Parishioner Jean Milburn shared these remarks in our Jan. 18 service, themed “Called to Act: Voices of Activists Among Us.” The service also included a reading from Dr. Martin Luther King’s Nobel Peace Prize Lecture.
For me, activism isn’t primarily about anger, urgency, or feeling morally correct. I feel those things sometimes, but they aren’t what sustain me.
What sustains me is love.
I’ve come to understand activism as a labor of love.
Not love as a warm feeling.
Love as commitment.
Love as the choice to keep showing up, because something matters too much to abandon.
And I’ve also come to understand that labors of love are a form of prayer.
Not prayer as words or silence, but prayer as attention and intention. Prayer as how our values shape what we do.
There are plenty of days when it would be easier not to pay attention. When it would be simpler to stay comfortable, stay quiet, and focus only on my own life. And sometimes that’s necessary. Rest matters.
But when I disengage for too long, something inside me goes numb.
What brings me back is caring.
Caring about people I know.
Caring about people I don’t know.
Caring about the kind of world we are quietly shaping through what we tolerate and what we refuse to tolerate.
That caring doesn’t always feel light. But it feels honest.
When I act from that place—not to win, not to fix everything, not to be a hero—I feel more grounded. Less divided between what I say I value and how I actually live.
That’s when activism feels like prayer to me.
It’s labor because it takes time, energy, patience, and persistence. It asks me to keep learning, to listen when I’d rather defend myself, and to stay engaged even when progress is slow.
And it’s prayer because it is love made visible. Because it is my values taking shape in the world, even imperfectly.
I don’t believe love is proven by how intensely we feel it.
I believe love is revealed by what we’re willing to work on.
And that work doesn’t have to be dramatic.
Sometimes it looks like making a call.
Sometimes it looks like showing up to a meeting.
Sometimes it looks like standing beside someone, so they don’t have to stand alone.
Activism, at its best, isn’t about burning ourselves out.
It’s about staying connected—to our values, to each other, and to the world we’re part of.
That’s why I keep coming back to it.
Because love, when it’s taken seriously, eventually asks for labor.
And for me, that labor,—shared, imperfect, and ongoing—is also prayer.
Photo by Kelley Sikkema on Unsplash