Dear Friends,

We have received, and CNN has confirmed, that in addition to the publicized rally/protest/disturbance advertised for our nation's Capitol this coming weekend, Sept. 18, other dangers may occur.

Per internet "chatter" on extremist web sites, there are serious threats being made of local attacks on liberal churches and Jewish centers.  These are specifically worded threats and should not be ignored.

Any church that has publicly supported social justice issues is considered "liberal" to extremists. Even feeding the hungry is now perceived as a radical act.  Thus most all of our member denominations and allies fall into this high-risk category.

Please notify your local police department or sheriff and ask for extra patrols this coming weekend. If you can afford it, private security, especially for any events, would be prudent. In all cases, take heed of what we are being told by Homeland Security:  If you see something, SAY something.

We hope cooler heads will prevail. We hope goodness and decency will thrive. But we'd be foolish to ignore the harsh reality of our times.  Please don't become victims through inaction and inattention.
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Blessings to all.  May peace be with you.

www.calchurches.org/uploads/4/1/4/8/41486209/public_defender_sites.pdfA homeless man gets housing - and still dies untended, alone, from a totally treatable condition.
Indifference to state law forces homeless people to re-certify a second time to affirm eligibility for food assistance - and all the paperwork is lost. They go without for months.
A woman's child is taken from her by CPS against state law and department procedure. No findings of harm by her are ever found. Two years later she doesn't have him back.
California Council of Churches and Church IMPACT were founded to keep people of faith aware of what comes before our state legislature. IMPACT advocates for laws that are just and fair, that promote a democratic society where all may find equality and reliability before the law and from fickleness in the law.
We have labored with you to bring about socially responsible legislation that help those most in need and with the fewest resources.  We have, over the years, largely won those battles.
And then we see it all fall apart at the County level.
Monitoring how any given county upholds or abuses the state laws passed is very difficult. Some of the awareness may come initially from those victimized by bureaucratic nightmares. Other wrongs go largely untended.  Our media don't know the stories or the breakdown of justice any better than we do. 
We do know California has observable markers that are warning bells.  We have the lowest use of federal food assistance, "Cal Fresh" here, in the nation. About 50 percent of the available money is left on the table, not given to fully eligible people, meaning lots of people are going hungry for no reason.  
California has the highest rate of poverty in America. 
Through the pandemic there were statewide moratoriums on evictions with federal help going to landlords. And yet the counties abetted illegal evictions.  
Medi-Cal, our state's Medicaid program, is excellent. And yet thousands of very poor people get almost no help as they are assigned to clinics and doctors far from where they live or who have long ago stopped accepting Medi-Cal at all.   During COVID, this left the poor to flood emergency rooms too late to be helped well.  Others were unable to get the care they needed, partly from the clinic closing, partly from lack of all access in even normal times.
Our ask to you - our members, our congregations, our clergy - please start asking people you help if they are getting the programmatic assistance we all fought so hard to achieve.  Please start collecting stories of injustice as it plays out in bureaucracy.  Is someone denied Cal Fresh?  Why?  Is someone going without medical care?  Why?  
You may remember we have a study guide on how to help people with felony convictions served in county jail to expunge those records.  Your county may not have a public defender's office, the key to getting records expunged.  If you have a contract system - a system of defense.  That money-saving system depends on the defense counsel under contract  keeping not the client but the district attorney happy. That means defense is not vigorous, often flawed and rushed, and often sacrifices truth to the fear of not being rehired.  In sum, your county may not have a system of defense at all.  
Many of you support our work with donations.  We can keep advocating on your behalf and for your core values without difficulty.  But what good is it if at your local level it all falls apart?  We don't want you to stop donating! We do need you to help keep our work - and yours - truly meaningful and effective.
Lift your eyes to the counties as well.  Begin to demand accountability for those our state and local systems claim they support.  Let your voices ring out for justice. Because it is not rolling down as a river in our state.  
Feel free to write us with questions about what should be happening if you think it is not. We will do our best to offer up the laws and requirements your counties should be meeting.  We need your eyes and ears to let us know whether things are working or if the system is breaking.  We want to help you.  We must also rely on you.  
Together we may be able to bring real justice to our communities and to the people for whom we care.  Let's make this a new day for those in need.  
Thank you.

New Beginnings: A Congregational Guide to Restorative Justice Through Expungement
County-by-County List of Public Defender Contact Information for use with the New Beginnings Study Guide

The United Church of Christ has issued a warning to Conference Ministers and others to be on alert for attacks on liberal churches. Those supporting racial justice, LGBTQ equality, immigrant rights, economic rights, etc. may become targets of extremists. 

The alert is based on threats made to various churches in advance of both promised rightwing extremist actions at state capitol buildings and at the upcoming inauguration.  The alert particularly focuses on January 17-20.  

Here is a link to a Newsweek brief story on this alert.     Here is the UCC statement.  

We do not think this is alarmist.  We think it is a prudent warning.

