(Sermon only) In The Light of Truth Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley February 8, 2026

In the light of truth and the warmth of

love.

These are words that regularly begin the

services at my home Unitarian

Universalist congregation in Farmington,

New Mexico.

Truthtelling is central to our Unitarian

Universalist faith.

We embrace a free and responsible search

for truth as we currently know it to be.

We say that revelation isn't sealed in

ancient texts, but that it unfolds in

honest examination of lived experience.

And I want to share with you some hard

heavy truths regarding my hometown of

Farmington and the spiritual lessons

that I have taken from these truths.

I have called this northwest city in New

Mexico home for 28 years. Its population

of about 40,000 swells to over 200,000s

on weekends as residents of surrounding

rural communities come to shop at car

dealerships and Sam's and Walmart and

Target.

The town's economy relies on business

from nearby neighbors, many of whom are

indigenous,

Navajo or Da as they call themselves,

Ute or Hickoria Apache.

And the identity of Farmington as a hub

serving a large indigenous population

contains a troubled past. In 1974, when

photographer Bob Fitch captured this

sign, Farmington gained notoriety as the

Selma of the Southwest

due to brutal, racially motivated

murders of three DA men. These are hard,

heavy truths.

Fast forward to 2024 and local

activists, community members, and clergy

chose to mark the 50th anniversary of

those mur murders.

We mourned with the families who lost

loved ones, and we recognized those who

in 1974

had asserted indigenous power in the

light of blatant racism.

We came together to craft a common

narrative about what had happened in

Farmington, a truth that accounts for

multiple voices and perspectives.

Historian Howard Zinn asserts that the

stories that we tell and how we tell

them determines our lives. We select

facts, we adopt perspectives, we led in

some voices, and we exclude others.

Stories of violence and cruelty can be

told as a few bad actors out of

character with how we conceive our

society,

or we can recognize those as powerful

demonstrations

of systemic harms.

The story I'm sharing this morning

contains both brutality and resistance,

horror and hope. And I share it as an

invitation into the courage and humility

that we invoke here at UUCB in our land

acknowledgement over broken

relationships with indigenous peoples.

And on a deeper level, I share this

story to ask ourselves how we reckon

with our past to dwell in the light of

truth.

In May of 1974, Farmington made the

national news after a family picnicking

north of town discovered the body of a

Da man. After the first body, two more

were found.

All three men were brutally tortured by

three high school students.

The young white teenagers targeted

indigenous men who were inebriated, who

were caught in that cycle of dislocation

and addiction that Reverend Marcus

addressed several weeks ago. The

murderers took their victims to a

desolate canyon where they horrifically

tortured and killed their victims. And

for their atrocities, a judge sentenced

the teenagers to reform school.

Outrage over the racial violence and the

sentencing fueled weeks of protest.

Local members of the American Indian

movement called on national leaders who

draw drew widespread press attention.

Marchers boycotted local businesses and

the Department of Justice launched an

inquiry into racism in Farmington with

subsequent reports re-examining

relationships spanning the next 30

years.

50 years later, we organized to remember

the events of 1974 with a dayong event.

I became involved because of friends who

had a compelling vision of the story we

wanted to tell and around 250 people

mobilized to travel the route of the

1974 marchers.

Walkers carried banners and pro posters

for other victims of local racial

violence and we then gathered in a

downtown theater where participants from

50 years ago told stories. We recognize

relatives of the murdered men, allies,

and their families.

The intention of the day was to create a

path toward healing, recognizing that

healing requires telling the truth about

the harm before seeking to make amends.

Even 50 years after the fact, we still

needed an an honest accounting of

historical events.

In the words of James Baldwin, not

everything that is faced can be changed,

but nothing can be changed until it is

faced.

My friend D organizer Chileazi wrote a

one-page narrative that began, "From the

time of the first incursion by settlers

along the three rivers, there has been a

history of negative relationship between

the newcomers and the indigenous

peoples.

That welcome to our home didn't take

shape. Settlers took up unseated lands

and they began developing towns.

animosity transformed into acts of

racial mistreatment.

Chile's words were truthtelling history,

history that clearly names wrongs

instead of glossing over the past.

As we planned the event, we grappled

with how racism continues to exist more

quietly in our community.

This quiet racism is seldom spoke with

the slurs and violence of our past, but

it's manifest in poor customer service,

in under representation and community

leadership, in continued economic

disparity, and in murdered and missing

indigenous relatives.

At the event, we connected the truth of

ongoing racism with the story of past

harms and the powerful resistance

against racist ideas and acts.

Now, I'm presenting to you so far the

end result, the final product of

truthtelling,

not the interior changes that happened

inside of me and others involved.

As Reverend Marcus said, our current

series of sermons here at UUCB has used

the metaphor of winter light to

illuminate our interior states. We have

connected the current realities of

cruelty and violence with our spiritual

needs and the complexity of what is

inside of us.

I've presented to you this final product

of an event based on truthtelling.

But what you don't see is the in the

images is the interior growth needed to

side with raw unflinching truth.

My personal learning required the

humility and the courage that we speak

of in our land acknowledgement.

Our group had frank conversations about

white privilege and I learned to

acknowledge the many ways in which I

have benefited from settler colonialism

and wealth disparity. I have wrestled

with the inongruity of unhoused

indigenous community members on their

ancestral lands while I hold a deed

entitled to land in the house.

As we planned the event, another white

committee member and I wanted to craft a

thoughtful land acknowledgement.

