First Unitarian Universalist Society Burlington
September 7, 2025
Water Ingathering
Reverend Karen G. Johnston
At the national meeting of UU ministers in June, in the days before General Assembly, one of my colleagues – in fact, the colleague who preached at my installation, the now-Reverend Julica Hermann de la Fuente, said, after we heard the announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case United States v. Skrmetti in which gender affirming health care for youth was banned in Tennessee, setting precedent for the cascading of other states hostile to our trans kin to follow suit, in the face of deep distress, Rev. Julica said, quite seriously:
Well maybe she didn’t exactly say “BS” but you get the drift.
Can you join me in saying it? After I say, they bring more BS, you say “WE BRING MORE JOY”?
They bring more BS?
This is not to say that we will live our lives blithely while our neighbors and friends and beloveds are harmed, are abducted, are displaced.
No. We will continue to organize, to speak out, to show up, to come out in public and make plans behind closed doors.
And we will do so, and will be able to sustain doing so, because of an intentional practice of joy. Bringing it. Sharing it. Experiencing it. Making it a necessary part of sustaining our ethical lives in highly unethical times.
Because when they bring more BS?
On Pride Sunday we sing a song with this lyric:
This PRIDE that I have, the world didn’t give it to me and the world can’t take it away.
Yes, we sing it because even with the US vs Skrmetti, the pride that we have, the world didn’t give and the world can’t take it away. Substitute for the word “pride,” the phrase “inherent worth and dignity.” Of every body, of every beloved trans and nonbinary person.
Inherent worth. No Supreme Court can take it away. No way!
And that song’s first verse?
This JOY that I have, the world didn’t give it to me and the world can’t take it away.
This isn’t just pollyanna-ish delusion and it’s not just stubborn defiance, it is strategy.
This summer, I read a book. Twice. I feel like it’s close to having become a kind of political scripture for me.
It’s titled Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know. Written by Dr. Erica Chenoweth, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, they researched centuries’ worth of civil resistance movements, both violent and non-violent, all over the world. They did this to establish, based not on ideology, but on data, which is more effective.
Going into the research with skepticism about whether non-violent resistance could be effective, Dr. Chenoweth’s research, along with their academic collaborators, has established that non-violent resistant movements are twice as effective as violent ones.
Why bring this to a brief reflection about joy in the face of authoritarian BS?
In the book, which is serious and dense, not fluffy or poetic, right there on page 92, they reference research by Dr. Wendy Pearlman of Northwestern University, who found through interviews with activists involved in ‘the Arab Spring,’ that
“very strong collective emotional states – like outrage combined with pride, joy, and hope can push people to overcome fear and leap into resistance.”
The practice of joy – combined with outrage – can help us overcome our fear, can help us grow our comfort zones, can help us grow our resistance, can help us save our nation, can help us save our neighbors.
Not fluff, not delusion, but strategy.
They bring more BS?
Over a decade ago, the cultural historian, Rebecca Solnit, wrote in her wildly popular book, Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, the following:
“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated and isolated, joy is a fine act of insurrection.”
Now, that term “insurrection” means something different after January 6th, 2021 than it meant when she wrote it. I’m guessing she might make a word change. She might well say
Joy is a fine act of resistance.
And I would agree. Not by itself. Not if it is only to serve our own privileges and safety.
But if it is to fuel us for the long haul, for the showing up that we must do for each other, for growing our bravery, for sharing our courage when we have it and borrowing when we don’t. Well then, I agree: joy is a fine act of resistance.
Because our task is, my friends, when they bring more BS:
