Part IV: GA 2012
On Sat. June 26, 2010, the UUA General Assembly took up the issue of the immigration law recently passed in Arizona, and similar measures under consideration in other states. Going in, the conventional wisdom was, and the UUA Board of Trustees’ recommendation was, that we should join the boycott along with/called by many other advocacy groups, and move our 2012 GA to somewhere other than Phoenix. –So was I prepared to vote. And I believe that it would’ve been more immediately effective than anything else we could’ve done.
Instead, at the urging of President Peter Morales, the Phoenix UU fellowship, their Latino allies, and a passionately outspoken and well-organized Youth Caucus, the vast majority of delegates voted for a scaled-down, specifically-targeted “Justice GA” in 2012 (see the UUA website) whose whole focus will be the immigration issue and related justice concerns. The intent being to make it a platform for “a second Civil Rights movement”; another Selma, Ala., in which the UUA will be a driving force on the religious side. A public act of witness in solidarity with people who’ve been made to live in constant fear. Which would involve living and working with them in their churches, homes, and neighborhoods, rather than meeting in a convention center as usual. Only essential official UUA business would be on the agenda.
--In other words, those planning to go to GA in Phoenix, 2012, would have to be prepared to set aside their own comfort and security for a time, what to say their own agendas, in order to extend compassionate solidarity to others whose own meager comfort and security, what to say personal dignity, are being threatened. –How’s that for self-emptying?
Though I couldn’t help but honor this intention, and ultimately voted in favor, I also supported amendments (all failed) which would have left more options open for those who want to pursue other, closely related issues such as climate change, environment, and economic justice, and so address what’s actually driving the influx of immigration. To paraphrase Thoreau, it makes more sense to get at the root of the problem, than to keep hacking away at the branches, however obnoxious. But we have two years time in which to address this, and adjust to changes on the ground. And it may be that this hands-on, take-it-to-the-streets approach will galvanize these wider concerns, into a stronger movement overall. Or, one can hope so. Because it does strike at the main root of the problem in our country: the complacency and insensitivity of those who “have”.
I also supported amendments which would have been more accomodating to those, the meek and the elderly among us, who wouldn’t be comfortable with “taking it to the streets” in a hot, strange city amid angry people (on both sides), with all the related personal safety concerns. But the people driving this movement wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m not going to cross a picket line to do ‘business as usual!’ ”, shouted one angry young woman. So, depending on what happens between now and 2012, things are going to get hot, indeed! And anyone who can’t take the heat, had best stay out of the kitchen: so they seem to be saying. And, in view of their own zeal, it might also be best to stay out of their way. They’re won’t take “no” for answer.
I felt a little hurt, as did many in the hall, that so much was debated and decided before I or most of us had the least idea what was going on, or of the stakes involved. Some of it in mini-assemblies, some of it online before GA even started. It’s too reminiscent of my recent experience with Houghon County politics, and with politics in general. This came out during the debate, but proposed amendments to the decisionmaking process itself were also defeated.
More work needs to be done here.
Gladly, the Youth Caucus brought a resolution providing for a proxy-presence (and vote?) for all who, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t attend. Many older members were touched by this consideration, and it may help to heal or prevent a potential rift between the younger and older generations within the movement. It shows that the radically activist among us are not without compassion for those who need to keep a modicum of comfort and security. So, it may be that we can yet find a way to live and walk in harmony, even when things get “hot”. We’ll see.
A tribute to justice-seekers:
Friend of My Longing
New-old friend, just to be near you
is to feel the heat of pent-up longing;
to bear the wounds, to see the scars
of broken hearts and old betrayals,
dreams deferred, denied ideals,
home and friendship and belonging;
yet there is a joy in longing...
I am still drawn to be near you
like a moth is drawn to flame...
years go by; it's still the same.
Why do I keep on returning
when I know how much it burns me?
The pain I see within your eyes,
yet sparkling with deeper joys.
All your hopeful words to me,
visions of what's yet to be,
things that you say God has shown you
about yourself and about me...
I wonder where you get the courage
to believe so readily?
Faithful heart, always seeking,
glimpsing far, yet never able
to bring the thing within your grasp.
We both share in this blessed curse,
this strange ability to see
the endless possibilities,
so many things which yet could be,
still bound up in the tyranny
of that which is; this captive Earth.
We share the common pangs, the labor
of visions not yet come to birth.
-----------------------
Song of Ascents
Long have we waited in dark empty spaces,
lifetimes of longing in still Sabbath places
for vision of you to become form and substance,
flesh of our flesh, we bone of your bone.
Nakedness, lostness, longing to be clothed,
these jars made of clay, these frail earthen vessels,
these old wooden ships whose gray timbers groan
with the wind and the storms and all of Creation,
longing for freedom from death and decay.
They say you once dwelt amidst wood and stone
in a house set with altars, candles, and incense;
Bezalel’s craftsmanship, Solomon’s wisdom,
years in the building; demolished in a day!
These, only shadows of things of the spirit,
only a pointing toward what is to come,
the promised far Zion, the house of your glory,
the house with no walls but the hearts of your people.
That vision still beckons across the world’s wasteland,
war and vain conquests, the squandered centuries
piling up bricks which crumbled to dust,
raising up temples to dead mens’ visions,
would-be prophets who died giving birth
to wind and utopias soon gone awry;
kingdoms and empires, creeds and religions.
--Could any of these have built Love a home?
Yet we draw near with hearts full of gladness,
rapt with the wonder of wide open spaces,
great purple summits soaring to heaven.
The trail is steep and full of hard climbing,
but the goal can be seen, as if for the first time,
by eyes trained in faith and love’s secret longing.
Road-weary limbs now grow lighter beneath us,
ready at last to leap on the mountains.
Nor was the blood that was shed shed in vain,
nor years of sweat, nor tears spent in sorrow;
they become to us rivers flowing with healing.
And the deep lonely reaches, the desolate places
left hollow and empty, are bright hallowed spaces
made ready to be the divine holy dwelling,
set aside and made wide to hold all the treasures
stored in Your heart from before the beginning.
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