The topic this week is, again, the sudden and traumatic separation of children from their parents at the Mexican border. This feels like a moral emergency. We are not just watching this happen, we have asylum seekers being held locally in Sheridan, Oregon in a men's federal prison.
More than 600 times in May and June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel have separated parents from their children using physical force and deceit, according to numerous news reports. Last week, the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, near McMinnville contracted with ICE to hold 123 men taken into custody as part of ICE's larger "zero tolerance" policy. Some of these men have been separated from their children. The Action of the Week is to answer this call from the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIrJ) working on the front lines in Sheridan: "Faith Action: There are three immediate ways that you and your faith community can join with other faith communities in action this week: Show Up: Monday, June 18th from 5:30-7pm for a large vigil and action at Sheridan. On the heels of Father’s Day, we’ll gather near the prison to call for an end to family separation. Public pressure and community support make a big difference and will help keep this story in the headlines. Carpool information from Portland is available at the link above. Clergy: are invited to sign a letter by Sunday, the 17th at midnight. The letter will go to the Warden and Chaplain at Sheridan asking for visitation rights for clergy. You can also sign up to be one of the clergy doing the visitation. However, the first step is a letter signed by a LOT of clergy asking that these detainees get visitation rights. Ask all the ministers associated with your congregation to sign the letter. Pray: In your worship services this week, please take a moment to share about this heartbreaking situation and pray for all immigrants impacted, especially those families separated from one another. Sample Prayer: God of compassion, hear the cries of mothers, fathers, and children separated from one another. Comfort them in their time of need. May they know they are not alone. God of justice, grant us the courage to hear the cries of mothers, fathers, and children separated from one another. Help us to stand in solidarity, speak out, and boldly act. May we know we are not alone. Together we pray, Amen." IMIrJ is working hard and could use your donations. Please be generous. They don't have a 'button' on their webpage for donations. They do have partner churches (several UU) and individual memberships here. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar
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Action of the Week!
From our friends at the Ultraviolet Team: "Because of Trump's new policy to separate families at the border, as many as 10,000 immigrant children are now held in government custody without their parents. A father, Marco Antonio Muñoz, who was separated from his wife and three-year-old child by immigration agents has killed himself in detention. This is a human rights crisis created by the Trump administration. That's why two days from now, on Trump's 72nd birthday, people all over the country are taking to the streets to oppose his new policy of forcibly separating children from their parents at the U.S. border--and there's an emergency protest happening near you. Action of the Week: Click and find out the nearest place to protest. Will you join the Families Belong Together action on Thursday to demand an end to family separation? According to human rights and legal groups helping families at the border, among the children taken from their parents are a blind six-year-old boy, and babies as young as 18 months. They, along with the other asylum-seeking children under ten years old, are currently locked up and will have to represent themselves in immigration court. All eyes are on what's happening at the border, from the United Nations to newspaper headlines nationwide. To stop Trump's inhumane policy of splitting up asylum-seeking families, we need to keep directing mass outrage toward the administration and its atrocities at the border." In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar Action of the Week!
