THE COURAGE TO BE: Voting Courageously and with Conscience
“Try to think bigger than you ever have or had courage enough to do: that blackness is not where whiteness wanders off to die: but that it is like the dark matter between stars and galaxies in the Universe that ultimately holds it all together.”
We are witnesses to a critical juncture in time where we must choose courage. This is not an option for we are citizens of a Kairos moment summoning us to rise to the occasion. We must rise, if not for ourselves, we must do so for the ancestors who resiliently fought for a freedom we, a distant generation inherited. We must – for the unborn who will look back with the lyrical hope of a gospel hymn and ask, “How we got over?” Did we choose the expedient path of comfort or the inconvenience of truth? We must rise for the galaxies in the Universe so that love will not need a passport or visa to abide ubiquitously.
Community Renewal Society, in solidarity with our passionate congregational partners and coalitions, has dared to be the courageous ones before. What an ambitious vision to be a conveyor of love, social justice, faith and inclusion. I am certain we must not forget the mantra of those who envisioned Beloved Community 138 years ago. We hail such a beautiful legacy and we are its trustees with a fiduciary duty to build upon it and not choose contentment. In this moment with a general election before us, we must not resign to play it safe. In this movement for Black and Brown lives, we must be on the megaphones disrupting silence, unsatisfied with the antagonists of justice, goodness and mercy.
Last year we declared at our annual meeting “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” This has not changed. We are the ones and, with righteous resistance, we must declare as people of faith committed to social justice and Beloved Community – we will not accept the persistence of racism, sexism, elitism or other acts of violence as the norm. We will not normalize white supremacist patriarchy or glorify white privilege. That is why in this New Year at our annual meeting, we prophetically declared, “We Must Breathe!” We must breathe insists on affirming the humanity of the disinherited and the stolen lives victimized by the aforementioned. It does not serve us well to miss the moments to poke holes into darkness and to declare that our very breath of life matters! With our votes we breathe, we resist, we dismantle and we rebuild and reclaim our humanity, using our own tools anchored in love.
Much is at stake, not solely, because there is an election before us. The incessant systems perpetuating poverty, inequity in healthcare and taxes, homophobia, housing discrimination, sexism, and the disruption and displacement caused by gentrification, threatens our humanity. The health pandemic and disease of racism exposes the urgency of now. For this generation, the time is now to charter new paths of righteous resistance. Righteous resistance includes casting our ballots, but it is not our only path. Freedom is a constant struggle and we urge everyone to vote and to approach every election courageously and with conscience just as the courageous ones who mobilized for civil rights, anti-apartheid and anti-lynching movements did. Nevertheless, our movement is not once every four years.
We ask you to remember to Vote YES for Fair Tax so that we can build a more equitable reality for all. We invite you to check out our town halls on judicial candidates to learn more about their platforms, because as we have learned with recent appointments in the high courts, we must be vigilant with all branches of government – executive, congressional and judicial. Next week, after Election Day, join CRS as we host an End Money Bond Virtual Day, November 12. With this work comes accountability and we invite you to continue to reach out to alderpersons and our city’s mayor urging them to pass the GAPA Ordinance.
No matter what happens on Tuesday, November 3, we will emerge with wounds, triggers and protracted realities of a divided nation. Our lamentations decrying racism and poverty will not evaporate into thin air. There will be a need for healing. CRS will introduce our partnerships and commitments to hosting healing circles alongside our newly added healing justice platform. We hope you will participate in the safe spaces where we hope to nurture truth telling, peace building, Beloved Community building, Ubuntu and restorative hope with our neighbors.
We must find the courage to construct new norms of power used to serve in solidarity and love. We must be the healing balms, dreams, prayers and the hope we behold, today. Otherwise, we risk missing the apt opportunities that beseech us right now to be bigger, bolder and braver.
When we go to the polls, do so not for the sake of simply electing a new official. Those positions come with term limits in most cases. Do so for the sake of restorative justice, human rights, righteous resistance and love. Let it be for the sake of each name immortalized as a hashtag due to the injustices of bigotry and normalized cultures of violence. Do so for the generations to come counting on us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our neighbor made in the image of God.
We are it. We are the ones.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
With Prayerful Courage to Be,
Rev. Dr. Waltrina N. Middleton
Executive Director
P.S. Mark your calendar for the (In)Justice for All Film Festival in December.