Erika Sanders, Beloved Community Communications Team On November 2, Unity Church began a series of four Wellspring Wednesday gatherings called “Four Practices on the Double Helix.” Each session has deepened our exploration and practice of the Double Helix of Faith Formation and Antiracist Multiculturalism. The fourth and last session is November 30.
During this first of the series, Angela Wilcox and Laura Park provided an introduction to the Double Helix model and its creation. Angela described how Unity’s ministers and Beloved Community Staff team had, for many years, aimed to develop a way of offering guidance to congregants on deepening both their spiritual practices and their antiracist multiculturalism work. As a congregation long committed to building the Beloved Community, and as a community hurting and angry about the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, many of us have wished to participate in these types of activities, but have struggled to know how to start. We have asked ourselves questions like, “what is distinctive about antiracism efforts in a religious context, compared to such efforts elsewhere in our communities?” and, “why does my participation in a church community and my spiritual development feel so tied to antiracist multicultural work?” To engage with these challenging questions, Unity staff thought about describing faith formation and antiracist multiculturalism in multiple ways: for example, as a path, or as a map. Ultimately, however, the double helix metaphor surfaced as the most apt way to describe how faith formation and antiracist multiculturalism can exist in our lives: the double helix has no end point, no destination. It is a model that represents well how each half depends upon and interacts with the other. It is a model that is built upon practice. Angela and Laura led us in an exercise that demonstrated all of these elements of the double helix. Each person was given a piece of paper on which either a spiritual practice or antiracist practice was written. Examples of spiritual practices included chanting, prayer, breathwork, worship and time in nature. Antiracist practice examples included asking questions without assuming, sharing stories across difference, noticing and naming cultural differences, noticing and naming discomfort without shame, and asking, in any discussion, what impact race is having. Next, people given a spiritual practice connected with another person who had an antiracist practice on their paper, and the two individuals discussed how those two practices could relate to one another. Participants switched partners several times, giving each person the opportunity to consider and discuss multiple types of practices. In subsequent gatherings in this series, we will continue to explore the double helix model and how it can support our faith formation and antiracist multicultural work.
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 28
9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. • In-person at Unity Church Register Here For more and more of us taking next steps into antiracist practices and expanding intercultural capacities, the increasing complexity of this work is everywhere present about us — within, among, and beyond. There is no overlooking, evading, or simplifying this complexity as it is nothing other than the disquieting complexity of ourselves. And for those committed to this deep work, who expect to complexify this work, we invite you to register for this winter training event with Team Dynamics. We will find ways to be present to change, creatively engage conflict, and create brave space where complexity serves as fertile ground for learning and shaping change together. As one who wrote, spoke, and wrestled incessantly with the complexity of racism in the soul of America, James Baldwin insisted, “Complexity is our only safety and love is the only key to our maturity.” A love that refuses simplistic definitions and illusions of safety promoted by our dominant culture. A love more perceptive to our battling instincts, assumptions, and beliefs that vie for position and power, even weaponizing antiracist tools like “characteristics of white supremacy culture” (Tema Okun, White Dominant Culture) to accuse, shame, blame and perpetuate disconnection. But what are the antidotes and spiritual practices that can revive complexity in a time of false simplicities? How can we complicate the narrative and keep it from collapsing into that us/them binary? How do we wade into the messiness to achieve conflicts and truer conversations worthy of our humanity? If trust precedes facts, how can we claim a deeper covenant with one another that opens an alternate way to truths, tensions, conflicts, mutual care, and possibilities into the future? We hope you will join us as we further our collaboration with Team Dynamics in deepening intercultural capacity across our ministry areas. We will build on practices and touch the complexities at the heart of our antiracist multicultural work. Rebecca Gonzalez-Campoy, Beloved Community Communications Team Interim Pastoral Care Minister Rev. Karen Gustafson professes to be a “keeper of the center,” someone who is not leading us in our antiracist multicultural work at Unity Church-Unitarian, rather she’s walking along side us, doing the work together. “I am regularly examining my white privilege and my own whiteness,” says Gustafson. What this means can best be explained by a story. She recounts driving home from work to her home on the North Shore. She hit a deer which caused significant damage to her small car, but she was unhurt. Her friends exclaimed how terrible! But Gustafson uses this story to illustrate white privilege (emphasis is hers). “I was driving home from my job along the North Shore of Lake Superior in my car. I called AAA who said I would pay less for towing if I used my car insurance to cover towing fees since I was out of AAA service range. My husband came to get me in another car. I went home and slept while my car was collected and repaired.” She didn’t miss any work and if she had needed to do so, her employer would have allowed it. “I was aware of how different the experience if any of these things had not been in place,” Gustafson says. She recounts other similar moments of awareness that reveal entitlement and ignorance. “I am mindful of asking myself, am I expressing white fragility?” Her mindset is to notice her reactions, motivations, and reluctance in any given situation. “Being truly multicultural is demanding us (white people) to look deeply at what we take for granted. Consider how people discuss fairness. It’s from the perspective of what they don’t have. It’s seldom aimed at what they do have.” Gustafson calls this awareness of historical white privilege. “If you want to really upset me, tell me ‘you deserve that!’ I can’t live long enough to make this true. So much of what people receive comes from circumstance beyond our control.” She’s learned to examine her own racism from a place of curiosity, not judgment. She comes from a background which included little racial diversity but exposed her to a wide range of socio-economic differences. Part of this work requires accountability to others. She plans to participate in Unity’s Antiracism Literacy Partners to explore the works of those on the margins and then engage in group conversation about the spiritual impact and possible next right actions to take. As she gets settled into her home in the Twin Cities, where there is greater opportunity to interact with many cultures, she plans to look for ways to get out of her comfort zone, “to question my own assumptions.” This making space for the stories of others is what pastoral care is all about. “I describe my theology as God of the Gaps,” says Gustafson. “Healing and grace happen in the space we create between us, when we make space to hold someone’s story. As (author) Parker Palmer puts it, to allow for the inner teacher to make itself known.” Antiracism Literacy Partners will meet on Wednesday, November 16. |
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Beloved Community ResourcesUnity Justice Database
Team Dynamics House of Intersectionality Anti-Racism Resources in the Unity Libraries Collection Creative Writers of Color in Unity Libraries The History of Race Relations and Unity Church, 1850-2005 Archives
June 2024
Beloved Community Staff TeamThe Beloved Community Staff Team (BCST) strengthens and coordinates Unity’s antiracism and multicultural work, and provides opportunities for congregants and the church to grow into greater intercultural competency. We help the congregation ground itself in the understanding of antiracism and multiculturalism as a core part of faith formation. We support Unity’s efforts to expand our collective capacity to imagine and build the Beloved Community. Here, we share the stories of this journey — the struggles, the questions, and the collaborations — both at Unity and in the wider world.
The current members of the Beloved Community Staff Team include Rev. Kathleen Rolenz, Rev. KP Hong, Rev. Lara Cowtan, Drew Danielson, Laura Park, Lia Rivamonte and Angela Wilcox. |