Join the $20K Matching Campaign for the Amah Mutsun Land Trust Land Acquisition Fund by June 19th

MVPJ is pleased to invite participation in the $20K matching campaign of our local ally and partner SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice of Sacred Heart Community Service) to contribute to the Land Trust Land Acquisition Fund of our local indigenous Amah Mutsun Tribal Band to enable them to buy back land they consider to be sacred when it goes up for sale.

To participate in the match campaign up to $20,000, individuals may pledge or contribute before June 19 through this link.  This link takes you to an online form provided by SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice of Sacred Heart). Click in the OneTime box to direct your gift to take advantage of the SURJ match for the Amah Mutsun Land Trust fund. (If you would prefer to donate by check, please direct the check to Sacred Heart Community Service (care of Jen Myhre, SURJ) at 1381 S. First St., San Jose, CA 95110, with a note that the gift is for the Amah Mutsun Land Trust Land Acquisition Fund.)

Many of us are looking for ways to act on our frequent words of land acknowledgement. This is one way that MVPJ invites you to consider doing just that.

To learn more about the Amah Mutsun Land Trust Land Acquisition Fund, click here.

Join the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and urge your Representative to repeal the 2002 Iraq War Authorization!

Twenty years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, a bipartisan group of senators has voted to repeal the law that sent us into that devastating war!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION through the FCNL website!

The 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq (2002 Iraq AUMF) authorized war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime. It is unnecessary for ongoing military operations, but as long as it remains on the books, it is vulnerable to abuse by this or any future president.

The Senate has acted, now it’s up to the House. Urge your representatives to vote to repeal the 2002 Iraq AUMF!

CLICK HERE TO TAKE ACTION today! 

The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony
"WE ACKNOWLEDGE..."
Monday, April 24, 2023
10:30am (Pacific Time)
Hosted by Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle Families Forum

REGISTER HERE!

Join the largest Israeli-Palestinian peace event in history! The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony is hosted by Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle–Families Forum, and we are proud that Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice is an official sponsor again this year.

The Ceremony takes place every year on the eve of Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day). In Israeli mainstream culture, the ceremonies that are most often held to honor this day serve to reinforce cultural narratives of pain, victimhood, and hopelessness. Our Joint Memorial transforms this narrative by bringing Palestinians to the Memorial alongside Israelis. Joining together to mourn each other’s pain, we aim to challenge the status quo and set the foundation for a new reality based on mutual respect, dignity, and equality for all. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CEREMONY.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE each other’s humanity and every human’s right to security and freedom. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE the oppressive system that fuels injustice, violence, and trauma. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our personal suffering, the suffering of our neighbors, and our part in this pain.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our shared vision of a land where the inherent dignity and equality of all is fully realized. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our power to transform, collectively heal, and unite to end the occupation.

Join the multifaith call for a
national day of prayer and contemplation,
this Mother's Day,
to stop gun violence!

Faith leaders, congregations or organizations, and individual members or parishioners are urged to sign on to this letter asking President Biden to make this Mother's Day, May 14, a national day of prayer to end gun violence. Since Saturday, April 15, at least 255 people have already died in the United States due to guns. These tragic deaths affect every community.

The letter states in part,
We appeal to you to declare this Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 14, 2023,
to be a national day of repentance, mourning, prayer, and reflection
to address the culture of gun violence
that is staining our collective soul.

SIGN TODAY!
Faith leaders and congregations or organizations can use this link.
Individual parishioners and members may use this link.

The letter is already signed by more than 400 clergy and lay people, including Dr. Cornel West, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Imam Dr. Talib Shareef, Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick Gray, Dr. Daisy Khan, Rev. Walter Brueggemann, Sr. Maria Orlandini and many others from diverse faith traditions — including the heads of national denominations and global religious organizations — have already signed this urgent call.

SIGN TODAY!
Faith leaders and congregations or organizations can use this link.
Individual parishioners and members may use this link.

Every voice is needed in this call! Let us join together to address the war taking place in our own schools, places of worship, grocery stores, nighculbs, and more. The gun violence epidemic, intertwined with the racist white "Christian" nationalist movement, is a scourge on our communities and a blaspheme of the divine!

