We are thankful to all the participants and fellow-organizers who made General Assembly such a show of force for climate justice organizing within our faith community and the world at large. In total, there were more than twenty workshops about climate justice! We also had a very meaningful Public Witness event with the Lummi Nation, learning about their struggles for climate justice in their traditional territories.
The first of the three workshop UUYACJ programs was called “Moving from Capitalism Towards an Ecological Economy”, presented by Aly Tharp and Matthew McHale. There was such a wide interest in the subject that the audience was over-flowing into the hallway, and we were required to stop our presentation to satisfy the rules of the conference center’s fire code (no sitting in the aisles). Apologies to all those who were not able to stay for the whole workshop! We appreciate your interest in the subject. We would also like to extend thanks to the Unitarian Universalists for a Just Economic Community for promoting our workshop in their handouts!
The following day, Rev. Jennifer Nordstrom spoke alongside Rev. Dr. Teresa Cooley, director of programs and strategy for the UUA, during the morning Plenary Session about the Commit2Respond initiative. Jennifer called on our faith community to dig deeper into aligning our denomination’s financial capital and program resources with our deeply held values
.Throughout the conference, the UU Young Adults for Climate Justice hosted a participatory public art project known widely as The Climate Ribbon at the UU Ministry for Earth booth in the exhibit hall. The Climate Ribbon project asks us to respond to the question, “What do you love and hope to never lose to climate chaos?”. Participants wrote down an answer onto a ribbon, along with their name and place of home, and then they wove their ribbon onto a chalice sculpture that would represent the collective love and concerns of our faith community:
The worship itself was FULL of music and spirit. Many thanks to the team who made it so spectacular:
Worship Leader: Jennifer Nordstrom
Music Director: Jen Hayman
Worship Music Leader: Dave Ruffin
Soloist: Rev. Sofia Betancourt
Singers: Amanda Weatherspoon, Rev. Abbey Tennis, Jim Lewis, Anne Scott, Lisa Randall and Cledwyn Jones
Piano: Jen Hayman
Percussion: Rev. Leon Dunkley,
and as well to our speakers Kevin Mann and Matthew McHale. This worship was the sixth out of one-hundred in our 100 Services for Climate Justice Campaign. Together in worship, we added statements of love and concern about climate chaos to the Climate Ribbon Chalice
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