Tag: blogging

The Crossroads of Covenant

On By Justin AlmeidaIn LifeLeave a comment

Delivered at University Unitarian Church on Sunday, August 8th, 2021 at 9:30am. Video from the service can be found HERE.

Good morning siblings in faith! It feels good to be back in our sanctuary this morning. This is my first time in our pulpit since my ordination in March. Once again, I want to say “thank you” for your love and support in my work and ministry. It is an honor and privilege to serve University Unitarian Church, our Seattle community, and our larger faith, as a chaplain and spiritual care provider. It is filled with good and holy work. Work that has been difficult, and needed, in the time of pandemic. As chaplains fill an important role in meeting the psychospiritual needs of patients and staff.

We don PPE (personal protective equipment) and go into patient rooms to deliver the rites and rituals of death. We hold iPads up for families to see and maybe speak with their loved ones, since they cannot be at bedside due to quarantine restrictions. We gather clinicians together to hold space and decompress from long and costly shifts. We sit with parents and caregivers, children and friends, in parking lots and waiting rooms, buffering the shock of tragic news. We are not therapists or psychologists; though we are trained in those techniques. We are more like psychospiritual paramedics, stabilizing the mind and spirit in the midst of trauma. Getting human beings through sometimes the most difficult day of their lives.

Over the last 18 months I have seen hospital policies change back and forth, sometimes on the same day, responding to new data coming in from executives and medical professionals. Before the pandemic, the only time we wore masks was when patients had the risk of airborne infection. Now, we all wear them. Patients used to be able to receive visitors at bedside. Now, they must be cleared ahead of time. At their best, the policies and culture of the hospital systems I work in encourage the health and healing of our patients.

Except when they don’t. Because they’re not perfect. In my experience, one of the more difficult and morally injurious tasks I’ve had to do, is tell a spouse, partner, child, friend, that they can not be there when their loved one is dying. Because the risk of exposure is too great. And I’ve been cursed at. Pleaded with. Almost physically assaulted. An experience many clinicians can speak to. We WANT to say yes. And yet, we can’t; except sometimes, for those rare occasions because every case is different, we have broken policy because we could not say no. Like when a 40 year old mother of two sons, 10 and 13, was dying, and we snuck in their partner and children, because we HAD to. We had to weigh the letter of the law against the spirit of the law. We did our due diligence. And we got lucky. The infection didn’t spread.

18 months later, many of us are challenging some of these policies, as new information has come in. We know more about the risks. And I’ve learned that blanket policies without room for exception quickly become harmful, because human life and death is messy and complex. At best, the policies serve as a structure to make the best decisions we can in our mission; to help and heal. At worst, they are wielded like a club to force compliance regardless of the injury, to self and soul.

I’ve noticed that many institutions of human culture function in the same way as the hospital. We have our rules and laws, mores and unspoken expectations about how we will be together. The greatest of which, in my opinion, are the covenants we create which inspire us more fully into our humanity. One of which is our own Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As much as its quoted, this is not a law. This is a faith statement. I don’t think it is an accident that the United States and its Federal Government in many ways functions like a church. The Declaration is also a covenant, for community and accountability. Because we all know the framers could to do better. At the time, many in the colonies did not have a right to life, liberty or happiness. Many were slaves. Many in power were slave owners. Still, they wrote the words and made the promise.

They formed a new nation, not so much in law or treaty, but in covenant. Because the final line in the Declaration is this: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” This is not the quid-pro-quo of many legal document. These words carried the weight of human connection; a promise that would be challenged through war and peace. And like many great works of humanity, would chafe and challenge all who encountered it. Because it reached for greater ideals than was reality, and uncovered the shortcomings and hypocrisy of its authors.

The Declaration was not enough. The Articles of Confederation were not enough. Our nation in its diversity and complexity needed something that would hold us together. Therefore the Constitution was drafted. And it too begins with a covenant:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

At the time of its ordination, “We the People” excluded many. Slaves. Servants. Women. Indigenous peoples. “Justice” excluded many of the same. “Tranquility” perhaps for the powerful. “Common Defense” which would seek to strip the land and culture from those who were here before “the white man came.” “Welfare” for who? Did those Blessings of Liberty trickle down like voodoo economics? No, they did not.

          Yet, our nation’s Constitution, like the Declaration and other similar documents; the Ten Commandments, the Eightfold Path, the Beatitudes, the Five Pillars; became more than what was just written. A living document with words that would always break out of the containers in which they were placed. “We the People”, “Order”, “Union”, “Justice”, “Tranquility”, “Welfare”, “Liberty”, “Posterity”. These are transcendental subjects of human being that cannot be controlled or held by a minority of interpreters. They are not signs; they are symbols, for what could be.

          Signs are static. “Stop” with its red octagon and bold white letters, is not a suggestion. And while I have been known to perpetrate a “California Stop,” slowing down and making sure no police are looking on, its command is clear. For a good reason. In the Emergency Department at Harborview Medical Center, I have first hand knowledge of the danger in not following signs. “Yield”, “Warning”, “Do Not Enter”, “Wrong Way”, “No Left Turn”, our world is full of signs helping with navigation and structure; law and regulation. There is no room for interpretation; there is room for challenge. “Whites Only” is a sign which was challenged by the symbols contained in our Constitution.

