Rev. Ashley Horan is the Organizing Strategy Director of the Unitarian Universalist Association, where she works with a team of faithful organizers and movement builders to ensure the justice work of Unitarian Universalism is spiritually grounded and politically effective. Her charge came at the end of last month’s UUSJ’s 20th Anniversary Celebration. See the story below on the Celebration. (View Video)

 

Beloveds, let us make good trouble* by grounding all the work we do in humility, take a beat before making a well-meaning suggestion or critique, or question a tactic, or assume we know something that others have not yet realized.

Let’s make good trouble by supporting the leadership of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, by queer or trans people, by women and poor folks, by immigrants that are fighting for a more just and liberated world.

Let’s show up even when we have questions, or when we would do something different, or when what is being asked of us means sacrifice or discomfort.

Let’s make good trouble by pushing past our comfort zone. Let’s do work that’s grounded in relationship, with the spirit of service and boldness that we lean into because we sense deep in our bones that we are a part of the struggle for building a more just and loving world that started with our ancestors and will continue for generations beyond our lifetime.

Let’s take risks, say yes, make sacrifices. Do what needs to be done because it is right and it is needed, not because it is easy.

Let’s make good trouble by engaging in things that nurture our spirit, make us stronger and kinder, and more connected so that we can show up as our best selves. Pray daily, make art and music, connect with our healthy-healed ancestors, move our bodies with intention, protest, and march in the company of beloveds. Weave a vision of a world worth fighting for. Rinse and repeat, over and over again.

Let’s make good trouble by making space for grief and lamentation in our own hearts, our communities, and the world. The losses and the pain, the real humans and bodies that have been harmed. Allow our hearts to break, to connect with our humanity and the humanity of the real people who suffer.

And then let’s make good trouble by choosing joy over cynicism, resilience over fragility, generosity over pettiness, gratitude over scarcity. Let’s dance in our bathrobes and make food for our beloveds, and sing off-key, and squeeze our babies as a daily act of resistance. Let us not allow them to steal our joy or our spirit.

And finally, let us make good trouble by giving our highest allegiance not to any one organization or campaign or movement strategies because none of them will save us. Instead, let us give our deepest allegiance to that spirit of liberation that holds us all faithfully, irrecoverably. Reminding us that each and every one of us is worthy of love. Embodied in a lived reality, agency, and wellness.

Let’s make good trouble together. 

Go forth, be bold, be humbled, be grateful, be blessed.

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*Editor’s note: Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, who died in 2020, urged us in 2018 to “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”