At St. Mary’s we respect the dignity of every human being, and actively work together to make the world a better place for all.
We had a ball participating in the Women’s March a year ago, some of us went to DC, others stayed here in St. Paul. Here’s a video we made :Video
We all had experiences of people coming up to us because of our signs, and saying how grateful they were that the church was there. Here’s an example of an email we received after the march:
Rev. Watkins and marchers,
Yours was the only self-identifying church I saw.
Thank you for being there! How grateful I was to see your sign. I marched with a friend who does not attend church and I said “Hey! That is my church. I want to go over and say ‘hi’ to my sisters. Afterward my friend asked me to tell her a bit more about this “Episcopal” church and how they could be so brazenly political at a march. I told her it was easy because Jesus was and still is controversial. And we talked more because she knew who Jesus was. It warmed my soul that your sign started a conversation. Thought you might like to know that your evangelism is no longer a secret.
Peace
The day after the rally we held an intergenerational “Respect Women” workshop, where we got a chance to listen to and speak with our children about what it means to respect the rights of all genders.
And, many of us marched to support Planned Parenthood – we expect to be doing a lot more of this in the coming months as the rights for women’s health continue to be threatened.
We do all this because we pattern our lives after Jesus, who was radical in his day for welcoming women, honoring their stories, respecting their intellect, touching them when others thought they were unclean, and who through all he said and did challenged any system that declared someone more holy in the eyes of God than anyone else. And because, well, duh.