Justice draws our actions and attention back to our aspirations, promises, and spiritual vows. Justice is ultimately a demand for integrity, and justice-making is the quest to live with reverence. When we are frightened and angry to hating, justice-making invites us to reverence and respect. When we are ignoring the injustices that benefit ourselves, justice-making invites us back into right relationship not with our personal comfort and benefit, but with the common good. When we are finding ourselves isolated in our own experiences of oppression, justice-making returns us to community, to hope, and using our differing gifts for the good.

Jesus taught, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” (Luke 12:34, Matthew 6:21) What we truly value is shown by where we put our hearts and hands. How are we caring for those who are hurting? How are we creating a world of greater dignity and respect for all? How are we tending and restoring the desecrated places and the broken-hearted?

One of the pressing justice-making practices of our time is sometimes called eco-justice. No one wants to live in a toxic dump, no one wants foul air or water for their own breathing and drinking, and everyone knows that a healthy environment is a healthy and happier place to live. In a world where there are lots of toxins and toxic places, water and fertile land inequities, and the extraction of resources without care for the sustainability of those resources, power and wealth can buy relief from the effects of ecological destruction, though as those effects become bigger and bigger, only the most powerful and most wealthy can buy relief.

What do we truly value? What do our actions say?

How do we eat? What do we breathe? Where do we live? How do we move around in the world? What do we consume? Eco-justice touches on all these questions. Yet these questions all come down to the practical spiritual issue of reverence. How we live reflects what we truly value, no matter how many aspirations or promises we have, no matter what covenant we may believe holds us. If we are living with a me-before-you attitude, or as though the world is our personal property to use up with no responsibilities to anyone or anything else past, present, or future, then we are living hollowly, without awe and reverence for the wonder of life. Our hearts and hands are work point to what we value.

Each day when I wake I am astonished to still be part of this amazing life with all its complexity, diversity, and deep dependence upon the whole. As a christian Universalist, I’ll show that wonderment with a prayer of gratitude and a prayer of awe. But that is only the beginning of the day. How shall I live reverently the rest of the day? How shall I attend to the whole of life, to the whole of creation? How shall I join in the healing and hope of the Holy today? Eco-justice-making is broad path of my living with reverence, from tending the health of where I live to seeking to protect places I will never go and help peoples I will never meet. That is the way of reverence. We may only know imperfectly and in part. We are finite in our hours and our days. But together, tending the good of the whole, we give ultimate praise and thanks, praying without ceasing as our deeds reflect our words, our dreams, and our hearts.

Naomi King lives, laughs, and ministers with City of Refuge Ministries, in south Florida and everywhere digital.

I shaved my head with a Bic razor when I turned 21 years old. I did it intentionally and as a ritual of sorts. I wanted to do something quasi-original for my 21st birthday (in addition to the partying, which to be certain, I did as well). Though shaving your head isn’t that original, deciding to do it completely sober as ritual of reaching a milestone in our culture seemed about the right amount of original for me. I was elated to find out that I didn’t have an odd shaped head and that I actually looked really cute with a bald head. I thought about how I was pushing up against culturally norms of femininity but how I also felt that this new look more closely matched an expression of my genuine self. I have kept my hair short ever since. During that time I also absolutely came to relish the pets and touches that my friends jokingly, shockingly, and in surprise lavished upon me.

I distinctly remember one encounter in downtown Minneapolis that didn’t go so well. I had met my friends who were dancing at club. I had a lot of things to do in the morning so I decided to abstain from drinking that night. As I left the club early, on my own and with my shaved head, in jeans and blouse revealing just a little cleavage, a group of young white men eyed me leaving the club. As I felt my heartbeat quicken—I realized I was afraid of them, the stares, their energy and their presence…then my ears caught just a couple words: “dyke” “butch,” “bitch.” It was almost as if they were hissing. They were seething with an energy I can’t explain, but it was meaning was unmistakably menacing. In that instant, I distinctly remember questioning why I had turned down my friends’ offer to walk me to the car. I didn’t feel so brave for challenging gender norms in that moment; in fact I regretted it a little bit. But in the club I had thought, my friends are having so much fun dancing… I am a rugby player I can take care of myself, no one needs to escort me. I’ll be fine. Of course I was not thinking that I would encounter an entire group of drunken, white, young men filled with some sort of vehemence that I can’t understand.