          A symbol, theologically, is an object which directs the human gaze to something greater than its reality. Its meaning can be debated, contested. It can not be pinned down or captured through a sole interpretation. This, is a symbol: our flaming chalice. It was created for a particular moment in time, to help provide documentation for those fleeing Nazi persecution. However, it has become more than a passport stamp. It is the light of faith. The flame of wisdom. The fire of commitment. The container of spirit. It transcends the static. This, too, is a symbol: (hold fist in the air), which would overcome the limits of the signs of the time.

          Our Declaration and our Constitution are symbols which transcend their original meaning and intentions. Their words can be challenged and new ways interpreted. And when the old words are not enough, new words can be added with the consent of governed. Slavery can be abolished. People of color and women can have suffrage. Prohibitions against discrimination can be enacted. One of the reasons we say our Constitution is a living document, is because it can grow and change along with its society and culture. Symbols never expire their capacity of interpretation; will always overflow the narrow containers of belief.

          Our own Unitarian Universalist faith follows the covenantal tradition, replacing doctrine and dogma with seven principles and six sources which help guide us in our relationship with each other and the world. And like most living documents, as symbols of faith, our principles were not perfect nor enough when they were first drafted. Here is there original wording as adopted in 1961:

In accordance with these corporate purposes, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Association, dedicated to the principles of a free faith, unite in seeking:

1. To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship;

2. To cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to man;

3. To affirm, defend and promote the supreme worth of every human personality, the dignity of man, and the use of the democratic method in human relationships;

4. To implement our vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice and peace;

5. To serve the needs of member churches and fellowships, to organize new churches and fellowships, and to extend and strengthen liberal religion;

6. To encourage cooperation with men of good will in every land.

How much has changed in our faith, and in our world, from 1961 to 2021? Movements from within our faith, led by women and other groups, sought greater inclusion and openness. “Man” was made gender neutral. Indigenous and Earth centered traditions were included. Revised in 1985 and amended in 1995, adding a principal: “covenanting to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Brings us to its current form. Fifty years have passed since the merger between the Unitarians and the Universalists. Both Christian denominations that have since gone beyond their original creeds to form a more perfect union of pluralistic faith. We are truly come a long way in a short time.

Once again, our denomination is considering adding to our principles because for many, the demands of the world rub up against our covenant and lay bare imperfections and shortcomings. An 8th principle has emerged to meet these challenges, covenanting to affirm and promote “journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”

          Like in the past, we struggle as a community and as a faith on why and how to do this. There was tremendous pushback in 1980 when women fought to be included as equals in the wording of our faith. It took five years and numerous meetings and conversations to remove the word “Man”, “men” and “brotherhood” as a placeholder for all human beings. Therefore it does not surprise me that we are having difficult and turbulent conversations around adopting the 8th principle. My hope and prayer is that our current principles and sources can hold us in tension and relationship through the process.

           As I reflect on the 8th principle and the events preceding its creation, I see it as a natural evolution of our liberal living faith. Like other living traditions, the crises of the moment have caused our symbols to transcend their old meanings and take on new interpretations. Because the old meanings were not getting the job done; they had become signs to point at, rather than symbols pointing to. And when religion becomes about signs, it loses its connection to the human spirit; to the source of Life and Love which calls us to transcendence. It becomes like a red octagon with white letters: “STOP!” It becomes literal. Fundamentalist. A rule to follow rather than a road to freedom.

I wonder how our own principles have become like stop signs? Stifling creativity. Are they still opening us to something new in the world? To me, our principles call me to reflect on how I may be a better partner and lover, sibling and parent, colleague and friend, minister and chaplain. When I hear the proposed 8th principle, I feel a fire inside of me, challenging me to dig deeper into my spirit and show up with powerful love in a new way. At the end of the day, I feel accountable to myself in how I have loved, working through the oppressions in myself and my institution.

In this pandemic, I have been called to minister to all people; including the angry white conservative Christian with the MAGA hat. The neo-Nazi with white nationalist tattoos up and down their chest and arms. The gun lover. The border wall builder. The racist. The homophobe. The COVID denier. And what helps me through those moments comes out of our principles. And through them, I build relationship as I’m able. To the point where a dying man with a very different ideology from myself trusts me enough to ask: “Will you stay and pray with me?” And I can reply, “We are in this together.” And we move on into that “field beyond right-doing and wrong-doing, where ideas, language, even the phrase each-other don’t make any sense.” (Rumi)

Siblings in faith, at this time and place, we are being asked to consider how we may better live into our Unitarian Universalist values. Because our seven principles have not been enough to bend the arc of justice to the point where all people of good-will are welcome and included in our congregations, communities and world. Events have exposed spiritual and moral cracks in our personal and institutional foundations. We are called to respond.

