Fridays in Trumpland: 5.16.2025
Covenant
I spent last night in a three hour organizing meeting with some folks who have been very actively protesting at the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey, following the arrest of the mayor, Ras Baraka, by Trump’s goons.
Some of those there were faith leaders, and the conversation turned at one point to the topic of covenant.
Covenant: meaning not just the traditional religious version of this, e.g. covenant with or by a chosen deity.
Covenant: meaning the promises we make to one another, overtly or silently, that underlie our entire society, and keep us safe.
When you stop at a stop sign, and everyone else does too, that’s a covenant.
When you hold the door open for someone using a walker, that’s a covenant.
When you vote for a better future, and encourage others to do the same, you’re living into covenant.
And so I found myself, at one moment last night, thinking about how covenants are being broken daily right now by this administration– covenants to give people emergency aid after a hurricane destroys their home, or to fund vaccines that keep people from getting sick, or to make sure that planes don’t fall out of the sky.
Or to not detain people without due process of law.
Or to abide by court orders, even when you disagree with them.
Covenants are being broken all the time.
It’s no wonder that we all feel so unsafe. The foundational, often-unspoken promises that support the structure of the society we live in are being split in two on the regular.
And simultaneously, here’s the good news: more people than we will ever know are fighting daily to keep covenants to one another– making sure neighbors are fed, elders are cared for, protests are organized and movements are built.
More people than not are interested in keeping their promises to one another, including to strangers.
More people than not object, on principle, to having their neighbors kidnapped off the street, regardless of their immigration status.
More people than not want clean drinking water, and free medical care, and for social security to be protected, and for the poorest among us to be fed and housed.
The people want covenants to be honored. Why? Because how we keep our promises, and how and if government keeps its promises to us, is a matter of life and death.
Last night, in a listening session with other community leaders, I spent some time going back and forth with others about what it means to cultivate hope and to lead in an era like this– how everyone is frayed at the edges, angry and scared, and sometimes paralyzed into inaction by overwhelm and terror.
We who lead and organize have an obligation to uphold the unspoken and unwritten covenants that will lead to a better future.
When we step into kindness, when we lead from hope even when our own is challenged, when we model for others how to fight back even when we’re afraid, we are honoring covenants with the future.
This week, rather than taking you through the parade of horribles that we’ve witnessed in the last seven days, I want to invite you instead to think about the covenants you want to make with the future you want to build, and with and for future generations.
How will you live into those covenants daily?
What will be demanded of you to honor them?
What are you prepared to do to keep your promises and the promises that bind us all to one shared humanity?
We need more dignity, not less.
We need more integrity, not less.
We need to stand in the breach of covenants broken and refuse to break our own.
We owe each other more than what we are being given.
Arm in arm, these covenants must be kept.
Because the promise to care for one another, and the belief in the full humanity of every human being, the right to dignity of every human being, and every action taken to uphold that promise and that belief, is the barrier that will withstand the deluge, and guarantee not only our democracy but our survival.
Covenant. Let us not let go of the ones that bind us together, no matter what. Let’s keep our promises to one another, strangers and friends. Let’s not allow ourselves to be unbound.
Arm in arm we go, because we must.
See you next week.
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Covenant. What a beautiful word for the grace that comes from relying on each other, respecting each other, supporting each other and help to always build community. Covenant is a commitment to uphold the shared values and policies that help everyone. This is not something heard in the current administration. Thank you ECM.
When we get cynical about it all, among the many groups with decades of experience in this country, we should consider the thousands of broken covenants the Native Americans have endured and try to learn from them how to keep fighting for their right to exist.
I loved this post, Covenant is exactly the right word!