Name and pronouns: Lily Luo (She/Her)
Cohort year: 2016-2018
Where are you living now? New York City
What are you doing now?
I just moved to New York last fall so I'm working on getting settled there with my wife. We just had our big church wedding in June and it was so lovely to gather all the friends and family. A highlight was that we had our mothers read a passage from bell hooks’ All About Love in four different languages- German, Portuguese, Chinese and English!
Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination. It promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies always with sameness, then difference, of any kind, will appear as a threat. When we choose to love we choose to move against fear-- against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect-- to find ourselves in the other. —bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
Jocelin, another Life Together alum, helped officiate the wedding and gave a beautiful sermon about how we find God in connections. I also just got back from visiting Detroit, because I'm working on my PhD dissertation about Grace Lee Boggs. It was amazing to see the visionary organizing happening there as people try to reimagine systems beyond capitalism. Urban farms that fight for food sovereignty. Schools that model place-based learning. Activists that take seriously both the material and spiritual needs of us all. Shout out to The James and Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership, The Boggs School, Feedom Freedom, Birwood House, Freedom Dreams, and so many other orgs that capture the lineage and legacy of both the Boggses!
How has Life Together impacted your life?
What I really appreciated about my time in Life Together was the intentionality with which we approached our organizing work, facilitation, and spirituality. And that intention was toward connection. Even through disagreements and struggles, I've found that the skills I gained have stayed with me. Skills like how to ask ourselves and each other, what does it mean to grow our souls and what does a world governed by love look like? It was such an honor to be surrounded by other travelers who were equally passionate about protesting white supremacy as they were about creating spaces of queer joy.