What does it mean to be a community of prophecy/prophetic community?
Back when I lived in Denver, CO, I experienced a worship service that was a blend of Unitarian Uuniversalist (UU) worship–preaching, singing, lighting the chalice–and protest. It was simultaneously a glorious moment of proclaiming UU witness for a moral cause. We met on the steps of the capitol in support of same sex marriage and in protest of Colorado’s determination that marriage should be for heterosexuals only. For several years we met, a growing community that started at about 200 and became more like 600–UU’s and other faith communities in sympathy with our cause. We had multiple congregations represented with multiple ministers, a huge choir, and media. I felt proud to be a UU on those Sundays, once a year, as we proclaimed that we were standing on the side of love. This gathering took on an even deeper importance as that work moved from a focus on marriage equality to a focus on immigration and on Black Lives Matter. The gathering deepened relationships and created a grounding energy that was needed for other work to be done. It moved from being a moment to building some of the heart and soul for a movement, one that has gathered stamina to engage some of those participants in the work of the sanctuary movement, one that has supported activism in many different forms for more than one cause.
Coming to Kansas, I held that experience in my heart. I have spent some time in our capitol and around our state, and I started to imagine what it would take to create more collaboration, deeper relationships, and broader capacity for the many people who were alarmed by the challenges our state is facing because of the policies and leadership of the current administration. I started to imagine what our version of s Standing on the Side of Love service would look like. Gathering at the capitol before the supreme court decision changed the law of the land, I saw the possibility of how we might better organize and strategize. So often I would go to events in the capitol and see 50-100 people who cared passionately about one issue. It’s not that they didn’t care about other issues. There were a few of us that showed up for multiple things and this is how I got to know some folks better. For example, Dan Brennan seemed to be just about everywhere. And Davis Hammet. And Mary Akerstrom. And Sonja Willem. Rev. Schlingensiepen. Rev. Longbottom. And many more!
A couple of years ago I signed up to do a leadership training with the Kansas Leadership Center. It was three days long and I went because someone else, another minister, had recommended it. It was interesting because it had attracted all kinds of people from all over the state whose interests were also all over the map. I was definitely the furthest left field, if you know what I mean. But I spoke my intention, which was to develop a statewide collaboration of people working on a progressive agenda. I wanted to build our capacity to work together and to dream together. I didn’t even know who “we” would be.
Then earlier this year I read Rev. Barber’s book, “The Third Reconstruction.” His book gave me hope and it gave me some ideas. He spoke at our general assembly this last June and although he is a registered Independent, he also spoke at the DNC. His cry for a moral response to the policies being pushed by corporate elites is moving and inspiring; and his analysis of why certain policies are being pursued in tandem was eye opening and chilling. He draws connections between the attacks on voting rights, especially for people of color, and attacks on access to quality public education, access to affordable health care, attacks on our courts and on progressive revenue policy, legislating hate through anti LGBTQ laws and policies, and undermining women’s access to reproductive rights and health care, undermining labor unions and wages and environmental sustainability efforts, while increasing access (for some) to guns. He shows the way in which the groups affected by these attacks have been encouraged to see their battles as separate. Our organizations are built to advocate for particular pieces of these attacks but not to respond together. We more often are fighting each other–for funding, for publicity, for the “moral high ground.”
But when I took a step back I saw what Barber was seeing–that the architects of these attacks are the same entities, not just in one state but in nearly 23 states. The same people who want to undermine public education are the same people who want to undermine women’s reproductive rights and check your birth certificate at the door to the bathroom. Why? Barber shows how some of these issues have been deliberately constructed as a way to distract our attention. In getting some people riled up about same gender marriage or trans people doing normal human activities, they have managed to take away attention from things like economic disaster and the dismantling of public goods.
I was so moved by Rev. Barber’s writing and by the public speeches I had seen that I went with several others to Kansas City to him lead a Moral Revival event in September. Larry and Cheryl Nussbaum and Nancy Heitzig and Mary Akerstrom and I all met up there. It was an incredible evening–Sister Simone from the nuns on the bus, Rabbi Mark H. Levin from KC, Reverend Traci Blackmon from St. Louis area, Rev. Dr. James Forbes, and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber gave rousing sermonettes and they featured fast food workers who were fighting for a $15 hour wage and folks looking for the expansion of medicaid and so many of the same issues we are facing here. We sang together and we promised each other a vision of a different kind of community. I was reminded that my call to ministry was both a call to serve congregations and a call to serve the communities I live and serve in. Repairers of the Breach
I joined the Kansas Interfaith Action Board as they were making the shift from working on environmental issues only to working on a broader base of issues based roughly on MLK’s triple threat–racism, poverty, and violence. With environment still on the table, we set out to work on getting rid of campus carry, supporting Muslims in KS, working with others to expand medicaid, and fighting against poorly designed welfare policies in addition to advocating for efficiency in our energy use. The idea of connecting a moral lens to the vision for Kansas was moving to me and helped me connect issues and ideas to my Unitarian Universalist values and commitments.
