With the coming of spring, I somehow cannot resist seeing signs of hope. Last Saturday hundreds of First Unitarian folks joined the March for Our Lives, calling for a ban on assault weapons and other sane and sensible measures to reduce gun violence. By the end of church on Sunday, we turned in 425 of the needed 2000 signatures to start the process of putting these measures on the ballot.
This witness against gun violence is one example of a movement that is renewing my spirit in this season. The spiritual discipline involved is “followership”. The young people from Florida managed to organize one of the most massive acts of collective witness in the history of this nation. Their leadership and the leadership of our own youth offers hope of achieving real results not only because they are empowered and eloquent and passionate…but also because we and hundreds of thousands of other citizens were inspired to “show up” and to follow them.
Unitarian Universalists, in my generation, loved to point to the picture of UUA President Dana Greeley marching in Selma by the side of Dr. King. That image helped us feel important in bending that arc of the universe toward justice.
But we were really “behind” Dr. King. We answered his invitation to go to Selma and to follow, not lead the march toward justice.
I want to continue pointing to our role in shifting the culture that we know has failed us. You have heard me say more than once that that culture of white supremacy is not only focused on race…it is also a culture of patriarchy and hetero-sexism, ableism. It is anglo and it is age-ist. There are many ways that culture has pushed down on each and every one of us.
The March for Our Lives is an example of resistance, and an example of the important, the essential role we need to play.
We need to give up our desire to always be in the front rank. We most definitely need to give our insistence that we be in the front rank.
We are called to follow the voices of those who have been most marginalized. We are called to support the “centering” of those voices: the young, women, people of color, queer and trans folks, the differently abled.
In the words of Leslie Takahashi, “the margins hold the center.”
Next week is the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. Here in Portland there will be a march led by the Albina Ministerial Alliance. This will be another opportunity for us to practice followership. I will be there and I hope many of you will join me.
The hope I find in this season is our willingness to show up and to follow good leadership in our community, offering support always and our own leadership where it is appropriate. The Beloved Community is not where the oppression of one category of people is redeemed. The Beloved Community will exists when we begin to know and trust the abundance that can come when all of us can lead and all of us can follow.
Blessings,
Bill