What We Owe: A Call for Solidarity in the Sacred Season of Rebirth

by Bridget Burns, FLM’s SAFE Commune Program Lead

As we enter spring, I find myself reflecting on what my role is in liberation. How do I cultivate hope, solidarity, and cross pollination in the communities and movements where I abide? What do I owe my fellow humans, anyway?

Spring reminds me how we are all connected. I see the flowers bloom, the pollinators come to greet them, the birds chirp happily after spring showers hydrate the soil. I see my neighbors walk with more energy as we transition from an especially exhausting winter. We are only three months into the year 2026, and we have seen so much death; so much hate; so many lifelines interrupted. And for what? Religion? 

I was raised in a Catholic household, by a Catholic school teacher and a Sociology and Religious Studies professor. I was raised to honor and remember my Irish ancestors who had to speak Irish and practice Mass in secret because both were illegal under British occupation. I was raised to remember that my Catholic ancestors of Irish, Italian, French, and Scottish heritage were hated vehemently by the Ku Klux Klan, because at that time Catholicism was seen as too foreign to not be marginalized. 

This experience and the memories of it have not limited the spread of White American Christian Nationalism. While marginalized by wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), my ancestors were always privileged for the purposes of oppressing African Americans and stealing Indigenous land. For example, several of my ancestors worked on the railroad and were in an Irish Labor gang. My great-grandfather was a police officer, like many Irish Americans. Both of these professions and the movement of Irish Catholic Americans to participate in them were part of the system of whiteness that has been created and ever expanded for the purpose of oppression. While the KKK used to hate us, too, white supremacy and American Christian Nationalism evolved to include us in their numbers so that the oppression of Black and Brown people could continue. 

I am a student of history and a community organizer, so I know that many people use religion for hate and to justify abuse and extraction. I am also a prayerful person, raised by prayerful people, and I know that this time of year is sacred to many.   

As you are reading this, it is likely Holy Week in the Eastern Orthodox Church. This comes just one week after the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Week and Easter among many Christian denominations around the world. Calculated by two different calendars, these Easters sometimes coincide and are sometimes farther apart. Easter is when Christians celebrate the victory of life over death.

As I have been working to follow the war in Iran, I have seen dialogue about Eid al-Fitr – a holy day for Muslims where they break their Ramadan fast, celebrate what they have with community, and give back to the less fortunate – and Nowruz – also called Baha’i New Year or Persian New Year; celebrated for thousands of years in Iran, as well as in many surrounding communities and diaspora from throughout the region – falling on the same day this year. As I write this, the Jewish feast of Passover – a celebration of freedom and liberation – begins and Vaisakhi – a celebration of Spring and the New Year in Sikh and Hindu communities from the Punjab region in South Asia –  is less than two weeks away. 

I also live in Oklahoma, the home of 39 federally recognized Indigenous tribes. I have learned from my neighbors here that many Indigenous peoples historically celebrate the new year either during the Winter Solstice or Spring Equinox. Remember that Native or “Indian” religious practices were illegal until very recently in the United States. Sacred sites in Oklahoma and across this country remain under threat because of the colonial devaluation and oppression of Indigenous traditions. Many of these traditions were preserved through powwows - like the annual OU Spring Powwow, which is just a couple of weeks away. 

Throughout my life, prayerful people of many different faiths and practices have poured into me. I know that I have a more true and complete understanding of the Earth, history, and liberation because of these prayerful people, and others like them, all over the world. I also know that religious supremacy has separated colonizers and fascists from their own humanity throughout history and all over the world. In the first three months of 2026 especially, I have found myself sick to my stomach at the torture and abuse suffered by the people of Iran, Sudan, the Congo, Tigray, Palestine, Myanmar, Black and Brown people in the United States, and more communities I do not know to name. 

To me, solidarity is the understanding that we have a shared history and that our liberation is linked. In order to achieve liberation, we have to face the parts of ourselves, our history, and our communities that we might not like. We have to understand how many of us have been oppressed and also taken part in the oppression of others. We have to understand how religion has been used to justify horrific things. And, I know that prayerful people have and will fight against those horrific acts wherever we are. 

In a world of religious supremacy, propaganda machines, "religious" fascists, and systemic oppression, I say power to the prayerful .

Power to the Prayerful, a poem by Bridget Burns

Power to the prayerful people,

Who know the miracles of creation and love expand far past any temple, mosque, or steeple.

To those who cultivate hope as a discipline, 

Power to the grandmother's hands,

clinging to rosary beads as she calls on saints like militiamen. 

To the church ladies in their Sunday best, lifting their voices like the kin they keep

Power to the mountain hymn singers,

strumming prayers for those down in the deep. 

To those who pray with their feet, who protect the sacred,

Power to those who embody love,

who stand fast against all hatred.

Power to the father praying five times a day, sweeping floors and going unfed,

So that his daughter can pave the way for radical healing like Sameera Ahmed.

Power to the Sikh, reaching out to feed the poorest of the poor,

Power the root workers casting spells to save Darfur.

Power to the prayerful in prison cells and torture chambers,

Power to the martyrs and folkway keepers, the people’s saviors. 

These are the ones who carry their people through,

Power to the keepers of the old ways in a world that trades the old for the new.

Thank goodness for the Water Protectors, the conscientious objectors, whose loving arms guard old growth trees from bulldozers or worse;

Power to the Land Defenders, the soil tenders, who remember the heartbeat of Mother Earth.

Power to the weavers from the valley of Oaxaca to the mountains of Nepal,

To all who learn and practice the language of the gods: 

Silence...that slowness WILL show us HOW to defy the odds.

Power to the prayerful,

Who stoke the flame of hope, truth, love, and care.

Not ALL people are prayerful,

But there ARE prayerful people everywhere. 

Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine.

(It is in the shelter of one another that the people survive.) 

Is go dté tú mo mhuirnín slán. 

(May you go safely, my darling)