My friends at East Shore,
Today is 9/11. A famous conservative pundit was assassinated. This school year, since August—47 school shootings have occurred in our country. And twelve colleges and universities have been shut down temporarily due to wide spread radicalized violent threats at these Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Week after week, we are confronted with the grief and horror of gun violence, political violence, and school shootings. These tragedies are not abstract headlines; they pierce the human family. Each act of violence is an assault on the sacredness of life, our national camaraderie, a tearing of the social fabric, and a denial of our deepest religious truths.
Our faith, rooted in both Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, teaches us that Love is not passive. Love is not silence. Love does not dwell in complicity. Love is fierce, demanding, justice-making. The prophets cry out: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” The Buddha teaches: “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal law, the Dhammapada.” These voices, across time and tradition, declare the same truth: Love is what justice looks like in public.
Humanists teach us that change must come from us, no one is coming to save us—and so we must forge a love that is not sentimental but demands that we act to protect the vulnerable, dismantle systems of harm, and seek justice in the public square.
When we center Love, we cannot be indifferent to a culture that prizes weapons over children, domination over democracy, fear over belonging, and profits over the cries of the people. Centering Love means resisting the normalization of violence in our schools, streets, and political life. It means lifting our voices, gathering the masses, voting with our conscience, and rising up to protect those who are most at risk.
Our faith does not allow us to retreat into despair. The prophets, sages, and saints remind us that violence will not have the last word. Love, lived fully and courageously, disrupts cycles of fear and plants seeds of peace, beaconing our aspiration, Beloved Community.
This is not a matter of politics—though politics might be a tool to get there. This is not a matter of capitalism, but capital might be a tool used to get there. I declare to you that it is a matter of faith. And faith will be the foundation of the road forward.
When lives are on the line, neutrality is not holiness. Silence is not compassion. We are called to raise our voices, to organize, to vote, to march, to protect, to gather our siblings to mourn the loss of life, to demand that our laws and communities reflect Love instead of violence.
My dear aspiring Beloved community, let us not shrink from this call. Let us teach our children another way. Let us show up in the streets and at the ballot box. Let us refuse to be numbed into despair. The world aches for a Love that can heal and transform, and we are called to be its bearers.
For violence will not have the last word. Love will!
May our congregation be a place where Love is not only spoken but embodied—where we teach our children and our parents another way, where we work for policies that protect life, where we stand shoulder to shoulder with all who seek to end the epidemic of violence beyond partisan politics.
Wednesday, September 17 at 7:30pm we will gather at the Peace Pole to discern three next steps. I hope you’ll join us!
For in the end, to center Love is to say with our whole being: every child, every neighbor, every stranger has inherent worth and is precious and worthy of life without fear.
Let Peace be with and upon us all,
Rev. Will