Tears started welling up in my eyes as I realized they were following me. I remember a rock forming in my throat, thinking would I fight back? Should I scream? Should I respond? They will know how scared I am. I can’t let them see how terrified I am, it will only feed them. My car was only about three blocks away. Should I run for it? They could clearly catch me. Would they beat me? Would they rape me? Mostly I remember being terrified. They taunted me, “Hey! Come back here!,” “Hey –baldy, let’s see how tough your are now—you fucking dyke!” I started walking faster. Somehow the streets all around were completely empty. I looked around in vain and realized I was alone on the street with these men. I decided to quicken my pace and make it to my car. So as long as I could get there I could be safe and then I would also have a really, big powerful weapon—my car. I just had to get there and open it. Tears were running down my cheeks by now, and my hands were now balled into tight fists, save for the key I had sticking out in a position ready to defend myself. As I turned a corner, I looked back to see how much time I had and how far away they were, and I actually bumped straight into a police officer. He took a step back, quickly ascertaining if I was a threat. He heard me coming and stopped where he was. I can imagine what he saw: my stature, my light brown skin, my bald head, my cleavage, the tears on my face, the key in my hand—my makeup streaking down my face, the terror in my eyes. He asked, “Are you okay Miss?” All I could get out was, “Guys…following me” before the men came drunkenly barreling around the corner. Their energy had an agitated edge to it, but when they saw the cop they suddenly fell silent. They shifted their direction as if they were going somewhere else all along. One of them even nodded his head at the cop and said, “Officer.” The officer responded by glaring and saying, “Move along.” A warning in his voice as he stared them down. Meanwhile one of them just glared at me with a look I will never forget. And they walked on.

It turns out the officer had been around the corner and heard their taunts. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but as he told me, he had been a cop long enough to recognize what that tone of voice usually meant. So he was following it to see if there was a problem. He was kind enough to walk me the next couple blocks to my car. He warned me about walking to my car alone—even for a “sturdy girl” like myself. He said I should be more careful next time and find a buddy to walk with.  I thanked him and said I would be more careful. I was shaking and crying. He asked me again if I was ok. I said yes, I’m ok—just shaken up. Thank you.

A couple things occurred to me in the days after that incident as I processed it. Though I was very thankful the cop walked me the rest of the way to my car, I couldn’t help but wonder at the sentiment in his last warning…he told me to be more careful. He told me not to walk alone. I wonder if he would have had the chance, if he would have told those men not to hunt me down. Would he say anything to them about their targeting me, their violent intentions, their hatred? I left that night feeling thankful for his protection but also as though it was my fault for not having taken my friends up on their offer for an escort. When the truth wasw, yes, I ought to have had an escort, AND it wasn't my fault.

It wasn’t my fault for being who I am in the world. It wasn’t my fault those men decided to target me, yell at me, and follow me because I had decided to shave my freaking head. It wasn’t my fault they were menacing thugs seeking to unleash violence on someone they read as non-conforming to their gender roles and hetero-normative sexual orientation in the world. I reacted with tears and retreat initially, but I know myself well enough to recognize that if, for instance, they would have surrounded me and smashed a beer bottle into my face, those tears would have become rage and I would have found a way to defend myself. I know that the person I was at that  point in my life would have met violence with violence. I had that key in my hand for a reason.

When I heard about CeCe McDonald’s experience, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own. I wonder in my situation—what if I had had a darker skin tone, and what if I hadn’t been crying? Would that officer have seen me as more of a threat? Wwould he have been so nice to me if he read me differently? What if I didn’t look like a cisgender woman showing cleavage with makeup on? What if I had been drinking, would the officer still have protected me?

This much I know. I was very, very lucky that night and I am forever thankful to that officer for protecting me—without him, I am certain my life would have changed that night, and been marred forever by some violent terror. I will never forget the fear I felt, the complete inequity of physical power, the threat those men brought into my world.

I cannot in good conscience say that the person I am today agrees with the means CeCe took to defend herself, but I can say I am sure am glad she defended herself. I can’t pretend to be completely saddened that a man with neo-nazi symbols tattooed on his chest is no longer in this world ,but I do at the same time know that the taking of life is a serious matter—even a life such as his. However, when I look deeper at this situation I see a transgender woman who was persecuted for being herself in the world and expressing herself. It wasn’t her fault that these intolerant, belligerent, mean-spirited people attacked her. CeCe wasn’t asking it for it by having the courage to be who she is called to be in the world—for being herself. It is not on CeCe to be more careful. It is not her fault.

