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Las Posadas

Sunday, December 8 @ 10:30 am - 11:30 am

Las Posadas

Details

Date:
Sunday, December 8
Time:
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Event Categories:
, ,
Join Us:
https://tinyurl.com/ESUCWorship

Venue

East Shore Unitarian Church
12700 SE 32nd Street
Bellevue, WA 98005 United States
+ Google Map
Phone
425-747-3780
View Venue Website

Join us for a heartfelt service in solidarity with all migrants and refugees. Las Posadas is a Latin American feast inspired by the arduous journey that Mary and Joseph took as they fled persecution and sought refuge. On this day we recommit ourselves to being a living sanctuary, welcoming all kinds of refugees. In these times when so many people are under attack and being forced from their homes, we welcome everyone who walks thru these doors looking for a spiritual home. 

Rev. Dr. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa will be preaching.

How to Attend

Today’s Bulletin

We encourage masks in all buildings. Read more about our In Person Guidelines here.

• To virtually attend, please Zoom in using room number 989 3107 9078, passcode: chalice.
• To phone into the service, call 669-900-6833, Meeting ID: 989 3107 9078.

For those joining, please mute as soon as you enter the room, so everyone can hear. Please note, the services will be recorded, but at this time, there are no plans to share the recording.

More Information

Religious Education for children and youth happens during worship on Sundays. Children and youth arrive in the Sanctuary for the just a little bit and welcome in Sunday with a story and song. Then, they attend their own programs in the Education building. Learn more here!

If you don’t have a chalice, but want to light one, check out our Making a Chalice at Home page.

In person services are followed by coffee hour.

Children’s Story

Sermon Audio

Las Posadas

by Rev. María Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa & Dushyant Dhalia

Sermon Text

Good morning Eastshore!

I thank Rev. Dr. Maria Christina and Eric Lane Barnes for giving me opportunity to speak to you all.

It all started last year. Last year Diwali fell on Sunday, and I couldn’t join the service that day. Next week Dr. Maria Christina told me about Diwali celebrations in Eastshore and asked me if I could speak on Diwali the next year i.e., 2024.

This year I received email from Eric if I would like to speak on Diwali but later on it was decided that I share my experience as an immigrant. The entire history can be dubbed as a story of human migration.

I will briefly narrate about my childhood and growing years, immigration to America, my perception about Americans then and now.

So here it goes –

I was born and brought up in a small town, ABOHAR, near India-Pakistan border in Punjab, 80s’ India. It was last town on a now defunct train route between India and Pakistan. India was a British colony for about 150 years. The British colonial policy was to divide the people on communal lines and pitch one group against the other to secure their rule. After the second World war, the British were no longer in position to hold on to India and they decided to divide it in two dominions, a newly carved out Muslim majority Pakistan and remaining part as the India we know today.

Muslims in newly formed Pakistan forced the Hindus/Sikhs to migrate to the Indian side and Hindus/Sikhs in Indian Punjab forced Muslims to migrate to Pakistan. Large scale violence was used as a tactic on both sides, especially violence against women. Around 15 million people were uprooted from their homelands.

My family was lucky as we were on the right side of the line. I grew up hearing stories about gruesome violence from the neighborhood families who had migrated from Pakistan and were settled on the Indian side. How people lost everything they had and only the lucky ones could escape death. By some estimates about one million people died across both side in Punjab during this period. State machinery was non-existent during those tumultuous months. Some people converted to the majority faith to escape violence.

I heard how some distant relative perpetrated violence (for money) on the helpless victims who were leaving to the other side. A Muslim friend of my great-grandfather pleaded him to help them convert to Hindu faith so that his family and relatives could escape possible violence on the route. My great-grandfather assured that his conscience didn’t allow it as it was under extreme duress and rather, he escorted his friend’s family and other families safely to the border.

So that was my first brush with migration.

Another thing worth mentioning here is that Pakistan had two wings – West Pakistan which is Pakistan now and East Pakistan which is today’s Bangladesh. While the colonial administration had deployed 50 thousand troops on the western border and still a million people died. One the Eastern border there was only one man, GANDHI who through his SOUL-FORCE prevented large scale violence at least in 1947 and till he was alive.

Now about my personal story.

When I was 9, my father died in a road accident. He was standing in front of our house and a fast-moving police jeep hit him. My mother was illiterate and had four kids to bring up, me being the eldest. My father was working in a government owned bank and there was a policy those days that the nearest kin of the deceased would get some job on compassionate ground to bring up the children (the same policy has been scrapped now). My mother was barely 28 at that time. Widow didn’t re-marry and also it is frowned upon even today, she sacrificed her personal life for raising us. She learnt reading/writing, whatever she could and got some job in the bank. Next few years were difficult. We had extended family and grandparents so we somehow survived. I went to government run residential school and college, thanks to govt subsidized education. This policy has been reversed today.

Later I got married to a person who is diametrically opposite to me in almost all aspects. We still are happily married and have two kids.

My work had taken me to many countries around the globe, but these were short trips. While growing up I never thought that I would ever move to some other country, leave alone the USA. There are some other amusing stories but that some other day.

Back then in 80s and 90s, in Indian books of those days, Imperial British administration was considered as the villain for the breakup of India and initial governments had embraced a Social-Democrat path in its policies. America being ally of the British was seen with suspicion. Popular perception about Americans was that they are selfish and arrogant people, devoid of any morals and who run only after money. At least that’s what I thought back then. Later it changed, especially after I started visiting Eastshore.

In late 2018, a friend who had migrated to the US two years earlier called me and said that he had referred me for a position in the US. I was skeptical but he said that it was a contractual role, and I could return back to India after one year if I won’t like the place. In April-2019, we arrived in the US with an option to return back to India after 1 yr. First three months were very difficult, especially for my wife. She had come from a joint family where grandparents, uncles, cousins, nephews/nieces, all were living under one roof. And here in America, we were all alone.

We came to live near Eastshore (2 min walk) in May 2019. Whenever I would pass by the church building, I would see this “Welcome-All” sign and would wonder what do these people do here, esp on Sundays. Before that I had never visited any church. The only church I knew was through some popular Bollywood movies, where there are Christian people who meet on Sunday mornings and there is an elderly person called Father in white robe, who preaches some sermons and sometimes hears confessions.

One fine Sunday, out of sheer curiosity, I decided to visit and quietly sat in a corner in this very sanctuary. I just wanted to observe the rituals, if there are any.

First observation – there was no father in the white robes, like the ones I had seen in movies 😊.

By chance or maybe intentionally, Amanda Strombom came to sit beside me. She was very polite and welcoming, and we had talk after the service. Today I don’t remember what struck me, but I sort of liked the place especially the people, they had been very friendly. That day had Amanda not met me, I might not have returned as that was never my intention.

I was new, there were not too many people I knew, and I started visiting the church frequently. It was very convenient walk and later I also started participating in activities like potlucks and other volunteering activities.

At the same time my kids started going to the nearby elementary school. We would interact with the school staff and other people in office, stores, and other places. Welcoming nature of American people everywhere started changing my perception. I learnt about the school curricula, the emphasis on civil rights movement, social issues in contemporary America and so on.

What surprised me the most was the fact that American majority is teaching its kids that there have been wrong doings by its forefathers in the past and it’s the responsibility of the current and future generations to heal the past trauma and to correct the past wrongdoings. I have visited many countries and have worked with people from many more, I don’t think anywhere they are so candid and tolerant about THE OTHER, fellow countrymen or immigrants.

Coming from a society which has perfected the art of social exclusion through caste-based hierarchy, it was unthinkable.

For me, American people in general and this church in particular has changed my opinion by America and Americans. Only brave and confident people can own up their past mistakes.

Congratulations to you all! To what extent you are successful, it’s for you all to judge.

