News: March 21, 2025
Dear Members and Friends,
This Monday, I stood in the State Capitol rotunda with over a hundred yellow-shirted Unitarian Universalists, and raised my voice with theirs in song. It was magical. For those few minutes, the Texas Capitol building, the focus of so much of our worry and anxiety, was filled with beautiful music straight from our hearts. The lyrics carried messages of our love and our hopes for the future, and our determination to keep on working to create the Texas we want to see. Tourists stopped in the galleries above to listen and take videos; staffers walking by paused to take it all in.
Monday’s sing-in was part of the Family Matters: Faith Days at the Capitol 2025 event, organized by Texas Impact and the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry, along with other community partners. This event brought together over 200 progressive people of faith to advocate for reproductive rights, environmental justice, democracy, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and other issues. If you’d asked me earlier how I felt about a sing-in, I might have wondered why we’d bother. With all the work ahead of us to bend Texas just a little more towards justice- bills to oppose, decisions to protest, etc.- why would we as non-professional musicians spend our precious time singing? (I mean, I didn’t even know all the words!) And yet, filling the Texas Capitol building with song was in that moment so powerful and so fulfilling.
Bee Morehead, Executive Director of Texas Impact, got at this notion in a video she filmed for would-be advocates. She pointed out that the Latin roots of the word “advocacy” mean “to speak for” something. Advocacy is about what we are for, not just what we are against. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that “advocacy” first appeared in Middle English around 1390, in a devotional entitled “A Talking of the Love of God.” To advocate, or to speak our values, is indeed a part of our spiritual heritage.
Bee’s message was partly a practical one- that our legislators will respond better to hearing about the issues that we support, rather than those we oppose. But it’s also an important message for all of us in this time of constant whiplash, when our heads turn round again and again in reaction to more bad news. It’s easy to start to see the world only in terms of that which we are against. Yet it is just as important to articulate to ourselves and to one another what it is that we are for.
Our moments of song were one way of stepping back from the chaos of the world and re-framing our efforts around our shared values. It helped me think about that which brings us together as advocates and progressive people of conscience. Values like love, justice, democracy, equity and inclusiveness. A belief that bodily autonomy, a quality education and access to healthcare are human rights. A sense that my liberation is bound up in yours. An abiding faith that the moral arc of the universe does bend towards justice.
We’ve all seen the difficult work of resistance begin to divide people who are on the “same side.” Even if we disagree on exactly how to carry out our resistance, we can probably agree on the values behind it. By returning time and again to this sense of shared purpose, I hope that we can strengthen the bonds of community that we’ll need to carry us through all of the hard work ahead.
I’m in awe of and grateful to everyone who worked so hard to organize the Faith Days event, and to those who came from afar and left their comfort zones to participate. We heard from staffers, legislators and professional advocates alike how much of a difference it makes to show up at the Capitol session after session, and make our voices heard on issues we care about. This was my first time attending, and I’m hooked. I now encourage everyone to join us again in two years during the next legislative session. In the meantime, let’s work together not just to resist hate, but to insist on love.
With love,
Shery
Sheryl Abrahams
Board President
This Monday, I stood in the State Capitol rotunda with over a hundred yellow-shirted Unitarian Universalists, and raised my voice with theirs in song. It was magical. For those few minutes, the Texas Capitol building, the focus of so much of our worry and anxiety, was filled with beautiful music straight from our hearts. The lyrics carried messages of our love and our hopes for the future, and our determination to keep on working to create the Texas we want to see. Tourists stopped in the galleries above to listen and take videos; staffers walking by paused to take it all in.
Monday’s sing-in was part of the Family Matters: Faith Days at the Capitol 2025 event, organized by Texas Impact and the Texas Unitarian Universalist Justice Ministry, along with other community partners. This event brought together over 200 progressive people of faith to advocate for reproductive rights, environmental justice, democracy, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and other issues. If you’d asked me earlier how I felt about a sing-in, I might have wondered why we’d bother. With all the work ahead of us to bend Texas just a little more towards justice- bills to oppose, decisions to protest, etc.- why would we as non-professional musicians spend our precious time singing? (I mean, I didn’t even know all the words!) And yet, filling the Texas Capitol building with song was in that moment so powerful and so fulfilling.
Bee Morehead, Executive Director of Texas Impact, got at this notion in a video she filmed for would-be advocates. She pointed out that the Latin roots of the word “advocacy” mean “to speak for” something. Advocacy is about what we are for, not just what we are against. The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that “advocacy” first appeared in Middle English around 1390, in a devotional entitled “A Talking of the Love of God.” To advocate, or to speak our values, is indeed a part of our spiritual heritage.
Bee’s message was partly a practical one- that our legislators will respond better to hearing about the issues that we support, rather than those we oppose. But it’s also an important message for all of us in this time of constant whiplash, when our heads turn round again and again in reaction to more bad news. It’s easy to start to see the world only in terms of that which we are against. Yet it is just as important to articulate to ourselves and to one another what it is that we are for.
Our moments of song were one way of stepping back from the chaos of the world and re-framing our efforts around our shared values. It helped me think about that which brings us together as advocates and progressive people of conscience. Values like love, justice, democracy, equity and inclusiveness. A belief that bodily autonomy, a quality education and access to healthcare are human rights. A sense that my liberation is bound up in yours. An abiding faith that the moral arc of the universe does bend towards justice.
We’ve all seen the difficult work of resistance begin to divide people who are on the “same side.” Even if we disagree on exactly how to carry out our resistance, we can probably agree on the values behind it. By returning time and again to this sense of shared purpose, I hope that we can strengthen the bonds of community that we’ll need to carry us through all of the hard work ahead.
I’m in awe of and grateful to everyone who worked so hard to organize the Faith Days event, and to those who came from afar and left their comfort zones to participate. We heard from staffers, legislators and professional advocates alike how much of a difference it makes to show up at the Capitol session after session, and make our voices heard on issues we care about. This was my first time attending, and I’m hooked. I now encourage everyone to join us again in two years during the next legislative session. In the meantime, let’s work together not just to resist hate, but to insist on love.
With love,
Shery
Sheryl Abrahams
Board President
