This is a repost of a diary from earlier in the week, which got very little response.
This year loggersbrat and I are in charge of the Netroots Nation interfaith service again, and this year the theme is politics, faith, hope and despair.
We are all activists, which means we have a certain amount of hope in a future that can be better, a future that we can work to make better. Yet it's so easy to despair. Climate change is upon us with serious effects all around. Wars around the world continue to cause great disruption, and other kinds of deadly injustice abound. In this country, it sometimes seems insanity has taken root.
Yet in spite of this we keep working for change, both in our own lives and for the greater good.
So my question is, is there something in your faith or belief system that keeps you going?
I am looking for quotations from religious texts or other places we look for spiritual or ethical inspiration, or personal statements about how your beliefs keep you working for change.
The interfaith service is open to people of all faiths and no faith. In the past we have had contributions from various eastern and western religions, from animists, from neo-pagans. We have had quotations from the Bible, from the Koran, from Bahai, from Quakers, Buddhists, Native Americans, atheists, agnostics, all of which show how our beliefs support us in our political and other activism. We generally use at least parts of all contributions we get.
If you'd like to see the kind of thing I mean, I published last year's service here. Each year the structure of the service grows out of the contributions we receive, and has been different every year that we have been doing this.
Please leave contributions in the comments, and if you will be in Detroit, please come to the service. All are welcome.