by Lynn Rankinen
I retired in the Spring of 2015 and I was looking to become more involved with the life of the Church. In the Spring of 2016, I first became aware of ISAIAH when I was asked to attend a meeting at Gloria Dei about the Safe and Sick Time ordinance. I was really moved by the stories I was hearing on this issue, and what the passage of this would mean for people’s lives. For example, people would no longer have to choose between taking their sick child to the doctor or losing their job. I started attending more ISAIAH meetings, and I was hooked. The idea that I could collectively work for racial and economic justice with other people of faith was highly appealing. Then at the next legislative session, we found out that the number one priority was to preempt safe and sick time. By staying grounded in our shared values and in what our faith called us to do, ISAIAH (along with our allies) was successful in preventing preemption from happening.
About a year ago, leaders with ISAIAH decided something needed to change. Our repeated efforts to protest or petition for policies were having limited effect. We realized we had to do something different. In late 2017, ISAIAH created a sister organization, Faith in Minnesota, a way to live out our call to more powerfully participate in building a new kind of politics grounded in our shared values and agenda. We created it to be a place where we could add up our votes to make our voices louder, move from the individual to the collective, to move from powerlessness to power. We accepted the challenge to get as many of us elected as delegates to the state conventions. I became one of those delegates. We worked hard, grounded in our faith and bold in our vision, to transform our politics from fear, to faith; from a politics of scarcity to one of abundance. For anyone who’s interested, I would love to talk to you about how being a Faith Delegate was a transformational experience for me personally.
Please join me in voting for candidates who are driven by faith, not fear; in abundance instead of scarcity.
