In this guest blog, Rev. DL Helfer reflects on their time supporting frontline efforts in Minneapolis. UUSC was grateful for the opportunity to financially support the travel of over 65 faith leaders to the Twin Cities. Rev. DL is a community minister, social worker, and board member of Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East.
Last week, I joined about 1,000 other clergy, across the faith spectrum, at a gathering led by Minneapolis-based MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change, and Healing). This interfaith gathering was called with little warning or time for planning, as the Steering Committee of MARCH reached out to us with an urgent ask: come, be with us, and support in this work of community care to protect the Minneapolis communities from ICE.
We were there to support Minnesota, including faith leaders, advocates, people offering support on the ground, and everyone, really, as their own lives, communities, and families were increasingly impacted by ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis and all of the violence being wrought upon those communities and community members.
So, we showed up. The same way that so many of us have taken care of each other through natural disasters, community losses, and so, so much more. We showed up for Minnesota, ready to do what was asked of us.
(Caveat: One of the many things I learned last week is to stop thinking this way. We are all Minneapolis, just as we are all Chicago, LA, or anywhere else that needs us. Our love and care do not end at arbitrary city, state, or national borders.)
We gathered not only to support but to learn, and learn we did! Maybe not all of it was new to me, but in the context of a community literally under fire—and understanding that we either stop this now or it will come to us all—perhaps I heard some of the learnings differently. Here’s what I heard:
● We need a bigger tent. We on the left too often find ourselves unable to work across differing beliefs. That was reframed for me, with an urgency to find where we can work together, and much of our work falls in that realm. Be in solidarity with those most impacted, take care of each other, feed the hungry, house the poor. You know, basic and urgent biblical tenets. Across every faith tradition.
● People want to help in every way they can. From community defense to every form of mutual aid imaginable, needs were met with volunteers ready and willing to do what was needed. And while we don’t want to put anyone in unnecessary danger, I was reminded of how privilege can be put to use, how those not being sought by ICE, often white people with privilege, can do tasks (e.g., drive food to those who cannot safely leave home). For the many people I know personally asking to be of use, I began to understand how that can be operationalized.
● The answer to despair is action. This is not to say any of us are without grief for the times in which we find ourselves, but that when we put our faith in action, our hands to work, not only is care provided, but we all find our spirits to be lifted. We all want to be part of the answer, the solution. The powerful truth is that the world needs our action, and we need to feel useful.
● Resistance is a practice, like any other spiritual practice we have. We don’t begin by being the perfect meditator any more than we begin by knowing how to be a part of a resistance network. We practice together, we make mistakes, and we find better approaches, together.
● To that end, flexibility is key. We so often spend so long trying to build the perfect thing, and that’s not what’s needed here. Every mutual aid effort I spoke to or heard from said the same thing: the processes are growing so quickly that major change happens just about every week. The key is simplicity, flexibility, humility, and an absolute minimum of hierarchy.
Want to learn more? Spread this message more broadly? Do more to stop ICE and move us toward beloved community?
Here’s how:
●Share the lessons of resistance with each other. Invite those with frontline or firsthand experience, as well as experienced organizers (who have been holding down this work for years), to speak with your congregation or in another UU gathering. The key here is to learn from each other and to share those lessons, so that we may learn from each other and improve in our resistance.
● Tell the good news of the work you’re doing and invite others in to scale it up, to have more impact.
● Call your senators and representatives. My message from MN is #iceout. ICE has no appropriate roles in our communities.
● Connect, connect, connect. Know your neighbors, your communities. Deepen those relationships now, before ICE arrives in your community or impacts a community you’re connected to.
I’ll be preaching more about this experience on February 8th—you can join the Zoom service or come in person.
With faith in our movements, and in our movement together,
Rev. DL Helfer