Like with many covenants I’ve known in the past, I am being asked to consider something new. My hospital needed new policies to respond to COVID. Our Declaration needed a Constitution to respond to the failure of the Articles of Confederation. Our Constitution needed further amendments to respond to abolition and suffrage. And our Unitarian Universalist principles are now tasked to respond to the challenges of climate crisis, prejudice, and systemic oppression. All of which are linked through intersectionality. To deal with one means to deal with them all.

And I believe the 8th principle makes explicit what the first seven principles say implicitly about our covenant with each other and the world. That we are interwoven in a garment of human destiny. (King) That what affects one directly affects all indirectly. That we cannot do this alone. That we need one another. We remember that our principles and sources are not signs; they are transcendental symbols that overflow with meaning and love into the world. Pointing the way to beloved community. And when the powers and principalities of the world hold up their sign saying “STOP!” we answer with a symbol of our own. (Our Flaming Chalice)

May our conversations and confrontations around the 8th principle be fruitful and lead to a deepening of relationship and understanding of each other. May our symbols lead us to deeper humanity and connection with the source of Life and Love. And may we remember that every day is a new gift to love and serve. May it be so. Amen.

New Year’s Revolutions

On By Justin AlmeidaIn Religion, SpiritualityLeave a comment

Originally given as a sermon at Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Sunday, Dec 29, 2019. A link to the sermon audio recording can be found HERE.

Siblings in faith, I deliver these words in the spirit in which they were written; in the spirit of life and love. Welcome to the last Sunday of 2019, a rollercoaster of a year with tremendous highs and devastating lows; it certainly lived up to that ancient blessing, or perhaps curse, of “May you live in interesting times.” For the time we share together, here in this space and in this place, I am happy to be with you all at Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Thank you for welcoming me to your church of beloved community and common-union.

In just a few days, we enter a new decade: the 20’s. Which sounds strange to my ears. When I think of the 20’s, I am reminded of the “Roaring 20s”. A time in the 20th century marked with prosperity and abundance following the Great War. We received many blessings in the decade; the advent of Jazz, the height of Art Deco. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby which embodied the generation’s decadence, idealism, and struggle with cultural and societal change. Automobiles, radio, telephones, movies, and aviation blossomed, changing our world forever.

Now, almost one hundred revolutions around the sun later, we are facing our own 20’s. The 1920s were ushered in after four years of World War. Our own 2020s are marked after four years of intense political and cultural war in our country. We see the rise of artificial intelligence, a new interest in space travel, and miracles of medicine. With an election looming, and a world in environmental crisis, I wonder what we will choose as a people and a faith in 2020? Will we roar like the last century, or will we aspire to be different? Remember, the roaring 20’s ended in collapse. So maybe… just maybe… our story can be different. Friends, I invite you to the revolution!

A spiritual revolution. Which may sound strange for a religion that holds our powers of reason as a source of our living tradition. However, I experience no dissonance between my human capacity of reason and my intrinsic human spirit. I reject any kind of cartesian dualism that divides the realms of spirit and matter. I believe the human spirit is found not in some magical essence but in our unique ability to transcend our incarnate limitations. A capacity to reject either/or lines drawn in the sand and find new ways of becoming in the world through gifts of agency, empathy and compassion.

The Islamic mystic Rumi writes about this capacity in his poem A Great Wagon: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.” Rumi understood the transcendent human experience as one of interconnection, interdependence, both/and rather than either/or. This season before the New Year is filled with traditions that call us into that field beyond division. The season leading up to the New Year invites people of good faith and good will into a new-ness after a period of spiritual hibernation.

For Christianity, the season marks the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who represents a healing between the sacred and the mundane and offered the world another way to respond to violence and persecution, not with an eye for an eye, but with non-violent resistance. The winter solstice offers sacred imagination reminding us that darkness cannot last forever, and that just as the sun will rise in the morning, our own days can become longer and filled with light.

Hanukkah responds to oppression and destruction with a celebration that honors the mutual work of God and human beings in keeping our sacred fires burning even when it seems impossible. Kwanza with its own seven principles is a creative response to holiday consumerism and colonialism, calling communities of color into a remembrance of family, tradition, and interdependence. So many religious and spiritual traditions mark this time as “sacred” – set apart from the mundane.

A time to contemplate and encourage our capacity of agency in transcending “what is” in order to achieve “what can be.” All rooted in our ability to choose even when it seems there are no more options. As a hospital chaplain, I’ve found that a key to resiliency when facing the unfaceable is in finding options. At the bedside with a patient who is dying of cancer, questions can shift from “Why is this happening?” to “This is what I need to die well.” It’s a pivot of perspective; from fear to hope. Claiming responsibility. Part of my ministry is working with patients in realizing they have agency no matter what cards are dealt. Which is very hard to do when overwhelmed by pain and suffering. Fear can be paralyzing. And so can despair.

The powers and principalities of the world really do create an illusion of powerlessness. I struggle with a newsfeed of dystopic narratives wondering what I can do about the world’s pain and suffering. I am just one small person. Yet I cannot forget that I am an individual with inherent dignity and worth, empowered by my own agency. Regardless of the systems surrounding me, I have choices: over my thoughts, feelings and responses.

