Finding our Voice and Building Community

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At the Feet of Roger Williams
*Early Champion of Religious Liberty

I know I am not alone in testifying that for the first three months after the election, I struggled to find a voice. A breakthrough came in realizing that our conversation needs to focus NOT ON SHOUTING AT THOSE TRAPPED in self-imposed ideological silos but on CONNECTING WITH KINDRED SPIRITS with whom we are FORMING COMMUNITY around LOVE and HUMANITY, COMPASSION and ALTRUISM, RESPECT and AFFIRMATION, recognition of the common plight of humanity..... Forming community around values that evolve and are refined through the LESSONS OF HISTORY, true lessons of progress and failure (that's called being WOKE), not PROPAGANDA about SUPREMACY and NATIONALISM. 
We form community around constructive values that arise from sources of faith and sacred texts, from inspiring political visions such as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and similar visions from governments that love freedom, democracy, and human rights..... Communities and movements and tribes and governments that fight against tyranny, supremacy and authoritarianism. These values emerge not only from transcendent or ideological sources but are hard earned from life experience, from journeys of survival and overcoming, of exploring and traveling, of crossing borders to escape tyranny or to pursue new dreams and opportunities.** 
Sure enough we need to continue to FIGHT THE DISINFORMATION and RESIS TYRANNY at every level, speaking, protesting, litigating and supporting our elected representatives in the fight. We must also preach to the captives who reside in the fog of the CULT OF TRUMP. But above all of that, we must seek and find and create and support both existing and emerging communities that represent what the 20th century activists called beloved community. That terminology has fallen out of use, but the needs, the values, and the sentiments that stand behind this need for "brotherhood" (to use a mid century term) never diminish, and in fact the need is most urgent in such a time as this, a time when the those least respectful of TRUTH, DIGNITY, DIVERSITY, EQUALITY and INCLUSION (yes, that is DEI) have ascended to such a level of power and governmental authority. 
Find your community, or more likely, your communities, and sound the call that we are here, we are finding our voice, we are shaping our messages, we are gathering our resources and our strategies....In congregations, in coalitions, in social media forums, podcasts, apps, Youtube channels, FB groups, TicToc streams, and in old school conferences and seminars, connecting with kindred spirits .... And we invite all to the table who will come with an open mind, an open heart, and an open hand, with a strong voice and a strong arm to fight for each other, to fight for goodness and justice.

*Inscribed on the Rhode Island capitol building is the inscription "TO HOLD FORTH A LIVELY EXPERIMENT THAT A MOST FLOURISHING CIVIL STATE MAY STAND AND BEST BE MAINTAINED WITH FULL LIBERTY IN RELIGIOUS CONCERNMENTS." With the rise of Christian Nationalism and a dramatic turn of tyranny against liberty of religion, ideology, and personal identity, we all do well to understand and promote the principles of religious liberty upon which our nation was founded.
**As a person of faith and follower of Jesus, I hold a more specific set of values and affirmations than indicated in the above expression of universal values. However, I have no insecure need to hold community only with those holding my confession in common, and certainly no need to advocate for the state to promote or enforce and codify any specifically religious values into law and policy.