Good Jobs, Green Jobs – An opportunity for Sacred Activism

Going to your average conference is hardly a spiritual experience. Sure, it’s a great opportunity to meet and network with people in your field, travel to a different city, and even learn a thing or two. But there’s often a gap between the stuff that gets talked about at workshops and speeches and the work that happens on the ground. I also find an absence of soul, time for inner reflection, and spiritual grounding that is necessary for building a successful movement. The upcoming Good Jobs Green Jobs conference in Washington D.C. will be very different. The Green Collar movement, with its values of inclusion and equity, has its roots in the struggle for civil rights and economic justice. The spirit of this struggle, launched in the churches of the South, must infuse our current movement to create an ethos of what Andrew Harvey has dubbed Sacred Activism - “when the deepest and most grounded spiritual vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic, and social institutions, a holy force - the power of wisdom and love in action - is born.”

We can’t green America without greening our souls first. The scale of the challenge and opportunity before us for a complete transformation of our economy and society requires so much effort that activists are constantly on the brink of exhaustion. We need to continuously replenish our physical and spiritual energy stockpiles so that this movement doesn’t fizzle out. But since there’s little chance for time off to attend spiritual retreats, we need to integrate a Sacred Activism into our work that will nourish our souls and advance the movement at the same time. To achieve this we need to reawaken the houses of worship and people of faith that once marched on the front lines of social movements to retake their rightful place as leaders in the Green Collar movement along with environmentalists, labor groups, and government. I and other FUSE staff will be attending the conference with this goal in mind. In addition to learning and sharing with the nation’s leading experts on the green collar economy, we will visit with our congressional representatives to deliver the message of economic justice and inclusion as a moral imperative backed by the support of millions of constituents from faith communities throughout the nation. We need our leaders to act boldly with a moral compass pointing toward an equitable future. The time is here. Green Jobs Now!