Dear Friend, With a new year on the horizon, many of us look to its possibilities and wonder what good can be wrought. And for us, that is as much a theological question as it is a tactical and programmatic question. At UUSJ, we use a range of tools to help you advance equitable national policies and actions aligned with UU values. We collaborate with allies and coalitions throughout civil society. We develop moral persuasion campaigns. We organize and host policy briefings. We create and amplify actions. We mobilize for witness. We invite you into fellowship for long-haul work, not just the loophole work. We facilitate engagement with legislators. Together we act for a just, compassionate, and sustainable world community. We invite your support for that work. We ask you to consider sustaining that engagement. Friend, all of that is well and good, but the superpower we attempt to leverage, the mustard seed that we try to cultivate and grow, is, in fact, your capacity for “sacred dreaming” watered by “spiritual discipline.” We invite you to dream what could and should be: the positive alternatives we can collectively envision for the betterment of our society and body politic. We encourage discipline to advance our union toward greater compassion, inclusion, equity, and justice. To approach radical inclusion and achieve beloved community— a circumstance in which we can all thrive, not just survive. As we showcase through our words and actions, our collective work is about more than resisting the policy violence that has been perpetrated and that some actors want to continue. It is about a future beyond the realities we face today. It is about championing the positive alternatives. We are dedicated to what comes next as much as thwarting the harms of the moment. We constantly remind ourselves that we have covenanted to build a healthy, inclusive, responsive democracy, and that means we are equally focused on the bigger picture and on the freedom and fulfillment possible. Friend, we do not claim to have discovered this insight or attitude; instead, we recognize it as an established practice of adaptation, survival, and flourishing in the face of adversity, which we accept as a gift from spiritual, intellectual, and movement ancestors. It is a vocation modeled on the experience of those facing acute, sustained harm who persist despite oppression and repression. We remember what UUA President Rev. Dr. Sofía Betancourt teaches—the awe-inspiring capacity of Climate Justice work is the ability to envision a future of flourishing. That is a creative, liberatory space where BIPOC communities and immigrants, women, and queer folk have quietly led for some time. Often by necessity. At UUSJ, we simply apply that insight across our portfolio to advance economic justice, immigration justice, healthy democracy, and environmental and climate justice. As we approach a new year, we invite you to do some sacred dreaming and nurture spiritual discipline, to lean into our collective superpower. Let the days and nights of transition between years – when so much feels possible – be filled with curiosity for what should be. Let your imagination run free in wonderment at what can be. Let the prospect of a better future inspire you to build a strong relationship with democracy and everything that is truly meaningful in our lives. Let's do that together! Friend, join us now and in the next year with renewed energy for what we can build together in 2026 and beyond. - All of us at Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice |
