Closing the Faith Gap – Restoring the Voting Rights Act of 1965

“We all have two religions: the religion we talk about and the religion we live. It is our task to make the difference between the two as small as possible.” ~Elaine Gallagher Gehrmann

Unitarian Universalism is a living faith tradition which does not insist upon exactly what you believe, but which demands that the life you live reflect your faith beliefs. In this way, UUs are not, as it is sometimes casually said, free to believe anything we want. There must be congruence between our beliefs and our actions in order to be living faithfully as Unitarian Universalists.

The gap between what we believe and how we live our lives often serves as the place from which our call to live faithfully emerges. If we believe that all people have inherent worth and dignity, then we are called to act as if all people have inherent worth and dignity – not just the people who agree with us – or look like us –  or like us.

Fifty years ago, Unitarians and Universalists answered the call of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to join him in Selma, AL to help close the gap between the constitutional promise of the United States of America that “all men are created equal” and the lived reality of systemic inequality for black people in America.

On Sunday, March 8th, 2015, over 500 Unitarian Universalists joined the over 80,000 people from all over the world to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate and consecrate the courage of those who crossed before on Bloody Sunday and then again on March 25th, 1965, successfully, to march to Montgomery.

The right to vote, which so many sacrificed so much for, was granted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on the heels of the events in Selma. Last year, the Supreme Court of these United States eviscerated the Voting Rights Act. We who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all human beings must stand on the side of love and of our ancestors’ sacrifices. We must work to restore the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and to dismantle the systemic racism that warps the moral fabric of this nation.

You can call on your Congressional Representatives to restore the Voting Rights Act here: http://www.civilrights.org/action_center/petition-comments/vraa-petition.html

You can organize to undo the racism that has been dehumanizing all of us in this country here http://www.pisab.org/ and here http://collectiveliberation.org/ and here http://highlandercenter.org/ and here http://crossroadsantiracism.org/ and here http://movementgeneration.org/ and here http://blacklivesmatter.com/ and here http://celsjr.org/ … so many of us are turning toward each other to co-create the beloved community. You, too, are needed here.

Come, friend, come help us close the gap between our words and our deeds with the gift of your life energy.  Together we can heal this world and reclaim our own humanity.