Friday, June 22, 2012

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" )

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