This scripture is as if God was directing it to us today, as he called us to also take off the robe of mourning and misery. My mom always used to tell me God’s timing is perfect. Today, more than ever we need to hear these words. How many of us felt hopelessness and fear after the elections? How many of us have been too blind to see in the east and the west the many children who have gathered to fight against the injustices? The only difference is that God may not lower the mountains and may not level the ground for us. That is our job. In these moments we must be the ones who work together to acknowledge that and break down the lines of division that for so long ill this country: racism, xenophobia, identity politics, poverty, capitalism, war economy and so on. 

As an organizer from Unión de Vecinos in 2003, I was tasked to knock on doors to recruit those who are willing to come together to build the community we all deserve. This process is difficult for many of the people I knock doors on, who do not want to join, or don’t believe that the work we are doing merits their time since, in their words “Things don’t change.” Or, “We don’t have the power to change things.” Boyle Heights is a community that was ignored and compromised by all institutions. Politicians only come during elections and people have learned to live with the uninhabitable and unsafe conditions. If it were not because I had others like Leonardo, Elizabeth and Laura doing this work with me I would feel very defeated after every day’s slammed doors. To do this work we must have partnership, and we need to be clear in the message, competent to get the job done, connected to the community and its needs, but most importantly we need to be committed to building the organization. Our task is to ensure we build community so that when moments of misery and mourning come, we are not facing them alone, but we do it in community, and through this process we build alternatives and projects that help us survive such times. 

So, in March 2020 after 17 years of organizing and building community as an organization, we were able to respond to the moment. There was a lot of misery and mourning due to COVID. We lost members to COVID, but together we created projects of survival to help each other. We prayed for each other, and we collectively increased our knowledge of the system that was letting us die, and how we needed to organize to win. Los Angeles was the last city in the country to end protections for tenants because we had organized ourselves to be in a position of power. We were the first ones to declare a rent strike in April 2020; we had been pushing for a rent freeze, eviction defense, and anti-harassment laws since 2010. We had given the city the mechanism to protect us. 

We survived a global pandemic by working together and leaving behind the silos we used to work in. We united in prayer and helped each other survive. We saw each other as brothers and sisters. The love for life grew more and more, and when it was asked of us to stand for justice we were in the streets protesting for Floyd, we were in the streets helping tenants get back into their homes, we were in the streets fighting back against the encampment raids, and today we continue to be in the streets fighting back against the killing of children in Gaza, in the streets saying we will protect immigrant communities, in the streets fighting for healthcare, in the streets fighting for encampments and housing for all. 

Our prayers have become action, knowledge, and a unifying spirit. The enemy is not the other. This is the message of hate, of austerity, and of lies. There are 150,000 poor and dispossessed people in the country who are waiting to hear the message of our work. To hear that there is plenty of food, housing and to care for all, if we focus on the peace economy instead of the war economy. God’s mercy and justice are here; we just need to organize ourselves to be able to spread them to all of God’s children. Because “We only get what we are organized to take.”

Reflection Questions

• What communities are you a part of that give you hope? 
• How can we connect the season of Advent to building community?

https://youtu.be/EV5Z2OyBpYQ?si=DwrHWuOJWE2JheOR

When we build together we can create change and build the community we need and deserve. God calls us to pray in action to be the disciples that unify communities.