Healing Justice: Building a Religious Movement for Justice

We know that justice work is sacred work. And building intersectional movements for justice that take seriously racial, LGBTQ, economic, climate and food justice all at once is critically important.

But we cannot build justice movements that are populated with broken bodies, traumatized bodies, exhausted bodies. We must find a way to heal, build resiliency and practice new habits… personally, communally and as an earth-body.

The Center for Sustainable Justice will host its first conference this fall featuring skills-building, deep reflection, celebration and ethical spectacle to help us all learn how to better work religiously for justice. We will root our time in inclusive ritual-- including blessing the water which sustains us and singing together under the leadership of the Give Get Sistet. Co-sponsors are the Kaleo Center for Faith, Justice and Social Transformation and Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light.

Presenters include: Lisa Anderson from the Sojourner Truth Healing Circle through Auburn Seminary; Steve Newcom from Kaleo Center for Faith, Justice and Social Transformation; Erin Pratt and Claire Curran from Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light; Kandace Montgomery from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and more to come.

The Collective Action is being planned by folks from Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, Healing Minnesota Stories, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, the Division of Indian Works and the Center for Sustainable Justice and will be led by Jim Bear Jacobs. It will take place at the sacred convergence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers and will include sacred story-telling, song and ceremony. More details to follow.

Scholarships available upon request. Free childcare available upon request. Contact: sustainjustice@gmail.com. Please note that building is fully accessible and gender-neutral bathrooms are available.

We will be providing lunch during the day on Saturday that will be focusing on locally grown, organic, sustainable food. If you would like to bring a dish to share, we would love that! Please sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PxEXJZHpck6ywEU_wxHuIpX0tJ4elWwAdqI-LG6BiqY/edit

Transportation: If you are driving to the conference, you are invited to park in the SpringHouse parking lot directly adjacent to the building at 610 West 28th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408 but it is limited. Additional street parking is available or you can park at the Whittier International School: http://whittier.mpls.k12.mn.us/Location at 315 W. 26th Steet, Minneapolis, MN 55404 If you are taking public transportation, Routes 22 and 21 pass near the church.

Here is the Schedule for the event (this is subject to change):

Friday, Sept 23rd:

6:30-- Registration, Gathering, Exhibits

7:00-- Welcome and Introductions

7:30- 9:00 pm Weaving of reflection/teaching/ritual and music with Lisa Anderson and the Give Get Sistet

Saturday, Sept 24th:

8:30 am--Registration and exhibits

9:00 am-- Gathering, welcome, group activities

10:00-- 11:30-- Skills-building Workshops with Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and the Kaleo Center for Faith, Justice and Social Transformation

12:00-- Lunch-- Locally sourced and grown food from gardens supplemented by Cafe Southside with a presentation on Cafe Southside's work

1:00-- Preparation and Overview/Training for Ceremony/Action

2:00- Buses leave for our Collective Action at the Confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers

2:30-4:30-- Sacred Storytelling facilitated by Healing Minnesota Stories in collaboration with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light and the Center for Sustainable Justice

5:00-- Buses Return to SpringHouse