Empowered Women
International
Women’s Day 2020
Sunday,
March 8th
A presentation by Jeanne DiMonte
I’m a team member of the St Paul’s Working for Justice Ministry.
This
group is different from other justice groups in that it is not focused on one
justice issue, but is more broad-based, touching on multiple justice issues. Its goal is to inform, educate, and motivate
members to action on various justice issues.
We meet monthly on the second Thursday of the month at 6:30 PM at St.
Paul’s UMC.
We are
a faith based ministry guided by the St Paul’s vision statement: We will be an inclusive, diverse church
loving others according to the teachings of Jesus and working for justice and
peace in our world.”
Working
for Justice was started 2 years ago as a United Methodist Women’s
initiative. “Empowered Women Empowering
Women and Men”
They
brainstormed a list of justice issues and placed priorities on what to tackle
first. The list was:
- Women’s Issues
- Anti-Racism
- Domestic Violence
- Poverty
- Gun Safety
- Human Trafficking
- Immigration
- Healthcare
- Gerrymandering
- Addiction
- Climate and Environmental Justice
- Interfaith Relationships
“Women’s
issues” was the top priority. As an
aside, I think these are all “Women’s Issues” There is no shortage of justice
issues.
We
have touched on just about all of these issues in the two years since our
start. This year we have added political
justice to our list. Politics,
unfortunately, is a factor in nearly all of these justice issues and our vote
counts.
We
have marched in marches, organized a large book study, had presentations from
team member and expert speakers on various topics. We became a UM Reconciling Community and
joined the Breathe Project. We’ve had
prayer vigils and police appreciation luncheons. We readily pass on information provided by
team members about what other justice groups are doing and other meetings going
on in the communities. All good ideas
are accepted.
Shortly
after the start of the group, two things happened that spring which changed
both the both the structure of the group and the priority of issues.
- Our beloved administrator, Faith Geer became sick, and several of the women who started the group, reset their priorities to care for Faith.
- Secondly, this can only be classified as “Life Comes At You Fast” we were faced with two critical issues that spring that we felt needed to be addressed:
a. Separation
of children from their migrant parents.
We discovered that there were several organizations housing these
children in the Pittsburgh area, so it is not something that is just happening
on the border of Mexico.
b. The
homicide of Antwon Rose in Pittsburgh
Working
for Justice sponsored a prayer vigil and information forum on these two topics
and how they are affecting us locally and what we could do. It was held on July 2 (holiday week) in our
sanctuary and our sanctuary was filled.
People of many different faiths were in attendance. This was our first major event.
The
structure of the group changed to truly being a team-based structure. While we do have a convener to keep us all on
track, different people in the group will suggest a topic and run with it. Several sub-groups have been formed. One of the largest sub-groups dealing with environmental
justice issues including fracking and the Cracker plant being built in Beaver County
has become a group onto itself. We have at least four other sub-groups working
on various issues.
One of
the sub-groups that is active now is on Human Trafficking. In January, one of our team members did a
presentation on Human Trafficking based on information that she received here
in November with the presentation on “Human Trafficking, Yes, It’s here is
Pittsburgh.” Our group wanted to get
more information about the topic, so Megan has arranged for a speaker, Sherill
Rudy, from the organization “Living for Liberty” to speak to us about Human
Trafficking Awareness and Prevention”.
This presentation will be held this coming Thursday, March 12th
at 6:30 at St Paul’s. This is our March
meeting. Anyone who would like to attend
is invited to come to this meeting or to join our group. I have hand-outs for anyone who is interested.
To
finish up, I’d just like to make a comment on “Why do we do this?” I was struggling a little with this since it
can seem frustrating at times and you can easily question whether you are
making a difference. Yesterday, I got my
answer. I listen to Krista Tippets’
podcast, On Being, and her interview yesterday was with Nicholas Christakis and
entitled “How We’re Wired for Goodness”. Krista’s introduction is as follows:
Nicholas
Christakis is the director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale, He does research
that focuses on the evolutionary role of human goodness: capacities like love,
friendship, teaching, and cooperation. “These are some very positive, amazing
qualities that are shaped by natural selection, are encoded in our genes, and
are universal in humans, and that are good and that serve to countermand some
of our vile propensities, which, alas, we also have,” he says.
Christakis
points out how, in a world filled with evidence of the bad things humans are
capable of, we often overlook our propensity toward goodness or take it
for granted. “For too long … scientists and citizens on the street have focused
on the dark side of human nature, on our propensity for selfishness and
tribalism and cruelty and violence, as if this were a natural or normal or
primary state of affairs,” he says. “And yet, I think the bright side has been
denied the attention it deserves, because, equally, we are capable of love and
friendship and teaching and cooperation and all these other wonderful things.
And, in fact, I would argue those qualities are more powerful than the bad
qualities and, therefore, in some ways, much more important.”
I’ve found
this to be a powerful exercise in understanding the kind of communities we must
continue to grow and cultivate together.
That’s why we do this!