MVPJ is partnering with SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) @ Sacred Heart to offer a TEACH-IN.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

Reimagining Public Safety TEACH IN
Monday, February 27, 7-8:30pm via Zoom

Our first teach-in will be on Reimagining Public Safety - about the CARE FIRST Campaign - which is working for community driven alternatives to policing and incarceration. So much to learn! So many opportunities to work for racial justice!

The TEACH-IN will give us good background on historical and current connections between the work of racial justice and the desperate need to reimagine our understanding and methods of public safety for all! Right now the focus of CARE FIRST is on establishing a direct line to TRUST, an alternative to 911 to provide accessible, transparent, non-police crisis response in Santa Clara County. TRUST is designed to send the right responder for the situation. The TRUST program is a new 24/7 non-police crisis response program for urgent mental health and substance use situations.

Join us in this first SURJ/MVPJ TEACH-IN!
Registration Required.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

Help spread the word and invite others by sharing our Facebook Event Page and following the event on Instagram.
Use this png flyer to spread the word and this PDF 1/2 sheet flyer for printing.

This Reimagining Public Safety Teach-in is hosted by MVPJ and SURJ, and cosponsored by:
Action Council of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto;
American Muslim Voice;
Anti-Racism Impact Team of Congregation Etz Chayim;
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action South Bay;
First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto;
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Los Gatos; and
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City. 

George Lakey
talks about his most recent book,
Dancing with History: a life for peace and justice

Click here to watch the video of this event.

Quaker activist and master storyteller George Lakey shared vignettes from his life at the center of history-making events as one of the world’s most effective practitioners and teachers of nonviolent resistance.

As people of faith and conscience,
believing in the sanctity of all life on this planet,
we call for a
CHRISTMAS TRUCE IN UKRAINE.

Inspired by the miraculous Christmas truce of 1914, faith leaders of many diverse traditions petition the Biden administration to push for negotiations.

"In the spirit of the truce that occurred in 1914 during the First World War, we urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, before the conflict results in a nuclear war that could devastate the world's ecosystems and annihilate all of God's creation." 

Signers include Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Jewish Renewal movement; Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Valarie Kaur, Sikh leader and founder of Revolutionary Love Project; Thay Phap An, Plum Village Buddhist community; Bishop William J. Barber II, Repairers of the Breach and Poor People's Campaign; Rev. Grayland Scott Hagler, Fellowship of Reconciliation; Dr. Zoharah Simmons, National Council of Elders; Mary Novak, Executive Director of NETWORK Lovvy for Catholic Social Justice.

Click here for a full list of signers. If you are a faith leader, add your name here.

Help GET OUT THE VOTE across our nation
(without traveling anywhere)!

This election is crucial for the values of peace, justice and human dignity in our country. Here are two nonpartisan GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) efforts that you can participate in from the comfort of your own home -- or with some local friends.

If we ever needed to vote for justice and democracy, we sure do need to vote now!

TEXT: Join the Poor People's Campaign (PPC) Voting is Power Unleashed National Text-banking Program aiming to reach 5 million poor and low-wealth, low-propensity voters across 15 strategic states! Living wages, healthcare, housing, voting rights and other issues critical to poor and low-wealth people are on the ballot. No experience necessary! All virtual gatherings will begin with a training session led by a Poor People's Campaign text bank administrator. Click here to register for an online. (Note that the times listed are all Eastern Times!)

TEXT: Sign up to join a faith voter text bank with Interfaith Power & Light! Reach out to climate-alarmed faith voters who don't vote often in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Each text is sent individually by a volunteer like you from our online system, not your own phone or phone number. It’s an easy-to-use system called ThruText with pre-written scripts, and we’ll walk through all the steps to use it at the event. Click here to see schedule and sign-up.

PLUS the national organization Faith in Public Life has great resources now available, including "Faithful Voting Talking Points," "Bring Voting to Worship," and "Faithful Voter Reflection Guide." Click here to go to their website and scroll down.