Holocaust survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl lifted this capacity up as a unique gift of the human spirit which even the Nazis could not crush – he found that those human beings who could hold onto a spirit of hope and transcendent connection could survive the horrors of concentration camps. I have seen this first hand. When I am with incarcerated children at our own juvenile detention center, I work with them in developing the resiliency Victor Frankl wrote about.

I remember one thirteen year old boy incarcerated for murder with a gun, with a life marked by abuse, addiction, homelessness, and violence. He had reached out to jail chaplains because he had hit what so many incarcerated youth talk about, as “rock bottom.” That place of choosing between life away from the hustle and death on the streets. He asked me if he could still be loved. Could he still be forgiven. Was he damned to the life he was given in punishment for his sins?

In my own social location of power and privilege, I have no concept of what this child had gone through. In front of me was not just a lost child of color, but the human result of generational systems of oppression in which I am a part. I believe he was asking me: “After what we have done to each other, can you love me? And can I love you?” At thirteen years old, facing life in prison, a question of love was his only hope.

My response came from my Unitarian Universalist theology and Roman Catholic upbringing, where the God of Jesus responds to sin with forgiveness and mercy. I told this child that I believed in one powerful source of love in which, regardless of deed, no one was unworthy. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about this love in his speech Where do We Go from Here? “Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”Powerful love is always an option; and often the hardest choice. Because it means being changed ontologically; becoming a new being in the world.

Together, the child and I explored how we usually use our lives as excuses, giving up our power to the powers that be. I can’t change his life of poverty because I’m powerless; I’m not rich or connected, a lawyer or a judge. He can’t change his life of violence because he struggles daily to find food, water, and shelter. In our excuses, we could come away from our encounter unchanged; only feeling guilty as I return to my warm home and he returns to his 10×10 cell.

We then explored how we can use our life narrative through the lens of sacred imagination. Is it possible to take our excuses and transform them into reasons? Reasons to change? Reasons for hope? Reasons to choose something different? There are reasons for our social locations and how we ended up across the table from one other in a juvenile detention facility. And we can choose to no longer let our excuses define our lives. For me, the meeting with this child was transformative, because we explored beyond what we were given and entertained something new: the possibility of redemption. Committing to waking up in the morning and asking ourselves: “What will I do different today?”

Siblings in faith, this is the difference between the sacred and the mundane. While the mundane is ordinary, dull and routine, the sacred always overflows the barriers and boundaries holding it at bay. Our key to accessing the doors of the sacred is found in our own capacity to reject excuses of either/or and to recognize our sacred power to invite both/and. The sacred always connects; the mundane maintains; and therefore the profane divides. And in our own time and place we are overwhelmed by profanity. Not the childish words that middle schoolers snicker in the back of the classroom. I am talking about the profanity of hate.

A hate in which I am guilty. These last four years of concentration camps on our southern borders, mass shootings in our high schools, white supremacists in the white house and rapists on the supreme court has had me so fearful and angry that I have broken bonds of family and friendships. It has felt so good to be “us” versus “them.” So confident that I am on the right side of history, I have forgotten the sacred command to love my neighbor as I love myself.

My favorite example of this is found in the Christian gospel of Luke the Evangelist. This is where we get the phrase of “Good Samaritan.” Which has become saccharine in its “niceness” of going out of our way to help people. However, the original story of a Samaritan helping a Jew on the bloody pass between Jerusalem to Jericho was a holy reminder that we are all neighbors; even to those who we hate. This is from Luke 10:25-37

Behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

He said to him, “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’ Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?”

The lawyer said, “He who showed mercy on him.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

It is our capacity to be merciful which transcends fear and anger. Remember, the profane divides, while the sacred unites. The sacred will always challenge and reject hate, and any other power that demands division. It is not democrats OR republicans. Progressives OR conservatives. White supremacists OR anti-fascists. My capacity for empathy and compassion cannot be drawn between group lines, not if I want to maintain my humanity. If I want this world to be a better place for my 5 year old son, than I have to model for him kindness and compassion to all people, not just the ones I like. In surrendering my hate, I regain control over my own story.

I am learning how to choose that field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. It has taken sitting with veterans in the mental health unit at the VA, children at the detention center, and gunshot wound victims at Harborview, to soften my heart. Where I can hold the hand of a dying man with a MAGA hat and pray with his family for love and forgiveness. Where a black child is offered a chance at freedom despite jail cell walls. And where a person with a swastika tattoo can find a presence who will listen to his grief over his mother who had just passed away. Because empathy does not equal endorsement.

Siblings in faith, our Unitarian Universalist faith calls us into the world as bearers of a sacred light of truth. Which is why I propose that for this new year into a new decade, we commit not only to the tried and true resolutions of a healthy lifestyle, weight loss, less screen time and more vegetables, but to a powerful and transcendent love: a New Year’s revolution. A spiritual revolution in which we commit to reject our mundane excuses and instead embrace our sacred human capacity of agency. A commitment to respond to brokenness with curiosity and compassion. A commitment to be transformed by each human connection. A decade of change, where every day we wake up and ask: “What will I do today that is different?”