CeCe’s case raises a lot of issues of how we do justice in our society. It is clear that skin color, gender, and class all play huge roles in the perceived level of responsibility and innocence. The intersections of privilege become clear here. Being white or even just perceived as white, having hetero-normative sexual orientations, and being perceived as cisgender translates into unfair and unjust treatment of our transgendered people—especially those transgendered people of color. If this weren’t so, they would not be taunted, threatened, physically beaten, and intimidated just for being who they are while the perpetrators are exonerated of any and all responsibility for things such as smashing a beer bottle into someone’s face. It is not CeCe’s “fault” for defending her life and this is not an exaggeration either—we know violence towards transgendered people of color often results in death. That beer bottle could have just as easily been plunged into CeCe’s main artery in her neck, killing her in minutes—instead it hit a saliva gland. She has been the victim of violence in the past. Personally, I cannot blame her for valuing her life and having enough sense of self worth to say I am worth fighting for, and I will take a stand against these people who have attacked me.

I don’t know CeCe McDonald, I have never met her, nor any of the bullies that attacked her as a group, but I know this: the way she was treated by the police and the judicial system is unjust. The way that she is solely being held responsible for this situation is unjust. It is not her fault for being who she is. There is fault to be shared by the hate-filled, intolerant group that put CeCe into a violent situation, forcing her to defend herself. When we explore why no one in the Minneapolis judicial system is seeking to hold the people who happen to be white, heterosexual, and cisgendered responsible for their actions, while CeCe faces 4 years imprisonment for defending her life, it is there where we can see the intersections of privilege and the most glaringly blatant forms of injustice in our judicial system. It is there where we can see whose life is valued and whose is not, and when we ask why, what the reason is for that value, we arrive at the intersections of privilege, which in this case happen to be the morally corrupt step children of the un-holiest of union between white supremacy and hetero normative gender roles supported by the power of the judicial system.

How would you respond surrounded by a group, yelling hateful epithets at you and your friend, when you are outnumbered and overpowered…then someone shatters a beer bottle into your face? Would you run? Would you be nice in your response and say please stop? Would you say please leave me alone? Would you do all of that and then just stand by and watch as they advanced towards you? Would you fight for your own safety, for your own life? Would you be polite when you fought back for your life? Would the tone in your voice be kind?

Cece’s only fault was having had the courage to be her true self in the world and having had the self-worth enough to fight for her own life when an entire group of people violently attacked her. When people with CeCe’s integrity, strength, and courage are white, straight, and cisgendered we tend to refrain from putting those types of people in prison, even if we are asking them to take responsibility for their actions. We usually give those people awards, actually, we call them role models, we call them brave, we call them a hero. We usually stand by their side—especially if they have defended something under attack that we value, even if in that defense lives have been lost.

CeCe’s defense of her life was justified and the responsibility she is asked to bear alone and in the ways she is being forced to bear it is unjust. She was attacked. And it isn’t right that she is held any more responsible for the sad turn of events that violence brought into the scene than those other people who initiated the violence by smashing a glass bottle into her face.

I send you love, CeCe. Keep standing up for yourself because you are worth it.We need more people in the world like you. We need more people in the world to be their true selves and transcend cultural norms to find their genuine expressions of self and life, whether that looks like short hair, transgender, or just a funny t-shirt. Courageous people like you make life more beautiful, not less. People who are brave enough to be themselves enrich life, they don’t detract from it. I am saddened that a life was lost and I regret that you chose to defend yourself in a way that ended up being lethal. But I know that justice looks different, for you and for the family who lost someone, and for the person that smashed a bottle into your face. Justice is different, it feels different and it is always tempered by love and understanding or else it is closer to something else, something like punishment, revenge, scape-goating…but whatever it is, the responsibility for what happened that night is not yours alone and this is not justice.


Lena Gardner is a graduate student and intern with the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. She helps take care of her very sweet and unfortunately ill Mother; she also loves a good romp at the dog park with Atty.

As newlyweds (married in June at North Parish of North Andover in Massachusetts), we have done our fair share of paperwork. The process of changing names (I took her last name, if you’re curious), joining finances, and other efforts have proven to be both challenging and exciting as we start our lives as a married couple. But of all the paperwork we have completed in the past few months, the most important has been the documentation to prepare for this deployment. The system of filing paperwork as a married couple when your marriage is not recognized on the federal level leaves much to be desired.