And my friend Chile, he just shook his

head at the absurdity for this

particular event. Well, you saw the

images. Think of well-meaning white

folks standing up in front acknowledging

to a primarily indigenous audience. Oh,

what do you know? We're on stolen lands.

And as the relationships among our

planning team deepened,

I learned to listen more, relying on the

leadership of my DA friends and to check

my assumptions.

One week, our two DA leaders were absent

and running the meeting fell to me and a

retired white minister. We had quite a

few firsttime DA attendees and the

meeting ran long with stories.

I had my own agenda for the meeting and

wanted to stay on track.

And as I pushed the meeting along, my

minister friend,

he gently reached his hand and put it on

my arm as a way of letting me know that

I didn't need to take charge.

It's likely that my face flushed and I

felt a quick embarrassment.

But I remember that I became more aware

of how I take up space. I learned how I

can respect da storytelling.

At the same time as this project, I had

a seminary class in which my professor

asked us each to identify a group with a

counterpressive mission that we were

involved with. We then needed to look at

the horizon that the group was working

toward. And I focused on this small

group that had put together this event.

And I initially could only articulate

our purpose very narrowly. We were

truthtelling about these specific

events.

Over time, deeper truths emerged through

our conversations, through the articles

we shared, and I came to see that we

were working toward a much larger

horizon of healthy race racial

relationships that extends far beyond

one event or one community.

Creating spreadsheets, lining up press

contacts, organizing volunteers. These

were the practical elements that I knew

how to do to get work done.

But connecting to a larger vision asks

me to dig deeper in myself to align with

a larger vision that doesn't end when I

cross off a to-do list.

The sacred work of collective liberation

is an ongoing commitment to stay

engaged,

not to look away. To see the holy in

each other as we name the pain. To see

the holy as we align not in charity but

in solidarity as we march together both

literally and figuratively.

To reach that horizon of collective

liberation,

we need the light of truth. Restoring

our collective imagination to provide an

honest account of harm.

And we also need the warmth of love.

Not only are we called toward a horizon

of collective liberation,

we must do so grounded in an ethic of

care and compassion.

As we call out harm and stand firm

against hatefilled violence,

we are invited into a horizon where all

thrive.

We are invited into a world that

celebrates the inherent worth and

dignity of every person.

And this is the tender part of my story

where my heart feels heavy

at the point of breaking

because the love that was around the

table and the church as we planned

was not charity.

It was solidarity that held us together

through family deaths, through cancer

diagnosis, through the kinds of deeds

that are read in the sanctuary every

Sunday.

It was a level of care that enabled us

to grow in our commitment to collective

liberation.

My story has taken us back and forth

between the specific details in

Farmington and the larger perspectives

of truthtelling.

Similarly, I think the ways in which we

can implement lessons from my story

range from smallcale and practical to a

much larger orientation.

Here at UUCB, we have multiple

opportunities to build relationships

that honor truthtelling.

One group specific to this topic is our

honoring indigenous people or HIP group.

This group meets monthly and welcomes

new members. And I'm going to ask if

you're a member of that group, would you

just wave your hand so people know?

Thank you.

This group seeks to educate about

indigenous people's history,

acknowledging the harms of settler

colonialism, including genocide and land

theft. They also connect and actively

partner with Aloney people in the

community. and they assume

accountability through ongoing and

enduring acts of respect, including, as

was mentioned last week, regular

financial contributions to indigenous

people's organizations such as Sagorte

Land Trust.

And I also invite you to consider paying

a personal land tax or land tax or shumi

to sigor.

Shumi means gift into cheno.

We offer this as a congregation and we

also each have an opportunity to

acknowledge in a tangible way that we

live, work and play on unseated lands.

These specific actions are part of

larger narratives of how we tell stories

and make ourselves at home.

Cordell's reflection last week made

clear that we need education to tell

stories of many different peoples.

Indigenous stories, stories of those

enslaved and oppressed, stories of

immigrants, current stories of harm.

Because erasing history is a tool of

totalitarianism.

Instead, we need truthful common

narratives rather than a rosy story of

growth and progress. We need to tell

stories in ways that acknowledge that

the current harm

is not new.

That harm in our nation's history has

been here for centuries.

In addition to tangible ways to confront

the truth of settler colonialism,

I invite you into those interior states

of courage and humility necessary to

live into new solidarity.

We will stumble and make mistakes.

I hope that you have someone who will

put their hand on your arm and help you

to realize your assumptions and help you

grow. And I hope that you will gently

put your hand on someone else's arm and

help them grow as well. I hope that you

will find relationships that make your

heart break, not just over abstract,

distant harms, but with that warmth of

love.

And I pray that you find ways that your

heart stays true in those relationships.

Opportunities for solidarity are not

just one-time events, but ongoing. And

that's here at UUCB as well as for our

small our small truthtelling group in

Farmington. And I'd like to share one

last image of our story.

Beyond our one-time 50th anniversary

event,

family members of murdered men organize

annual solidarity marches.

Last April, about 70 people gathered in

an unexpected snowstorm to speak the

names of the murdered men.

Family members spoke about their loved

ones.

We prayed. We deepened our relationship

and our commitment.

Because solidarity doesn't end with one

march or one event. Solidarity invites

us into deepened relationships and

continued learning.

Solidarity invites us into the light of

truth and the warmth of love.

May we have the courage and humility to

bring together truth in love, in

community, in solidarity.

May we make it so. Amen.