Month: November 2016

#4 JBI Kitittas Valley UUC and UUC of Yakima

Posted on by Julia Cochrane

Part 1 Kitittas Valley UU Church – Ellensburg

img_6665KVUUC

img_6669Rev. Bill Graves and other justice activists

The Kitittas Valley UU congregation is a wonderfully friendly and energetic group of people from the sample I met with. They are housed in a church which also houses the Quaker and Buddhist groups of Ellensburg. KVUUC has just been recertified as a Green Sanctuary and part of this is dealing with the negative impacts of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) on the environment and aquifer, to the point that water for a new school is brought in because the well is contaminated.

Part of responding to the CAFO issue is a Vegetarian Society with a large vegan contingent. The group worked with the city to pass a plastic bag ban and is trying to get the university to divest from fossil fuel investments. There is also a bee garden on the side of the church and several around town. And they are involved in supporting a local effort to recycle bicycles for children who need them.

img_6737-1The road between Ellensburg and Yakima

Part 2 Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery workshop

at St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Yakima

On Saturday I attended a 5 hour workshop on Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery led by Rev. David Hacker of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church with a grant from the Roanridge Foundation. (He had an excellent powerpoint that he is willing to share and I will include a link to it here when it becomes available.) Both he and the Rev. Anne Barton had gone to Standing Rock and had been part of 50 ministers who burned a copy of the Doctrine of Discovery and read denominational letters of repudiation. UU World wrote an article about it.

Part 3 UU Church of Yakima

img_6766I attended the Sunday Service by Rev. Ken Jones and am sharing the below quotes which I found inspiring in these dark times.

“An audacious faith in the future.”

“When Armistice Day became Veteran’s Day, a holiday to celebrate the end of war turned into a day honoring perpetual war.”

“Those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics, do not know what religion means.” Mahatma Gandhi

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Some of the group of justice seekers at UUC of Yakima

The UU congregation of Yakima has a wonderfully large and beautiful traditional church building. They use their space to house several other faith traditions as well as a woman’s shelter. Their is interest in recommitting to bolder and better ways of doing justice. One of the ideas that seems to be percolating with them is to become a Sanctuary Church. The UUA has an issue brief on the New Sanctuary Movement. Their was concern about the Dreamers – the DACA people – getting yanked from their families and their communities. They felt that it would be useful to connect with UU people around Washington state, and that my message was timely.

Part 4 UU Voices Legislative Conference

img_6773North End Cafe offered me an excellent room to be part of the Legislative Conference via “Zoom”. There were 60 people from 15 different UU congregations.

Our legislative priorities will be on WA UU Voices for Justice website after those who registered for the conference vote later this week.

All in all central Washington was wonderful and I am looking forward to catching up with the congregation in the Tricities.

img_6720Yakima Canyon

#2 & #3 JBI Trips – Oregon UU Voices for Justice and UU Church of Vancouver

Posted on by Julia Cochrane

Part I – UU Voices Annual Meeting

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Rev. Katie Larsell, E.D. and the Board

The first part of my trip was going to the Annual Meeting of Oregon UU Voices for Justice. I was warmly welcomed by Katie Larsell who is their Executive Director and given a task of facilitating a break out session on Economic Justice. The minister of the Salem church was not able to be there, so Katie had members of that congregation stand and welcome all of us. This was very reminiscent of the Canoe Journey protocol. Then she introduced all the board members with a sentence or two about their individual contributions to UU Voices from which I learned that my host Barbara Smith-Thomas was one of two Barbaras that rebuilt UU Voices a year of so earlier. An interesting part of their structure is that each congregation has a UU Voices Board member who is a liaison to that congregation.

One of the questions that came up was the difference between individual members and the covenantal relationship between congregations and UU Voices. I am still unclear about this – but interested!

Melissa Bennet – Keynote speaker “Native Nations Rising” – absolutely exhilarating. I believe she will send me a copy of her speech to put up on the NWuuJN and WA UU Voices websites.

The structure is close to WA UU Voices but there are some differences. Their issue areas and our discussion topics are essentially the same, but the specifics of what people will act on all came from those present. Either in the way of a prewritten proposal or just from the discussion in the breakout group. These issue breakout groups were facilitated by someone not involved in the issue and attended by a board member. What came out of this process was action teams with a leader and a date for their next meeting (Zoom or in person), and a Campaign Leader was chosen who would be the liaison between the action teams and UU Voices and would help set up the Zoom calls, etc. Their process meant that all voices were equally heard and any action that people were engaged in had a date, method and leader to carry it forward. So the staff and the board will help the Action Teams find partners – maybe a ‘Tag Team’ or group to collaborate with, lobbying activities and compiling other resources. I am interested in learning if this produces the concrete results it promises.

Part II – UU Church of Vancouver

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UU Church of Vancouver, WA

After a very entertaining Halloween church service I met with Betty Montgomery and Rory Bowman. Betty is the Chair of their Social Action team, and Rory and her are involved in doing race work together.

We talked for over an hour about the two organizations I represent. Betty felt that the members of her congregation liked to do concrete charity type activities and give money but were not enthused about going to meetings and talking/planning how to create more lasting change. I invited her to come to Port Townsend for one of our Social Justice Council meetings and see what we did. (I offered to find her housing etc.) I think sometimes it really helps to see what other groups are doing. I believe she will take part in the Legislative Conference with another UUCV person or two. UUCV is in the middle of a ministerial search and that may take energy from other things like social justice.

“During our “Convergence” process 3-4 years ago, the congregation showed a desire to have more organized advocacy through the church. These two organizations offer that – with two plusses, we personally don’t have to organize it and our efforts will be amplified many times by the numbers of folks participating.”

Part III – Meeting with OR UU Voices Board Chair and Executive Directorimg_6527

I met with Katie Larsell, Executive Director and Barbara Smith-Thomas, Board Chair over a delicious and relaxed dinner Sunday night. We talked about how organizations like UU Voices and the Mt. Hood Cluster are a way to do justice work when you congregation does not have critical mass.

We also talked about the ‘stupid line’ as in the state border with regard to Vancouver’s natural alliance with Portland activism on various issues – especially environmental. The purpose of a regional organization like the NW UU Justice Network is to allow people to work regionally, regardless of geopolitical boundaries on the issues they share. It felt that collaboration between our organizations will grow.