This week I've been following the Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly in Phoenix, Arizona, from afar. This is only the second GA I've missed in 17 years, but it was just not meant to be. I've grateful for the opportunity to follow many of the events via Livestream and to participate as a off-site delegate.

I'm particularly sad to have been absent this year because this is a first-of-a-kind "Justice GA," focused on advocacy and public witness on issues related to immigration. I just finished listening to the Rev. Barbara Prose preach a moving sermon on immigration and what it means to be an American.  The reading that preceded the sermon was this poem by Alice Walker, titled "Patriot:"

If you

Want to show

Your love

For America

Love

Americans

Smile

When you see

One

Flowerlike

His

Turban

Rosepink.

Rejoice

At the

Eagle feather

In a grandfather's

Braid.

If a sister

Bus rider's hair
Is

Especially

Nappy

A miracle

In itself

Praise it.

How can there be

Homeless

In a land

So crammed

With houses

&

Young children

Sold

As sex snacks

Causing our thoughts

To flinch &

Snag?

Love your country

By loving

Americans.

Love Americans.

Salute the soul

& the body

Of who we

Spectacularly &

Sometimes

Pitifully are.

Love us. We are

The flag.

(from her 2003 poetry collection, "Absolute Faith in the Goodness of the Earth" )