For over a year now at UUSC we have been celebrating the acknowledgment by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial of the inspiring and heroic work of two of our founders, Martha and Waitstill Sharp.

We have held or attended ceremonies in Israel, Washington D.C., and in their hometown of Wellesley, Mass. We have received proclamations from the U.S. House and Senate, and from President George W. Bush. We have seen their names added permanently to the Wall of Remembrance in Israel, and to the Rescuers' Wall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

And now its our turn. We have chosen to memorialize their work in a 25-minute documentary entitled "Heroes of the Spirit." And further -- as we believe they would have wanted it -- we are using this documentary not just to look back, but also to look deeply at the current events taking place in Darfur, Sudan, where a devastating genocide has already claimed the lives of over 300,000 men, women, and children, and displaced more than 2.5 million more.

We will be showing this film publicly for the first time on Tuesday, December 12, 2006, in the congregation Rev. Waitstill pastored before and after their trip to Europe. All are welcome to attend, and if you would like to join us that evening, please send an RSVP.

We think that this film will be an important resource that UU congregations and other groups can use to begin conversations about what we can do now in Darfur. To help spur this conversation on, we will include on the DVD not just the film about the Sharps, but also a film about Darfur, a study action guide, and a facilitator's guide, as well as a poster that can be used to promote a showing of the film and conversation at your congregation, home, or elsewhere! The DVD will be available on the website beginning the day after the Wellesley event, and we hope it will be put into use across the country.

It is always fascinating to see the disconnect between people's perception of someone else's needs and their actual needs. In the case of the recovery effort in the Gulf Coast region, this disconnect is as potentially dangerous as hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent mismanagement of the humanitarian crises that emerged.

On Monday, November 6, Rev. Tyrone Edwards of the Zion Travelers Cooperative in Phoenix, Plaquemines Parish, La., visited UUSC. Rev. Edwards has headed up an amazing effort in his community to rebuild many of the houses destroyed by the hurricanes.

Many of the citizens of Plaquemines Parish, especially the elderly, owned their houses outright before the disaster. After the disaster, however, they were told that to afford to rebuild their homes they would need to take out mortgages on top of their relief aid. This might make sense for a middle-aged person, but is potentially devastating for a retiree.

Enter Rev. Edwards and his unstoppable mind and spirit. Through creative thinking, community partnerships, and some very hard work, Rev. Edwards' group has figured out how to rebuild these houses at a fraction of the cost estimated by FEMA, without cutting corners on quality. Word quickly spread of this parish that was trying to rebuild their homes, and other groups began to call and ask what they could do to help.

And this simple question, "What do you need?" is what Rev. Edwards says made all the difference. Many well-meaning Americans gave generously in the days, weeks, and months after the hurricanes hit. One of the problems was that they gave what they assumed was needed, and many of the real needs went unmet.

This was a subject that Rev. Edwards spoke about at great length yesterday, you can watch a video of his response, which was both humorous and educational.

On Thanksgiving 2005, three months before FEMA made it into Plaquemines Parish, Rev. Edwards was there assesing the situation. The short of it was, they had a great need for heavy equipment to remove the fallen trees, broken structures, and boats that littered the landscape. The problem was they were inundated with offers of truckloads of food and clothes at a point when they had less than ten people on the ground in the parish. What they needed to do was give the people something to come back to. They needed homes. They needed sheetrock, not more food and books -- not yet, at least.

Fast forward to November 2006, just 11 short and busy months for Rev. Edwards and his community. Rev. Edwards announced to us yesterday that thanks to groups like UUSC that provided the aid they actually needed, they now have the first six foundations laid. By Thanksgiving, will have the first 6 houses framed. This is real, inspiring progress in a place that just a year ago had a much higher population of donated stuffed animals than actual people.

This past Sunday, October 22, I had the pleasure of delivering the sermon at Theodore Parker Unitarian Church in West Roxbury, Mass. The service was focused on social justice, and I had been asked to bring a message that would help the congregation move forward in their thinking on how they can do more activism.

I was happy to speak on this topic, and as a lifelong Unitarian Universalist myself, I felt that I did indeed have something to say. I grew up in a mid-size UU congregation that, like Theodore Parker, always wished they could "do more," but was never sure of what would be the best use of our admittedly limited resources.