People think that because “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) has been repealed, that gay and lesbian troops are treated equally in the military, but this is far from the truth. The system is simply not equipped to deal with the variance in state and federal marriage laws, or accommodate same-sex partners of servicemembers. Needless to say, I see this not only as a personal issue, but also as a civil rights issue, and one that reflects our need for reform as a society. This is an issue of justice and equality.

As a person of Unitarian Universalist faith, I affirm the expression of love and commitment for many types of families. With the repeal of DADT, a big hurdle has been cleared in the ability of servicemembers to fully be themselves. But there is much work still to be done. The reality is that military personnel do not serve alone; their families also serve. Unfortunately, many of those families serve invisibly because the system is not set up to acknowledge them yet.

This month I will join hundreds of others in similar situations as we lobby in D.C. for equal rights for same-sex partners of military servicemembers. This is an effort to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, and educate our representatives about how current policies harm our families. I will be speaking as a person of Unitarian Universalist faith, and as a military spouse whose wife is deployed. I pray that my voice is heard.

As Theodore Parker once asserted, I truly do believe that the arc of the Universe bends toward justice. My hope is that, someday, all families of U.S. military personnel will be fully acknowledged, and that all same-sex partnerships are acknowledged on a federal level. Until that day, I believe that we are called as people of faith, as Unitarian Universalists, to spread the good news of our faith and its radical acceptance of GLBT persons and their families. We offer a unique perspective that affirms diversity, and we need to join the conversation! Yes, there is an arc that bends toward justice. And we have the opportunity to push it closer and closer to its goal.


Margaret Weis is the Ministerial Intern at First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist. A former counselor, she lives north of Boston with her wife, Susan, and two rescue dogs.

All our lives we are influenced and shaped and prepared in ways we neither are aware of nor understand. That preparation is easiest to see in our actions, those fruits of our spirits, especially when we do not have much time to ponder or any time to pause and simply must react.

That’s why players with black jerseys spend more time in the penalty box. The larger culture prepares many of us to associate the color black with evil – so many of us that we have now measured, in both ice hockey and football, the expectation of referees that black jerseyed players will commit more penalty-worthy offenses.¹

Racial profiling works the same way. Who seems safe and who seems risky?

We cannot live justly without training and preparing ourselves to counteract all of these other influences we undergo every day, often without awareness. Religion can only be a force for good in the world as we help and encourage one another – individually, as families, as communities – to live justly and to bring a merciful justice into fruition.

When it comes down to living justly, it helps to have simple guides that we can hold onto in those times when fear and hatred and greed are most likely to guide us. Love mercy. Love your neighbor. Love God. Love this earth. This is a path of true love of self, because reverence for life, for the Holy, for our neighbors cannot help but grow reverence for our self.

Yet we also have to train constantly. Awakened to color bias, how do we train ourselves to reclaim and grow reverence for the color black? Awakened to our biases about who seems safe and who seems risky, we take deliberate action to meet our apparently risky neighbors, to get to know them and to be known, to work together in something good for this earth and for our whole community, like planting a community garden together. Who seems risky and who seems safe changes out of such experiences and the world has a chance to shift a little more toward merciful, loving justice.

Justice is one of the fruits of faith, demonstrating our moral strength and capacity – and, often, where we need to keep trying, training, learning, and growing. How many years of practice will we need before the next study reveals no color bias in relationship to the penalty box? To answer that, we need to wrestle with our own hearts and attend to our neighbors’. To answer that, we need to be more aware of how often we casually assign one another to the penalty box and learn to live differently.

¹Shankar Vedantam, “Power (Dis)Play? Teams in Black Draw More Penalties” National Public Radio, April 26, 2012.


Naomi King lives, laughs, and ministers with City of Refuge Ministries in south Florida and everywhere digital.

“Only the broken heart has the ghost of a chance to grieve, to forgive, to long, to transform.” –Christina Baldwin

I don’t know of anything that has changed me as radically as becoming a parent. When the babies were born, everything changed. Many of the changes were expected – sleepless nights, a focus on the endless cycle of feeding-and-changing, a new identity and priorities, a different relationship with my spouse, and then more sleepless nights. There were unexpected changes, too, and these required more than a modified sleep schedule or a safer car.

