Prophetic Voices and Events - 01/01/18 World Day of Peace - Pope Francis

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Prophetic voices and events - Emancipation proclamation.

On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln signed Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in the United States but oppression and subjugation of African Americans continues to this day with the continuation of racist institutions in our American Society.

Lincoln signed the proclamation but only after many years of abolitionist advocacy and a civil war. Lincoln is remembered for the proclamation but there were millions who suffered and died to advance the justice. Just recently Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, and social activist died at age 27.

There is more work to be done to achieve justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, Unitarian Universalism's second principle. There is great work still to be done.

Prophetic voices and events - Nora Menkin, funeral director

We all have to die some day. Most of us will have a funeral of some sort and a burial. Is there such a thing as a "good death," and a "good funeral," and a "good burial."

Like birth, death has become institutionalized. Families don't funeralize and bury their dead any more. They outsource these inevitable and necessary activities to professionals. There is growing awareness in our society that we could be doing a better job with these functions.

The Co-op Funeral Home of the People's Memorial in Seattle, Washington is one of the only non profit, member owned funeral homes in the United States. Could there be more? Should there be one in your area? Would you join one if there was?

Nora Menkin, Managing Funeral Director

Since death runs in her family, Nora decided to become a funeral director. 

Along with a lawyer, a mechanic, a plumber, and a doctor, everyone should have a funeral director in the family. For those families without one, Nora is happy to provide the service.

Nora was working as a stage manager in Seattle when The Co-op Funeral Home of People's Memorial was forming in 2007. She jumped at the chance to be involved with such a wonderful organization. She began as an intern and worked her way up to being named the Managing Funeral Director in 2013. 

With a background in home funerals, Jewish traditions and a passion for natural burial and modern funeral practices, Nora strives to help each family make their arrangements according to their needs and wishes. She makes sure meeting with her isn’t the hard part of dealing with the loss of a loved one.

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Prophetic voices and events - Rev. Dr. William Barber - Moral mondays

Prophetic voices and events - Leonardo Da Vinci, Salvator Mundi

From USA Today 11/15/17

One of the most exciting paintings to go under the hammer this century, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi or ‘Saviour of the World’ is the last Leonardo that remains in private hands, and will be sold on November 15 as the star lot of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

Painted over 500 years ago, the moving portrait of Jesus Christ by one of the art world’s greatest ever masters has been on show to the public at Rockefeller Center in New York City for the past few weeks, where over 20,000 people from all walks of life have come to be awestruck by the artwork, which is often described as ‘The Divine Mona Lisa’.

Leonardo Da Vinci, Salvator Mundi | via WikiCommons

But one artist, globally renowned Israeli portrait photographer Nadav Kander, has decided to give the painting a view of its own to admire. Imagining what the eyes of the Leonardo would see were he looking out on to the adoring crowds, Kander has created a four-minute video piece showcasing the reactions of those viewing the work, from the perspective of the painting.

The dramatic lighting in the space adds to the drama of the film, and it’s truly quite amazing to see how touched everyone on camera seems to be. Leonardo DiCaprio, who is a known art lover, makes an appearance in the video as well.

The world will be watching as this painting exchanges hands yet again, and thanks to Nadav, everyone will have a reminder of this historic moment for years to come.

Prophetic voices and events - Nia, the fifth day of Kwanzaa

Today, 12/30/17, is the fifth of the seven days of Kwanzaa. On this fifth day, the value of Nia (purpose) is celebrated. Nia means "to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

The value of Nia seems very similar to the third principle of Unitarian Universalism which is to covenant together to affirm and promote the acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations.

Prophetic voices and events - Ujamaa

12/29 is the fourth day of seven of Kwanzaa. Today we celebrate Ujamaa which is a Swahili word translated many ways but essentially means cooperative economics meaning to work together for mutual benefit.

Ujamaa is similar to the second principle of Unitarian Universalism which is to covenant together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

For more click here.

Prophetic voices and events - Trump the new Herod attacking the innocents

Today, December 28, is the feast of the Holy Innocents. It is the day that we remember that Herod ordered the killing of all male children under 2 in Bethlehem. This story is told in Matthew 2:16.

It seems terrible and something that happened 2,000 years ago. But then I read what the Trump administration is doing in the New York Times on 12/21/17 in an article entitled, Trump Administration Considers Separating Families to Combat Illegal Immigration

"The Trump administration is considering a plan to separate parents from their children when families are caught entering the country illegally, according to officials who have been briefed on the plans. The forceful move is meant to discourage border crossings, but immigrant groups have denounced it as draconian and inhumane."

Not so different. Trump is the new Herod. 

Prophetic voices and events - Noah Worcester: Peace advocate

December 28, 1815, the Massachusetts Peace Society was organized by Unitarian Minister, Noah Worcester. It was the first peace society in the world. Rev. Worcester was called, "apostle of peace."

The Rev. Willian Ellery Channing gave the eulogy at Rev. Worcester's funeral in 1835. Here is part of what Channing said,

"He was distinguished above all whom I have known, by his comprehension and deep feeling of the spirit of Christianity; by the sympathy with which he seized on the character of Jesus Christ as a manifestation of Perfect Love; by the honor in which he held the mild,- humble, forgiving, disinterested virtues of our religion. This distinguishing trait of his mind was embodied and brought out in his whole life and conduct. He especially expressed it in his labors for the promotion of Universal Peace on the earth. He was struck, as no other man within my acquaintance has been, with the monstrous incongruity between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of Christian communities; between Christ's teaching of peace, mercy, forgiveness, and the wars which divide and desolate the church and the world. Every man has particular impressions which rule over and give a hue to his mind. Every man is struck by some evils rather than others. The excellent individual of whom I speak was shocked, heart-smitten, by nothing so much as by seeing that man hates man, that man destroys his brother, that man has drenched the earth with his brother's blood, that man, in his insanity, has crowned the murderer of his race with the highest honors; and, still worse, that Christian hates Christian, that church wars against church, that differences of forms and opinions array against each other those whom Christ died to join together in closest brotherhood, and that Christian zeal is spent in building up sects, rather than in spreading the spirit of Christ, and enlarging and binding together the universal church. The great evil on which his mind and heart fixed, was War, Discord, Intolerance, the substitution of force for Reason and Love. To spread peace on earth became the object of his life."^[1]

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Prophetic voices and events - Where was the media on climate change in 2017?

Lisa Hymas, the climate and energy program director at Media Matters, has said that the biggest missed story in 2017 by the media is climate change. Ms. Hymas writes that while the media focused on the shenanigans of Donald Trump, it failed to connect the dots of climate change which has contributed to the weather disasters of huricanes, fires, melting glazier ice, rising sea levels, and continued rising of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere.

Hymas is just one of several people like Al Gore and James Hansen and Bill McKibben who have raised prophetic voices and organized inhabitants of the planet to take steps to protect our environment and ecologies.

These efforts fly in the face of corporations who profit from fossil fuels and U.S. President Donald Trump who has pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate accords. To overcome climate change deniers, capitalist polluters, political sell-outs, an unresponsive media, the citizen demand for political and corporate accountability must continue to grow.

We must each do our part responding to these prophetic voices and adding our own until the chorus of calls to protect Mother Earth are heard around the planet.

Unitarian Universalists in particular need to act on their seventh principle in which they covenant together to affirm and promote the "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

For more from Lisa Hymas click here.

Prophetic voices and events - an explanation

The second of the six sources to which Unitarian Universalists attribute their "living tradition" is "Words and deeds of prophetic woman and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love." Now that Advent is over, UUAWOL is beginning a year long series on what is being called "Prophetic voices and events of women and men...." The change is the focus on the voice and not the person and the event not the individual.

No person is perfect and most people communicate good things and bad things. Events often get mischaracterized as the work of one person when that person is just a symbol or manifestation of a far more dynamic social movement. The title of this series will be "Prophetic voices and events" and I hope they may resonate with you and perhaps move your life forward in positive ways.