Alone no one will notice... together, everyone will see. What an extraordinary show of solidarity!
It’s in the Bones – Wisdom at the Heart of URI Organizing
By Sally Mahé
United Religions Initiative (URI) enlivens people to create cultures of peace, justice and healing through interfaith cooperation. Boldly, both in vision and in organizational design, URI embraces transformational principles. Over the years as URI put these principles into practice, seven core actions have emerged. These core actions are life-giving and provide the DNA for URI. They call forth the best in people. URI provides the conditions where people find meaning and where humanity evolves. URI draws upon natural human capacities. These ways of being are not new knowledge for people, but wisdom already in our bones.
This series describes seven actions at the heart of URI’s organizing. One action summary will be posted each week that includes inquiry questions. Feel free to share this information and use it to engage your community. The entire series can be found here.
Connection
As a network of support, URI connects people. Cooperation Circle members connect across traditional religious and cultural boundaries, meet people who live across oceans, overcome prejudices, make new friends, and find resourceful partners. URI encourages Cooperation Circle members to meet their own needs and enables them to reach out to give and receive help. When we listen and speak from our hearts and build trustworthy relationships, our humanity is ignited. Efforts that connect across a city, across a country and across continents build up a powerful global collective, build global community and release extraordinary solidarity.
Inquiry
- URI invites people to reach across barriers to support one another. If you were a journalist in your town, what positive local news would you publicize about people working constructively with differences?
- Imagine ten years ahead – what kinds of new connections are happening where you live? How are these connections making your community better? Making the world better?
- Why don’t people connect more? What gets in the way of reaching out to others as we go through our daily life?