There was no way for me to chose between these two actions of the week. So this week we give you the choice! Action of the Week # 1 Join the Oregon Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival on Monday,June 11th in Salem. This is the fifth of six weeks of direct action in state capitols all across the country. The theme for Week 5 - Everybody's Got the Right to Live: Education, Living Wage Jobs, Income, Housing. The schedule for the day: 10:45am: Arrive and sign-in 11am: Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training (required for those participating in the action after the rally, strongly encouraged for those witnessing the action and serving in support roles) 1pm: Potluck lunch and travel to the Capitol 2pm: Rally on the Capitol steps 2:45pm: Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action If you are planning to join for any part or the whole day, please RSVP here to receive more details and carpooling. If you are planning to participate in Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action and/or are able to offer logistical support on Monday, please fill out this form as well. Action of the Week # 2 Lift Every Voice is the interfaith, youth-driven campaign to regulate assault weapons in Oregon. Ballot measure 43 will need fast action on its signature gathering to make it on the ballot this November. The campaign is using volunteers only. All volunteers need training! Now the campaign has video training! You can be trained at home through a YouTube video, or you can go to a group training. Whichever works for you. Check out locations for group training with this link to the campaign. (some locations are listed below, however, new ones are added all the time.) Check out the video training you can do in your own home. Don't forget to register with the campaign so they can get your petition sheets when the Ballot Title is cleared. You can do that here. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar June 11, Monday, Measure 43, Assault Weapon Ban Signature Gathering Training, in Portland (emphasis on youth involvement) at 7pm at Augustana Lutheran Church, 2710 NE 14th Ave. June 12th Truthful Tuesday live-stream, National Poor People’s Campaign, Everybody's Got the Right to Live, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave, Portland. June 13, Wednesday, Measure 43, Assault Weapon Ban Signature Gathering Training, in Salem at 7pm at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, 790 Marion St N.E. June 14, Thursday, Measure 43, Assault Weapon Ban Signature Gathering Training, in Eugene at 7pm at First Christian Church, 1166 Oak St. June 18th, Salem, National Poor People's Campaign, Direct action to demand an end to the distorted narrative of scarcity. June 19th, Truthful Tuesday live-stream, National Poor People’s Campaign, A New and Unsettling Force, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave, Portland. June 19, Tuesday, Measure 43, Assault Weapon Ban Signature Gathering Training, in Portland at 7pm at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 147 NW 19th Ave. June 20, Wednesday, Measure 43, Assault Weapon Ban Signature Gathering Training, in Bend at 7pm at Trinity Episcopal Church, 469 NW Wall St. Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Oregon City. Mark your Calendar. This spring, right after the terrible school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, an interfaith group of religious leaders and young people gathered at Augusta Lutheran Church in Portland. They decided it was time to do something. It is from this meeting that Measure 43, a ballot measure to limit the sale and ownership of assault weapons, was born.
The coalition, Lift Every Voice, proposes two steps to make Oregon a safer place for all residents. The first step is to ensure that semiautomatic weapons and large capacity magazines are registered by responsible gun owners. The second step is to prohibit the future sale of these weapons and magazines in Oregon . This campaign was started out of a passionate conviction, and the timeline for getting signatures gathered to make it on the ballot is tight. Everything is ALMOST ready to begin gathering signatures. The push for the 88,184 signatures needed will not begin until court challenges to the Ballot Title have been cleared. After that there will only be a few days or weeks to gather signatures before the July 6th deadline. Lift Every Voice is asking that people who want to gather signatures get trained before the ballot title is cleared. That way signature gathers can be ready to start gathering signatures ASAP! Action of the Week - Mark your calendars to attend a short training on petition gathering for Measure 43. Lift Every Voice says "These trainings will be less than one hour in length and are open to all who want to support this effort by learning how to effectively gather signatures to put this measure on the November 6, 2018 ballot." Monday, June 11 in Portland (emphasis on youth involvement) at 7pm at Augustana Lutheran Church, 2710 NE 14th Ave. Wednesday, June 13 in Salem at 7pm at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, 790 Marion St N.E. Thursday, June 14 in Eugene at 7pm at First Christian Church, 1166 Oak St. Tuesday, June 19 in Portland at 7pm at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 147 NW 19th Ave. Wednesday, June 20 in Bend at 7pm at Trinity Episcopal Church, 469 NW Wall St. You can check out Lift Every Voice's website and sign up as a volunteer here if you want to know more. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar June 5th, Truthful Tuesday live-stream, National Poor People’s Campaign,The Right to a Healthy Planet, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave, Portland. June 12th Truthful Tuesday live-stream, National Poor People’s Campaign, Everybody's Got the Right to Live, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave, Portland. June 19th Truthful Tuesday live-stream, National Poor People’s Campaign, A New and Unsettling Force, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave, Portland. Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar The Oregon Poor People’s Campaign will be livestreaming Truthful Tuesday Teach-Ins presented by the national Poor People’s Campaign, from 4:30 – 7:00 pm each Tuesday during the 40 days of Action.
The livestream will be from 4:30 – 6:00 pm, followed by local discussion and Q&A about the campaign and its goals. The goal of the teach-ins is to create an opportunity for deeper education on the issues at the heart of this campaign and to build power among our community, bringing us together through deeper discussion and reflection. Action of the Week: Join with the campaign for Truthful Tuesday Teach-Ins on May 29, June 5, 12, 19 from 4:30 – 7:00 pm in Eliot Chapel, First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Avenue, Portland. Each week, in the Truthful Tuesday Teach-Ins we will learn more about the intersectionality of the four evils addressed by the campaign: system racism, systemic poverty, militarism and ecological devastation, and the reframing and correction of the current moral narrative.
