Pastoral Prophetic Care Corner
By Rev. Dr. Michelle Walsh, January 11, 2026
This morning, as this winter newsletter is being released, I watched and listened to the last few moments of Renee Nicole Macklin Good’s life, as seen through the bodycam of the man who killed her. I had watched all the authentic analysis of news media sources demonstrating that the car was turned away and not toward ICE individuals, thoroughly debunking the narrative of the current administration that the car had been weaponized toward them. And this morning something even deeper went coldly through my bones as I witnessed the very calm, compliant, and even compassionate interactions Renee and her spouse, Becca, were having with the ICE officers, and then I heard the words uttered by the man who had just killed her, words many women sadly know all too well – “fucking bitch” – words uttered in a dismissive dehumanized self-satisfied tone after he finished firing the shots.
My mind circled back to the moment when I had finished writing my book and was sitting with the task of writing an afterword of some type on the day known as Loving Day, June 12th annually, and the fifth wedding anniversary for Clyde and myself back in 2016. When I sat down to write, news of the Pulse Orlando mass shooting was hitting the airwaves, this after a week of social media spotlighting gender violence and rape culture too. The intersections of queer identities, sexism and misogyny, violence and the militarization of our society and history were never so clear as in that moment, which resulted in the heading “A Queer Postlude of Intersections in the Aftermath.” I was brought back to sitting with that emotional weight this morning as well, recognizing that Renee and her partner are queer and lived openly as lesbians, and that Renee’s life symbolized a different interpretation of Christianity and love as she experienced herself as a religious and Christian person.
We too as Unitarian Universalists witness to love at the center of all religious traditions that remain true and faithful to their root essences and foundations – that is the innate human wisdom of religion when not distorted by structures of power and oppression. This is why our values include pluralism and equity and why we engage in routine public witness on behalf of justice and democracy. And while we could not organize a public witness on our lawn today for valid reasons, many of us will be heading off to support other public witnesses today in our larger Neponset River Region (for we are indeed a Neponset River UU Community too), or we will be engaging in other private actions to express our
values as well.
We look forward to our next public witness on our lawn, Tuesday, Jan. 20th, from 2-3PM in solidarity with the national public call to “Free America Walkout.” And we look forward to a wonderful benefit concert of inspiration for justice and democracy with Emma’s Revolution on Saturday, Feb. 7th, at 7PM. Like Renee and Becca, we too know who we are at our core, and we continue to work toward the different world we know we all can be together. And together we will get there because, in the essential wisdom of all world religions – love and compassion are greater than hate, and they truly do win in the end. May it be so. Blessed Be. See you soon, dear ones.