My answer to this question is simple: look to the future. I don't think there is anything wrong with the social justice activities most congregations engage in. In fact, I think it's great and important work. I just feel that often these resources could be better utilized if they were focused on building better activists.

One of the main things that the UU community is known for is our curricula, and highest among that, the Our Whole Lives lifespan sexuality curriculum. It is my hope that we can do something similiar with social justice, and create a lifespan curriculum that would connect to all those social justice activities, but would enhance them with age appropriate education.

For example, while the middle-schoolers are collecting clothes for the homeless, or working at a soup kitchen, they could also be learning about the systemic societal conditions that lead to homelessness, and what programs people have used to succesfully aid the homeless population in overcoming their situation. They could be taught about UUSC's Wage Justice initiative and how it aids working families from falling into the cracks of society.

My hope, and my challenge to our UU community, is to every year graduate another crop of well-educated and prepared activists that can go out and transform the world for the better.

Find out more about other UUSC speakers in your area or arrange for a speaker for your congregation or social justice event.

This past Sunday, October 22, I had the pleasure of delivering the sermon at Theodore Parker Unitarian Church in West Roxbury, Mass. The service was focused on social justice, and I had been asked to bring a message that would help the congregation move forward in their thinking on how they can do more activism.

I was happy to speak on this topic, and as a lifelong Unitarian Universalist myself, I felt that I did indeed have something to say. I grew up in a mid-size UU congregation that, like Theodore Parker, always wished they could "do more," but was never sure of what would be the best use of our admittedly limited resources.

My answer to this question is simple: look to the future. I don't think there is anything wrong with the social justice activities most congregations engage in. In fact, I think it's great and important work. I just feel that often these resources could be better utilized if they were focused on building better activists.

One of the main things that the UU community is known for is our curricula, and highest among that, the Our Whole Lives lifespan sexuality curriculum. It is my hope that we can do something similiar with social justice, and create a lifespan curriculum that would connect to all those social justice activities, but would enhance them with age appropriate education.

For example, while the middle-schoolers are collecting clothes for the homeless, or working at a soup kitchen, they could also be learning about the systemic societal conditions that lead to homelessness, and what programs people have used to succesfully aid the homeless population in overcoming their situation. They could be taught about UUSC's Wage Justice initiative and how it aids working families from falling into the cracks of society.

My hope, and my challenge to our UU community, is to every year graduate another crop of well-educated and prepared activists that can go out and transform the world for the better.

Find out more about other UUSC speakers in your area or arrange for a speaker for your congregation or social justice event.

Monday Night Football has had a tagline for some time now: "Are you ready for some football?" Well, tonight you might want to change that to: "Are you ready for some propaganda?" Because tonight’s Monday night game is about a lot more than football as the game is taking place in the Louisiana Superdome. It is a reopening of the site that came to symbolize so much of our failure to take care of our own last year during the crisis in the Mississippi/Gulf Coast area after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

And that failure continues. Not that you would be aware of that from following most of the stories in the mainstream media. The now famous Ninth Ward is still in shambles, and New Orleans East still is far from full recovery. But our administration, big business, and many in this country do not want us to focus on the failure, instead they want us to watch Monday Night Football in the Superdome and believe that everything is alright.

Here is a very telling quote from the general manager of the Superdome: "When people come in here and see what's been done in less than a year's time, they are going to say, 'If the Superdome can be rebuilt after that tremendous destruction, my house can be rebuilt, my neighborhood can be rebuilt and my city can be rebuilt.' So much of this recovery is about confidence and belief. You've got to want it to happen. You've got to believe it. This is symbolism."

This makes me sick. Is he actually saying that all the people of the Ninth Ward and N.O. East are to blame from their still-devastated neighborhoods because they really don’t want it to be fixed? I am sure that after a year of living in FEMA trailers they no longer believe, but that is hardly their fault. And certainly not the reason it hasn't happened.

I agree with him on one point, this is symbolism. It is, however, false symbolism. It is symbolic of business as usual. As is so often the case in disaster situations, the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor. Somehow the $94 million of FEMA money of the total $185 million cost needed to repair the Superdome sped right through the bureaucratic morass that has held up far more important projects.

Does this somehow mean the system is working? Sure -- if you are rich, connected, and important to tourism. Unlike this private venture, the public water and sewage damage was estimated at $446 million, so far the city has received just over $100 million. The list of neglected and underfunded projects could go on and on. It simply doesn't make for good television.

