Blessings ~

Practice gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, gratitude ~

Saturday, June 23, 2012

on Solidarity ~

Solidarity - as shared in a Worship Service with the GA Accountability Group at GA 2012


Come to Arizona, we need your solidarity!

Boycott Arizona, we need your solidarity!


Two calls, fueled from hearts and souls of good people needing like minded people of faith to live that faith boldly.  Each call seeming simple, but arriving with as much complexity as passion.   Responses also at odds ..


You have my solidarity.  I'll carry my passport too, offered some, not understanding how their words wounded and took their place in an arc of history full of such wounds. 


My solidarity is with the boycott, offered others, not understanding how their words wounded, feeling like abandonment and a turning away.


Solidarity .  A compelling word.  For allies, the word stirs in our hearts and comes off of our tongues easily.  Yes, we will stand with you.  We will sit with you.  We will walk and roll with you.  We believe in you.  We want to ‘help.’  YES, you have our solidarity! The moment of offering solidarity is perhaps one of the most comfortable moments we experience in this justice-seeking faith, yet, delivering solidarity can be one of the least comfortable.  Solidarity is not about ‘where’ we place ourselves.  It’s about what we are willing to do once there.  Solidarity  doesn’t simply ask “Will you come over here, and be with us?”  It comes with more complex questions.  It asks “Will you come over here, and be with us and with our pain?  Can you be with our pain and hear that you play a role in creating it?  Can you move past that knowledge and hear what we need you to do – and pledge help even when we don’t yet know what help will be?  And when the time comes, will you stay with us, with the pain and the privilege bought with that pain, listen to what we need you to do and assess whether or not you can deliver?  Really assess?  Honestly and realistically assess?  (Because, please don’t offer what you don’t have to give.  We have enough to carry without adding your own angst to our load.)  And if you can be with us, can you follow?  Truly?  Can you let go of your own needs to lead and your own majority-culture-grown solutions and follow?”


And then, solidarity asks two things more.

Will you stay with us, even if it means giving up pieces of your own privilege? 

And, will you go away from us, take our message and use your power?  Are you willing and able  to use the system that gives you a voice and gives you power at the expense of ours?

Solidarity.  A compelling word.

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