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Stop being so damn nice
The Rev. Amy Shaw writes that liberals need to “stop being so damn nice.”
We tolerated the intolerance because it just isn’t polite to riot, and now the highest court in our land has been stained and twisted.
Stop being so damn nice.
We tolerate hatred and give it a forum over and over again because we want to “hear all of the options,” because “it isn’t fair to be one sided.”
When did hatred and ignorance become positions we want to get out there just in case someone needs to follow their heart and just go with some light genocide? (Chalice Fire, June 27)
Responding to the story of Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant, Elizabeth Mount writes that, “No one should EVER deny services to another person because of who they are.”
However, you can totally respond to BEHAVIOR with consequences. If you yell at other patrons in my place, if you grope the servers at the bar down the street, if you are a known tip thief in the city, if you advocate for a national policy of genocide... I'm going to believe that your behavior is of the type that will make me, my servers, and other patrons uncomfortable. Your behavior has social consequences in this world, and the proper response to fascism isn't to grit your teeth and politely seat them anyway. (Facebook, June 25)
Heal this fascist-turning place
The Rev. Theresa Soto updates a traditional prayer to fit our current situation.
Brown Mary, full of grace,
Heal this fascist-turning place.
Wipe the tears from every face.
Help us be a humane race.
Brown Mary, full of grace. (Facebook, June 28)
For Tina Porter, the good news—among all the bad—is that we are not alone.
Warrior on, my friends in the struggle. May we live to see a portion of the progress we have promised each other and save some lives in the process. Be not quiet in the face of tyranny, and listen and follow, my white friends, to those most vulnerable who have been in this fight since birth. . . .
Do not be swayed by calls for civility. It is time to rock the boats. All of them. (Tina L. Porter, June 26)
Andrew Hidas—and his fellow moviegoers—was deeply moved by a recent documentary about Fred Rogers.
“The only thing that changes the world is when someone gets the idea that love can abound, and that it can be shared,” [Rogers] says, just before this movie ends and not long before his own life is taken from him with stomach cancer at age 74.
Imagine that: a world where love abounds, is never subject to drought, nor to fear that begets greedy accumulation. Where tears of joy flow along a generous river in which we can cool our feet on a hot day and ask our fellow humans within earshot, “Won’t you join me? Won’t you be my neighbor?” (Traversing, June 24)
The present moment
The Rev. Tom Schade writes that there is “no reason for Unitarian Universalists to be depressed, discouraged, or despondent” about the state of the UUA.
Our religious movement is, in the imperfect way of all human institutions, doing what it should be doing, in the present moment. . . .
As in every social movement I have ever seen, there is also judgement, rudeness, impatience, intolerance, self-righteousness, and conflict. People bring all their shit into social movements and really let it fly in the heightened atmosphere. But none of that should distract us from what is most important.
If this is not the moment we have been waiting for, then what are we waiting for? (The Lively Tradition, June 25)
Liz James celebrates a perfectly imperfect moment in her home congregation, and one at General Assembly, where participants sang new, non-ableist words to the beloved hymn, “Rank by Rank.”
This week, at a big conference in the US, a bunch of my friends attended services with new words in the hymns. New words that were brought by a whole lot of polite asking and some [less polite] moments, and some awkwardness and some learning. (Liz James Writes, June 28)