To honor Transgender Day of Remembrance
A Prayer for My Queer and Trans Siblings “Here you are. Here, in this holy space, standing on this ground that is holy because you are here. Here you are, in flesh and bone, filling up this body that belongs to you alone. Your pumping heart is a wonder because it keeps you alive. Your loving heart is a blessing because it keeps all of us alive. The Spirit of Love has a home in you. May we all see that love in you and let our hearts become mirrors for the compassion at your core. The Spirit of Justice has a home in you. May we light our wicks from one another until we are all aflame, until we burn out every prejudice we carry in these bones. Here you are. Holy as you are. Blessed be.” Jess Reynolds Love Like Thunder
“Writing is one way we humans enter, and invite others to enter, a fully textured, openhearted engagement with life.” —Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice Living Revision is available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop at https://bit.ly/2B1kuAo
Great Unitarian Universalist history books for the armchair historian in your life. Perfect for fall reading!
We particularly recommend Revisiting the Empowerment Controversy: Black Power and Unitarian Universalism by Mark D. Morrison-Reed. In it, the preeminent scholar of black Unitarian Universalist history presents this long-awaited chronicle and analysis of the events of the Empowerment Controversy.
All are available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop at http://bit.ly/2o7RTUj
Newly Processed: Orloff Miller Papers
Orloff Miller was a Unitarian Universalist minister, known for his civil rights work and his acts of civil disobedience, including opposing the war in Vietnam, refusing to pay income taxes, and assisting war resisters. He also completed a doctorate at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in sexology and worked as an AIDS crisis minister.
Miller and Clark Olsen were attacked alongside James Reeb in Selma in 1965 for their support of black voting rights, and Reeb died from his injuries. Above is a letter written by Miller to President Lyndon B. Johnson urging him to take action in the wake of Reeb’s murder.
The Orloff Miller Papers can be found here.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration is considering "narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth” in an effort to undermine federal civil rights protection for transgender people.
Our Unitarian Universalist faith affirms that no person’s identity is dictated by laws and legislation. In accordance with our First Principle, transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, and ALL persons possess inherent worth and dignity, which includes the right to define who we are. The Trump Administration’s attempt to erase trans identity is an attack on our Beloved Community as a whole and is the latest in a series of human rights violations that feed cruelty and threaten the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
We unapologetically reject any effort to erase transgender people and their identity and demand that President Trump put an end to any and all policies that bring further harm to marginalized communities already at risk.
As Unitarian Universalists, we affirm the inherent worth and dignity, the full humanity and beauty of our trans siblings. Beloveds, we see you. We will follow your lead.
My fellow UU’s, we’ve also got work to do to be communities of inclusion and solidarity, protecting and advocating with the transgender, genderqueer and non-binary community.
We call all people of faith and conscience to join us by TAKING ACTION in the following seven ways:
1. If you live in Massachusetts, vote YES ON 3 and encourage your friends and neighbors to do so as well. Visit freedommassachusetts.org for more information.
2. Get out the vote. Visit UUA.org/votingrights.
3. Contribute to trans-led organizations.
4. Understanding that trans people are criminalized, contribute to bailout funds.
5. Cis Allies: Call or text three cis people in your life about a measure they can take to support trans people.
6. Pay attention to proposed federal and state legislation
7. Support trans and non-binary journalists.
As Unitarian Universalists, we are with Chelsea Manning who declares, “Laws don’t determine our existence - *we* determine our existence...we will keep fighting.”
May it be so!
—UUA President Susan Frederick-Gray
“We unapologetically reject any effort to erase transgender people. We affirm the inherent worth, dignity, and humanity of our trans siblings.” —The Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, Unitarian Universalist Association president
Gilt, Marbled, Gauffered
The gold on the edges is beautiful on its own, but at the right angle you can see that the fore-edge was also marbled! These decorations are found on a 19th century reprint of the Coverdale bible, a gift to Edward Henry Hall from Charles Deane (both Unitarian ministers).
Autumn Prayer
Spirit of Life, be with us this autumn.
Just as the trees and nights are changing,
so too are our lives shifting.
Some among us are grieving.
We grieve for loved ones and for parts of our own hearts
that do not fit us any longer.
We mourn the green leaves and the summer birds,
and we mourn the dreams we had that are dying.
Spirit of Life, do not let us be empty this autumn.
Remind us of the life that will flourish come spring,
and help us to hold space for the loss that comes first.
We cannot resurrect ourselves
without letting something in ourselves die.
May we gently guard those tender empty places,
and may all the great love of the universe
press against our raw edges and our sorrow.
Spirit of Life, hold us in this season of dying.
Hold us in the chill October wind
and among the branches scraped clean
and in the swirling center of migration.