As I gained the understanding that my son Adam was developing differently from his twin brother and most children, when I began hearing from medical professionals that his potential and possibilities in life would be “significantly reduced,” I began the process hat would change how I see the world and myself. For a time, all I could do was feel my loss and honor my grief. Moving through that painful time was the only way I could accept and forgive all that my son would experience. I had to attend to my own longing before I could find my strength. I had to develop a new way of looking at life before I could see potential and possibility differently. Transformation was a slow process that required patience and compassion for myself and my son.

Earlier this month, I attended the annual meeting of Adam’s team of teachers. What struck me most after the meeting was the hope we all share for Adam’s future. What a change from those early meetings, when our focus was on what Adam could not or might never do. When Adam was a little boy, I would have been discouraged or unsatisfied by the future we now envision for this young man. When he was a little boy, I saw the world and what it means to live a rich life very differently than I see it now. When Adam was younger, I imagined happiness in very narrow ways. Now, I see my child’s sweet nature, his desire to do a good job, and his genuine interests and affections as proof that possibility and potential cannot be defined once and for all by anyone – not for Adam or anyone else.

Iris Hardin attends Andover Newton Theological School and is a candidate for the Unitarian Universalist ministry.  She is married with three stepchildren in their late twenties and nineteen-year-old, twin sons.  Her son Adam has autism.

Korban is a Hebrew word for sacrifice or offering. This past Saturday I had the privilege of accompanying a friend to a Jewish Shabbat service celebrating the Bat Mitzvah of a young woman in their congregation at Mt. Zion Temple in St. Paul, MN.  And it is here where I learned about the Hebrew word korban. The service was multi-faceted and there were many, many parts that I didn’t understand. There was a lot of getting up and sitting down. There was a lot of call and response—some I could follow and some I could not, and some singing along too. The words felt foreign to my ears and a little alien to my tongue, as did turning the pages in the Prayer Book from left to right and seeing the Hebrew alphabet. What didn’t feel so different was the sense of love in the sanctuary. What didn’t feel so different was the love for this young woman and her family from the people in the Temple and seeing her Mother’s face overflowing with pride and shining with love. The sense of community and family was warm and welcoming to me as a visitor and resonated with my own sense of family.

Part of the service that stuck to me like glue is when the Rabbi got up to give a shortened message –are they called sermons? I don’t know. But what I do know is that something ever so small shifted in my heart when her words fell on my ears. She said that most kids when they come to their bat mitzvah or bar mitzvah service talk about sacrifice in terms of all they had given up over the years to prepare for this event. They sacrificed hours of studying, working, and time and energy in order to make it happen. She said, what most don’t yet know or just haven’t realized is that in the Torah, the Hebrew word for offering or sacrifice is most often korban. This word is derived from the verb meaning “to draw close.” When we think about sacrifice we often think about it in terms of what we are giving up, but how does it change us and what we do if we think of sacrifice in terms of what we are drawing closer to? For this young lady that may be drawing closer to God, to community, to self, to knowledge—whatever it is, she did give up some things but she also drew nearer to others.

In the past few days as I have been working on various projects, obligations, and responsibilities—especially fulfilling the responsibilities I have to my Mom (who is chronically and terminally ill)—hearing this message about sacrifice, about the Hebrew word korban, changed my heart. Every day, at some point or another, I began to think about what I am sacrificing to do any certain project. Before hearing this message, I pretty much just stopped thinking there. But in these past few days, I have started thinking about the other side—What am I drawing closer to? And I feel changed just for thinking about that. The way I have approached tasks with my Mom, my homework, my own body and the physical rehabilitation I am doing with my knee and back from previous serious injuries is changing and has changed.

Unfortunately, I can’t say that I have perfected anything. But I can say that I think I have discovered a new spiritual practice that is deepening my life experience. Yesterday, I was still upset about realizing that my Mom had lost her check card and it would fall on me to fit it into my schedule today to get her a new one. I was still upset when the washing machine broke and I had two weeks worth of laundry from my Mom and myself to catch up on and had to spend unplanned time and money at the laundromat. And I was still frustrated when I spent hours cleaning the house and my room and the bathroom didn’t get touched—but the kitchen and living room did get cleaned! But I did start to think differently about each of those tasks and what I was sacrificing to do them and what I was drawing closer to in choosing to do those over other competing tasks like homework, internship work, etc.

What I can say is that hearing that message changed me, just a little. But that little change is having rippling effects in my world. I am so thankful I got to go to that service and be a part of that celebration of that young lady. Though sometimes transformations happen in big sweeping life events, I think most of the transformations, for most of us, happen in the everyday. I know my life feels different these past few days since hearing that message, and I am experiencing my own consciousness and sense of being and time itself differently—and all in good, more life affirming, ways.