Slowly, not only I discovered about the UU principles, but I also found its uncanny similarities with the message of two greatest Indians – the Buddha and the Gandhi.

Gandhi is also relevant on the immigrants’ day as he spent first 20 years of his public career as an attorney fighting for the rights of Indian immigrants in the Colonial South Africa. These were mainly poor people who had been brought on contracts to work as workers in mines and farms in South Africa.

Later Gandhi moved to India and started the non-violent movement for arousing the conscience of Indians and to fight for not only political freedom from the British imperialism but also to own up and correct the wrong practices prevalent among fellow Indians.

Back in 90s there was this message of Gandhi printed on each textbook – “Whenever you are In doubt, Or when the self becomes too much with you, Apply the following test: Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man Whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it?”

Last week I ran through a few textbooks on the concerned department’s website on govt. of india portal and couldn’t find this message. The world is changing!

I won’t go into details but just try to provide my understanding of his message and how I relate these to the activities we are doing in Eastshore –

  1. Inter-faith harmony
    1. Divide and rule was the policy strongly pursued by the colonial administrators everywhere. In India, diversity based on faith groups, caste groups, language groups was exploited by this policy. Gandhi identified that till Indians were divided across different fault lines, it could not become a nation.
    2. Gandhi seriously studied the scriptures of different faiths and identified they had more commonalities than differences. In his prayer meetings, he would read from the scriptures of different faiths.
    3. Here too, we have welcome-all signs, we try to understand different faiths and make all feel included.
  2. Social Justice
    1. Just like systemic racism, India has caste based societal order.
    2. Gandhi tried to reform majority community i.e., upper caste Hindus to remove the practice of untouchability against the lower castes.
  3. Gender justice and climate justice are other common themes between Gandhi and UU principles.
  4. Gandhi believed that it’s the responsibility of the majority and privileged to make the minority and unprivileged comfortable if the society is to be sustained.
  5. Not to mention that he adhered to the governing principles of non-violence and truth throughout his life.

So, maybe we can claim him as a Unitarian Universalist 😊. When Gandhi is being forgotten in his country, I am happy there are others who are keeping his message alive.

Back to the theme of immigration, it’s often argued and rightly so that undocumented immigrants have to endure hardship. They don’t have statutory protection, work for longer hours in sectors where no one else wants to work, are afraid of deportations etc.

Legal immigrants don’t have it easy either. In my opinion no business favors outsiders without any reason whether it’s in the US or any other country because there are cultural/language barriers and bureaucratic expenses that the business must undertake for immigrants. Only when the business is not able to find a citizen due to any reason like skill or wage gap, they go for outsiders.

Then people on temporary work visa face other challenges – they are away from their families, have to adjust in new environment. In my case, I haven’t been able to visit my extended family ever since I arrived even though we have legal documentation. I came on L1 VISA which has 3-years validity. In 2020/2021, I couldn’t visit as I was advised by my employer that I could get stranded due to Covid restrictions. Employment rules mandate that the employee can’t stay outside US for more than 3 months. During that period, one of my uncles died. We were very close, and he was the one who supported us when our father died.

After covid period, my employer’s legal team suggested to wait as there were other reasons like green card application, VISA extensions and other possible bureaucratic issues.

I wanted to invite my mother and her VISA was also refused and in India, it usually takes about one and a half year to get VISA interview appointment. So now we have applied again for the next year. I don’t know what more to say – we survive for another day!

To be fair to you all, it’s not a complaint. I admit each country has the right to protect its citizens’ interests and Americans are more welcoming than many of the other countries.

I am thankful to you all for listening patiently and thanks again to Dr. Maria Christina and Eric for giving the opportunity.

Good day!

 

Details

Date:
Sunday, December 8
Time:
10:30 am - 11:30 am
Event Categories:
, ,
Join Us:
https://tinyurl.com/ESUCWorship

Venue

East Shore Unitarian Church
12700 SE 32nd Street
Bellevue, WA 98005 United States
+ Google Map
Phone
425-747-3780
View Venue Website