May it be so. Amen.

There is a time for every season…

On By Justin AlmeidaIn Life, Politics, Religion, Spirituality2 Comments

7-1266881542-07-pure-seattle-space-needle-and-rainI am weary.

As the grey of a Seattle winter approaches the winter solstice, I find myself feeling the weight of this time a little more keenly. Between fatherhood, work, graduate school, Standing Rock, Black Lives Matter and post-election ministering, I haven’t had much of a chance to take a break. And the work is only getting harder.

My training teaches me that this is the time for self-care. Actually, the time for self-care should have been after going to Standing Rock. And then after the election. And then after the BLM march. Or after that presentation. Or after that mid-quarter paper. Really, after anything that required a lot of psycho-spiritual collateral. And I don’t have a good excuse for the not taking the time; I’m just horrible at saying “no” and there just never really seems to be enough time to do “everything.”

I’ve found myself responding to the election by not being able to look away from my news feed. I’ve been consuming every story that catches my eyes; about the escalation of hate crimes across the United States, the escalation of violence against DAPL protestors, more black men being killed by police and more police being acquitted, and Trump’s appointees and their slippery-slope repercussions. Every time I told myself to take a break, I would get sucked back in. Just one more story; one more article.

I realize that what I’ve been doing is arming myself. I’ve been taking an accounting of this early Trump era. I’ve been ticking off one offence after another and hoarding them. Because when my basket of brokenness is full, I’ll be laying it at the feet of every Trump supporter I come across. I so very much want to blame and shame them into submission; I want to beat them with the lash. I want them to pay in pain.

blm_black_friday_seattleAnd this is why I need to do some deep care. Because my psycho-spiritual reserves are depleted and I am tired, angry and weary. In this state, I am dangerous to myself and others. I cannot do the work I am called to do; to be a peace maker. I believe my call to ministry is to heal; through solidarity, listening, and forgiving. At my best I am available to people in vulnerability and love. I keenly see my shadow self right now, and as much as I want to embrace him, he is ultimately self-destructive.

And this era of Trump doesn’t need more self-destructive people. So I’m going to be taking some breaks leading up to the new year. I’ll be taking more walks through nature. I’ll re-discover non-digital reading. I’ll take advantage of more simple moments; good coffee and tea, fresh baked goods, and music that speaks to my soul.

So please check in with me. Ask me how I’m doing and really mean it. Make sure I’m doing my internal work so that my external work can flourish. Ask me to coffee. Come over for drinks. Take a silent walk with me. Let’s make sure we stay strong, because now is when we’re most needed.

My friend, my family, I love you; please don’t do this…

On By Justin AlmeidaIn Life, Politics, Religion9 Comments

13567_tallTo my friends and family who are supporting Donald Trump: I love you. Which is why I’m writing this open letter to you. If you continue supporting this man for president, you are putting a strain on our relationship. You are jeopardizing our connection to each other. And I want to tell you this before it is too late and our bonds are broken.

I believe we are in each other’s lives because, at some point, we connected deeply. Whether it was through genetics, things in common or a shared experience, you are more than just a random person on the bus or a person I’ve just met in a bar. I saw something amazing and awesome in you and you saw something similar in me. This spark has allowed us to share our lives in intimate ways and I know it’s still there. Which is why I feel it is crucial I tell you this now: you are supporting a very dangerous hatred and it is causing me to question our relationship and friendship.

This is more than just a political disagreement. Most likely we’ve disagreed with each other in the past over a lot of unimportant and very important issues. Whether it was about economic policy, taxation, or parenting styles, we’ve had our arguments and our connection has survived. We’ve shared food and drink and debated religion and are still able to hug each other. Our bonds of friendship make it possible that we survive deep divides. And I think it is healthy to disagree and still love each other. It shows that we can be vulnerable with each other; listen to and perhaps even understand each other a little more each time we’re together. Our disagreements have made our relationship stronger.

But this is more than just a disagreement in politics or religion. You have made this about us; or rather, what you think of me and people like me. By supporting Donald Trump, you are telling me that you are a racist and a bigot who overtly supports racism and bigotry.

And your first reaction is probably, “Bullshit! How dare you call me a racist! I’m not racist! I have black friends! I treat everybody equally!” But you’re lying to me and to yourself. You see, I’m a racist too. I was socialized in a society that was built on slavery. I am aware that I have an inherent bias that equates white with goodness and black with evil. I have inherited racism from my family system and I have participated in it with thousands of macro and micro aggressions. It’s inside you and inside me because we were raised in the United States and in systems steeped in racism and bias.