Here is a link for a flyer to use at your congregation.Contact: Rev. Connie Yost, cyost@uuma.org, 503-385-2135 In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar The Oregon Poor People's Campaign will be joining with Portland Democratic Socialists of America in a rally and action in Salem on Monday, May 21. Governor Kate Brown is calling a special session to cut taxes for business owners. Join us to protest this tax cut for already wealthy individuals. As reported in The Oregonian, this tax plan will mostly benefit high-income individuals making well over $200,000 a year. It would take away critical revenue needed to fund schools, affordable housing, and other vital services. Giving a tax break to wealthy business owners is moving us in the wrong direction. Our country and our state needs a fair, tax system that can provide the services we need. Our schools, our elders and the mentally ill have a hard time lobbying for services. We need to do it for them. There are two possible Actions of the Week. Action 1: Join the Oregon Poor People's campaign and the Portland Democratic Socialists of America at their rally on the Capitol steps to protest this special session for the wealthy. The rally is in Salem on Monday May 21 from12-1pm. Tell our state officials that we want our tax system to reflect our values! Immediately following the rally, the Oregon Poor People's Campaign will lead people in an action that may result in civil disobedience; other participants may be witnesses. Watch for the email from the Oregon Poor People's Campaign that will have the RSVP link. Sign up here to receive the email. Action 2: If you can't make it to Salem (or even if you can), let your Oregon legislators know that you do not want to see them pass this tax cut. You can do that here. Your email will give the legislators and Governor Brown some suggestions. They could make the tax cut revenue neutral, meaning it will not affect the Oregon State Budget. They can put a sunset date on the tax cut so it runs out a few years from now. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar May 18-20th Rural Organizing Project, 2018 Rural Caucus and Strategy in the Dalles. More Info Sept 15 -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar! My legislator, Senator Michael Dembrow, is a wonderful liberal legislator. When I go to a Salem lobby day, I often find he wrote the legislation I was going to lobby him about. Or if he didn't write it, at least he sponsored it! I end up congratulating him for doing the right thing!
I’ve heard this story of liberal people lobbying like minded legislators many times. Urban legislature tend to be liberal, rural legislature tend to be conservative. Senator Dembrow has said to me something like, 'do you have friends and family in rural Oregon? If so, talk to them, because it’s those rural legislators that need to know more about this bill.' Outside of contacting our rural cousins and friends, or moving to a beautiful rural setting, what can we do about the rural-urban divide? I try to remember we aren’t all urbanites. We do have small UU congregations all over Oregon in rural areas. And we have rural members of our urban congregations. This action of the week is especially for our congregations in Grants Pass, Roseburg, Astoria, McMinnville, Klamath Falls, Hood River, Newport, Florence, Bend, and Coos Bay. It's also for UU’s who live in the country but attend a congregation in Ashland, Eugene, Corvallis, Salem or Oregon City. That is quite a few people! The Action of the Week: attend the Rural Organizing Project’s2018 Rural Caucus & Strategy Session in the Dalles over the Friday through Sunday May 18-20th week-end. Sign up here,and mark your calendars. Here is an agenda of what is happening at the gathering:
You can support rural UUs by attending the Friday events and participate in the NORCOR Rally and dinner. Here is a little bit about The Rural Organizing Project (ROP). It’s a statewide organization of locally-based groups that work to create communities accountable to a standard of human dignity: the belief in the equal worth of all people, the need for equal access to justice, and the right to self-determination. Their three guiding principles are a lot like our seven principles:
ROP was started in 1992 in response to the Oregon Citizens Alliance’s terrible Abnormal Behaviors Initiative, which targeted gay and lesbian Oregonians for legalized second-class citizenship. Oregonians in small towns across the state mobilized, many for the first time. ROP stepped into this organizing opportunity to fill a niche the radical right was trying to claim. You can read more on their great website . Create a more just Oregon and support the Rural Organizing Project. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell Calendar May 12, Saturday -- Lummi Totem Pole Journey, Ecotruct blg, Portland, More Details Here May 15, Monday -- Poor People's Campaign, First Action Day, Salem SIgn Up Here Sept 15, Saturday -- Oregon Unitarian Universalist Voices for Justice Annual Social Justice Conference. Mark your Calendar I love the lower Columbia River near Kalama, Washington. There is no better place to paddle my kayak, watch the birds, and fall in love again with the beauty of the earth. Kalama, halfway between Portland and Longview is near Sand Island, where I have overnighted with my kayak, waking up to morning bird song. It's a little bit of paradise.
