​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:

Today, July 1, 2020, our state's governor, Gavin Newsom, has once again had to close many businesses and places we had hoped to have open. The spike in Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases has put a sudden and frighteningly-large number of people in the hospital and has once again strained an already taxed and exhausted health system.   

The positivity testing for the virus has risen from 4.6% to 6% in just one week. Failure to "flatten the curve" makes shut downs of newly opened operations necessary.  Hospitalizations are up 51% and ICU admissions up 47% over the past week. 

The closure will affect mostly 19 counties in Southern California where the spikes in cases have occurred.  The shutdowns will impact about 70% of the state's population. 

Indoor restaurants, movie theaters and concert venues, wineries, and other similar enclosed spaces that were gradually opening are now slated to close yet again.  If the business can operate outdoors, it can continue to function.  Churches are still asked to proceed with virtual services, and large gatherings of all kinds are discouraged, even outdoors when social distancing cannot be assured.  

Bars are being traced as a key factor in increased exposure and are being shut down. This led to a demonstration at the Capitol building by bar owners today. Nevertheless, the order stands.

In Southern CA Orange County has been put back on the 'watch' list with Solano, Merced, and Glenn counties also added. Imperial County, another "hot spot" of virus increase is moving to close all non essential businesses as well as public parks.

Beaches from San Diego to Sonoma County will not be closed by the state for the upcoming holiday weekend. However, parking will be restricted, and no traffic will be permitted.  Counties are taking the initiative to close their own in many cases.  Also, counties that have not discontinued fireworks displays are now being asked to do so. 

The state's requirement that everyone wear masks while out of their own homes or cars is the single best way to regain normality.  We learned that former California Governor, Arnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger has abandoned his favorite gym in Southern California since he found people not wearing masks. 

We would argue that if The Terminator can wear masks, anyone can. It's a symbol of strength, not weakness.  Please make mask wearing a positive thing among your friends, families, and congregations.  The sooner masks and social distancing become the norm, the sooner we can regain some semblance of our former lives.

In the meantime, honor the restrictions, wear a mask, and definitely wash your hands.  Have your 4th of July celebrations outside with sufficient social distancing, and remember that Independence Day comes every year. These problems shall pass if we work on them together now. 

Thank you and stay safe. 

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,

The following was created by the daughter of a friend. In the midst of our nation's confrontation with the "original sin" of racism, she deliberated on the facts behind the deaths of many Black people. She considered how she, as a young white woman, could easily do what they had done without being murdered. I find it compelling. We wanted to share it with you.

If you click on the highlighted names, it will take you to Facebook pages others have written about these horrid deaths. You don't need a Facebook account to access the pages.


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I have privilege as a White person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice about it…
 
I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery).
I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemJean and #AtatianaJefferson).
I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride).
I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark).
I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards).
I can play loud music (#JordanDavis).
I can sell CD’s (#AltonSterling).
I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)
I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown).
I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice).
I can go to church (#Charleston9).
I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin).
I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell).
I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant).
I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland).
I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile).
I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones).
I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford) .
I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher).
I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott).
I can be a 10 year old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover).
I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese).
I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans).
I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood).
I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo).
I can run (#WalterScott).
I can breathe (#EricGarner).
I can live (#FreddieGray).
I can ask someone to put a leash on their dog when it is required in the public park we are in (#ChristianCooper).
I CAN BE ARRESTED WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING MURDERED. #GeorgeFloyd)
 
White privilege is real. Take a minute to consider a Black person’s experience today and read their stories.
#BlackLivesMatter
-------------------
Please share this with others who might either understand - or need to.

Thank you.

Dear Friends,

As California and America look to return to work, we have an opportunity to think about what we've learned during the shut down.  

From our beloved ally and former Board Member, Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs comes a short video on "Compassionate Capitalism."  Many of us want to find ways to honor the essential workers who have kept us going during the pandemic. These are often the forgotten people who do the hardest jobs for the lowest pay with the worst conditions. Many of us want to reconsider how we can treat people better in the future, how we can be less exploitative of essential people, how we can create a more just and fair economy that works for us all.

Please feel invited to hear Art's encouraging words in a two-minute video that we hope will be the start of a series of thoughtful reflections on greater justice in our society.

You may access the video here

Thank you.  And please stay safe.

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. 

​