Weekend greetings from Emmanuel Road, 6th June, 2020

Cambridge Unitarian Church, Emmanuel Road
As ever, I send this email to you hoping that you have managed to get through another week of lockdown in reasonable enough shape. 

This week, in addition to speaking to some of you by telephone, I also hope to see some of you at Sunday's 10am Service of Mindful Meditation and I reproduce below the details of the Zoom meeting kindly organised for this purpose by Brendan and Andrew.

Just a reminder that you’ll need to print up (or be able to see) the order of service (link below) and you might also like to have a tea light ready so that you can light silently at a particular point mid-way through the service. All will be explained on Sunday morning. The service will last about 45 minutes (so don't forget to make sure that your seat is genuinely comfortable!) and it will be followed by a time of conversation.


If you'd like to join this service please contact the church secretary, Brendan Boyle, via the contact link of the church webpage:


If you can't make the live-streamed event don't forget that an mp3 of the service is always available at the following link:


Lastly, as all of you will be painfully aware, on May 25, yet another black man, George Floyd, was murdered by a white police officer in the USA. This shameful and shocking event has triggered the most significant set of protests seen in the USA since the 1960s and these have, in turn, disturbingly revealed more than ever President Trump’s racism and dictatorial tendencies and intentions. 

Not surprisingly, George Floyd's murder also triggered many other protests around the world supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, including a number here in the UK. As I hope you are all acutely aware, our own culture remains itself deeply infected by racism and, amidst the many national disgraces connected with the official responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the continued refusal/failure to tackle the disproportionate number of deaths of black, Asian and minority ethnic people from coronavirus — along with the failure to properly to protect NHS staff and those working/living in care homes — is one of the greatest. It is clear that here in the UK, just as is the case in the USA, that Black, Asian and minority ethnic lives simply do not matter as much as white lives.

Given this, the Stand Up To Racism group here in Cambridge organised a responsible, socially distanced, live-streamed, demonstration on Wednesday 4th June that was held in front of King's College and I, along with a number of other people from a variety of religious and political communities in Cambridge, was invited to contribute a few words. If you click on the following link you can watch the whole demonstration and read and/or listen to what I said myself.


With love and best wishes as always,

Andrew

Andrew J. Brown
http://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/
@caute

Minister
Memorial Church (Unitarian)
Emmanuel Road
Cambridge
CB1 1JW
01223 576952

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