The Action of the Week is to protect the lower Columbia River and speak out against a proposed methanol refinery in Kalama. If built, this single refinery would consume more fracked gas every day than all households and power plants in the state of Washington. By 2025, the Kalama methanol refinery would be Washington’s number one cause of greenhouse gas pollution. And for what? Fracked natural gas would be sent to Kalama via trains, barges or pipeline. With much of it coming through the Columbia Gorge. It would be unloaded and refined into methanol at the refinery. This polluting gas would then be shipped overseas to China to make plastic, only to be shipped back to us as finished products. All part of the more economy! Oregon and Washington have formed a thin green line against new fossil fuel infrastructure. We have been saying no to pipelines, refineries and transfer ports to pressure this industry to stop oil and gas extraction. We need a NEW economy that doesn't rely on fossil fuels. Join Columbia Riverkeeper's petition to Governor Jay Inslee to stop this refinery. Click Here! In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell The sanctuary movement is a new movement with a proud history. Traditionally sanctuary means opening the church building as a protected place for those who need protection. The new sanctuary movement is more than that. It includes political work and protest in coalition with other churches and communities.
Here are two recommended actions for this week related to sanctuary. I featured these same actions two weeks ago. Action of the Week no. 1 is to attend new sanctuary Training on Friday April 27, from 1-5pm at Lloyd Center DoubleTree Hotel, 1000 NE Multnomah St. Portland, OR 97232. Readying Ourselves for Solidarity with Sanctuary has three master trainers working together to present new sanctuary training. Using an accompaniment model, Katia Hansen, President and CEO of UURISE, Cynthia Good, Diversity Trainer, and Paul Langston-Daley, senior program leader for justice building with UUSC, have put together a special training. Learn how your congregation can be effective in support of immigrant rights. What you learn will have broad applications to all your social justice work! The training ends at 4pm. The group will then breakout by issue. We will meet for one hour around topics of human rights, climate justice and poverty. This training/caucusing is supported by the UUA, UUSC, the Oregon, Washington and California State ActionNetworks, and UURISE, a UU sanctuary/immigration rights group. It is free and open to the public. To register and for more information, Click here. Action of the Week no. 2 The Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice (IMIRJ) is having a vigil/action at NORCOR in the Dalles on Saturday April 28th from 10:30am to 3pm. Join this coalition group as they bring people of faith from all over the region to stand in solidarity with the immigrants held at NORCOR. Rev. Rick Davis, UU minister from the Salem Congregation, will be a special speaker. For more on this organization, and this particular action click here. In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsel Every few weeks I have been running something on the Poor People's Campaign. It is morally focused campaign against systemic racism, poverty, the war economy and ecological devastion. It is calling out the fact that our country's morality has been distorted by powerful interests.
The Poor People's Campaign is a big campaign with plans for 40 days of action starting on May 14th. It won't go away after that. Every year it intends to get larger and stronger. I urge you to sign up for their informational emails HERE. That way you can know what is going on. The Action of the Week is to register for The Poor People's Campaign local Teach-In and Trainings. The campaign takes a disciplined approach. To participate in one of their direct actions, you must attend a training. (There will be options for those who've not been able to engage in training to fulfill support and witness roles as well.) The Teach-In and Training dates continue throughout April and May all over Oregon. Training dates and RSVP Links: Sunday, April 22 in Portland - Noon-7pm RSVP for the Portland Training. Publicity Flyer Sunday, April 29 in Josephine/Jackson County - Cancelled. Emailoregon@poorpeoplescampaign.org if you are in southern Oregon and are hoping to be trained before May 14th. Saturday, May 5 in Corvallis - 1pm-7pm RSVP for the Corvallis Training Publicity Flyer Sunday, May 6 in Hood River - Noon-7pm RSVP for the Hood River Training Publicity Flyer In Love and Faith, Rev. Katie Larsell |
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