Then, this fall, as we were all waiting to see what would happen with the presidential election, I met someone else who was inspired by Rev. Barber. She is a Quaker who met Barber at a conference last spring where he was giving a workshop on Moral Mondays style organizing. Her name is Laura Dungan, and like me she has been an organizer and has been thinking about what we could be doing to energize Kansans. So we started thinking about planning a large scale rally in the capitol and getting Rev. Barber to Kansas. We started inviting friends and colleagues to join us and pretty soon we had 50 people in Salina from around the state thinking about what was important in KS and what we wanted to say to our elected leaders. Eventually we had two meetings and over 100 people reaching out to others across the state.
Let me pause to describe those two Saturdays in Salina. The first was the first weekend after the national election. While we hadn’t known what the outcome of the election was to be when made the plan to meet that weekend, most of us were pretty glad to have something else to work on and think about that felt important and life giving after the election. There were a lot of hugs, a few tears, some laughter, and a lot of commitment. We had people from Hutchison, Salina, Wichita, Hays, Lyons, Emporia, Lawrence, Topeka, Kansas City…and a couple small towns I can’t remember. We had guitars and a piano and songs and poets. We spent time listening to each other and getting to know each other–and we learned about issues and ideas we didn’t each already know about. We started to develop a list of concerns and some ideas for a rally. We started to think about who we would invite and how we could get people to come. While we originally had planned to have Rev. Barber come speak at our rally, his own state has faced some very challenging political situations since the election, and his presence is required in NC on Jan 11.
Several of us got to talk to Dr. Barber about our event over the phone with several others. He reminded us that we needed to build a movement, not just a moment, and that the voices of people experiencing challenges are the voices we need to hear. He was excited by our work, our vision, and made a commitment to come to KS to lead a training and moral revival event and also to record a greeting for our rally. I was moved just to be mentored by someone so…prophetic, someone who seemed to have endless energy and enthusiasm. I was grateful to know that there were others across this country doing just we were doing–gathering people, deepening relationships, and building bridges.
One of the most important aspects of building a moment and not just a movement is in building relationships. This is part of my answer also to what does it mean to be a community of prophecy? It means we start to look beyond the folks we usually work with and talk to and ask ourselves who else might want to be part of this work, and what do they care about? Instead of a flashmob at the capital, spending time to know new organizations and faces and issues means you can reach back out to people for follow up actions and to review what went well and what didn’t. We asked people to give us contact information, we invited people to help plan, and we kept including the voices that spoke up. When we were deciding if we were going to come up with a short list of issues we cared about or a long list of legislative concerns, we decided to create a platform instead. We know we won’t have legislative strategies for all of these this year or even next. But we wanted everybody in, nobody out. We wanted people to have the experience of being in the capital with a bunch of people who actually care about us, who actually see us and want us to succeed, want real change for all people. I hope that when folks show up later in the legislative season with fewer people, they will remember that there are allies who stand with us even when we can’t be in the capitol. We wanted people to hear voices they don’t normally hear–voices of ordinary people and voices of the faith community speaking up because we know that when we look at what has happened in Ks, we KNOW that this aint right. Hasn’t been right.
I guess I got tired of waiting for someone else to connect all the dots. I could see them. Lots of other people could too, and it seemed like they were just waiting for someone to proclaim a vision for this state that would reclaim some of its history. I can’t tell you how many people have told me in the last month that they were losing hope and this movement is changing their minds. I can’t tell you how many people admitted that we have built too many competing organizations and not enough relationship between them. Part of how I personally have approached this problem is to show up as much as I can to the conversations and work being done by different organizations so that I can know the people doing the work and understand their core values and visions. It’s been worth the time invested–building trust and relationship is a game changer when we you want to plan an event, develop a vision, and jumpstart a movement.
There is so much more to do, of course. And some of the work that needs to be done will be more grueling and more risky–it will involve showing up in places and in ways that require courage and creativity. But always the core task will be to develop trust and connection with people who ultimately share our vision and values.
This week I invite you to come to a rally like no other rally; I invite you to stand boldly with other Kansans and proclaim a different vision of what living here could look like and the values that are foundational to your worldview. This is just one of many invitations that are developing out of this movement. Next month we will convene our second annual Building Beloved Community Conference for UU Activists and their partners in Lawrence. This year a small advisory group representing all of our UU congregations in KS has worked to build some workshops and a guest speaker into our gathering. I hope you will consider coming to this event and deepening our capacity to do social justice work across KS as a group of sister congregations. And later in February we will host a special workshop for our community I first encountered in Colorado that helps us understand the lived history of America’s First People.
Changing a moment into a movement means committing to your own development, from books to training and workshops, to conferences, to meetings with groups you want to learn more about, to retreats and spiritual practices and caring for one another. There will be many opportunities to engage with each other and with others in our community, whether we are planting gardens or planning direct actions or sharing a meal; whether we are engaging in spiritual practices or part of a faith community; whether we are writing letters or visiting friends in the hospital or taking meals to someone; whether we are marching with women in D.C, or right here in Topeka; whether we are raising funds or raising hell–I hope you are expanding the circle you work with and expanding the capacity you have to bring to any of these tasks. And sometimes expanding comes after you have had time to reflect and renew, to sit down and let go. Whatever your path this winter and spring, may you walk with companions who will share the load and sing the songs and do the work that needs to be done. We change a moment into a movement by walking together.
“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”
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