The fact that racism is a part of me and most likely will never go away terrifies me. But I am committed to challenging it with every fiber of my being because I believe racism is wrong. I believe bigotry is wrong. And you, my beloved friend, are wrong. By supporting Donald Trump you are telling me that you believe every Muslim is an American hating terrorist, every Mexican is a rapist drug dealer, and that every African American is a lazy welfare criminal. That you agree Russia should have a role in our political system and that Hilary Clinton should be assassinated because she is a political opponent. These are the policies you want for our country. This is who and what you are willing to vote for. This is what you want for the United States of America.

By supporting Donald Trump, you are telling me that you are a racist, a bigot and that on some level you hate me and people like me. You know that I am a person of color. You know that my grandmother was a Mexican immigrant. You know that I am not a Christian. You know that I support Black Lives Matter. You know that I am a feminist. You know who I am and for the life of our friendship you’ve been willing to accept me and love me even if these are all things you haven’t agreed with.

Yet when I see your support of deporting Hispanics and Muslims, I see your support of deporting me.

When I see your support of abuse against Black Lives Matter protesters, I see your support of abuse against me.

When I see your support of an America that would hate me, I see your hatred of me.

I see where this political narrative is going. I paid attention in history class. My friend, my loved one… you are beginning to sound like a Nazi. Which terrifies me. Not only because I know that this isn’t you, but I can envision a day when you would support my arrest, detention, and execution. Just for disagreeing; just for dissenting.

Perhaps you think this is a bit hyperbolic; perhaps you think this would never happen in the United States of America. But take a long, hard look at the candidate you are supporting. On what he has said. On what he wants to do. My beloved, this is not you. Please tell me this isn’t you.

I get it. You hate Hillary Clinton and what she represents. You hate the idea of another Democratic administration. You hate progressive politics. You hate marriage equality. You hate taxation. You hate Black equity. You hate gun control. These are all issues we’ve struggled with in the past. But it has become bigger than just the issues.

This now involves people; specifically people like me. This is a deep wound you’ve created and most likely will deny. And I don’t want to believe it either. But your actions and words are like cards on the table; I see your real hand and in this game, nobody wins. So please, try to understand what I am saying to you. I love you. I want you to be a part of my life. But you’ve proven to me that you hate me, you hate people who are like me, and that you want us beaten, arrested, deported and dead.

So I’m writing you this letter. Please don’t do this. We loved each other, or at least I thought we did. And I’m willing to keep trying. My hands and heart are open to you. Please turn away from your hate. Please, my friend, my family, my beloved: will you not stand on the side of love with me?

I pray we can learn how to love each other again. Amen.

First, they came for the immigrants,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an immigrant.
Then they came for the Muslims,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Muslim.
Then they came for people who were Queer,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t Queer.
Then they came for the people of color,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a person of color.
Then they came for the protesters,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a protester.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak out for me…
-inspired by the words of Martin Niemöller

 

Vocare

On By Justin AlmeidaIn Politics, Religion9 Comments
“Vocare” originally appeared as a sermon delivered to University Unitarian Church. The associated readings that accompanied the sermon were from three sources: Tess Baumberger’s meditation “Let us Make This Earth a Heaven,” Rev. Theodore Parker’s sermon “Justice and the Conscience” and 1 Kings 19:7-13 from the Hebrew Bible.
Click here to listen to the audio recording of the sermon.

To my siblings in faith and action. I say these words in the spirit of love and I pray that you receive them in the same spirit. These last two weeks have come with more reminders that our world is in desperate need for justice, peace and most of all, prophetic love. With Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and five police officers killed in hateful violence (in addition to the attacks in Nice, France, the attempted coup in democratic Turkey, and this morning’s events in Baton Rouge and so many other similar news stories coming almost every day), it seems to me that no matter how many loving steps forward I take in pursuit of justice, our shared path keeps getting longer; increasing in grade with the summit seeming to always be on the horizon. I am angry, heart broken, frustrated… and I am ashamed to admit it but I am also exhausted by it all.

I am ashamed because I take pride in being strong; physically, mentally, emotionally. Yet I continue to fail at the responsibility I put on myself of holding the weight of being an ally to people and communities who are so much stronger than I am. Not because they want to be; but because they have to be. Yet just like the Hebrew prophet Elijah, I hear their voices in that quiet whisper of God, questioning me: “So Justin, now tell me, what are you doing here?” And I have to cover my face and look away because this is HOLY work and holy ground to which imperfect I, and we, are summoned.

The Latin word meaning to summon or to call is Vocare. And it is from this word that we get Voice, Vocal, and Vocation. And I say all of these words with a capital “V.” Because they are calling out to me from the wilderness saying “prepare ye the way!” And yes, they are demanding. They demand my time, attention, money and hands. They demand that I use my Voice to shout “ENOUGH” alongside our siblings of color in all public places. They demand that I be Vocal, calling out in love both strangers and friends who persist in their rose colored glasses that #AllLivesMatter. They demand that I use my Vocation, as a person pursuing the ministry, to challenge the powers that be to dismantle and reform all our systems of inequity and oppression.

In essence, Vocare demands my being. And so here I am, proudly a Unitarian Universalist, responding to the summons of our time; saying from this pulpit that Black Lives Matter. Because not to respond, to let that phone continue to ring just to keep leaving a message on my machine, would be to reject that which I call most sacred; my humanity.

