Collective Liberation
“Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Poet Emma Lazarus
Rev. Claudia and I spend a lot of time thinking, individually and together, about the life of this congregation and the best ways we can serve. We meet each week, with Donald as senior staff and one on one together, to dream and scheme – co-conspire! – about how we can share our gifts to magnify your gifts, and serve our beloved Asheville community, North Carolina, our Unitarian Universalist faith.
Both Rev. Claudia and I believe deeply in collective liberation. We use this term, and some folx aren’t quite sure what it means. Terms like “anti-racism” or other more discrete notions are more familiar, but collective liberation means only: “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” Your salvation is bound up in my own. Wherever we are going, we are going there together.
That means we are working to wrestle free of the binds of “oppression olympics”- my suffering is greater than yours! We are aiming for a deep understanding that all risks matter, all harms are harmful, and while we may not all be at the same risk or vulnerability at the same time, our faithful work is to face this imperfect world together, and work to build a better one: one where all of us can live safe, healthy, and free. We do work to resist harms where they are. We stand together.
And an essential part of this work is to find ways to talk, with compassion and a spirit of openness, about those harms we face, the struggles that are devastating us or our beloveds, and each one of us to find ways to build power, create community, and find alternate paths toward that better world of which we dream. One way your ministers are doing this this year is by our Collective Liberation minutes – small, bite-size education and conversation opportunities built into regular meetings and gatherings. We hope that every person who enters our doors will, in some way, personally commit to the work of collective liberation. It is a part of our mission here at UU Asheville.
And so, we carry on, together. Join us, in the pews on Sunday, at a social or justice gathering, to learn and to lead. We need each other.
Love,
Rev. Audette