Lena Gardner is a graduate student and intern with the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. She helps take care of her very sweet and unfortunately ill Mother; she also loves a good romp at the dog park with Atty.

In a war there are perceived winners and losers; in a war there are friends and there are enemies. A war is driven by the desires of greed, of power, of domination, of control of resources, of hatred, of fear. In a war there is wounding beyond description and imagination, there is wounding that will never heal quite right. After a war one cannot sit next to the person who was once an enemy and see them as a person—forever more they will be an enemy.

I do believe that love is more powerful than fear, than greed, than power, and control. I do believe in love—and a not the fluffy white love that most people conjure up. I believe that being a truth teller requires sacrifice, that it does create wounds and it does create conflict but in a much different way than an enemy in a war would. Through love one can make peace with the sacrifice, one can heal their own wounds; one can manifest a new way of being out of conflict—in war no such peace exists with the sacrifice that was demanded. No such healing exists, and the way is closed.

In November 2012, Minnesotans will vote on two proposed changes to the state constitution. If successful one proposed amendment would define marriage as between one man and one woman only. The other proposed change if successful would make photo id a requirement in order to vote. These amendments, if adopted into the Minnesota state constitution would help enrich the lives of no one and would be harmful to many people.

These constitutional amendments are not war. We are in a struggle for justice. There will be no clear winner and losers—there will be the hurt, the wounded, and the hardened hearts of many. If we defeat this marriage prohibition amendment and the voter disenfranchisement amendment, the struggle will not end. Just as it did not being last week or last May and indeed the struggle may be ever lasting so long as we continue operating in it as if we are always at war with one another.

As a child, my conflicts with my brother closest in age to me became so intense that I told my older brother I hated him. My Dad overheard, and responded: “Lena, you are not allowed to say you hate your bother or anyone else because you are not allowed to hate. Period.” I protested, “But he hurts me and I do hate him.” My Dad’s response was hours of lecturing, but what came of it was essentially this: if I started hating everyone in the world who hurt me, I wouldn’t be able to love anyone. Because everyone in different ways, but in one way or another is sure to cause me hurt at some point in my life just by being human—that includes me causing harm to myself by making decisions one way or another. After that conversation with my Dad, I never intentionally tried to cause my brother harm in retribution born from hatred. Slowly I found something different began to grow in my heart after I actively decided to stop hating him. It was love that grew. And yet I have also never stopped struggling with my brother, we both have had to and continue to learn how to struggle with each other in a loving way.

It took me years to really fully understand the weight of my Dad’s words. But when I found myself as a person of mixed racial heritage hating white folks for the way they treated me and hating black folks equally as much for the ways they have outcast me, slowly I had begun to hate myself and everything I was made up of. Similarly in the aftermath of a violent sexual encounter when I was 19 years old I chose to hate men for a while. I ended up so alone, in such a dark place. I had no place in the world. Thankfully I played rugby and after some good therapy, years of spiritual seeking and growth, and really amidst the grief of my Father’s death I realized—Dad had been right all along. I cannot hate someone because they hurt me—intentionally or unintentionally, I cannot hate men, white folks and black folks and...and…and…and In fact I cannot allow myself to hate at all, because the cost is too high. I realized the immensity of my Dad’s words: I cannot hate because there will be no room for love in my heart if I do.

In this work for marriage equality and voter rights, in this work for justice for women, for minorities, for the LGBT community I do not allow myself to hate and I do not go to war. I link arms in a struggle to find a new way to be in the world. I link arms with generations of outcasts, of alienated, of oppressed that have gone before me and sacrificed their lives in one way or another. I link arms with those who are courageous next to me in this world and I move in the direction that as best I can see, is toward justice. I am afraid and I am scared in this justice work. Each time I get up to speak my knees are weak and my voice trembles. It is tempting to hate those other people for bringing this into my world, yet again, just this time in another form. And I have stumbled and I will continue to make mistakes—I will in one way or another fail. And I am afraid of facing the hatred, the intolerance but I find my anchor in love. Not a fluffy snow white love that does not take seriously pain and wounding, but the love that comes to me through chains, through hangings, through my shades of darker ancestors that holds me and tells me the way of the truth is not easy—it never has been. It is love that comes to me through the cold, watery, dark, unmarked graves of the Atlantic, that reaches me from afar. And it tells me love is the gift and it is a choice. But I know where there is hate, love cannot be, and where there is no love, justice cannot be because the way is closed by hate.

