THANKS FOR STOPPING BY. THIS PROGRAM IS ON HAITUS WHILE WE REASSESS AND ADD SYNCHRONOUS AND GROUP EXPERIENCES.
Asynchronous, individual and community-based growth and learning. Update Jan 20: there are 14 days of content on the site now. People will continue to join over the next month so there’s lots of time to dive deep. Live, daily content will return Feb. 17th/President’s Day.
You have been committed to resisting and opposing injustice and forms of oppression for a long time, and now you face authoritarian structures or totalitarianism, fascism, and oligarchy that are vying for control of the USAmerican federal government. This is a new and imminent threat, and you want to resist the temptation to keep your head down, to ignore injuries that don’t directly affect you. You are committed to doing the right thing, but this is a new set of circumstances. What is the right thing, who will I do it with, and how?
If you are reading this, it’s likely that, like me, you are committed to increasing your capacity to resist the ways these systems of power want to make us feel simultaneously safe and powerless. These systems try to trick us into believing that if we keep quiet enough in the right situations, we can keep our lives from risk or danger and be safe, but the systems of power rely on that belief to maintain control. It’s a lie.
As Unitarian Universalists, progressives, and other folk committed to justice, we know that we can’t continue to do what we always did the way we always did it. If that alone were going to bring us to justice and liberation, we would not be facing an onslaught of democracy-hating, constitution-deriding political machinations.
“I have been working for justice for so long,” said my friend.
“Yes, you have. You have been a faithful steward of your skills and resources, leveraging them for justice.
The question that can only be answered by you, in community is,
‘Who am I called to be in this time?'”
The time on the clock of the world is now.
This time is different. How do fascism and totalitarianism work that is different even from ultraconservative democracy? How do we fight oppression when danger is heightened? How do we protect ourselves from accidentally exposing our loved ones to surveillance?
How do we find and support progressive community? How do we practice community care without judgment? How do we practice being a good follower/supporter? How do we Bear Witness with trust and compassion? How do we deepen our spiritual capacity to be loving, resilient, robust, and kind? How do we keep totalitarianism from destroying our empathy?
There are a lot of questions. We will begin to explore them.
Join now; there are 14 days of content to explore. We begin again live on President’s Day.
READY TO SIGN UP? holding space FOR THE REGISTRATION/SIGN UP FORM.
(If you have trouble getting the form to submit, please try a different browser. If that doesn’t work, email me directly at CouchToResistance AT pm DOT me )
6 weeks Couch to Resistance is a collaborative online experience to Learn, Love, Grow, and Resist. You will explore curated ideas, music, words, video, images, reflection, and discussion questions each day and share your thoughts with your friends, family, colleagues, and compatriots on the way. It’s an ongoing, asynchronous, daily online-platform-based experience. There is not a regularly scheduled video class; rather, it is meant to be accessed in small sections daily at your own convenience, with people you invite to join you.
Who are we called to be in this time?
What can we collectively bring forward as people who claim the power of LOVE and the commitment to justice?
- Healers
- Funders
- Builders
- Teachers
- Providers
- Followers
- Witnesses
- Truth-tellers
Might we provide infrastructure & inclusive gathering spaces to support: - Little Free Libraries
- Community Fridges
- Emergency Housing
- Mutual Aid Centers
- Community Care
- Mask blocs
- Resisters
Who am I called to be in this time?
Most of us were raised on hero stories. The lone individual who makes a grand gesture in a short period and risks everything to save a group of people. But that’s not how the world changes. The world changes by each of us choosing how to use our skills and resources in the best way over weeks, months, and years. We must identify what we are called to for this time. What we are called to is likely brave, but not a hero story. It likely includes a strong community and many opportunities for joy but few accolades. If done well, some of the most essential work will be unknown to others.
