Skyline church believes in voting – and to help you make sense of the ballot initiatives, here is a grid of the 2020 propositions from Kehilla Synagogue State Proposition Endorsements and how various organizations recommend that we vote. We are not endorsing any candidates.
Here is a larger format version of the same – 2020 propositions from Kehilla Synagogue.xlsx – State Proposition Endorsements – Large version.
Finally, here’s 2020 recommendations from the Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry.
Stay tuned- we expect to post more local measures.
Photo by Tim Gouw unsplash
Most of us, myself included, are experiencing anxiety as we reflect upon the upcoming election. Now, even as we grieve the passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there is a fast-tracking of a new conservative justice.
How did we become so divided?
How did our relationships become weaponized?
How did we come to accept such lack of integrity in our leaders?
How did we create worlds based on radically different sets of facts, and how do we reestablish a shared reality?
Here are a few resources that I find helpful in answering these questions, and more importantly, in responding constructively.
My intent is not to make us more anxious. It is to make us less naïve, more aware of the sophisticated strategies at work, and to empower us with a consciously loving, powerful and faithful response.
We are in this together, keep the faith!
with love, Pastor Laurie
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
Prayer for the week:
Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have it:
a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor;
a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them;
a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect;
a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love…
May it be so through our lives, in honor of those who have come before and those who will follow after us.
Amen.
– adapted from the UCC Prayers for Justice and Peace
Lighting, Fires, blackouts, a heat wave, a pandemic, economic recession, and the poorest people of color are suffering.
We are living in apocalyptic times . Early Sunday morning, lightning bolts lit up the Bay area sky. Within days, fast moving fires ignited across Northern California. We wake up each day: check the news, check our cell phones for area alerts about everything from air quality, PG&E rolling blackout alerts, & Covid updates, and then reach out to our loved ones, as the raging fires double in size. We wonder, what’s ahead this fall?
All this in the midst of a global pandemic and an economic recession that has resulted in 170,000 deaths in the US, unemployment rate at 10% and another enormous transfer of wealth to billionaires.
I am worried about us, especially those most vulnerable. Where is our hope? Could it be in the very midst of this apocalypse? The word itself, Apocalypse (ἀποκάλυψις, apokálypsis) is a Greek word meaning “revelation“, “an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling”.
In fact, we are in the midst of apocalypse. It is a time of great unveiling, things not previously known are being revealed, if we have the eyes to not only see it, to hear it, to be transformed by it, and to take action, together, to participate in our collective salvation. Who will save us? If there were ever a time for a great spiritual migration, it is NOW. If there was ever a time to participate, to conspire together, in love, it is NOW.
Who would have ever imagined that the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, born right here in Oakland during the civil rights movement, would give her acceptance speech as the first woman of color on a major party ticket? She urged us to perceive the times and to take collective action together for justice for all people. Former President Barack Obama issued a grim warning about the durability of American democracy, and our role in participating in democracy as informed, engaged, voters.
A short time remains before the US elections on November 3. While churches can take no partisan stands, we can pray and work for a just common life as a natural extension of our faith.
Resources to assist with this are available at Our Faith Our Vote: https://www.ucc.org/ourfaithourvote)
Thank you my friends, for our leadership and migration together.
Love, Pastor Laurie
This Sunday:
I am so pleased to have as our guest preacher this Sunday, our very own Teresa Jenkins!.
After the service, we continue on our journey, continuing our book discussion of Brian McLaren’s the Great Spiritual Migration, facilitated by Tom Manley! (please review the article below for details)
