| | March 24, 2020 Faith, Love, and Justice in this Time of Pandemic and Crisis Dear Friend, The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting our lives and the lives of those all across the US and around the world--restricting travel, closing schools, restaurants, and businesses, postponing or canceling concerts, conferences, and worship services, disrupting plans, pushing the economy towards recession, stressing the capacity of our health care systems, creating widespread anxiety, fear, and uncertainty, and requiring increased social distancing. We're all affected by this spreading global pandemic and things will almost certainly get worse for the foreseeable future before they get better. But make no mistake about it. As much as UUs in North Carolina are being impacted by COVID-19, many of our siblings--friends, family, neighbors, strangers, and communities, especially low-wage or unemployed workers, poor and working class parents and their children, those in nursing homes, prisons, and ICE detainment facilities, the elderly, poor people, people of color, immigrants, those living in homelessness, those who are hungry, and others who are vulnerable and live on the margins of the most affluent country in the world--are bearing, and will continue to bear, the brunt of this social, economic, and health care crisis. Many will die. Many will lose their jobs. Many may lose their homes. Many may lose hope. And it will take a long, long time for many to get back on their feet again. And in this time of social and economic crisis, our faith as Unitarian Universalists calls us to do what we can to love and care for ourselves, for each other, for our friends and families, and especially for the people and families here in North Carolina and around the world that are most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its social and economic fallout. None of us, alone, can bring the pandemic to an end or take care of all of those who are affected by this crisis. But all of us can do something to mitigate it. You can give life the shape of justice by engaging in at least two or three of the following acts of faith, love, and justice. Please act now! | | Act Now! - Make a donation to Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, One Fair Wage Emergency Fund, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, your local food bank, the El Centro Hispanico COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund (Triangle), or other charitable organizations that are providing assistance to those most impacted by the crisis.
- Donate blood through the American Red Cross or your local hospital or blood bank.
- Call on Governor Cooper and the North Carolina General Assembly to use the $1.2 billion in Rainy Day Funds and $2 billion in unappropriated funds to respond to COVID-19 by expanding Medicaid, shoring up our health care system, assisting displaced workers, reassessing our priorities as a state, and putting the needs of our communities before the profits of billionaire CEOs and corporations.
- Sign the Move On/Poor Peoples Campaign petition to President Trump and Congress supporting federal action to ensure sick leave to all employees, provide free COVID-19 testing and treatment for all, provide economic support for displaced workers, enact a national moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, and enact other measures to assist those impacted by the current crisis.
- Call on ICE to release all immigrants from detention and organize your congregation or community to demand protection of those in prison, jail, and immigration detention facilities from COVID-19.
- Use on-line gatherings and resources to nurture your own spirit, faith, resilience, and hope.
- Share this Action Alert with your friends, neighbors, community, and congregation via social media, email, or word of mouth.
| | A Prayer (Rev. Elizabeth Ngyuen) this is the part where we commandeer cruise ships for people migrating to feast at all you can eat buffets and party pool side and then split the corporate profits with the staff, right?
this is the part where teach ourselves how to make our own medicine - the kind from herbs and grandma's recipes and vaccines and antivirals and insulin and epipens too, right?
this is the part where we open our spare rooms to the college student whose school is closed and the asylum seeker who just got out of detention, and our co-worker who just got evicted and the queer teen who needs a place to crash, right?
this is the part where we feed lunch to the kid whose school is cancelled and text the people who can't be in public spaces anymore and we breathe, right?
this is the part where we introduce ourselves to our neighbors we've been living next to for 10 years because tomorrow we might need each other, right?
this is the part where we ask "what do i really need for surviving?" and find a way to seek no more and no less, right?
this is the part where we stay home, we cancel, we show up, we call, we fight, we let go, we stay, we don't let anyone go it alone, right?
this is the part where when we say we, we mean: we elderly, we immunocompromised, we sick, we well, we in prison, we free, we who can buffer our way out with money and privilege and we who definitely can't.
right?
right. | | | |
