A Word about UUSJ…

For nearly 25 years at UUSJ, we have been building our strength for this fight, even if we did not know it was coming during our lifetimes.

As a UU faith movement, we have grappled with injustice and pejorative politics. 

Our history of defying oppression goes back even further if we look at the separate legacies of our Unitarian and Universalist ancestors.

In the next four years, we will face many challenges. 

The stream of outsized, bigger-than-life assertions will continue. The mendacious and misleading statements will carry on. The onslaught of pernicious policy proposals will gather momentum. The unofficial oaths of fealty above and beyond the constitution will abound. The vitriol will spew. 

It appears the autocrats have taken the bully pulpit, and the oligarchs have moved to the front offices. Plutocracy and cronyism shall rule the day. 

It is a new dawn for Christian Nationalism in America, with eyes set on Theocracy. The root harms will metastasize and spread.

The question is whether or not we will allow our nation to continue a flirtation with fascism. Whether or not we will sit idly by and watch our democracy being dismantled and our liberties shorn away. Whether or not we will watch as the tipping point is reached and breached.

I say we won’t! 

We know how to do hard things. We are not afraid to meet the challenges. We will do so in somber optimism for our faith, our freedoms, our families, and our futures.

UUSJ continues to be a home for those who want to advocate, agitate, and witness to interrupt the interlocking injustices of federal policy violence. 

Our faith is about the liberty and freedom to cherish interdependence, pluralism, justice, transformation, generosity, and equity.

Love remains our guiding principle and faith value. And we remind our people that we are in it for the long haul, not the loophole. Our faith tradition teaches the power of redemption and transformation.

As Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Theodore Parker suggested, the arc of transformation we inhabit is for justice. That arc is long enough to bear the weight of this impending season of travesty, tragedy, and injustice. 

We believe advocacy, witness, and education are the cornerstones of defiance. We know action is the antidote to despair. We maintain community, and fellowship is the fiber of resilience. We trust that joy is the taproot of liberty.

When it is over, we will be sure we did everything possible to mitigate and stop the worst outcomes, the deadliest damage, and the most heinous harms. We may not win every battle, but we will be present and carry water.

Please sign up to join the needed work. Volunteer with us! 

If that sounds meaningful to you, please donate to UUSJ. Your financial support will help fund our defiance. And know your gifts will help fund the resilience of communities impacted by the California wildfires. We will split our plate with folks through the UUA’s Disaster Relief Fund.

As I said last week, the crisis of conscience in the U.S. is official.

A suspect ‘national emergency at our southern border’ has been declared. A dubious ‘national energy emergency’ has been proclaimed and paired with a ‘drill baby drill’ mantra. We have received an admonishment that there are only two genders — ‘male and female.’ The onslaught of challenges to our constitution and norms has gathered potency. The torrent of policy has been revealed, as fact, with the Executive Orders and the corresponding news coverage.

And it feels overwhelming. And many of us think we are insufficient for the task. 

But our fealty is to a vision for a just, compassionate, and sustainable world community. Our fidelity has been pledged to advancing equitable national policies and actions aligned with UU values. Now, we must live to that vision and mission.

So we must remember we are more powerful together.

We ask our supporters to stay focused on the stakes for our democracy and the communities we hold in care. 

We will need to defend immigrants, LGBTQ, and Trans people in particular. We must decry attacks on civil servants and poor Americans. We shall show solidarity with frontline communities as they struggle with the climate crisis. We are obliged to share power with the marginalized and disenfranchised. We must defy the racism and ethnic hate.

We know that policy is dynamic and flows from the community to the county, from the county to the state, from the state to the federal–and back again. The work ahead of us is ‘both and.’ Both federal and state. Both state and county. Both county and community.

In the federal framework, hope remains–the vote margins are narrow, so very slim. Several in the Senate and a handful in the House can stop the worst inclinations of America’s new leadership cabal. Not all, but perhaps the worst.

So we have our work cut out for us. We must champion our values and advocate for issues. We must engage around our common moral concerns and find every potential ally. 

Recent votes in both chambers show that too many fail to find their steel. So, part of our work is to help stiffen their spines. And for that, we need a clear-eyed view of the landscape.

So we have brought you, Congresswoman Judy Chu.