It is with the words of activist, poet, and writer Audre Lorde ringing in my ears: “Your silence will not protect you,” that I speak. There is no light for this path I am on, save the light from within my own conscience. When I shine it into the past I see I am one of many—and that is comforting to me. When I shine it forward, I see little clearly but hope vividly. So each day and sometimes each moment I refuse to hate and I turn to love so that I do not close the way for justice. I will not go to war, but make no mistake about it; I will not be passive and silent in the face of injustice. Make no mistake, I will not hate you but I will call you to be accountable for your actions in love. Make no mistake, I am not a soldier and I will not ruthlessly slay you as my enemy but I will hold you uncomfortably close and fight you as though you are my brother—and you can go ask him if I ever give up. For those who have gone before me, I struggle. For those who are oppressed in ways I cannot know, I choose love and that means I will struggle.

Perhaps it came as a dictate from my Dad, but I now know it as a lived reality in myself-I have to choose love. As a middle-class African-American woman, I cannot perpetually be at war with the world. Perhaps it is the privilege of those within the dominant power structure to pick and choose when they go to war and who is the enemy, the next target but for the rest of us, we struggle—every single day. In this world I live in the United States, in Minneapolis, my people are the worst of the worst. New immigrants gauge their status based on how far away they can remove themselves from my people, the black people, from me. Consistently throughout time and history, the people that I know and love and the cultural heritage that I claim, the family that I know and love has been thought of in subhuman terms. Some of my folks have given up, some folks try to assimilate more and more into dominant culture claiming as their own a class and hetero power and oppressing others to pseudo-heal their own wounds, and some folks keep struggling. But we are not at war because if everyday is a war, if everyone around you is an enemy then life very simply, becomes miserable and unbearable and there is no hope. This is a struggle for justice and it didn’t begin last week or last May and it will not end on November 6th—even if we are successful.

We are not at war. I commend you if this is the flashpoint that has moved you to join the struggle for justice. Love is the way and it is not easy but I sure am glad to have your company.


Lena Gardner is a graduate student and intern with the Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance. She helps take care of her very sweet and unfortunately ill Mother; she also loves a good romp at the dog park with Atty.

I am a military wife.

This is an identity I never anticipated claiming. The daughter of a father who was drafted during Vietnam, I have not always held the military in the highest esteem. Even when I worked at the VA with veterans of all ages, I did not envision myself as married to a servicemember in a million years! I have always respected military servicemembers, and appreciated their service. But to be honest, I really had no interest in being part of that system! And yet, years later, I claim this identity with admiration and appreciation for my spouse and her commitment to service as a Captain in the United States Air Force Reserve.

Life works in mysterious ways, and is constantly stretching me. When I fell in love with Susan, it became clear that the military would become part of my life. While this is not always easy, I know that her status as a “future-minister’s wife” is no walk in the park either! But each of us feels called to our vocations, and it is amazing to have a partner who understands what it feels like to be called. And, as a friend of mine described perfectly, it is a voluntary military and a voluntary marriage. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.

I write this entry at the beginning of a new journey for us, one week after Susan began a 6-month deployment to Afghanistan. This deployment came as a bit of a surprise to us, as it was originally planned to start in October. Needless to say, it has been an adjustment to have her away. But life is one big adjustment, isn’t it? Just when we feel comfortable somewhere or with someone, things shift. What a ride!

And so, I have joined the ranks of thousands of other women and men who are spouses and partners to servicemembers in the United States Armed Forces. It is not a role I completely understand as of yet, and I learn at least one new thing every day about what is expected and necessary for the support of such a calling. I am learning how to respond to people’s questions about where she is, and why she serves. I am learning how to explain what it is like to have my spouse on the other side of the world on a base in a place that is fraught with violence and conflict. And I am learning how to be there for her, and provide support and love across the miles and time zones and technical difficulties.

And I have come to learn that I have more in common with “military wives” than I once thought. I’m related to some of them! When my father was drafted during Vietnam, he and my mother were married two weeks before he left for a 6-month tour. And years before that, my aunt and uncle were married just before my uncle left to serve on a submarine for a 6-month tour. Both of their marriages are still strong, and loving, and solid after 50 and 42 years, respectively. So when other military spouses tell me that this deployment will make my marriage stronger, I can’t help but believe them.