Not just my individual humanity but my shared humanity. Which I never really understood until I found Unitarian Universalism. You see, I grew up Catholic in a mixed race family. My miscellaneous brown skin and my social location in a mostly white suburb gave me the privilege that I didn’t have to think about race. And I was a progressive liberal Catholic who believed in equality and inclusiveness. I believed in hate the sin and love the sinner. I believed that non-Catholics (and even non-Christians) could also go to heaven. But in my heart there was always an “us” and a “them.”

Because I was the religious type I even went so far as to pursue the ministry, which at the time meant to study to become a Catholic priest! But nobody told me that seminary is a dangerous place. That it may end up razing my faith to the ground before it would even start to build it up again. I lasted two years before leaving. Still cowardly identifying as Catholic even though I was already doubting everything that the Church taught me. I was afraid to announce my apostasy. Because, what would the members of my Church community who I had known my entire life, say? What would my family say? If I were to suddenly come out and say “I do not believe in your systems anymore!”

It wasn’t until years later when I found the courage to go my own way. It took travelling half-way around the world and back again to finally step through our church doors and sit down in these pews. But I can say that the experience of US filled me with such a deep resonance. With our values as a community; focused on the dignity and worth of every person, a commitment to spiritual growth and democracy in the world, and a deep connection to the Earth and all living things. I immediately knew this would be my community of faith; the spiritual foundation for my future.

But, siblings, Unitarian Universalism did not offer me a soft, safe, carpeted foundation. Yes, I found fellowship and friendship; I found a family and community. But I also realized the radical kinds of responsibilities that came with my choice to identify as a Unitarian Universalist. This is a faith with a history of powerful reformers like Michael Servetus; suffragists like Susan B. Anthony; free thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson; and abolitionists like the Rev. Theodore Parker! Many of our spiritual forebears were burned at the stake for daring to proclaim their truth to the powers that be. And even though they were afraid for their lives they still fought church and state, whether it was in the rejection of hell or in the demand for freedom. No, I believe that ours is not a faith of comfort. To me this is a faith that answers that quiet voice among us asking “what are you doing here?” by saying “we are here because we see too much corruption in our government” and “we are here because the blood of the Earth cries out” and “we are here because too many people are being killed” and “we are here because Black Lives Matter!”

Which I believe embodies so much of our own prophetic history and work. In the words of Alicia Garza, one of the cofounders of Black Lives Matter:

“#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important–it means that Black lives, which are seen as without value within White supremacy, are important to your liberation. Given the disproportionate impact state violence has on Black lives, we understand that when Black people in this country get free, the benefits will be wide reaching and transformative for society as a whole.   When we are able to end hyper-criminalization and sexualization of Black people and end the poverty, control, and surveillance of Black people, every single person in this world has a better shot at getting and staying free.  When Black people get free, everybody gets free.  This is why we call on Black people and our allies to take up the call that Black Lives Matter. We’re not saying Black lives are more important than other lives, or that other lives are not criminalized and oppressed in various ways.  We remain in active solidarity with all oppressed people who are fighting for their liberation and we know that our destinies are intertwined.”
“When Black people get free, everybody gets free.”

I’ve never been a part of a radical community like ours before. I found a faith in which I am constantly challenged to break my binary habits of “us vs. them” and “either vs. or” and to accept that at our best we are a people of “both/and.” We are Universalist and Unitarian. We are black and white. We are theist and atheist. We are trans and cis. We are gay and straight. I feel that at our best we have room enough to even be liberal and conservative. Siblings, you have inspired me to be a human being of radical action and prophetic love who is committed to rejecting the binaries.

And yes, I have made newbie ally mistakes along the way. In my very first Black Lives Matter march in downtown Seattle I tweeted out “All Lives Matter” with all the good intention in the world. And I was quickly educated that my good intentions had subversive impacts; that in reality by saying All Lives Matter as a response to Black Lives Matter both unintentionally and intentionally erases the Black experience. That the truth of our country and systems of today is that Black lives don’t matter; not as much as others. And I listened, learned and I was changed.

And a few weeks ago before our UU General Assembly I was asked a question that nobody has ever asked me before: “Do I identify as a person of color?” And I did not know how to answer. Yes, my grandmother emigrated from Mexico. Yes, my father is Mexican American. And while living in the Northwest has bleached out my melanin you would be very surprised how dark my skin can get given enough sun. But being asked this question made me realize two things: first, that yes I am a person of color who, due to my social location, has had the privilege of not having to identify as a person of color unless I want to. And second, that my privilege was bought and paid for without my permission at the price of my family in terms of culture, language and identity. These my grandmother sold away when she came to the United States. Even though she never spoke English herself, she concluded, accurately, that the only way for her children to succeed was to remove their “Mexican” and replace it with “American.” And it worked because I am only now learning what it means to be an ally to my Latinx siblings. From deep within I am educated that my grandmother’s good intentions have had subversive impacts. And I listen, learn and I am changed.

