News: February 6, 2026
Greetings, friends.
I’m a couple weeks back from my witness and solidarity pilgrimage to Palestine and, as you can imagine, it was an overwhelming experience. The hospitality, grief, history, and resistance that I experienced left footprints in my heart and mind.
I start this message to you with immense gratitude. It was the professional funds allocated in my internship that made this experience financially feasible for me. Thank you for supporting me in this way and entrusting me with this experience. It will shape my ministry forever. The work of witness and solidarity begs many theological questions and I’m eager to be in dialogue with you about what’s on my mind and heart. Not only will you feel this experience impact my upcoming Sunday worship services, but I’m also working on a non-worship community offering during which I’ll tell stories and show photos from my trip.
While I was in Palestine, clergy received the call to Minneapolis for the work of witness and solidarity. Because it’s not just Palestine that’s seeing the struggle for freedom. It’s also Minneapolis and Iran and Los Angeles and Ukraine and Syria and Sudan and Venezuela and so many other places in the world where resistance is rising to meet authoritarianism. I’m so humbled by every person who has answered a call to be somewhere with someone doing the work of love and justice. When we stand up against injustice, we are in solidarity with all oppressed people everywhere.
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is UU Theology. This week, we read the Theology portion of the 2020 report Widening the Circle of Concern. There’s plenty to discuss in the article, but I was particularly struck by the statement: “Justice practices cannot be used as surrogates for deepening our spiritual lives.”
I bristled when I first read it. Hey, didn’t Dr. Cornel West say, “Justice is what love looks like in public”!? But it’s true… doing justice work without theological resources and spiritual practices leads us down the path of burnout. The stretchmarks of change are ripping through humanity. To give birth to a new world is a bloody process. And the work of justice has no finish line! There will always be more calls for witness, solidarity, and action than we can respond to, which renders our practices of spiritual nourishment more important than ever.
And, as always dear hearts, I wonder about you.
What are your spiritual needs at this time? Do you have spiritual needs that this loving, grieving community can support?
Some First UU members and friends coalesced for a grief vigil last week and it felt good to join together in song, spoken word, and silence amidst candlelight. I wonder about what else is needed and how else we can use our space, time, and humanity to turn toward one another in the spirit of fortification.
We are a vibrant community of organizers and activists, educators and parents, scholars and siblings. And it is both the job and the privilege of this religious community to nourish each other, so we are equipped to continue contributing to the fight for liberation. If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed by the moment at hand, I encourage you to return to the work that is uniquely yours to do and ground yourself in spiritual practices. Whether it’s tending a home altar, working with your
ancestors, doing art, or practices of fasting, breathing, or movement, I encourage you to exercise discipline in not allowing these habits to be deprioritized.
In her book Hospicing Modernity, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira says, “Before anything new can happen, before people can sense, hear, relate, and imagine differently, there must be a clearing, a decluttering, an initiation into the unknowable; and a letting go of the desires for certainty, authority, hierarchy, and of insatiable consumption as a mode of relating to everything.”
I offer a prayer for releasing all that is ready for compost so we may make way for a kinder, clearer path.
With gentle grace and care for these in-between moments,
Nina
I’m a couple weeks back from my witness and solidarity pilgrimage to Palestine and, as you can imagine, it was an overwhelming experience. The hospitality, grief, history, and resistance that I experienced left footprints in my heart and mind.
I start this message to you with immense gratitude. It was the professional funds allocated in my internship that made this experience financially feasible for me. Thank you for supporting me in this way and entrusting me with this experience. It will shape my ministry forever. The work of witness and solidarity begs many theological questions and I’m eager to be in dialogue with you about what’s on my mind and heart. Not only will you feel this experience impact my upcoming Sunday worship services, but I’m also working on a non-worship community offering during which I’ll tell stories and show photos from my trip.
While I was in Palestine, clergy received the call to Minneapolis for the work of witness and solidarity. Because it’s not just Palestine that’s seeing the struggle for freedom. It’s also Minneapolis and Iran and Los Angeles and Ukraine and Syria and Sudan and Venezuela and so many other places in the world where resistance is rising to meet authoritarianism. I’m so humbled by every person who has answered a call to be somewhere with someone doing the work of love and justice. When we stand up against injustice, we are in solidarity with all oppressed people everywhere.
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is UU Theology. This week, we read the Theology portion of the 2020 report Widening the Circle of Concern. There’s plenty to discuss in the article, but I was particularly struck by the statement: “Justice practices cannot be used as surrogates for deepening our spiritual lives.”
I bristled when I first read it. Hey, didn’t Dr. Cornel West say, “Justice is what love looks like in public”!? But it’s true… doing justice work without theological resources and spiritual practices leads us down the path of burnout. The stretchmarks of change are ripping through humanity. To give birth to a new world is a bloody process. And the work of justice has no finish line! There will always be more calls for witness, solidarity, and action than we can respond to, which renders our practices of spiritual nourishment more important than ever.
And, as always dear hearts, I wonder about you.
What are your spiritual needs at this time? Do you have spiritual needs that this loving, grieving community can support?
Some First UU members and friends coalesced for a grief vigil last week and it felt good to join together in song, spoken word, and silence amidst candlelight. I wonder about what else is needed and how else we can use our space, time, and humanity to turn toward one another in the spirit of fortification.
We are a vibrant community of organizers and activists, educators and parents, scholars and siblings. And it is both the job and the privilege of this religious community to nourish each other, so we are equipped to continue contributing to the fight for liberation. If you’re finding yourself overwhelmed by the moment at hand, I encourage you to return to the work that is uniquely yours to do and ground yourself in spiritual practices. Whether it’s tending a home altar, working with your
ancestors, doing art, or practices of fasting, breathing, or movement, I encourage you to exercise discipline in not allowing these habits to be deprioritized.
In her book Hospicing Modernity, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira says, “Before anything new can happen, before people can sense, hear, relate, and imagine differently, there must be a clearing, a decluttering, an initiation into the unknowable; and a letting go of the desires for certainty, authority, hierarchy, and of insatiable consumption as a mode of relating to everything.”
I offer a prayer for releasing all that is ready for compost so we may make way for a kinder, clearer path.
With gentle grace and care for these in-between moments,
Nina