So, if you want, please do tune in to ESPN tonight to watch Monday Night Football. At halftime, you might want to take a little break from the propoganda machine and take our One Year After: Hurricane Katrina Anniversary Quiz. But please, don’t believe the hype ESPN is selling. And most importantly please don’t forget about the thousands of U.S. citizens who are still waiting for the return to normalcy that our government and big business is so eager to sell us on.

Monday Night Football has had a tagline for some time now: "Are you ready for some football?" Well, tonight you might want to change that to: "Are you ready for some propaganda?" Because tonight’s Monday night game is about a lot more than football as the game is taking place in the Louisiana Superdome. It is a reopening of the site that came to symbolize so much of our failure to take care of our own last year during the crisis in the Mississippi/Gulf Coast area after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

And that failure continues. Not that you would be aware of that from following most of the stories in the mainstream media. The now famous Ninth Ward is still in shambles, and New Orleans East still is far from full recovery. But our administration, big business, and many in this country do not want us to focus on the failure, instead they want us to watch Monday Night Football in the Superdome and believe that everything is alright.

Here is a very telling quote from the general manager of the Superdome: "When people come in here and see what's been done in less than a year's time, they are going to say, 'If the Superdome can be rebuilt after that tremendous destruction, my house can be rebuilt, my neighborhood can be rebuilt and my city can be rebuilt.' So much of this recovery is about confidence and belief. You've got to want it to happen. You've got to believe it. This is symbolism."

This makes me sick. Is he actually saying that all the people of the Ninth Ward and N.O. East are to blame from their still-devastated neighborhoods because they really don’t want it to be fixed? I am sure that after a year of living in FEMA trailers they no longer believe, but that is hardly their fault. And certainly not the reason it hasn't happened.

I agree with him on one point, this is symbolism. It is, however, false symbolism. It is symbolic of business as usual. As is so often the case in disaster situations, the rich get richer, and the poor stay poor. Somehow the $94 million of FEMA money of the total $185 million cost needed to repair the Superdome sped right through the bureaucratic morass that has held up far more important projects.

Does this somehow mean the system is working? Sure -- if you are rich, connected, and important to tourism. Unlike this private venture, the public water and sewage damage was estimated at $446 million, so far the city has received just over $100 million. The list of neglected and underfunded projects could go on and on. It simply doesn't make for good television.

So, if you want, please do tune in to ESPN tonight to watch Monday Night Football. At halftime, you might want to take a little break from the propoganda machine and take our One Year After: Hurricane Katrina Anniversary Quiz. But please, don’t believe the hype ESPN is selling. And most importantly please don’t forget about the thousands of U.S. citizens who are still waiting for the return to normalcy that our government and big business is so eager to sell us on.

I walked away from Sunday’s massive rally in Central Park against genocide feeling good -- too good. As I walked through the park and away from the slowly dwindling crowd that must have totaled in the tens of thousands, I was reminded of what this afternoon was really about.

There were sign of it everywhere, but it was most poignantly stated by the orange stickers worn by many participants that read: I’m standing for Darfur Victim #200, 293, or some other number under 450,000 -- the new estimate of those dead from genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.

We were there to be counted, to be heard, and to be educated. And the afternoon accomplished all of these. It began for many of us at All Souls Unitarian Church with an enlightening ceremony which included many activists from around the country and Darfur, as well as UUSC President Charlie Clements. Perhaps most inspiring was 12-year-old Darfurian Emithal Mahmoud, whose poetry was a poignant addition to the event.

From All Souls, we marched 500 strong, festooned with signs and hundreds of blue balloons, and we loudly chanted our way up Madison Avenue and into the park where we joined tens of thousands to hear speeches and listen to music.

There we heard from Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, who spearheaded the highly successful Million Voices for Darfur postcard campaign, Larry Cox of Amnesty International, and former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, interspersed with music from Suzanne Vega, O.A.R., Big and Rich, and many more. The main message was: We can and have made a difference, so we must continue to keep up the pressure on our elected officials to send a U.N. peacekeeping force into Darfur, as it is the only possible way to save the millions of vulnerable Darfurians.

I was uplifted by the day, but it was because of the hope I gained from seeing so many people come together, a very high percentage of them college age and younger. Every day this atrocity continues is one more day we have let down the people of Darfur.