by Julie Rigano, Director of Family Ministry

I used to think January and February were the most boring months. Unless it snowed, it felt cold, gray, and dreary to me. That is until I started celebrating the 30 Days of Love with the Side with Love campaign. 30 Days of Love represents the month between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Valentine’s Day. This month celebrates love in action, or justice, by honoring different justice causes each week. Each week also presents a body practice, a prayer, a blessing, and a grounding practice to help participants delve into the week in a faithful way with a UU lens.

So why should we celebrate the 30 Days of Love? How does spending a week on each cause really help? For me, it helps renew my energy around justice work and connects this work to my spirituality.

Often, when I am doing justice work, whether I am raising money for reparations or raising my own awareness through education, I can feel like I am getting overwhelmed quickly. I can feel myself folding under the irrational pressure to fix systemic issues as an individual. There is so much work to do. There is so much to learn and unlearn. How do I keep doing the work and not fall into the traps of a white supremacy culture that values my own comfort over doing the hard work of justice?

For me, this is exactly why I love doing the 30 Days of Love program each year. It reminds me how my justice work is connected to my UU values and spirituality. By participating in different justice work—educating myself, sharing the message of oppressed people, protesting, engaging in difficult conversations with loved ones—I am doing holy work for myself. I am connecting myself to my greater power of love. Justice is love in action and love is the center of our faith. How can justice work be anything less than divine?

So, I encourage you to check out 30 Days of Love here for all it has to offer you. The site even has past years’ resources so you can extend your 30 Days of Love to 365! And, if you want to learn more daily practices you can do to connect with your UU faith, talk to me about UU Lent starting on February 14!