May we close our shutters but not our hearts,
and may we gather by the hearth in communion,
that we might manage to fill one another
with the warmth to make it through the winter.
Blessed be. —Jess Reynolds, Love Like Thunder
Love Like Thunder is available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop at https://bit.ly/2GCdTxM.
Banned Books Week: The Naked Gospel, “Publickly Burnt”
Arthur Bury (1624-1714?) penned The Naked Gospel, a work urging the return to a purer, less corrupted form of scripture and rejecting the Trinity. It was deemed so offensive it was ordered to be burnt. Based on the table of contents of this response, The Naked Gospel also associated the monotheism of Islam with the theology of Socinians or Unitarians.
Nicholls, William, 1664-1712. An answer to an heretical book called The naked gospel : which was condemned and ordered to be publickly burnt by the convocation of the University of Oxford, Aug. 19. 1690 : with some reflections on Dr. Bury’s new edition of the book : to which is added a short history of Socinianism / by William Nicholls. London [England] : W. Kettilby, 1691.
All That You Need Lies Within You “Consider this an invitation to you. Yes—you with all your happiness and your burdens, your hopes and regrets. An invitation if you feel good today, and an invitation if you do not, if you are aching— and there are so many ways to ache… . Maybe your heart is heavy or hardened. Maybe it’s troubled and peace can take up residence only in a small corner, only on the edge, with all that is going on in the world, and in your life. Ni modo. It doesn’t matter. All that you need for a deep and comforting peace to grow lies within you. Once it is in your heart let it spread into your life, let it pour from your life into the world— and once it is in the world, let it shine upon all beings.” —Angela Herrera Reaching for the Sun Available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop:http://bit.ly/2bYacZo
“The school-supply section of any store draws me like a moth to a flame. I no longer need spiral-bound notebooks or number-two pencils, a new lunch pail or spiffy. I’m not sure why I’m drawn to these things since my most recent academic endeavor is years in the past already. But I have a theory. For so many years, standing in those aisles, I could believe that my past did not determine my present. And the present was full of possibility. Entire worlds of knowledge and adolescent adventure, growth, and change were possible in the year I was preparing for… . At the beginning of the school year everything seemed possible. Now that I am older there is the danger of losing that sense of possibility, of thinking myself an old dog whose tricks might be modified around the edges but never really significantly changed… . It is never advisable to hang up the knapsack of adventurous, expectant living for long.Maybe this is why I like school supplies. Here is this world that says, in colors and crisp white paper, that all is new and all things are possible again. Postscript: A woman was seen at Staples last week. Her eyes settled on a marbled blue fountain pen. When asked why she bought it, the woman told the clerk she needed a river of ink to ride into the new year. He said he didn’t quite understand what she meant, but he’d seen this behavior in this season, in these aisles, before.”
—Vanessa Rush Southern, Miles of Dream
Available at inSpirit: The UU Book and Gift Shop at http://bit.ly/2dgfnTl
A Prayer for My Queer and Trans Siblings
“Here you are.
Here, in this holy space,standing on this ground that is holy
because you are here.
Here you are, in flesh and bone,
filling up this body that belongs to you alone.
Your pumping heart is a wonder
because it keeps you alive.Your loving heart is a blessing
because it keeps all of us alive.
The Spirit of Love has a home in you.
May we all see that love in you
and let our hearts become mirrors
for the compassion at your core.
The Spirit of Justice has a home in you.
May we light our wicks
from one another until we are all aflame,
until we burn out every prejudice
we carry in these bones.
Here you are.Holy as you are.
Blessed be.”
Jess Reynolds
Love Like Thunder
Love Is Calling
“Love is calling for liberation.
Love is hoarse from calling,
her voice raw from the decades
she has spent chanting at protests
and speaking from pulpits
and singing the songs of freedom.
Love is weeping into a white candle
she cups in her hands at a vigil
for one more Black life lost,ripped away, gunned down, forgotten.
She is holding the hands of a grieving mother
and praying aloud for peace.
This is where Love shows up,where Love has always shown up.
She is tugging at our hands and sleeves,begging us to lay down our egos
and take up our courage
and dedicate our lives to justice.”
—Jess Reynolds
Love Like Thunder
Kept by Hazel Ida Kirk, this photo album documents her time in Japan from 1918 to 1923. Kirk was a Universalist minister and missionary, who served parishes throughout New England. She was also president of the Women’s National Missionary Association from 1929 to 1933; and also held various offices in the Women’s Universalist Missionary Society of Massachusetts from 1934 to 1939.
These photos offer beautiful snapshots of both the gorgeous scenery in Nikko, Japan, as well as local religious sites and figures.