Many of you may recall that a few months ago an historic Black church, Asbury United Methodist, in Washington DC was vandalized for its "Black Lives Matter" banner.  The same happened in Sacramento, CA to a UCC church there.

This warning, while originating with UCC, is not limited to that denomination's churches.  Any church that has promoted justice issues or possibly with congregations that are dominated by immigrants or people of color may also be vulnerable.

Clearly state capital cities are a prime area of concern, but any area that has encountered contentiousness, threats, or high levels of political action need also to be on alert.

We recommend contacting your local police department and noting this warning.  As UCC recommends, those churches able to hold gatherings due to their COVID status, may wish to revert to online or other remote forms of worship from tomorrow through next week.  

Blessings on all of you, part of our beloved community, with heartfelt prayers for your safety and for that of your churches and centers of worship.  May all be safe from harm.

 

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​Dear Friends:
 
Our elections are the foundation blocks of our democracy. Free and fair access is imperative.  We have only four months until the next general election, November 3, 2020, and assuring that everyone legally entitled to vote can vote is essential.
 
Black Church PAC has created the contemporary “Freedom Summer” program to reproduce the courageous voter registration drives of the early Civil Rights Era.  While this drive is targeted to more Southern states than to our northern and western ones, every state has pockets of voter suppression. No one is immune.
 
Monday, July 6 at noon California time, there will be a webinar on Freedom Summer voter registration drives.  You are invited to participate if you are Black clergy and laity or if you serve a diverse population in areas where voter suppression or obstacles may occur.
 
To register for this critical voter registration and enhancement webinar, please click here  
 
Other steps you can take, no matter where you reside, is to prepare for long lines and delays at the polls. While in California all voters will be receiving “vote by mail” ballots, things still can go wrong, and support for those standing in line will be needed,
 
Bring cases of water, some food, folding chairs.  Enlist your youth to hold line spots for voters needing bathroom breaks. Have masks available for anyone without one. Think about entertainment (socially distanced, of course).  There will be spots in every state, even California, where things will not go smoothly.  We need to anticipate those problems, be prepared to help voters vote. 
 
Thank you!

Dear Friends:

Once again we share an insight from our friend and ally, Jim Burklo.  His posts, "Musings" always give us uplift and something to reduce our stress and worries.  We share this with you today.

Sighs Too Deep: Breathing in a time of pandemic and protest

More MUSINGS by Jim Burklo

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."  (St Paul, Romans 8: 26)

I needed to sigh. 

So up to the mountains I went this past Saturday, and hiked among the huge slabs of sandstone at 4,000 feet on the desert side of the San Gabriel Mountains.  I paused to stand under a scrubby piñon pine tree and listen to the voice of its stubby needles in the cool clear wind. 

Last week, while I was teaching a mindfulness meditation class for USC students and staff on Zoom, we got into a discussion after I led the group through a "body scan" meditation, guiding them to attend to any emotions that might be associated with sensations in their bodies.  Several said that their breath was the focal point.  One woman said she found herself sighing in the meditation - and sighing a lot in general.  Others reported the same experience.  Then a graduate student in the class spoke up:  "Isn't this what's up for everybody now?  The coronavirus takes away your breath.  George Floyd, as he was dying under the policeman's knee, cried 'I can't breathe!'  And we are all sighing because of the mix of emotions we are feeling!" 

Her astute observation reminded me that when the virus started spreading, and the lockdown began, I found myself sighing a lot.  What was happening to the entire human race, all around the planet, was truly breathtaking.  In recent weeks I have noticed that the sighing stopped.  I habituated. 

I also habituated to police violence against black people. When the news about George Floyd's murder came out, I was saddened and disgusted, but my breath was not taken away.  Just another incident in a long series of examples of the lingering scourge of racism in America. 

Until I read a Facebook post written by a fellow member of Mt Hollywood Church in Los Angeles.  Hilary's anguish was palpable.  As a black woman with a son, she was in despair that what happened to George Floyd could happen to her own child.  Her despair broke through my spiritually-insulated, white-privileged soul.  With hers, finally, my sighs were too deep for words. 

I'm grateful that Hilary took my breath away.  I'm grateful to belong to a church where the Spirit can blow down the walls that inhibit our vulnerability, as she did for me. 

If we're sighing, we're not alone.  We're sighing with the Holy Spirit of divine Love who comisserates with us.  The biblical Greek word for "spirit" is "pneuma", which also means "breath".  If we're sighing, we're feeling emotion.  And emotion is energy.  Mindfulness practice and contemplative prayer are not about breathing deeply and being relaxed.  They are about paying attention to our experiences and thoughts and emotions and letting them be, even if they're hard.   And if we know our emotions, we'll be in touch with their energy, and then we can channel that energy into creative, positive work to relieve the suffering and injustice around us. 

Contemplative practice is the very opposite of withdrawal from the world and its struggles.  It is what we do in order to feel again when we've become hard-hearted, and to get clarity about how best to direct that power for the good of others.  When I am hard-hearted, when I am complacent, I don't know how to pray as I ought.  I need help.  Hilary helped.  And so did that piñon tree in the mountains.

