Members of the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock endorsed an Eighth Principle as a core value of Unitarian Universalism:
Journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.
In a time of war, the Principle is critically important. “Events are moving so fast that there seems no hope of apprehending any of it fully, of saying the thing that will feel right for the moment which is already gone.” – thus begins what I found to be an exceptional article by Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of Jewish Currents.
This article deals with the “Already complex and fragile relationships between Palestinian and left-wing Jewish activists—as well as factions within both of these groups,” and ends with the following inspirational thoughts:
“Even if our dreams for better have failed, they must accompany us through this moment to the other side. We need to imagine a movement for liberation better even than the Exodus—an exodus where neither people has to leave. Where people stay to pick up the pieces, rearranging themselves not just as Jews or Palestinians but as antifascists and workers and artists. I want what Puerto Rican Jewish poet and activist Aurora Levins Morales describes in her poem ‘Red Sea:’
We cannot cross until we carry each other,
all of us refugees, all of us prophets.
No more taking turns on history’s wheel,
trying to collect old debts no-one can pay.
The sea will not open that way.
This time that country
is what we promise each other,
our rage pressed cheek to cheek
until tears flood the space between,
until there are no enemies left,
because this time no one will be left to drown
and all of us must be chosen.
This time it’s all of us or none.”
Submitted by Martha Chimienti, Chair, Racial Justice Sub-Committee of Social Justice