “We charge you to engage.” Because your congregation is located in one of the poorest cities in the nation in the richest state per capita in the country We charge you to engage...

C Cathy Rion Starr
Loving the Arc

Loving the Arc

God who is with us in the courtrooms, at the border, in the streets, in the struggle, We do not know if this arc bends toward justice....

E Elizabeth Nguyen
In Real Time

In Real Time

#‎BlackLivesMatter Let the only burning be the fire of commitment in our hearts, minds, hands, spirits in our community of faith. Live solidarity. Use your voice. Demand justice... better, live it into being. Cry out for others to join you. Name hate as hate—without shrinking back without...

J Jeannie Shero
Everybody Else

Everybody Else

On a spring day in Farmington, Maine, as I was walking downtown, I made my way through a line of cars that were waiting for the light. In front of me was a large Confederate flag flying from the back of a white pick-up. I crossed the street, not looking at who was driving the truck, and went into...

J Jabari S. Jones
Hope Does Dwell

Hope Does Dwell

God of mercy, spirit who makes peace out of war, who wanders with refugees and keeps vigil with children at our border and all borders; Holy healer in hospitals and shelters, at schools, in homes, at weddings, and in planes; May your love be balm for all the hurt. May your truth be present in...

E Elizabeth Nguyen
Your Life Matters

Your Life Matters

Most of us Unitarian Universalists are here because we felt welcome here — at last. Some of us were too agnostic somewhere else. Some of us weren’t vindictive enough somewhere else. We were too working-class somewhere else. We were too lesbian somewhere else. We were too nerdy somewhere else,...

K Kenny Wiley
Sister Goose and the Foxes

Sister Goose and the Foxes

Sister Goose swam in the pond, happy as could be. Now and then, she ducked her head down to nibble a little bit here, and nibble a little bit there. She took no more than her fill of those succulent underwater plants, for she knew that the pond belonged to everyone....

F Faye Mogensen