The next six months will bring challenges, as all experiences in life do. But they will also offer opportunities for reflection, appreciation, and transformation.


Margaret Weis is the Ministerial Intern at First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist. A former counselor, she lives north of Boston with her wife, Susan, and two rescue dogs.

People say that time changes us; that with every new experience or event in our lives, we are somehow altered. While I think this is somewhat true, I tend to embrace a different framework. I embrace the idea that time does not change us, but rather unfolds us. This is a saying attributed to Max Frisch. It is a quote that I have hanging in my living room, next to a picture of me and my wife. The picture is of our hands, intertwined in one another, and the ribbons we used in our handfasting ceremony during our wedding service. It is a testament to the nature of our relationship, as a consistently evolving and transformative experience; the openness to love one another, and the potential for unfolding that is inherent within.

This idea of our lives unfolding is the way I think about the concept of transformation. While people can certainly change throughout their lifetimes, it seems that with each passing day, we mostly become more and more who we are. And so it is in marriage, parenting, and any relationship where we are invested and committed. Such relationships help us to go beyond ourselves, and see things from a different perspective. This change in our lens helps us to see our strengths and gifts, and areas where there is room to grow.  It seems that at the core of who we are, there is potential for growth and transformation. In each of those relationships, we learn more about ourselves, and the way we are in the world.

Just as a tree takes on different shapes and sizes throughout its lifespan, from seed to sapling, to sturdy oak, so do we as human beings. We are constantly emerging, growing, and changing shape. For many of us, this includes assuming new roles or taking on new responsibilities. Ideally, I suppose these roles would all converge into one and we would be integrated and whole beings. But that is so difficult sometimes!

Often, our roles conflict with one another, or cause tension in our lives or relationships. But even in those moments, there is a potential for growth and unfolding; there is a chance for transformation. We unfold across our lifespan, and grow more into who we are. In those instances, there is also a possibility of transformation for others’ ideas about us and the many roles we hold. The potential for transformation, for learning, and for understanding lies within us and around us. Perhaps the key to such a discovery or development lies in our ability to live the journey and be open to all of the things (good and bad) that we might realize about ourselves. And perhaps the most effective thing we can do is not strive to become someone or something else, or to change who we are, but to let our lives unfold to exhibit the transformation that has taken place.


Margaret Weis is the Ministerial Intern at First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist. A former counselor, she lives north of Boston with her wife, Susan, and two rescue dogs.

In my teens, I grew into a lover of fairy tales and of geeky history, but when it came to appreciating the alchemists that populated both shelves in the library, I was puzzled. How could the alchemists not understand the daily transformation of dross into gold that formed their trenchers and fed their bodies while their minds wandered in the arcane realms of what would, in the centrifuge of scientific method, become chemistry and magic?

Yes, I’m talking about bread. The staff of life made from wheat or barleycorn or rye or teff, mixed with those unseen exuberant contaminants wild yeasts, and run through an oven fired, in many places, with dead wood or dried dung. Bread was this daily dross turned into gold. But it remained the secret wisdom of bakers – familial or professional – and the alchemists did not see it.

Today, I still love that magical moment when ick begins to take on the promise of dinner, when the air becomes fragrant with hope.  Passover is just past, when observant Jews and some Christians only eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction. Yet this bread – matzoh – is a bread of hope, the bread that is packed in haste for the journey out of slavery. It is bread of transformation.

The Christian communion begins also with bread of affliction, for communion returns us to Passover and to one disciple choosing slavery, not freedom, and betraying Jesus. We can always choose oppression. We can always choose to further affliction. But as with the bread of affliction in Passover, choosing the bread of communion is choosing to transform that sorrow and suffering with love. When I take communion, I am participating in another promise fragrant with hope, another transformative moment of the spirit. Love sacrifices sometimes to save. Choosing love’s transforming power, we choose not affliction but freedom, not the ease of oppression, but the life of sacrifice and service, daily engaging in transformation of dross into spiritual gold.

Whenever I am baking or breaking bread, I am reminded of those alchemists, seeking astounding transformation. Astounding transformation is right here, in every day. The question for us is whether we will choose to participate in it, with the sacrifices and troubles and sorrows that steadfast love encounters and transforms. The alchemy of transforming love is open to us all.


Naomi King lives, laughs, and ministers with City of Refuge Ministries, in south Florida and everywhere digital.