​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.

​

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. 

​

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!

Dear friends,

​In January this year, four humanitarian workers with No Mas Muertes – No More Deaths – were convicted in the US Federal Court in Tucson AZ for the crime of leaving water and food for immigrants crossing into the USA.
 
New standards of law had been put into place to increase the penalties specifically for aid workers. Convicted of trespass, of being in a federal land area without a permit, and of ‘abandoning personal property’ anyone else would have received a fine.  Now the law specifically aimed at these people of faith, may sentence the volunteers to six months in prison plus a hefty fine.
 
Another volunteer, Scott Warren, is currently on trial in the same jurisdiction for “harboring” undocumented immigrants for also providing two men with water and food as they took refuge in an abandoned building.  He faces much stiffer charges for both harboring immigrants and conspiring to harbor them.
 
All of the volunteers are people of faith, Warren’s defense rests on the recent Religious Freedom Restoration Act established by former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  However, the American Civil Liberties Union has raised serious questions about the unequal application of the law. 
 
Warren asserts that his faith (he is Unitarian Universalist) requires that we aid the alien in our midst.  He states that he is motivated by many faith directives to assure that all people in need, including undocumented people, are protected against death and harm from hunger and thirst.  That is the underlying motivation for the entire organization, and Warren was acting upon it.
 
In a chilling declaration, the US Department of Justice has declared that this is not a religious belief to be upheld.
 
The government opposed the motion, saying the prosecution does not substantially burden Warren's beliefs. DOJ lawyers said Warren “is not required by his beliefs to aid in the evasion of law enforcement. Nor were the people associated with these charges ‘in distress.’ ”  (www.npr.org October 18, 2018.)
 
With this administration creating laws and standards within those laws that target only specific beliefs – ban on contraceptive coverage for Hobby Lobby and the rights not to bake cakes for same sex weddings – the First Amendment protections themselves are now under assault as much as the humanitarian workers.
 
The assault on religious freedom should alarm each and every one of us. In past cases such as the anti-abortion movement, the standards of law were universal. When barriers were erected around women’s clinic doors, the guidelines were consistent with all types of protests such as labor strikes, as were standards for federal injunctions that established permissible and non-permissible actions. There was one standard applied to all. 
 
These recent cases in Arizona federal court are setting legal standards today that are directed against certain people by employing different sets of norms and consequences from those for anyone else.  
 
We are also being told our faith values do not exist. They are the wrong values for this administration.
 
The immediate concern is the well being of the workers facing prison and further charges.  If you would like to help, please go to nomoredeaths.org
 
You can also find links there to details about their work in general and to Scott Warren’s trial in specific and may make donations to the organization’s legal fund.
 
These are uneasy days for both humanitarian action and for equality before the law.  We encourage you to take your voices to our elected officials on behalf of absolute equality in all matters pertaining to law and to conscience.  We have a First Amendment for a reason.  The law cannot undermine it for some groups while upholding it for others.  That is the pathway to tyranny. 
 
Thank you.