Last weekend Unitarian Universalist ministers gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to respond to race hate with a loving message about the inherent worth of every person. Arms linked, they waited calmly as 250 white supremacists waving the Nazi flag swept down on them. It must have been terrifying.
Even more terrifying was the frenzied car attack that killed Heather Heyer, who had shown up to answer the call of love in a peaceful counter to the march of gun-toting, self-described Nazis.
The angry chant of “Jews will not replace us”; the Nazi flag; the young white men neatly dressed in golf shirts and khaki trousers; and, bizarrely, the tiki torches, are not merely last weekend’s history. They are also our immediate future. This coming weekend, an anti-diversity “March on Google” will take place in at least nine cities across the nation, and other white supremacist rallies are scheduled for other places.
And we feel deep pain. It’s heartbreaking to see the violence, the misguided contempt for other human beings, the confusion wrought by those who hedge their rejection of white supremacist ideology. Yet the very feelings that make our hearts break—grief, dismay, shock, anger—urge us to answer the call of love.
Good people of First Unitarian, let us join together on Sunday to tend to our spirits and our strategies. We will hear from Rev. Erin Gingrich and Liz Hall, Senior Organizer of AMOS, our interfaith community organizing group, about how we can put our values into action from a place of love and power.
See below
to find ways to respond constructively to these events. In these times, may we be people who answer the call of love. Let’s join with others to make our beloved country, in the words of
Langston Hughes
, “the dream the dreamers dreamed…that great strong land of love.”
With sorrow, love, and hope,
Rev. Jennifer Brooks
Rev. Erin Gingrich