Now, in this time and place of social unrest and societal change, the challenge is to keep going. After the service today our Racial Justice Team has two places set aside to help us. First, honoring the practices that Black Lives of UU has called for, we offer downstairs in Howe, a sacred space for our Black siblings to gather in caucus. Second, members of the Care Team will be available in Nathan Johnson Hall for anyone who wants or needs to meet one on one with a member of the Team to discuss issues of the heart, mind and spirit. They will be wearing orange tags that say “Standing on the Side of Love.” Next Sunday after the service, we will have a Black Lives Matter stand in outside of the church along 35th Ave NE. Finally, we are responding as a community to a call to action, committing to provide for Black community organizers meeting and healing spaces here at UUC free of charge. In these ways, and in many more, we will continue to listen, learn and to change.

And believe it or not change is happening. Just last week, as I was considering deleting about half of the people from my social media connections because I was sick and tired of them not “getting it” with their Blue Lives vs. Black Lives vs. All Lives and their “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a bigger gun” a friend of mine made a simple statement on his Facebook page. He said,

“I’m ashamed to admit it has taken me this long to get it. The concept of Black Lives Matter isn’t a rallying cry to say that the life of an African American has more value than any other, it’s simply a reminder that the life of an African American has the same value as anyone else. Saying Black Lives Matter is just another way of saying Stop Valuing Black Lives Less.”

If my friend, a cis gender white male in his late 30’s married with children who lives in the suburbs who works in the tech industry who considers himself an enlightened liberal yet refused to accept the legitimacy of this most current Black movement can have a conversion of heart… it recommits me to keep doing the work. To keep speaking out on my social media channels. To keep engaging in loving dialog with those who disagree with me. To keep working in existing ways and finding new ways to not stop with the message that “the status quo has got to go.” And it is working; one person at a time.

Siblings, Vocare is a dangerous verb. It both summons the small voice inside and calls out through us as a louder voice in the world. To me Vocare is a powerful verb of Unitarian Universalism. We are an educated and privileged people with a history of justice and change, who do not let dogma or doctrine stand in our way, and who at our best have truly been one of the only real welcoming communities religion has to offer. Yes, I, and we as a denomination, have made so many mistakes along the way.

So what? We are a people who show up to listen, learn and to change.

I choose to believe that we are committed, whether we like it or not, to that prophetic vision that has spanned time from before the Rev. Theodore Parker to beyond the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and is present in the now through the words of prophetic Black organizers like Alicia Garza. That we are part of an arc in creation that has been bending toward justice from the very beginning. And each and every hand placed on that arc, through word and action, through my imperfect ally-ship and our collective imperfect ally-ship, will keep bending toward justice for as long as it takes.

Do you hear that? That small, quiet voice, full of the potential of justice and peace and freedom?

“So Justin, now tell me, what are you doing here?”

I am here because “things refuse to be mismanaged long.” I am here because I was summoned. I am here to answer the call. We are here to keep answering the call.

Amen.

At the end, a moment of sacred…

On By Justin AlmeidaIn Life, Religion, SpiritualityLeave a comment

aloneOn Thanksgiving I was approached by a friend with a particular question. She knows that I’ve been volunteering as a chaplain and that I’m in seminary. She asked if I would be willing to visit a friend of hers who was in hospice. He has stage four cancer and doesn’t have much time left. And while he was not a religious man, his mind had been turning toward both the past and the future. She felt that he would benefit from having someone to talk to; perhaps I could offer a presence that would help his transition between life and death.

I explained that I wasn’t an ordained minister. I’ve only been volunteering as a chaplain for a short time and that was with youth who are incarcerated. She said that was probably for the best; her friend was a devout agnostic with secular Buddhist leanings. He didn’t want credentials or conversion. She felt he just needed someone who knew how to talk about spirituality. So I said yes; that I’d be happy to sit with her friend.

Hombres de Negocios discutiendo sentados

So last night I sat.

For a little more than an hour I listened to his story. He didn’t have any questions and not many concerns. His story always hovered on the edge of faith but never crossed the threshold. For a man with perhaps only weeks to live he seemed accepting of his reality. And yet he acknowledged that he probably hadn’t really accepted that he was going to die soon. But until then he wanted to read St. John of the Cross and Thomas Merton. He said that they seemed the most accessible for an agnostic who was looking for possibilities without being sold a bill of goods.

Our conversation wasn’t hard. But it was difficult to walk the tightrope between detachment and empathy that the active listening of a chaplain has to balance. I was reminded in many ways of my own grandfather at the end of his life, as well as the recent passing of my father-in-law. However, in order to be in his moment, I couldn’t be in mine. Also, in him I saw my own mortality; and it was uncomfortable and unsettling.

Footprints-In-The-Sand1Which is why I believe it was also holy and sacred. In this season of “thinness,” I was able to share a space and moment with another human being as he approached his own veil. In doing so, I was an intimate part of a Spirit of mystery and miracle. In the pauses between words, there was the weight of a life. A life in which I was able to share, if only for a moment. And I am grateful.