- Host
- Follower
- Medic/Healer
- Artist/Creator
- Frontline leader
- Legal observer
- Spreadsheet genie
- Disrupter of harmful norms
- Meal provider
- Storyteller
- Caregiver
- Witness
- Builder
Dashing brave heroes like John McClean, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Capt. Malcolm Reynolds or Joan D’Arc aren’t on this list.
(yes, I mixed real-life and fictional heroes.)
The work before us is long and brave but not very dashing or daring. It might be any number of things. Perhaps your skills mean you will maintain a private spreadsheet to help people travel safely for medical care; no one will know you are doing it. It will save real lives.
How on earth do we get ready for this time?
Together. We get ready together.
Six Weeks Couch to Resistance is an individual and collective experience to help you ask and explore answers to these questions, to engage in practice to learn, love, grow, and resist.
We will gather in an online format at Padlet, a format rather like laying index cards out on a table. Each card offers a different part of the experience. This is an image of the Welcome cards.
I invite you to gather with others to do this, perhaps a partner, family, someone who lives in your household or visits regularly, maybe a friend across the country that you share time with on the phone, via video conferencing, or text. You may join people from your congregation, a local organization, or a club to practice and reflect. This program is appropriate for middle school and up, with the hope that their real-life good grownups facilitate the experience of young people engaging with this material. It may be helpful for family or youth group exploration.
Or perhaps you’ll start this experience by yourself on your couch wondering, “What on earth can I do with this catastrophic mess that seems to be barreling towards us?” Welcome.
You are not alone, you’re just by yourself on your couch. Many of us do our best work on the couch. The couch is a resting place that holds us as we work.
Whoever you are, and wherever you are, welcome.
“Couch” is a metaphor. There’s no race, no competition. Justice is a collaborative endeavor.
Learn, Love, Grow, & Resist
Move from where ever you were and what you did there to where you will be and what you will do next.
All of us, together. In this time. For this time.
We’re going to learn, love, grow, and resist. This means we’re going to move. We’re going to move our hearts, minds, and our spirits.
We’re going to move towards justice.
We will move towards increasing community care and learning about systems that we can choose to participate in that don’t require the government. We will explore mutual aid systems that help to bend the moral and material arc of the universe toward justice.
READY TO SIGN UP? holding space FOR THE REGISTRATION/SIGN UP FORM.
(If you have trouble getting the form to submit, please try a different browser and/or restart your device.)
Practically speaking, these six weeks are separated by four weeks when you can partake in the incredible spiritual nourishment of Side With Love’s 30 Days Of Love experience. Then, we will return to Couch to Resistance for four weeks.
The first iteration of this ran from January 6 to Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday, we gathered on Padlet and began. Many more folk join every day, and start with the first “day’s” content. Welcome.
30 Days of Love is a weekly offering, and the CtR entries are daily. I am grateful to our Unitarian Universalist Association and Side with Love for this gift, and I believe the experiences will support one another.
Couch to Resistance will return on the padlet platform for four more weeks — from Presidents Day until St. Patrick’s Day.
Signing up for this does not connect you to 30 Days of Love. That is a separate gift to our faith from the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Side with Love program, and you will choose your interactions there.
I look forward to journeying with you. The registration form will provide you an opportunity to share some thoughts about what you hope this experience may offer you. If the registration form lies and tells you you are spam, honest to god, I can’t figure out why that is because I turned the spam filter off. Try a different browser and/or restart your device. That has worked for many people.
If that doesn’t work, email me directly at couchtoresistance AT pm DOT me
Finally, I’m one person with a computer and other obligations. There’s no admin, no fancy computer programs connecting all the disparate parts. I copy your email from one program and paste it into another.
After you register, I’ll email you the link to begin. Each day I will post the new day’s material. There won’t be a new email each day. Emails will be used for big reminders, start/end announcements, and information if anything changes or we add a platform for conversation.
If you register and don’t get a response within 12 hours, please send me an email at couchtoresistance AT pm DOT me and I’ll try to figure it out and fix it.
love, me