Each kind of pine has its own voice in the wind, tuned to the length of its needles.  I stood and listened to the piñon, until divine Love made me sigh once more.

 
JIM BURKLO
Blog: MUSINGS
Senior Associate Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, University of Southern California
JIM BURKLOSenior Associate Dean, Office of Religious Life, 
University of Southern California 
 
Copyright © 2019, Jim Burklo. All rights reserved.

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Dear Friends:

Our post yesterday about the hate incidents and crimes we've seen unfold via internet links calls for suggestions on how to be a witness for equity and justice.

We see today that last night the police in Minneapolis, MN drove people protesting the death of George Floyd into the streets with tear gas and rubber bullets. Mr. Floyd is the man who apparently died when a police officer knelt on his neck for what witnesses said was several minutes.  The crowds that came to protest were very diverse, many people outraged by this death. That diversity did not stop the use of force by the Minneapolis police.  We have no knowledge of what transpired last night, but we do see that for once people's 'whiteness' did not confer privilege. Yes, there are risks to standing for justice no matter who you are.

So we are confronted as well by our own apprehensions and fears if we, no matter who we are, stand up to power, speak truth to power.  What can we do if we are of brittle bone and unfirm stance but still wish to make our anger and our anguish known on these issues of injustice?  More to the point, how can we be proactive in preventing hate actions rather than reactive to them?  I once said I'd never again go to a candlelight vigil for victims of hate. My work in life was to create whatever conditions I could to assure we didn't need them. That work goes on.

If we genuinely wish to stop acts of hate, we need to begin with opposing it. We need to attend city and county public meetings, generally safe spaces, to raise our voices. Silence implies indifference if not actual consent to crimes against people under "color of authority".  This is where we can make sure that's not swept under the rug, where we demand that our officials act with decency.

But this is a long process that needs, once again, to interrupt "common sense" bigotry at the start.  Yes, it's true hate is not inborn but taught. We can reverse that process.  In 2000 I was living in Yolo County, CA, a fairly rural community but a diverse one.  It's also the home of University of California, Davis making Davis a pretty liberal town in a fairly conservative county.  Nevertheless, Yolo has been a leader in confronting hate crimes.  The county obtained a grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center to have a three-year program implementing their excellent program, "Teaching Tolerance".  There was a wonderful man from the Sheriff's office whose sole job was to go from school to school with this program.  He was welcomed in every school but one, and over the course of time, hate crimes dropped off, and bullying subsided.  Of the crimes or incidents that did occur, the perpetrators could all be traced to the one school where the "Teaching Tolerance" curriculum had not been used.  You rarely get data that are this blatant, but the experience served to show how important education of young people can be to ending hateful behavior.

As adults move to make their voices heard by public officials, we can simultaneously educate our young people.  Denominations, interfaith groups, youth ministries as well as civic organizations and school districts can access "Teaching Tolerance" curricula including online resources. Grants are available with simple, clear guidelines if personnel are needed to implement an extensive program.  For more information on where to start, you can go here

For specifics on interfaith understanding, don't forget our "oldie but goodie", Building Bridges of Understanding.  Produced by California Council of Churches in the wake of 9/11 and the uptick of anti Muslim hate (that is once again revived), you can self instruct via our online and downloadable study guide.  For a copy of the guide, please go  here  Building Bridges is at the bottom of the list.  The video that accompanies the guide is in very short supply, so please let us know by return on this email if you're interested, and we will try to ferret out a copy.

For combating anti-LGBTQ hate, also on the increase, that same link can take you to our study guide, Living Lovingly.  With all our study guides, directions on how to lead study circles and to engage conversations are given.  We see these as ways to interact with people who are uncertain about how our faith principles dovetail with justice issues, how to give safe space for hard discussions and meaningful resolutions.  

This is how we start. We need the commitment and the will.  We don't have to be maced to make a stand. 

Do whatever you can, however you can, for as long as you can.   It all counts.

Thank you. 

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Dear Friends,

For many years California Council of Churches and California Church IMPACT worked with an outstanding organization, the Applied Research Center. Originally based in Oakland, CA, they created several powerful programs to examine racism in our nation particularly in California.  We found their work to be of the highest standards as they examined legislative voting records, bias in our state budget and bills, and followed factors in our society that too often barred both equity and equality for communities of color.. 

Renamed Race Forward their programs have become truly national in scope. We now invite you to explore one of their new webinars looking at racism as a factor in how our nation is responding to the coronavirus pandemic, and how the pandemic is revealing the racism that already exists.

Please feel invited to share their work May 8 in the first of a series of webinars on this important topic.  Whether your concern is the unduly high mortality of Black and Brown people dying from COVID 19 or the rise of anti Asian hate crimes, these webinars hold important information for those of us dedicated to justice in our world.

To learn more please go here  We think you will find their in-depth analysis as helpful as we always have. 

Please stay safe and practice the best in pandemic prevention and in the creation of a humane society.

Thank you!